Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The day Sakura passed the bell test along with her new team was the happiest one she would experience for a very long time. 

Still, she weighed the pros and cons, mostly as a habit from her childhood (which, at twelve, was of course entirely behind her). This was her list:

Pros:

-Fully-fledged ninja.

-On a team with Sasuke.

-Ino isn’t on the team with Sasuke.

-Passed the jounin teacher’s test and convinced him to keep them.

Cons:

-On a team with Naruto.

-Jounin teacher seems a bit weird. 

Considering one of the pros was being on a team with Uchiha Sasuke, the cons of being on that team with Naruto (loser) and Hatake Kakashi (weirdo) hardly stood a chance. 

If Sakura had known how her day was going to end, her assessment would have been very different. But as it was, she was walking on air by the time she got home from Training Ground Three. She kicked off her boots and ran to dump her kunai holster and shuriken pouch upstairs in her room before helping her mother with dinner (which already smelled like it needed rescuing). She was halfway up the stairs when she realised both felt far lighter than they had this morning. 

“Crap,” she muttered, realising she had forgotten to collect her weapons before leaving the training grounds. It was one of those rules that most ninjas considered so fundamental that breaking it made you look like a complete amateur, and on her first day ever as a proper ninja, the embarrassment might just kill her. 

“Back in a minute!” She shouted in the general direction of the kitchen before tugging her boots back on and sprinting out the door. Her only consolation was that Sasuke had definitely left the training ground too (because she had tried to walk with him for as long as possible) so there was no chance of him witnessing her embarrassing search for her discarded weapons. 

The grounds were quiet, which shouldn’t have felt strange; it was getting on dark, and Team Seven had booked its exclusive use for the entire day (and everyone else knew better than to get too close to an active training area). Still, she felt strangely exposed as she retraced her steps in the forest. 

First, she had thrown three shuriken at Kakashi’s exposed back. They had thunked harmlessly into a log, and rolled away into…that bush! She retrieved the weapons with a relieved sigh. Discarded weapons were fair game for scavengers, and her set was basically new. 

By the time she had found everything it was twilight dark and the only discernible landmark was the memorial stone where she and Sasuke had fed Naruto and prepared to face their teacher’s wrath as a cohesive unit. Just thinking of Naruto’s bold claim that he wanted to be added to the stone with the other heroes made her snort. What kind of ninja had never even heard of the KIA cenotaph before?

It occurred to her that Naruto probably had plenty of names he could have come to visit (even more than her), but if he’d been alone since he was a baby, he probably didn’t know which ones belonged to him. 

She drew closer, wondering if she could quickly find an Uzumaki on the stone before the light disappeared completely. She probably wouldn't mention it to the boy if she did find one; Naruto was too annoying to speak to voluntarily. But maybe she could tell Sasuke, and maybe he’d think it was kind of her to be looking out for their unfortunate weak link. It would be today’s lunch all over again, but this time Sakura would be the one to do it first, and Sasuke could marvel at her thoughtfulness. 

The entire plan went out the window almost immediately, because the second she emerged from the treeline and started circling around to the front of the stone, she saw that someone was already there. And that ‘someone’ was actually none other than her new jounin teacher. 

“Yo,” he said, raising hand in greeting. It was too dark (and his face was too covered) to be sure, but she got the sense that despite his lazy attitude, he was actually quite annoyed to be interrupted. 

“Hey, Sensei.” She swallowed, suddenly nervous. “Sorry, I was just-” But she couldn’t mention that she had come all the way back to the training ground to pick up her weapons before they got rusted by the elements. He’d think she was a worse idiot than Naruto. It was clear he didn’t think much of her; typical sexism, probably with a dash of jealousy that she was young and in love while he was just some old, one-eyed weirdo that read porn in public. But he was still her teacher, and she’d rather be on his good side than his bad side. 

She decided to lie. “I was just coming to visit someone on the cenotaph. But I can come back later.” She turned to go, but Kakashi raised his hand again, this time to stop her. 

“Don’t leave on my account; you should visit them now. We might get a mission tomorrow that takes us out of the village.” 

Sakura scoffed, because the likelihood of their first ever mission taking them outside the village was almost exactly zero, but Kakashi just shrugged. 

“Trust me, you don’t want to put such things off, or it becomes too late before you know it.”

And so, Sakura was forced to kneel down in front of the stone and say a silent prayer to the fallen. She prayed to her uncle, who was probably the only KIA she had properly known, as well as her mother’s cousin (whose name she couldn’t remember, but she was definitely up there somewhere), a couple of Ino’s relatives she remembered from the days when they were actually friends, the First, Second and Fourth Hokages, and any Uzumaki that happened to be up there, because they were her original reason for coming over. She would have prayed to Sasuke’s numerous relatives too, but the Uchiha had a separate monument dedicated to them. 

She stood back up, and Kakashi gave her a little nod. It made her feel like a total fake to be bonding with her teacher over dead people she didn’t even know, let alone truly miss. But he hadn’t looked at her with any amount of approval before then, despite her showing off her skills for the entire day. 

She smiled back at him. “So, who are you here to visit?”

That was clearly the wrong question, because he stuffed his hands in his pockets and stepped back. “I’d better get going,” he said, slouching off into the dark. 

If he had known what had been lurking at the corners of the forest, watching him, Kakashi might have left earlier. If he had known that its attention had now shifted to Sakura, he might not have left at all. 

But he did, and it wouldn’t be until later that he realised the mistake he had made.

Sakura could have kicked the cenotaph, if she weren’t still a tiny bit afraid of ghosts (and the offence they might take). She’d only wanted to understand her new teacher a little better, to know something about him that the others didn’t. It’s not like she’d asked to see under his mask, or hear the story of how he’d lost his eye (she’d already learned not to comment on scars from her academy days with Iruka). But in hindsight, people who lost loved ones probably couldn’t talk about them easily. Perhaps that was why they stood in front of stones about it in the first place. 

She loitered, wanting to race home for dinner but definitely not wanting to overtake Kakashi and make him think she was trying to make small talk again. She’d just have to try harder to impress him with her ninja skills tomorrow. 

The Watcher, hidden in the trees, drew closer. He’d kept a cautious distance from Kakashi, knowing how finely tuned his senses were. But this pink-haired girl was fresh out of the academy. He might have been able to walk right up to her and tap on her shoulder before she realised she wasn’t alone. Even now she blundered around the cenotaph, muttering and frowning and generally being terrible at keeping her thoughts hidden. She reminded him a bit of himself, before he had a mask to hide behind.

She would be perfect for his collection. He had wanted someone from Konoha for a while, and this girl had not only served herself up by venturing to the edge of town alone, but she was Hatake Kakashi’s first ever kunoichi student. He only wished he could stick around to watch the fallout.

Sakura decided that enough time had passed and she could head back to town without encountering her teacher. In fact, seeing as it was actually properly dark by now (she had forgotten that it was a new moon) she might not encounter anyone at all. They would all be safe at home, far from dark forests and vengeful ghosts.

She took a single, careful step toward home.

And disappeared. 

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At first, Sakura thought she had fallen through a trapdoor someone had hidden in the ground. She flinched protectively around her vital organs, fully expecting to be gored by spikes or drowned in quicksand. But the ground she landed on was flat, if a little hard on her joints. She sprang to her feet immediately, trying to see how far up the trapdoor was, and whether she was alone in the pit.

It quickly became apparent that there was no pit at all, but a vast, empty expanse of the same flat square stones that she had landed on, and seemingly very little else. There was also no hole above her, no forest, no breeze, no anything. Her ninja senses strained against the darkness, but the emptiness was absolute.

Her breathing became loud, her body starting to panic at the lack of information. Was there a finite amount of air in here? Hidden traps? She spun in place, and every direction seemed more or less identical. Where to even begin looking for a way out?

“Hello?” She called out, knowing it was stupid to draw attention to herself, but still desperate for this to be an earth jutsu someone had been testing at the training grounds, and any minute now they would pull her out and apologise profusely for the misunderstanding. 

Her voice didn’t even echo.

“Hey!” Someone was coming toward her, hopping from one stone to another like a frog. There wasn’t quite enough light to see them properly (and that was another thing: there was no visible light source, but she could still see the stones and her hand in front of her face. That felt like a particularly weird detail about an already weird place) but they seemed bulky in all the wrong places. She realised the person must have been wearing several cloaks and jackets, and carrying at least two large bags on their front and back. 

Frankly, they could have been pointing a sword at her and she still would have been happy to see them.

“Hey!” she called back, rushing toward them. 

The cloaked figure waved their arms urgently. “Not this way!” they called, their voice high and a little scratchy, as if they didn’t use it often. “They’re coming!”

“What?” Sakura’s relief evaporated back into apprehension. “Who's coming?”

“The rest.” The figure landed on Sakura’s rock, and she could finally tell it was a woman. She was wearing a hood and her face was covered from the nose down, like Kakashi’s, but what she could see was gorgeous: an elegant, heart-shaped face, and big scarlet eyes framed by cracked, dirty glasses. Her hair fell down in two matching scarlet braids. 

The woman looked her up and down in dismay. “You’re tiny. They’re gonna eat you alive.”

“Who is?” Sakura was close to her tolerance level for craziness, and the older woman seemed to realise it. She grabbed her hand and tugged her along. “No time to explain, so for now just run and stay quiet until we lose them. Then we can swap notes.”

“I fell through some sort of trapdoor…?” Sakura began, but the hand tightened around hers. Sakura could feel every callous.

“Not yet. I know this is weird, but the older ones aren’t nearly as nice as me, so count yourself very lucky I was closest when you arrived, and hurry up.”

They ran, and after a few seconds Sakura could hear what they were running from: shouting voices, stamping feet, and even the occasional explosion. It sounded like a large, rowdy group, and according to this woman they were coming for Sakura. 

She ran faster. 

After a while of the woman dragging her through the endless plain of nothingness, stopping and changing their direction seemingly at random, she suddenly stopped and dragged Sakura down into the crevice between two stones. The whooping and crashing noises continued to get closer, and Sakura tried desperately to subdue her presence. Her chakra was already low from her first day of training as a genin, and fear was making it even harder to control. But eventually her breathing lengthened and her heart settled. When she had enough self-discipline, she realised that the woman (whose hands were clamped over Sakura’s shoulders, as if afraid she would suddenly spring up and try to introduce herself to the rabid mob above them) was using some kind of jutsu on them both. It felt like a waxy bubble was surrounding them, making Sakura’s senses feel hazy. She looked at the woman, whose striking eyes met hers with a warning look. 

The rabble quieted, harsh voices calling to one another for signs of the trail. 

“Gone to ground,” one male voice speculated. 

“The red witch found her first,” a female voice grumbled.

“She won’t be able to keep her to herself for long. The Watcher wants us all to get along, after all.” This was met with dark laughter.

The hands on her shoulder tightened momentarily, but Sakura had no delusions that she would be any safer with those men and women than she would with the ‘red witch’. 

Eventually the rabble moved on, and after a few more minutes of the weird waxy jutsu, the feeling subsided. But the redhead kept Sakura still for a second longer before nodding and releasing her hold. 

“They’re all gone, at least a click out by now.”

“How can you tell?” Sakura figured the ban on talking was over.

The woman just winked, and Sakura scowled. 

“You have to tell me something at some point,” she complained. “Start with who you are and what the hell is going on here, please.”

“I’m the welcome wagon.” The woman removed her mask, unslung the bags, and removed the hood of her outermost jacket. Sakura could see her forehead protector was badly scratched and rusty, but had the unmistakable zigzag mark of Kusagakure, the Hidden Grass Village.

“You’re Kusa?” Sakura blurted out.

“That a problem, Konoha?” The woman eyed her, silently daring Sakura to make it a problem. “If you’re wondering whether anyone else out there is on your side, the answer is a definite ‘no,’ There’s no other Hidden Leaf ninja here, and even if they were, it wouldn’t mean jack to them anymore. Nobody’s seen their village in years.”

“Years?” Sakura screeched, before clamping her hands over her mouth in case the others weren’t as far off as the Grass ninja said.

“...Which leads us smoothly into ‘what the hell is going on here?’ Short answer: you’ve been trapped in some sort of endless Nothing Dimension.”

“And the long answer?” Sakura whispered. 

The woman shrugged off a few more jackets. “You’ve been trapped in some sort of endless Nothing Dimension with no way out, other than The Watcher withdrawing you. The Watcher is the one who put us all in here, and as you can imagine from the name, they’re watching us at all times. You got any food on you?”

Sakura, who was still processing the horror of the first two sentences, blinked. “Um, no. Sorry.”

“Damn. I haven’t eaten in months.”

“What?” That was definitely the word Sakura had used the most since she’d dropped into this place. “That’s impossible. You’d be dead.”

“No death here. The Watcher doesn’t like ‘dead.’ That’s one of the rules, actually: don’t kill each other.”

“That seems like a good rule,” Sakura admitted reluctantly. “But that doesn’t explain how you haven’t starved to death if your last meal was months ago.”

“Actually, speaking of months: what’s today’s date?”

The constant topic-changing was giving Sakura whiplash, but she told the woman. 

“Not even a month since I was taken.” She nodded. “That lines up with what the others said, but urgh, that’s so weird.” 

“Is that when you last ate? The day they took you?”

“Nah, like I said, it’s been several months since any of us saw food, and all I got then was a melon rind and a black eye for my troubles. The last real meal I ate before I got taken was okonomiyaki.” She sighed wistfully. “It was delicious. Sensei treated us after our first ever B-rank mission. But that was years ago.”

“You said you’ve been in here less than a month.”

“It was less than a month out there. In here, it’s been years.” She shucked her last jacket and stood up. “I was twelve when I was taken, and now I’m…well, I actually don’t know because there’s no sun, or hunger, or sleep to pass the time in here, but suffice to say I’m not twelve anymore.”

No, Sakura thought, she definitely wasn’t twelve. The Grass ninja was a woman in her early twenties at least.

“You’re saying that while a month passed outside this place, whole years passed in here?” She’d been in here for what felt like hours now, but possibly she wasn’t even late for dinner yet. How long until someone even noticed she was missing?

The woman nodded. “Smart cookie. Ugh, cookies…” The wistful expression returned. 

“And nobody has to eat or sleep in the meantime?”

“That’s right, Konoha. You won’t even get hungry or sleepy, and there’s no need for toilets or showers here, either. Which is good, because there aren’t any. Just these rocks, in every single direction. Without end.” She kicked one half-heartedly. “The only things we have are the ones we brought with us, or the ones left behind by previous generations.”

Previous generations? “You said nobody died here.”

“Oh, they don’t; but everyone grows up eventually. The Watcher withdraws people before they’re too far over the hill, and they don’t ever come back.”

For some reason, that was Sakura’s breaking point. She hunched in on herself and cried into her hands, big fat tears that ninjas weren’t meant to cry behind enemy lines. “I don’t want to get old here! I want to go home!” She sobbed so violently that she was close to throwing up. Her mother was burning dinner right now, waiting for Sakura to come fix it before dad got home.

The woman let her cry, sitting and rummaging through her bags. Sakura looked up from her wet hands to watch as she pulled an assortment of clothes, belt buckles, and other knick knacks she had clearly salvaged or stolen from the others. There were even a few forehead protectors, though none of them bore the same leaf symbol as Sakura’s.

“What are you looking for?” she asked, and the woman only stopped rummaging long enough to run finger along Sakura’s cheek and pop it into her mouth. “Mm, salty.”

“Gross,” Sakura complained, but she didn’t feel like crying as much anymore. She didn’t feel much like anything, now that she had the emotional space to assess her feelings. No hunger, no tiredness, except for a little muscle fatigue. Even her bladder was quiet, like her entire digestive tract had just disappeared from inside her. 

“So weird,” she murmured, running her hands over her belly. “I really don’t feel anything.”

“Right?” the woman agreed cheerfully. 

“So how come you want food, if you don’t even get hungry?”

“You’ll learn eventually that just because your body doesn’t need food, you’ll still miss the taste. Same with all your bodily functions. The lack of sleep gets especially weird, even if it doesn’t actually kill you.” She leaned in. “My theory is that The Watcher’s body is connected to this world somehow, so as long as they’re eating and sleeping, we get all the fuel and rest we need.”

Sakura didn’t have the energy to engage with that. Instead she nodded at the pile of trinkets. “How much of that was yours, originally?”

The woman tapped her forehead protector and pulled out a threadbare tan shirt with a darker brown stripe running across it. It looked tiny as she held it against her chest. “This and this. The rest either got taken or destroyed at some point.”

“By the others?”

“Yep. They’ll take whatever you’ve got too if you let them, so try to be careful. In fact, put this on, will you?” She threw Sakura the brown shirt. “It’s about your size, and brown is better camouflage than red in this place.”

“Isn’t it…important to you?” She held the shirt carefully, in case it fell apart in her hands.

“It’s only important if it’s useful. Just humour me and put it on, Konoha. Between the red dress and the pink hair, you’re gonna give our location away the second we’re on the surface.”

Sakura obediently tugged the shirt over her dress. “Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked quietly. “The others wanted to kill me.”

“No killing, remember? But yeah, they would have robbed and beaten you pretty badly.” The woman said this in the same tone that someone might say ‘it looks like rain tomorrow.’ “But I’m the youngest, or I was before you arrived. I’m not as cynical as the oldies yet. And you could be a good ally, if we teamed up.”

“I’m not particularly experienced,” Sakura admitted, even though it might cause the woman to turn on her. “I only just made genin.”

“Everyone started out young and inexperienced, Konoha. You’ll learn the ropes of this place faster than you think.”

“Sakura.”

“What’s that?”

“My name isn’t Konoha, it’s Sakura. Haruno Sakura.”

“Oh, right, names.” The ninja from Grass smiled, like Sakura had introduced her to a new and charming concept. “I’m Karin.”

Chapter Text

Kakashi was eating dinner when the masked ANBU agent arrived, but years of training meant that his own mask was already up by the time they stepped through the open window. 

He sighed, not especially surprised, but somewhat disappointed. “Naruto or Sasuke?”

It was usually Naruto that he had been sent to covertly check up on in the past, but now that he was the official adult supervising both orphans, he’d imagined the check-ups might increase accordingly. He didn’t think it would start on the very first night, though. 

The ANBU agent’s tiger mask gave away nothing, but the silence stretched a beat longer than it usually did before they said, “Haruno Sakura.”

“Sakura?” Kakashi frowned. Sakura had parents to contact when there were problems, and aside from being a little weak at the physical side of things, he hadn’t noticed anything requiring official intervention. “What did she do?”

“She disappeared. Approximately one hour ago.”

“No…?” This was so bizarre that Kakashi might have assumed it was a prank from another jounin, if not for the fact that ANBU never joked. “She was at the cenotaph only,” he glanced at the clock on the wall, “half an hour ago.”

The ANBU agent’s head tipped forward ever so slightly and there was an almost imperceptible change in the atmosphere of the room. “Do you mean your training session?”

“No, it was about half an hour after that.” Possibly she stuck around or doubled back? Kakashi thought back to earlier that afternoon, when he had finally let his new students go home and rest. “She must have doubled back; I remember seeing her leave with the other two.” She had been trying to talk to Sasuke, and Naruto had been trying to talk to her. 

“So far, that makes you the last person to see her, Senpai.” The ANBU agent said it carefully, but Kakashi understood the implications well enough. 

He racked his brain for every little detail from their interaction. “I was at the monument from approximately sunset to twilight. Sakura arrived around then, greeted me and said she was there to pay her respects to the fallen. She did so, silently, for about one minute, and then I left.”

“And did anything about her seem odd, or off to you?”

“I’ve only known her for a day, but she seemed much as she did earlier during training.” Possibly slightly less…tempestuous, without her teammates influencing her mood, but definitely not a flight risk. “Are you sure she isn’t just taking the long way home, or something?”

The agent shook his head. “Her mother said she arrived home shortly before sunset, left almost immediately after telling her she would be ‘back in a minute,’ and then failed to return. She says it would be completely unexpected and uncharacteristic for the girl to run away, and that she expressed no doubts or regrets about becoming a genin. Unless something happened today?”

Kakashi shook his head. “The whole team passed my personal evaluation, which was hardly gruelling. I was going to submit the paperwork tomorrow.” He nodded at a scroll on his desk, which the agent promptly pocketed. 

“We’ll review this report and submit it on your behalf, if you don’t mind.”

He shrugged, aware that there was only one safe answer. “Sure, that saves me a trip. But wait-” the agent, who was about to turn and melt back into the night, paused, “-where do you want me?”

“What do you mean?”

“In the search party.” He grabbed his weapons holster and tugged on his gloves. “Are we going to the cenotaph, or do you have a fresher trail than that?”

“Senpai.” The agent seemed torn between professionalism and deference. “You cannot be part of the search party.”

“She’s my student.”

“If your timelines crossed, that means your trails also crossed. If you get involved in the search, our ability to establish a clear timeline of your involvement will be compromised.”

“My involvement? Just to be clear, am I under suspicion here?”

The agent shifted uncomfortably, probably wishing they had jumped back out the window when they had the chance. “We simply want to establish the facts while the disappearance is still recent.”

“A twelve year-old genin who has been missing for less than an hour isn’t just ‘recent,’ it’s barely actionable. Why are you assuming the worst so quickly?” His heart dropped. “Did you find something that suggests foul play?”

“No. But between the Haruno family’s insistence that this is suspicious, and some concerning intel from other villages…”

Kakashi raised an eyebrow.

“...that I cannot elaborate on unless you receive the necessary clearance, we have good reason to suspect this is an abduction, and the Hokage wants to act swiftly. That’s all I can tell you, Senpai. Good night.” The agent ducked back out the window, leaving Kakashi alone once more. 

Dinner had gone cold, but he was no longer hungry. His new teammate had not only gone missing, but the village had mobilised within an hour of receiving the report. If it had been Naruto or Sasuke who had disappeared, they might not have noticed until the next morning. And by the sound of Tiger’s explanation, even half an hour might be far too late.

“Where the hell have you gone, Sakura?”

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Despite the clear warning to stay out of the way, Kakashi went to the memorial cenotaph early next morning. Sakura’s air scent was completely obliterated, and even her ground scent was faint now, criss-crossed by dozens of others; but Kakashi’s nose was sharper than most, and he also had a tracking dog to aid him. 

Pakkun hadn’t had a chance to meet Sakura before, and Kakashi didn’t have anything of hers to use as the target; but he mostly needed the pug to confirm the baffling information that Kakashi’s own senses were telling him. 

“It just…stops.” Pakkun’s doleful eyes were wide with consternation. “There’s a scent here: female, I’d say, wearing Floral Green shampoo and a day's worth of sweat. Her trail reaches the stone and then ends. No blood, no dander, not even a footprint, Boss.” He raised his head to look up at the canopy of trees. “Did something snatch her off the ground and carry her off?”

Kakashi shook his head. “Unclear, but the response time was faster than average. There would have been an air trail when the first responders arrived, and based on their trails, it doesn’t look like they had anything to follow, either.”

“Weird,” his dog commented. “Who was she?”

“She is Haruno Sakura. One of my new students.”

Pakkun cocked his head to the side. “Maybe she ran away after you failed her?”

“I didn’t fail this team.” Maybe Sakura wouldn’t have been out in the evening if he had failed Team 7.

“Huh.” If Pakkun had an opinion on that, he kept it to himself. “Well, unless you need anything else…”

Kakashi shook his head. “No, you’re dismissed.”

The dog disappeared in a puff of smoke, and Kakashi was forced to head back into town with several more questions and no answers at all. He had told Team 7 to meet him on the bridge at seven; a respectably early time that Kakashi had never intended to keep himself. But unless another ANBU agent arrived with a lead, he had nowhere better to continue his search for Sakura. And if she didn’t arrive, Naruto and Sasuke would have questions, and possibly even information of their own. 

He loitered at the bridge, watching the people of Konoha as they went about their lives. Despite the quick response from the Hokage, most of the village seemed blissfully unaware that a young girl had gone missing last night. Or perhaps she’d already been found safe and sound at a friend’s house, and they just hadn’t thought to put her poor teacher out of his misery?

At six fifty-eight, Sasuke arrived on the bridge. Kakashi wanted to ask him questions immediately, but that would lead to Sasuke asking him questions, and it would be better if he only had to do it once, after Naruto arrived. Or not at all, if Sakura did.

At three minutes past seven, Naruto arrived, and there were no pink-haired girls with him. He looked Kakashi up and down like he was a ghost. “You actually turned up on time! You were just testing us before, huh?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Kakashi said, eyes still following every inch of movement around him. “An old woman really did need help with her bags yesterday.”

“You said a black cat crossed your path and you had to go the long way,” Sasuke pointed out.

“Oh, right.”

“Where’s Sakura?” Naruto seemed to realise their group was still one short.

“About that…” Kakashi began.

“She probably assumed you would be super late again, and slept in,” Naruto chuckled.

Sasuke sniffed. “She probably got sent back to the academy, or just quit outright.”

“What makes you say that?” Kakashi examined the boy closely. “Did she say something to you?”

Sasuke shrugged, reverting back to his usual moody silence, but Kakashi pressed him. “Sasuke, this is serious. Did Sakura mention anything to you about quitting, or being afraid that she’d be sent back to the academy?”

Both boys were watching him as closely as he was watching them, now. “No,” Sasuke answered, at the same time that Naruto said, “What’s wrong?”

He took a deep breath. Possibly Sakura’s disappearance was still a secret, but if so then last night’s ANBU agent should have made a point of saying that. He decided that the boys needed to know about their teammate, even if he wished more than anything that he didn’t need to be the one to tell them. “Sakura went missing last night.”

Silence hung in the air for several seconds, until Naruto raised his hand like this was a class. “What do you mean ‘missing’?”

“Apparently she was expected home shortly after training, but didn’t arrive. Her parents are worried; they say it’s not like her.”

“It’s not,” Naruto frowned. “She complains about her parents a lot, but I don’t think she’d run away from home. Where would she even go?”

“That’s what everyone is trying to figure out. And time is usually of the essence with disappearances, so if you know anything at all-”

His sentence cut short when he spotted something pink in his peripheral vision. He turned eagerly, but this person’s hair was more like a light puce than cotton candy fluff. The middle-aged man sporting it was making a beeline for him, followed by a chestnut-haired woman with rings on her dress. 

“You must be Mr and Mrs Haruno,” Kakashi said, unsure of the protocol. Handshake? Bow?

It was clear the Harunos couldn't care less about pleasantries. “Hatake Kakashi?” The father said, looking him up and down.

“Sir.”

“Do you,” the man leaned in so closely that Kakashi could see every shade of the dark purple bags under his eyes, “have any idea where our daughter is, or what happened to her?”

It was Obito’s death all over again, with his many relatives grilling Kakashi about the sharingan, and whether Obito had really been in the right state of mind to bequeath it to him. Or worse, Rin’s death, when he couldn’t even tell her family how she’d died (mostly because it was classified, but partly out of shame). He tried to remember how to talk to the grieving and afraid.

“Unfortunately, I know very little; probably even less than you at this point. I take it Sakura is still missing?”

The mother nodded stiffly. “We were told you were the one to see her last.”

After investigating the cenotaph he hadn’t held out much hope of this changing, but it didn’t make the moment any less comfortable. “That’s correct; I ran into her at the KIA memorial, but left shortly after, and nothing seemed unusual about Sakura when I did.”

“What was she doing at the memorial?”

“Visiting the fallen, apparently.” He wished this was happening somewhere other than the busy bridge. Hell, he wished this was happening in a dank interrogation room, as long as it meant he didn’t have to look Sakura’s parents in the eye. “I’m sorry I don’t have more information than that.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Mr Haruno shook his head. “She never visited the memorial before. I can’t even think who she’d want to visit, except maybe my brother; but he’s been gone for years, and she never visited before.”

“Did you tell her to meet you there?” Mrs Haruno asked suddenly, and her expression could have stripped paint. Even Naruto was looking at him with a little suspicion. 

“Definitely not. As far as I knew, she’d left with the rest of her team and was already home by that point.” 

“She did come home first,” Mrs Haruno confirmed, “but she left almost immediately after, and I don’t believe it was just to go pay respects to her uncle.”

“She probably went back for her weapons.”

The adults turned to Sasuke, who had spoken so quietly that Kakashi wasn’t even sure he’d wanted to be heard.

“Pardon?” Mr Haruno asked politely.

Sasuke scowled. “Kakashi probably didn’t abduct Sakura, or tell her to go back out to the forest. She forgot to collect her weapons after our afternoon training session. She must have finally remembered and doubled back.”

Kakashi chose to ignore the ‘probably’ remark. “Why didn’t you say something at the time, when you were all leaving?”

The boy’s scowl deepened. “Because I didn’t want to talk to her.” He glanced at Naruto. “Or anyone else.”

“Jerk!” Naruto shouted. “That means Sakura went missing because of you!”

Sasuke’s eyes briefly flickered with something like fear, and Kakashi stepped in before anyone made a bad situation worse. “No, Naruto. It isn’t Sasuke’s fault just because he didn’t mention Sakura had forgotten her weapons, any more than it was Sakura’s fault for forgetting them in the first place.”

“What about ‘ninjas who abandon their friends are worse than trash’?” Naruto continued to glare daggers at Sasuke. 

“I didn’t know she was going to get lost, or kidnapped,” Sasuke snapped. 

To Kakashi’s surprise, it was Sakura’s mother who came to the boy’s defence. “That’s right; the only one to blame for our daughter’s disappearance is whoever took her. If she went back to the forest to collect her weapons, then at least we know it might have been an attack from an outsider, rather than something planned by someone she trusted.” She turned to Kakashi, jerking her head slightly in the universal gesture of ‘can I talk to you privately?’

He followed her and her husband a short distance, trying to ignore the boys’ eyes burning holes in the back of his head. 

“First of all, I would like to apologise for accusing you of…involvement.” Sakura’s mother bowed stiffly. 

That word again. “I’m just glad to have the misunderstanding cleared up.”

“I just don’t understand who would take her, or why.” She swiped at her unshed tears before they could fall. “She’s not a tactical asset. She’s always been…pretty.” Both parents closed their eyes against the horror of the implication. “But she doesn’t have any intel, or any other reason to take her or…”

“Or keep her,” Mr Haruno supplied quietly. 

Kakashi tried to choose his words carefully. “Is it possible she stayed over with a friend and lost track of time? Or maybe she just went somewhere quiet to clear her head for a bit? Becoming a fully-fledged ninja can give plenty of people second thoughts about their choice in career.” And if he was honest, Haruno Sakura had seemed like the type to quit the life early. He wouldn’t have been surprised to hear she had joined the academy in the first place just to get close to a certain black-haired boy.

“Not Sakura,” Mr Haruno said. “She’s wanted this her whole life.”

“Can I ask…why?”

“She doesn’t seem like a career soldier, does she? And possibly she won’t be any good at it, but she’s always been a determined little thing.” He smiled sadly. “Mebuki and I grew up in a satellite village a half hour or so west. Both our families came to Konoha when we were Sakura’s age, hoping to earn more money on less risky missions. And we thought it would be a better place to raise our family, when the time came. Truth is, we would have been overjoyed if she chose a quiet life as a civilian, but she wanted to prove the Haruno family belonged here, in The Great Konohagakure.”

“I didn’t know that.” The one and only time he had asked Sakura about herself, her response had been less than eloquent, and he’d formed his private judgments and hoped she could at least keep up with the boys. 

“She doesn’t like to talk about it. She was born and raised here, but our old life in Shida Village makes her feel like an outsider.” Haruno Mebuki’s expression briefly showed all the fear and grief she had been trying to hide behind more productive emotions like anger and suspicion. It reminded Kakashi of his father’s face when sending his only son off on his first dangerous mission. 

“If there’s anything I can do…” he started awkwardly, but it sounded empty, the kind of thing people said at a funeral when the person was already dead and there was nothing anyone could do anymore. 

Mebuki’s expression clouded over again, becoming a mask of steely resolve. “Find our daughter. Bring her home. And kill whoever took her in the first place.”

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Sakura learned the ropes quickly.

She cried a lot at first, but it changed nothing and quickly grew tiresome. Karin was patient, waiting for her to get the last bit of hope out of her system before attempting to teach her the rules of her new life Inside. It felt like days had passed since she first fell through the ground and into this hell, but Sakura didn’t grow hungry or tired, and even though they simply stayed crouched in the little cave between stone pillars, her muscles only ached a little. Mentally, the monotony was still torturous, and by the time she had pulled herself together she was practically begging Karin to take her somewhere new. 

“First things first; what do you have on you?”

Sakura wiped her face, assuming there was several days’ worth of snot and tears caked on it.

“No, no, I mean what’s in your pockets? What did you bring with you?”

“Oh, er…” Sakura unclipped her weapons holsters and emptied her shiny new blades on the rocky ground. “Just these, my forehead protector, and my clothes.”

“There are nice,” Karin inspected the weapons before returning them to their pouch and tucking them carefully in a dark recess of the cave. “You should hide them here for now, until you can defend yourself well enough to keep them.”

“How am I supposed to defend myself without them?” Sakura argued, feeling very vulnerable all of a sudden.

“You have ninjutsu and taijutsu, don’t you?” Karin said, storing some of her own bags in a similar fashion.

“I guess…” She tried to remember her classes at the academy. She had only just graduated, but now it all felt so long ago, and so…theoretical.

“You’ll learn quickly. Pain and time are great teachers. And you’ll experience a lot of both here.”

“Great…”

Karin appraised Sakura’s chest. “Does your bra have an underwire?” 

Her face burned, and that seemed to be answer enough for Karin. 

“Shame. I know a few older kunoichi that would have bartered for a new bra; myself included. You’ll probably need an upgrade yourself before long.”

“I don’t plan to be here that long,” Sakura said, but it rang so hollow that Karin didn’t even bother to argue with her. The older woman had explained the time dilation effect as best she could, and after a few days Inside it was clear that even if a search party found her immediately on the outside, it could still take a long time from Sakura’s perspective. 

“Alright, no point putting it off much longer.” Karin stood up from her crouch, brushing dust off her knees. “Let’s go introduce you to The Others.”

“Really? That mob that tried to kill me when I first arrived? I know, no killing,” she added, when Karin opened her mouth to correct her. “But seriously, why not just avoid them?”

“For the rest of your life? Better to make friends and hopefully avoid going insane from boredom. Come on; if you’re lucky, they won’t take much. Your clothes and shoes are too small for anyone else, anyway. Oh, but you might want to leave the forehead protector and tie back your hair. Better yet, cut it off and we can barter it.”

“Barter hair?” 

“Oh yeah, hair’s a great commodity here.” She flicked one of her own scarlet braids. “It doesn’t stop growing while we’re in here, and it makes decent rope and thread. Pretty colours like yours and mine are even more desirable.”

This thought didn’t comfort Sakura in the slightest, but she dutifully braided her hair and tied it off with some scraps from Karin’s many bags. Karin showed her how to tuck the braids down the back of her shirt, to make it harder to grab.

When she was finally deemed ready to meet the mysterious ‘Others’, Karin gestured up toward the top mesas of stone Sakura had first landed on. “After you.”

Sakura stared at the smooth walls leading up to the surface, trying to find a gap the right size to wedge herself in and crawl up. 

Karin’s smile turned into an incredulous frown as she watched Sakura shimmy a few feet up the walls. “You can’t climb with chakra?” She placed a boot on one of the stones Sakura was pressed against. Her foot glowed faintly, and when her second foot joined the first she was standing on the wall, perpendicular to the ground.

“Er…no.” Sakura could sort of see the theory behind what she was doing, moulding chakra to her feet to keep them stuck to the wall. But she’d never attempted such a thing at the academy.

“The trick is to keep the chakra at a constant output, not too weak but not too strong, either. And engage your core.” Karin poked her own stomach muscles. “Works best the first time if you take it at a run.”

“Okay.” Sakura was still sceptical, but Karin had started walking up the rock face now, and she didn’t want to get left behind. The woman seemed nice enough (compared to the angry mob), but Sakura couldn’t afford to lose her as a guide if she did decide she wasn’t worth teaching. She grit her teeth, forming the necessary seals to focus her chakra. Then she sprang forward and tried not to think about how much it would hurt if she fell off halfway up. 

“I did it!” The surface rock rose up to meet her within seconds, and for a moment Sakura forgot she was trapped in a hellish void prison. “That was surprisingly easy.”

“You’re a fast learner,” Karin observed, and Sakura preened. “Now come on; the others will still be on the lookout, and I don’t want them to find us so close to our cache.”

All positive feelings evaporated as Sakura silently followed Karin away from their supplies and off in a seemingly random direction. 

She heard the others before she saw them, and once again wondered how Karin managed to have such a good sense of direction in such a bland and endless expanse. Perhaps it comes with time, she thought, and shuddered.

When the others noticed their arrival, they rushed to meet them in the same chaotic manner as before. Karin made Sakura stop on a large stone platform, pressing a hand on her shoulder so she couldn’t flee. 

She bit her lip, ordering herself to be brave; but she couldn’t help but give a small shriek as the rabble surrounded her and Karin. She had expected them to attack immediately, maybe try to tear her clothes and hair off her, but what she hadn’t expected was for half a dozen people to grab her with rough hands, then press their faces against her and take a deep sniff.

“What?!” Was all Sakura could say, looking at Karin in horror at the bizarre violation. Karin shrugged grimly.

“No fair.” A man with black hair and jagged, shark-like teeth raised his head to scowl at Karin. “You had her so long she barely smells like Outside anymore.”

This was met with a few murmurs of agreement, and another round of sniffs that made Sakura cringe. 

“Where are you from?” A dark-skinned woman with a Hidden Cloud forehead protector asked, tugging at one of her boots. Sakura would have toppled over without Karin supporting her, but as it was she had to hop awkwardly on one leg while the woman sniffed the sole of her boot. “Smells like dirt. Maybe a little grass?”

“I’m from Konoha,” Sakura barely managed to squeak out. The others were crowding her legs now, and she fought the urge to kick at them when her other foot was lifted off the crowd. She fell back on her rear, and even with Karin crouching protectively at her side she knew this was a terribly vulnerable position for any woman to find herself in. “Stop touching me, will you?!”

“Konoha,” the woman who had first grabbed her foot murmured. “Forests. Trees. Water.” Each word was met with a collective sigh.

Something was tugging at the back of her head, and when she twisted to look she almost cut her nose off on the kunai that a man with tinted goggles was using to carefully trim her hair. “Stop that!” she screeched, all reservations about fighting forgotten in her desperation to protect her poor hair. “It took me years to grow it that long!” She threw a punch that would have sent Naruto flying twenty feet, but the man barely flinched.

Karin shoved the hair cutter away and hauled Sakura to her feet. “That’s enough; you’ve all gotten a good whiff of Outside, and I’m sure you pervs have all established that she’s not carrying anything else of value. If you want the hair, you gotta pay the price.”

“You think you and the Konoha pipsqueak could take us all on?” A woman with sandy blonde hair and a large backpack sneered, hand reaching for the pink braid that had been pulled free of Sakura’s shirt and was now unravelling at the end. 

“She’s pretty cute, Witch.” One man with broad shoulders and a ripped shirt that was little more than a collar clinging to some frayed threads prodded her belly while she was distracted with her hair. “I can see why you kept her to yourself. She ready for fun yet?”

“She’s brand new, Jun.” Karin raised her voice slightly, addressing everyone at once. “I’ve been with her since she arrived, and she hasn’t been taken out for Medical yet. She’s also a freakin’ baby, you degenerates.”

Sakura opened her mouth to argue that she was twelve, and a genin, thank you very much, but in truth she was very young compared to everyone else. She had thought Karin was old at twenty-something, but the others were older still; and yet even the oldest among them looked pretty good, all things considered. Their hair was starting to grey, their breasts starting to sag, but their faces were smooth and virtually wrinkle-free from what must have been decades without true sunlight.

“You know how this goes, Red. Wasn’t too long ago that you were the baby, and you still warmed up to us eventually.”

“Even if you avoid us half the time.” A woman with short cropped hair and a braided red choker that looked suspiciously like hair scowled at Karin, who scowled back. “Are you going to keep the kid away, too? What if you get taken out?”

“You said killing wasn’t allowed,” Sakura whispered, heart thumping in her strange, empty-feeling body. 

“She means ‘taken out’ as in removed,” Karin murmured back. “The Watcher does it sometimes. He’ll do it to you too pretty soon.”

“Why?”

Jun smacked his lips. “Gotta get your tubes tied, for one thing. Then you can have all the fun you like with no consequences.”

Sakura clenched her fists. “No. No way.”

“Don’t knock it till you try it, girlie.” The woman with the hair necklace gave her a wry smile. “There’s only really two things to do in here: fight, and fuck.”

Sakura turned to Karin, appalled, but to her surprise the other girl simply shrugged. “Beats sitting around waiting to die.”

The others murmured agreement, but Sakura shook her head violently.

“I won’t do it! Never!” She had learned about…kunoichi business, back in the academy; but as a civilised village, those lessons were all entirely theoretical. She knew that missions sometimes went badly wrong, but for the most part she had dismissed sex as something she’d only ever do with her husband, and knew that unless she could convince Sasuke to even take her on a date, her lessons would stay theoretical.

“Never say never, Konoha,” Karin said. “But I can at least promise nobody’s gonna touch you until you ask them to.”

Jun looked like he wanted to make another crass comment, but Karin stopped him with a glare. “Partly because if they take it from you now, they know you’ll never give it to them later. And partly because I don’t heal rapists.” She smiled wide, showing all her teeth.

That seemed to have an effect on the others. A few even took a step back from Sakura.

“Jeez, Red, we were just joking!” Jun grumbled.

Karin winked at Sakura. “The group’s got a rotten sense of humour, but you’re safe from that at least. We may be insane, but we do have standards.”

“I can tell you’ve taken a shine to her, but she’ll still need to fight,” Shark Teeth said, closing the distance once more. “Don’t want to make The Watcher mad.”

“True,” Karin conceded, and the atmosphere of the crowd shifted. Guessing that this was the part Karin had warned her about, Sakura shifted her weight and lowered her centre of gravity. No matter what the others said, when the first blow came, she didn’t want to end up on her back again.

The blow came, the Cloud woman striking her twice in the ribs, and though she was too hemmed in to dodge or parry, Sakura was impressed at her own ability to stay upright.

And then another hit came from behind. Then a brutal kick to her thigh from Jun, and another from Shark Teeth. And then Karin was turning on her too, punching her in her gut and leaving her doubled over and wheezing.

“Sorry kid,” she said, stepping back as the others surged in. “But the quicker you toughen up, the more likely you are to survive.”

“You said there was no kill-” an upper cut from Red Necklace drove all thoughts from her head except the most fundamental academy training: stay standing and keep fighting until help arrived.

Except, she thought to herself as her textbook punches and kicks quickly turned panicked and sloppy, ‘help’ wasn’t coming.

Chapter Text

Kakashi caught the Hokage in a meeting with the other three village elders and no less than a dozen ANBU, five of whom he recognised as top hunter-nin with tracking abilities. They all turned to watch him enter, masked faces inscrutable. A lower-ranked ninja might have run from the room and thanked the gods he hadn’t been struck down for his audacity. As a former ANBU agent himself, he was immune to their intimidating aura and strolled right up to the main desk.

“Kakashi.” The Third arched an eyebrow. “Mission allocations are on the ground floor.”

“Respectfully sir, my team can’t take a mission while we’re short one member.”

“Nonsense, I’m sure there are plenty of local D-rank missions that two boys could more than handle.” Homura Mitokado, one of the village elders, shuffled some papers. “It’s normal to start rookies out weeding gardens, catching cats and the like. By the time they’re ready for something more challenging, we’ll have found a suitable replacement.”

“A replacement?” Kakashi bristled. “Haruno Sakura has barely been missing a day. Are we giving up on one of our own so easily?”

“Of course not,” The Third said. He sat a moment, appraising Kakashi. Eventually he spoke again. “Clear the room.”

There was the briefest pause, and then every ANBU agent disappeared in a puff of smoke. Once it was just Kakashi and the elders left, he spoke.

“Do not doubt that we are saddened by the loss of Haruno Sakura,” he told Kakashi. “She was a village asset, but more importantly she was a little girl. We are doing all in our power to investigate her disappearance.”

“And my team is prepared to do whatever it takes to assist with that investigation,” Kakashi replied. “But to do that, we need more information.”

“To be honest, we had planned to leave you and the rest of your team out of it until we had something conclusive to report.” Koharu Utatane, the only female elder present, spoke up. “Your time as the girl’s teacher was too brief for anyone to consider you obligated to her.”

“Apparently it was long enough to consider me a suspect.” He didn’t bother to keep the scorn from his voice, even though the Third was giving him a warning look.

Danzo Shimura, the last elder present and a man Kakashi could barely stand on a normal day, slammed his hands down on the desk. “Your attitude is unbecoming of a jounin of Konoha, Hatake Kakashi. The fact of the matter is this: the training of the last Uchiha and the Nine Tails’ jinchuuriki cannot be delayed for the sake of an irrelevant kunoichi.”

“She is not irrelevant to me.” Kakashi wanted to say more, but Danzo cut him off.

“Finding a missing girl is not your mission; your mission is to continue your training with the rest of Team Seven.” He regarded Kakashi with barely concealed contempt, and Kakashi could tell that it was the ghost of Hatake Sakumo that he really saw. “If you understand that, then consider yourself dismissed.”

Kakashi looked to the Third, the only council member he actually respected, but the man’s expression was completely closed off to him. He left, gritting his teeth beneath his mask.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

It was later that evening, more than 48 hours since Sakura’s disappearance, that Tiger once again made a visit to Kakashi. This time, however, he knocked at the front door instead of walking through the window.

“Genma,” Kakashi acknowledged, because he wasn’t wearing his ANBU mask and therefore this was a social call.

“Hey.” Genma held up a bottle of saké. “Let me in.”

Kakashi ignored the rudeness, stepping out of the way of his old friend. “I’m not really in the mood for this.”

The door clicked shut, and Genma’s casual façade immediately dropped. “Officially speaking, I’m only here for a drink.”

“Understood.” Kakashi quickly refreshed his apartment’s security seals. “And unofficially?”

“The Third assumes you have no intention of giving up on Haruno Sakura.”

“He’d be correct; but if you’re here to stop me-”

“I’m here to help you.” Genma stomped noisily to the kitchen and grabbed two cups. “But if the elders find out you’re investigating, they’ll call it insubordination. Which it technically is.”

“I just need to know what you all know.” Kakashi didn’t want to beg, but he was prepared to. “The intel from other villages: have other shinobi been abducted?”

Genma clinked the cups noisily, in stark contrast to how quietly he spoke. “They’ve all been genin, barely out of the academy. Children, unable to defend themselves against an enemy who leaves no trace. Sometimes whole three-man cells disappear with no signs of struggle, sometimes it’s just one child snatched when they’re alone and vulnerable.”

It was only years of training that stopped Kakashi from wincing. Sakura wouldn’t have been alone if her team, the people who were meant to protect her, hadn’t gone out of their way to avoid her that evening.

“Have any of them come back? Or been…recovered.”

Genma shook his head. “We have seriously limited information; not because we’ve been lax in our recon, but because there’s just no information. No trails, no bodies, no indication of why someone wants green shinobi in the first place. The only odd thing we’ve learned recently might not even be connected.”

“What’s that?”

“Again, it might be unconnected.” Genma took a tiny sip of sake. “But we found a listing in our academy records for a genin team that apparently graduated four years ago, who appears to have gone AWOL.”

“So Sakura wasn’t the first Konoha genin to be taken?” Kakashi leaned forward in his chair. “When did the other team go missing?”

“That’s the thing,” Genma said. “When we dug a little deeper, we found that the record was a plant; the team never existed. We think it was part of a planned infiltration that was either called off or waylaid before it could be carried out.”

“Waylaid, for example, by the team getting abducted?” Kakashi guessed.

Genma nodded. “It’s pure speculation of course. It’s just as likely that they’re spies who don’t even realise they’ve been made, and we’ll see them surface just before the chunin exam.”

It made sense that the upcoming chunin exam would be their goal; why else would a group of presumably well-trained spies pretend to be low-ranking genin? “Any more leads to be gained from the dummy record?”

A senbon was placed in his hands, identical to the ones he knew Genma liked to use (and occasionally pick his teeth with). But the weighting was off slightly, and he quickly found the secret catch that broke the needle in two and revealed the hollow inside. The sheet of paper rolled up inside was wafer thin, and Kakashi held it up to the light. There were three dot-matrix photographs plus names and all the other details one might expect to find on an official academy record, but written tiny and in Genma’s handwriting.

Once he had read it twice and burned it into his memory, Kakashi dropped the fragile paper into his sake cup and stirred it gently with the broken senbon. Within seconds it had dissolved into pulp. He screwed the senbon back together and handed it to Genma.

“Thanks for the drink.”

“Keep the rest of the bottle,” Genma told him. “It’s got a short-range privacy seal on the label, so you can bring it to my place if your investigation turns up anything useful.”

“Investigation?” He blinked innocently. “I thought my mission was to train Naruto and Sasuke.”

“It is, officially, so if you’re seen neglecting your teacher duties the Third won’t defend you from the other elders. But he also knows you’re not the type of guy to sit idly while a teammate is in trouble, and he’d prefer you do it the smart way.” And with that, Genma stood and let himself out.

After a moment, Kakashi stood and put the half-bottle of saké in his vegetable crisper. It was probably exactly what Genma had said it was, but if it was actually a listening device then he’d prefer it sit in the makeshift faraday cage of his refrigerator for now.

He would have to convince the boys to move on and start taking missions without Sakura. Sasuke probably wouldn’t take much persuasion, but Naruto was already talking like it was assumed they would be dropping everything to go looking for her. The sooner he abandoned that notion, the sooner Kakashi could bag them a field mission. He had contacts all over the Land of Fire and beyond, and he wanted them putting out feelers for intel as soon as possible. If there was so much as a rumour about a pink-haired girl, he would sniff it out. He would also be able to learn more about this missing ninja team: Misumi Tsurugi, Yoroi Akado, and Yakushi Kabuto.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Sakura ached all over.

She’d been convinced The Others were going to end up killing her after all, despite Karin’s assurances that they had gone pretty light on her. After a while Sakura had simply gone limp, hoping they’d get bored or feel guilty for beating up a helpless child; and indeed, after a few more seconds they all seemed to collectively agree that she’d had enough. She assumed they would all just run off after that, but they’d all stuck around and even helped her to her feet.

“Not a completely disappointing showing, but you’ve got a long way to go before The Watcher will be satisfied with you,” Jun said, slapping her painfully on the back.

Sakura wanted to cry again, but it wasn’t a good look for ninjas and also she didn’t want everyone trying to taste her tears like Karin had. Instead, she tried to find her voice. “You did all that for The Watcher? Aren’t they the one who did this to us in the first place? Why would you…”

“Obey someone who keeps us trapped in hell?” Karin supplied, slipping under one of Sakura’s arms to support her weight. “Because, Konoha, ‘hell’ can get a whole lot worse if we don’t. Now shut up until we get you to Sensei. You look like you’re about to pass out, and that always gets weird in here.”

“Sensei? There’s a teacher here?” Hope flared briefly. Kakashi hadn’t been far off when she was taken. If teachers weren’t safe, then maybe he got snatched just after her, and would be falling through the non-existent ceiling any minute now. She hadn’t known him for long, but he was a real adult. He could get them out.

“Sensei as in Doctor, not Sensei as in Teacher,” Karin explained. “He’s been here so long that’s he’s properly old now.” She tried to help drag Sakura wherever they were going, but after they almost fell in the gap between their stone platform and the next, the pointy-teeth man rolled his eyes and scooped Sakura into his arms instead. Karin still led the way, and now it was clear to Sakura that her ‘friend’ was some sort of sensory type, directing the others to wherever the last remaining prisoner was hiding.

On the way, they introduced themselves. The youngest other than Karin were Jun and the woman with the red hair necklace whose name was Naomi. They were apparently teammates before they were snatched just outside the Hidden Waterfall. They didn’t mention what happened to their third member, and Sakura didn’t ask.

The three ninjas from the Hidden Cloud looked to be in their late thirties. The blonde woman introduced herself as Manami, and then turned around to show Sakura what she had assumed at first was a giant backpack, but was actually a huge rat-shaped puppet.

“And this is Chu-chan!” Manami announced. “Say hello, Chu-chan! Hello, Chu-chan,” she said in a high voice, while the puppet’s mouth flapped vaguely in sync with the words. Sakura looked around at the others’ reactions to the ridiculous performance, but they all seemed unfazed.

“Chu-chan’s a great listener,” Karin said, and it was impossible to tell if she was joking. “Manami, not so much.”

Manami stuck her tongue out at Karin while the puppet pressed its shabby paws to its face. “Oh Red, you’re making me blush!”

The other two Cloud ninja were Tomo, the man with tinted goggles who everyone apparently called ‘Pinch’ because he had a tendency to steal anything that wasn’t actively protected (Sakura pointedly tucked her uneven patch of hair behind her ear), and the dark-skinned Yoshi, who everyone called Siren for reasons that hadn’t been explained.

“And that’s Teeth,” Karin finished, pointing at the man still carrying her. “Don’t bother asking his real name, because he never says.”

Teeth smiled, and even though the jagged teeth made him look quite scary, up close Sakura could see that he had long, dark eyelashes and a heart-shaped face. If he were about thirty years younger, he might have been even more handsome than Sasuke.

Sasuke… The thought of her crush made her bruised chest ache with homesickness. She should have been training with her team, maybe going on a mission, not here with a bunch of insane adults who apparently beat each other senseless half the time.

Eventually they stopped on a stone platform that once again looked exactly the same as every other. Teeth put Sakura back on her feet, while Karin stepped up to the edge and leaned down.

“Sensei…newcomer.”

After a moment, a middle-aged man with grey hair tied back in a long ponytail walked up the side of the platform. Like Karin, he wore a pair of glasses that had seen better days. He greeted the others with a nod before focusing on Sakura.

“You must be the newcomer,” he said, eyes taking in her various cuts and bruises.

“Sakura,” she tried to smile. “From Konoha.”

“I’m the doctor. Some of the ruder inmates call me ‘Doc’ or even ‘Glasses’, but I’d prefer Sensei.” He reached out, hands glowing faintly blue. “May I examine you?”

She nodded, laying down as instructed. Her injured outsides were making her far too aware of her strangely absent insides.

Sensei handled her more gently than anyone had so far, even Karin. Perhaps it was the fact that he was pushing sixty, or the fact that his medical jutsu was precise and comforting even under such strange conditions, but he seemed saner than the others. If she closed her eyes she might have been at a normal hospital in Konoha, getting treated for a normal sparring injury.

“What’s your real name?” She asked quietly. “Or do you also refuse to say?”

Sensei’s comforting smile remained unchanged. “It’s good practice among ninjas from different villages to keep your secrets to yourself; even with zero hope of escape, you never know what information might lead to harm for your village. But in my case, it’s not that I refuse to say. I can’t.”

“You don’t…remember?” Perhaps Sensei wasn’t as sane as he seemed.

He laughed. “I’m not that old. When we were first taken, my team and I were given curse seals so that we wouldn’t blab about…certain things.” He stuck out his tongue, revealing a series of black bars like tattoos.

Sakura glanced at the others, who were all busy catching up with Karin a short distance away. “Do we all get one?”

“No.” Sensei’s gaze shifted from her bruised ribs to look her squarely in the eye. “Just me.” He held her gaze patiently, even as his chakra continued to work its magic on her injuries.

“Because…” this felt like the kind of problem Iruka might have set them at the academy, and she tried to push past her pain and homesickness to grasp at the answer. “Because you know something that would harm your village? You’re from The Watcher’s village, and he wants to protect its secrets?”

Sensei’s expression turned complicated. “Obviously I can neither confirm nor deny your guess,” he said, but Sakura felt that she had guessed wrong. “But at least you’re still trying to find out more. People tend to give up hope after a few years, alas.”

“Have you given up?” She asked, and he shook his head.

“I’ve been here longer than anyone else, and based on how long it’s been since The Watcher aged out my teammates, I don’t think they’re planning on letting me leave any time soon. My medical jutsu is too valuable for patching up the rest of you, plus the Medicals. But,” he smiled, his dark eyes unreadable, “I am very patient.”

“The others mentioned Medical.” Sakura swallowed nervously. “They said it’s for…” she gestured vaguely at her abdomen, “but honestly I don’t plan to do anything like that, so it’s not necessary for me actually.”

Sensei gave her an apologetic pat on the head, a gesture she hated even under normal circumstances. “Sorry, Sakura, but even if I had a say in what The Watcher makes me do to your body, the tubal ligation is a practicality you’ll be glad of one day.”

“But I want to have children,” she whispered, tears prickling at her eyes. Sasuke was the last member of an important clan. She’d assumed he’d want to have lots of heirs, and there was no way he’d pick her if she couldn’t help with that.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, the glow in his hands finally fading as he removed them from her sides. She hadn’t even noticed he’d finished healing her.

She got back to her feet and twisted her body experimentally. Nothing hurt anymore, but she didn’t feel ‘normal’ either.

“You had two fractured ribs, a fractured ulna, a few nasty bruises on your legs, and a bit of trauma in your kidneys,” Sensei reported, standing up and rubbing his hands together. Sakura could see that they were slightly chapped from the chakra.

“So I still have kidneys,” she mused, rubbing her lower back.

“Try not to think too hard about the lack of bodily functions in here,” Sensei advised, with a small smile. “Just be grateful we don’t need to expel waste.”

“If we don’t sleep or sweat or…expel waste,” she said, “why do I need to get…that thing that’ll happen in Medical?”

“I wonder…” Sensei hummed, and once again Sakura felt like she was being quizzed.

“You ready?” Karin called, coming over. Behind her, the others were breaking off by themselves or in groups. Sakura caught Naomi glaring at her before she left with Jun.

“Karin,” Sensei smiled. Always a pleasure. Was there any particular reason you couldn’t heal Sakura’s injuries yourself?”

“I thought it was a good opportunity for you two to meet before Medical,” she said, “but yes, I can probably fix her up next time.”

“You don’t have to talk about me like I’m a child,” she complained, knowing it probably did make her sound like a child, but unable to help herself. She hated when people talked about her instead of to her.

Sensei and Karin gave each other a look that confirmed Sakura was coming across exactly as childishly as she felt, but to their credit neither of them said anything. “Are you still good to travel with me for now?” Karin asked. “Obviously later if you want to be by yourself or join up with someone else, that’s your prerogative. But like Sensei said, I can do a bit of healing too, so I’m your best bet until you can look after yourself.”

Sakura thought about the others: the ones who weren’t standoffish were clearly crazy. “Yes please.”

Karin smiled. “Great. I’ll teach you everything I know.” She took off at a more leisurely pace than before, with the threat of The Others no longer dogging them. Sakura glanced back just in time to see Sensei disappear into the space between rocks.

“I’ll take you back to where we stashed the gear for now, but I still don’t recommend grabbing it until after Medical.” Karin spoke as she ran. “I’ll also come find you after. The Watcher never puts us back in the same place they take us out from.”

“What’s to just stop me attacking The Watcher the second they take me out?” Sakura asked. She figured a person powerful enough to send people to a void dimension was out of her league, but that wouldn’t stop her from trying if the alternative was coming back here.

“I asked the same thing when I first arrived,” Karin said. “If The Watcher takes us out all the time, why doesn’t anyone escape? Maybe the people that never came back didn’t age out; maybe they got away.” She looked at Sakura with a sad smile. “But you’ll find out soon enough why that’s not likely.”

Chapter Text

“Target in sight. Over.”

“Copy. Moving into flanking position now. Attack on my mark. Over.”

“Hey, what do we do if it climbs a tree? Over.”

“…What? Over.”

“What if the cat doesn’t run left or right, but just runs straight up one of the trees? Over.”

“Then you’ll have to climb up after it. Over.”

“Why me?! Over.”

“Because you’re the one who let it escape before, idiot! Over.”

“You guys know you don’t have to say ‘over’ every single time you speak, right?”

“Why not?”

“Over.”

Kakashi ran a hand through his hair. “Because it’s annoying.”

They were currently doing one of the staple local D missions: catching Madam Shijimi’s evil old cat Tora. It was mind-numbingly easy for a jounin like Kakashi, but either because his team was short by one, or distracted by the circumstances that led to their being short, they were having some problems.

The boys were finally closing in on their quarry, but Kakashi suspected it mostly a result of wearing the cat down after a full day of chasing it rather than any particular skill. Still, it had kept them all busy. They hadn’t said her name at all today, though Kakashi knew they were all still thinking about her.

When this particular mission was complete and Madam Shijimi had been reunited with her fluffy little monster, it was getting on dark and Naruto suggested they all get ramen together. Sasuke made a show of rolling his eyes, but he didn’t say no. He clearly still thought little of other people and even less of his team in particular, but the boy no longer went out of his way to avoid anyone. Naruto seemed to be making the most of this development, inviting the remains of Team 7 out for ramen so often that Kakashi had been forced to treat the boys to healthier places just to avoid getting sick.

Today, however, he had to decline. “I have an errand to run; but you and Sasuke should go.” He handed them a few notes just to make sure they followed through. If his jonin friends noticed that Hatake Kakashi, famous cheapskate, was suddenly spending his own money so generously, they were good enough not to comment. They probably knew how terrified he felt every time the boys walked home, alone, to empty houses. If they got taken, he wouldn’t even find out until the next morning.

That was another habit of his that had changed: he was no longer chronically late to everything, but arrived on time or even a little early just to make sure he’d know as soon as possible if anything had gone wrong. Some people, people who didn’t understand, praised his new, responsible personality. As if it were the two children under his care that had made him a respectable ninja at last, and not the one who was missing that had made him a paranoid wreck. As if the other jounin weren’t also keeping close watch over their genin, even the ones who already had families to notice if they never came home.

This evening, he was leaving the village for the first time since The Incident. Non-mission travel was technically allowed, but he made a point of informing the higher-ups and limiting it to an overnight trip anyway. People didn’t like it when a living weapon suddenly got the urge to wander.

He was, officially, visiting a nearby hot spring town for R&R. The fact that he had never once requested R&R before had not drawn as much suspicion as he’d thought. According to Gai, most jounin tried to get away from their rookie teams for a bit. Going from gruelling solo missions to weeding gardens drives everyone stir-crazy before long.

Unofficially, he was seeing a man about a girl.

Jiraiya was, easily, the most impressive living ninja that Kakashi knew. He was also one of the most ridiculous.

“Nothing better than an onsen for my ‘research,’” he grinned, touching a loving hand to the bamboo divider between the men’s section and the women’s. “Obviously, the nudity is appealing; but it’s appealing because of all the barriers you have to get past before you can experience it.”

“I don’t think the barriers are designed to be gotten past, Jiraiya-sama,” Kakashi mumbled, sinking deeper in the hot water until his words were almost turned to bubbles. He loved Jiraiya’s books, where romance was easy and everyone who got peeped on secretly loved it. But real life was not so simple, and he’d prefer not to slip from ‘arguable perv’ to ‘outright creep’ just yet.

“Nonsense,” Jiraiya sipped his warm saké. “Consider the context: men and women get naked and jump in a hot bath. Then we’re plied with alcohol that goes straight to our heads because of the heat. The only divider between the men and the women, the naked, drunk men and women, is a flimsy row of bamboo that any self-respecting ninja could break with a sneeze. In conclusion? It’s only there so that the ladies can pretend they aren’t thinking about us, naked and warm and drunk, just as much as we’re thinking about them. It’s classic disavowal. It makes their desires acceptable, because they can pretend they’re out of their control.”

Kakashi pondered this logic, but it was difficult; the saké Jiraiya had insisted on giving him was dulling his overworked senses. He’d had the first few sips to be polite, but the ability to actually relax was seductive. He could stop for a while. He could close his eyes and trust that things would be unchanged when he opened them again. As a result, he was a lot drunker than he usually got even when he wasn’t desperately seeking intel on a missing comrade. He forced the muzziness aside in the name of business.

“She’s got pink hair, but they might have dyed it. Pink’s too noticeable.” He frowned to himself. “Silly to take someone with pink hair.” Not if you planned to keep them, anyway. But that was a Bad thought, and Bad thoughts were best avoided when drunk.

“I saw the picture,” Jiraiya said, speaking comfortably. He had assured Kakashi that they could speak openly here, and Kakashi figured if anyone knew the limits of privacy in an onsen, it was him.

“And I already explained why my request is off the books?”

“Don’t worry kid; if every ninja got in trouble for having a working heart, half of us would be in jail. I know I would be.” He smiled, laugh lines deepening on his aged face. “Did I ever tell you about the orphan kids from Hidden Rain that I ended up staying with during the war? One of them was a girl, and I reckon even now, I’d drop everything to help her if she was in trouble.”

It was a big confession: Rain and Fire were as close to enemies as any nations ever admitted. A legendary shinobi training three foreign orphans was basically unheard of, though Kakashi privately thought it very noble of Jiraiya.

“Plus, I could tell even then that she’d be a gorgeous woman when she grew up,” Jiraiya smacked his lips, ruining the moment immediately. “I bet I could still teach her something new, even now.”

“Your student?” If he were sober, he’d never have called out a living legend like that, but as it was he couldn’t help himself.

Jiraiya seemed unfazed. “You’ve read my books, kid. Dynamics can change over time. Innocent relationships can become charged once everyone grows up. Childhood friends can become sweethearts. Enemies can become lovers. And sometimes students can become mature, beautiful women that you want to get to know all over again.”

“Maybe in fiction,” Kakashi mumbled, blushing furiously and hating how obvious it was without his mask on. He’d only ever have the one female student if he could help it, and he was pretty sure the only emotion she’d ever elicit in him was fear.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

One second she was talking to Karin after a friendly spar, comparing notes about chakra (Karin had a larger reserve, but had generously praised her possibly-superior control), and the next there was a lurching feeling in her stomach and she was face to face with-

“Who are-” her vision cut off, her brain shut down, and any images were carefully excised before they could be converted to memory.

And then she was back.

Instead of Karin, she was with Sensei of all people. His neutral, doctorly smile was gone, replaced with something close to a grimace. Combined with the weird non-light of Inside and his steel grey hair washing out his complexion, he looked almost sick.

“Sen-” she managed to say before doubling over in pain. She felt like someone had just kicked her in the stomach as hard as they could while wearing high heels. She wheezed pitifully, and Sensei’s vague grimace became a focused frown of concern.

“Sit down,” he ordered, helping her to the ground. She immediately curled into the foetal position, not even bothering to fight her tears of pain. Chakra flared at Sensei’s hands like it had the last time she met him, only…how long ago? Time was terribly strange without sleep. She’d left him and the others, and started doing some gentler training with Karin. Then she’d woken up here.

“What happened?” she wheezed, and Sensei’s chakra flowed, warm, into her abdomen. After a moment, the pain eased slightly, but Sensei’s expression was back to grimace.

“I’m sorry; it’s happened.”

Her heart sank. “Medical?”

He nodded.

“So I’m…I can’t…?”

“That’s right,” he confirmed, and even his soothing chakra couldn’t ease the pain inside her. “It’s done, I can tell.”

“And you did it?”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I never remember doing it, but I know my handiwork.”

She wanted to hate him, but he was the only one there, and she wanted him to keep comforting her more.

“They take us both Outside,” Sensei said, possibly feeling as awkward as she felt in that moment. “It’s two simple surgeries: tubal ligation and endometrial ablation. One stops pregnancy, and one stops your period. With a chakra scalpel I don’t need to cut your skin at all, so no risk of infection or scarring. You barely need surgical conditions at all, but I guess The Watcher wants to make sure I actually do it.”

“Can’t they tell?” She muttered, her anger finding a safe target at last. “Aren’t they called The Watcher because they can see everything that happens in here?”

Sensei didn’t answer, and after a minute she twisted to look up at him. He was making a chewing movement with his mouth, eyes narrowed in what might have been the first truly unguarded expression she had seen from him.

“Are you okay?” she asked, temporarily forgetting that she was meant to be the one who wasn’t okay.

After a few moments, his mouth opened with a gasp and his expression cleared. “Yes. I just couldn’t speak for a moment. That happens sometimes, when I try to say…certain things.”

She thought about what they were just talking about. “Wait, so The Watcher can’t see everything?”

Sensei opened his mouth but pointedly didn’t try to say anything.

She grinned. “Okay, that’s something. That’s a clue, right?”

He shrugged, smiling at her in a way that suggested she was finally starting to ask the right questions.

She sat up. “They can’t see everything, and when they take us out we can’t remember anything, so we don’t know what they look like or where they are. And they put a seal on you because you’re special. Because you’re the medical expert and they can’t afford to get rid of you? No, that doesn’t make sense. Because you know something important. About The Watcher.”

Sensei raised his eyebrows.

“You know who The Watcher is.”

“…”

“You know who The Watcher is.”

“Konoha!” Karin’s voice carried across the endless void plain despite the weird acoustics. “Hey!”

“You’re lucky to have someone like Karin looking out for you,” Sensei remarked. “She’s a remarkable kunoichi. In another life, she might have been a powerful ally, or perhaps a formidable opponent.”

She nodded, still thinking about the information Sensei had sort-of given her. “Yeah, she’s teaching me how to defend myself better. She says my chakra control is pretty good.” She couldn’t help but mention that. It felt like seconds ago in her memory that Karin had commented on it, rubbing her jaw from a hit that she had managed to improvise by pushing chakra to her feet and boosting off.

“Really?” Sensei smiled. “Maybe you’d make a good medic, too.”

“Maybe…” Medical jutsu was certainly useful in a place full of people who regularly fought one another, but she didn’t want to end up stuck forever like Sensei.

“Think about it,” Sensei said, as Karin reached their platform and gently pulled her to her feet. “I have a feeling it would suit you.”

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

“Karin,” she began, one day (everything was one unending day as far as anyone could tell). “How often do people get taken out?”

“It depends,” Karin had told her. As you know, time passes differently in here. Your Medical took ages for us, but probably you were only Outside for an hour or so.”

An hour of Outside. She wished she could remember even a second of it.

“But other than Medical, will I get taken out again?” Was there some way of knowing in advance that it was coming, so that she could be prepared? There was nothing else to do here but wait, so it wasn’t a completely foolhardy plan as long as she didn’t go mad from boredom in the meantime.

“The Watcher won’t take you Outside if you can’t fight, Konoha.” Karin tugged one of her thin pink braids. “That’s why we gotta go meet up with the others. They can teach you some stuff, keep you sharp.”

In truth, she was a bit afraid of seeing the others now that she was, as Jun had put it, ‘ready for fun.’ She wasn’t sure how long she’d been here, but she was probably still twelve. Even talking about sex was enough to make her violently cringe, but other than fighting techniques it was one of the few topics anyone else cared about. Even Karin had wandered off more than once and come back with a slightly different arrangement of clothes.

“And they definitely won’t just attack me like last time?” she asked, choosing to voice her second-biggest concern instead.

“We’ll all still fight, but it won’t be like last time,” Karin assured her. “Maybe once you’re stronger you’ll get ambushed more often, but it’s not like anyone goes around beating up defenceless kids for fun.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” she grumbled, but it was half-hearted because she had to admit she was a lot stronger now than when she’d first arrived, even just from sparring with Karin.

Karin flicked her fondly in the forehead. “Don’t be a brat. And don’t forget your gear.”

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Cons of being trapped in a horrible nothing dimension:

-Time is passing differently on the outside, so I’ll probably be an old woman when I next see Sasuke.

-People fight all the time

-The Watcher hasn’t taken me back out yet, so I can’t find out more about them

-I lost a kunai to Pinch, so I had to trade some of my hair to get it back. Now there’s a weird short patch.

Pros of being trapped in a horrible nothing dimension:

-None

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

At one point Naomi, the woman with the red necklace, was taken out. Karin said she felt it, even though they were several clicks away. She became difficult to live with for a while; moody and withdrawn one moment, agitated and anxious the next.

“Go away, Konoha,” she finally said, when the gentle attempts to get her to train, or visit the others, or do anything at all that wasn’t staring at the base of a rock, suddenly got too much.

Going away was a complicated act Inside, because she couldn’t navigate it like Karin and there was always a chance she’d never find anyone ever again. She decided to stack a cairn of loose rocks topside, so that she’d have half a chance of finding her way back. It meant the others would also have a better chance of finding Karin, but it wasn’t a cache site so there was no risk of losing all their stuff. Besides, a fight might do her friend some good.

When Naomi came back, what felt like weeks later but might only have been a few hours Outside, with a bleeding arm and no memory of how it had happened, she created a small fireball that brought everyone running to her location. Everyone had watched Karin push the others aside, even Sensei, and place the soft flesh of her own arm against Naomi’s mouth until she bit down hard. Only the youngest in their group seemed surprised; not by Karin’s strange way of sharing chakra, which she herself had benefited from more than once, but the pained, almost desperate expression on Karin’s face as she did it, and the way that Naomi gently kissed the bite mark she left behind.

Karin was like the older sister she’d never had, and Naomi had never warmed to her at all (she was starting to get an inkling why). Plus, they were both girls. But watching them still felt similar to her conversations with Sensei: like an important question was answering itself, offering up all the clues she needed if only she could look it in the eye.

She shivered, and when Karin and Naomi went off to some secret place together, she picked the opposite direction to run in. Karin would probably find her eventually, but until then she wanted to be alone with her new and terrifying feelings.

Chapter Text

Sakura had a plan for dealing with The Watcher when her time came to be taken out. She had many plans actually, schemes she had developed through all her sleepless hours waiting in the not-quite-dark. The first thing she thought up was a method of tracking her age. Without a regular period, the only thing about her that would change quickly enough was the length of her hair. She took one of her kunai and, twisting as far around as she could, cut a line across her back where her hair currently reached. She silently thanked Sasuke’s rumoured taste for long-haired girls; she wouldn’t have been brave enough to try this with her old neck-length hairstyle.

She also learned as much ninjutsu, taijutsu, genjutsu and kenjutsu from the others as she possibly could. At the academy the fundamentals had come easier to her than most, and she had thought this made her a prodigy. Now, after meeting men and women who had done nothing but train for years on end, she realised she would have become a terribly mediocre ninja if she’d let herself believe in her innate skills for too long. Talents were lovely, but training was God.

She practised kicks and punches at the base of stone pillars, barely tiring, only stopping when she got bored or even, one memorable time, wore the stone down so badly that it snapped at the base and collapsed. She chased down Jun when she wanted actual hand-to-hand combat, and if Naomi was also around the woman usually tried to catch them both off-guard with a volley of projectiles (that they all carefully collected back up at the end).

The trio from Cloud were a different kind of challenge. Manami and Chu-chan were a surprisingly formidable team of puppet and puppeteer, and Pinch was an elemental polymath. Siren was a genjutsu user, and it took hundreds of attempts before Sakura could do anything against her other than listen, slack-jawed, as she sang of misty mountains and air so fresh you could taste it. When her voice conjured illusions of spring rain on pale green leaves, Sakura wept and begged to learn her secrets.

It was strange, how willing everyone was to share their techniques with one another. You weren’t supposed to teach the enemy how to get the edge on you, after all. But it was hard to think of the only other people in your world as enemies, and it was understood that whatever The Watcher took them out to do, they’d all have a better chance of surviving it if they worked together to get stronger.

The only one unable to teach their coup de grâce jutsu was Teeth, who could create real water. Unlike elemental jutsu such as Water Dragon release, which was basically just water-shaped chakra designed to hurt anything that touched it, the water Teeth created was gentle, and stayed still long enough that Sakura could stick her whole arm inside it. In a world with only stones, the feeling of cold water on her skin was like a drug. Unfortunately, Teeth had explained in that quiet way of his, the ability to turn nothing into water and water into ice came from his blood alone.

“I used to be able to make mirrors out of the ice, and travel between them,” he’d admitted, during one of their longest ever one-on-one conversations. “It doesn’t work in here, probably because space and time are already being manipulated by The Watcher.”

“Why did you cut your teeth like that?” Sakura had blurted out before she could stop herself from ruining their quiet rapport. It bugged her, that someone would take a handsome face and ruin it with shark teeth.

“To honour the man who gave me purpose,” he had answered, his jagged smile turning wistful.

All of this was just a way to pass the endless time compared to her plan to defeat The Watcher. It was clear that they could do something that stopped people running or fighting back, but if there was even a second that Sakura could capitalise on, she would twist it to her advantage.

As such, she practised honing her reactions until they became pure reflex. Every time she came across one of The Others, she jammed her fingernails into her palm: left hand if they were a woman, right hand if they were a man. Pain had long ago stopped being a concern for her, and her nails grew just as regularly as her hair, so it was easy to draw blood and leave a nice, noticeable mark every time.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Tobi rolled his eyes beneath his mask, confident that the man he was currently dealing with would have no way of knowing just how much he hated him.

“The target is a soft touch.” Hikari Ando had stubbornly refused to call his brother anything but ‘the target,’ probably to avoid coming to terms with the fact that he was currently contracting his assassination. “He’s adopted two children already, both bastard orphans. There’s rumours he diddles them, but I’ve confirmed he’s just a bleeding heart with no concern for the Hikari bloodline.”

Tobi was currently in a backwater province in the south of Lightning, a place that the noble in front of him seemed to think actually mattered. “Sure, sure. Can’t have a bastard taking over once ‘the target’ is gone.”

“Thankfully they’re both still underage,” Ando sniffed, “but Mei turns eighteen in the spring. It’s best for the region that I step in as the true ruler, and take her as a wife to stop any factionalism thereafter.”

Tobi didn’t care. This was just an easy contract to test his new toy, but he played his part all the same. “I have the perfect assassin,” he said, and reached into kamui with his mind.

A black whorl appeared in the centre of the near-empty room in the house Tobi had appropriated when he first arrived in Lighting. The original inhabitants had filled it with various trinkets and trifles, most of which were now piled out back with their bodies. After a moment the whorl warped and spat out a girl with pink hair.

It had been a few days since he’d taken out for her medical, and she was already starting to age. Her arms were more defined, and there were new scars on the visible parts of her small body. She blinked, disoriented, before her eyes focused on him.

“You-” she began, but then his eyes focused on her, and all independent thought was pushed out of her head and replaced with his will alone.

“Here she is,” he turned back to Ando while the girl stood quietly. “Find a way to throw her in his path, and she’ll do her job so well that your brother will become a cautionary tale about adopting random orphans for generations to come.”

Ando circled the girl sceptically. “She’s a bit young.”

“You said he liked them young.”

“But can she really…go through with it?” the man waved his hands vaguely, and Tobi wondered how anyone could be prepared to pay a stranger to murder their brother, but couldn’t bring themselves to say the words out loud.

He removed a kunai from his pocket and Ando paled. But Tobi walked past him and reached out to the girl. He drew the tip of the blade down one side of her cheek, leaving a line of red that quickly welled over and dripped out on the floor. The girl didn’t even flinch.

“She does what she’s told. Take this, er…” he held out the kunai, and the girl took it. “Name?”

“Haruno Sakura,” the girl said in a toneless voice.

“Sakura. Put a matching cut on your other cheek.”

She raised the blade and did as instructed, while Ando watched in horror. “Stop!” he cried, but of course Sakura ignored him. When both of her cheeks were dripping blood, Tobi took the blade back.

“Problem, Mr Hikari?” he asked, the picture of innocence.

“She’s a freak,” he sputtered, and then seemed to rethink his explanation. “I mean, she’ll never convince him she’s a normal little girl if she’s acting like a…like that.”

“Oh, is that your concern? Sakura,” he smiled at her beneath the mask. “Pretend you’re an adorable little girl who’s been found robbed and beaten on the side of the road by a nice man, and you want to go home with him.”

Sakura’s blank expression became suddenly filled with energy, her eyes widening and filling with tears. “Please sir,” she begged of no one in particular. “They took everything. I can barely walk.” And she fell to the floor.

Tobi laughed, delighted. Obviously all of his little experiments did as they were told, but Kakashi’s kunoichi was really selling it. She was a natural. Without even really thinking about it, he leaned down and cupped her face in his hands. He rubbed a thumb along the length of each cut on her cheeks, smearing them into thick stripes. Now she looked just like the last kunoichi that had been on Kakashi’s team. She whimpered, eyes pleading, still playing the role he had assigned her. It gave him a thrill to think that just as Kakashi had stolen Rin from him, he had been able to steal this little pink-haired replacement.

What fun they would have together.

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Her stomach lurched, and once again Sakura found herself somewhere she hadn’t been a moment ago, this time wearing clothes she didn’t recognise. It had finally happened.

She checked her hands for fingernail scratches: if she could confirm The Watcher’s gender, then next time she could move on to another feature like hair colour, and with enough time a full picture of their captor would form. The others had been sceptical of this plan, but if she could prove it worked, they could help too.

Her hands were covered in blood.

Some patches were still sticky, overwhelming any Outside smell with the meaty reek of it. She scrubbed at it, desperate and ashamed without knowing why. Beneath the blood was only bare, unbroken skin on both palms. Her plan had failed.

“No,” she murmured, “no.” There wasn’t anything else to say, but it was just too awful to admit that she was no closer to knowing anything. She forced herself to calm down and take proper stock of things. There were other ways to learn, after all.

Smell was a bust, of course, but she did her best to sniff the new clothes and the soles of her boots just in case they told a story about where she had stepped. Nothing.

She moved on to touch, and as if it had been politely waiting for enough adrenaline to clear her body, sensation rushed in from all over. Superficial scrapes and bruises on her knees and elbows that barely registered after however long she had spent fighting The Others, but also two stinging strips on her cheeks that she was afraid to touch with dirty hands. It had been so long since she was properly dirty; showering was neither possible nor necessary Inside, where sweat and grime seemed to go away on its own if it happened at all. Could she even get an infection here?

She decided to put her face off a moment longer, instead patting the rest of herself down. She assumed her old clothes were lost, which was shitty because she had been wearing the red dress from home. But she hadn’t been carrying anything truly important like her weapons or her forehead protector, and the new clothes were actually new. The leaf green overshirt hadn’t been mended a dozen times using human hair, and the frilly cream skirt actually fit her. The outfit was a little childish, and there was a smear of blood on the front that worried her, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Inside one of the pockets of her new skirt were a handful of sweets, the hard, fruit-flavoured kind that came wrapped in crinkly plastic. Each one was like a jewel in her hand, and she stuffed one in her mouth immediately. When was the last time she had eaten? She understood now why food drops were such an event for the others. They’d gotten some old chicken bones a while ago, when her hair was about a centimetre shorter. The fight for them had been brutal and quiet, and Sakura had slunk off to lick her wounds without getting a taste. Any shards that hadn’t been gnawed to dust had been turned into sewing needles, and even the smell of chicken on them was long gone.

The sweetness of the candy was so strong it almost burned on her tongue. She had a wild urge to spit it out, but that was unthinkable. She’d suck it slowly, savouring every second, and then she’d hide the rest somewhere safe until she could figure out how best to trade them. Her hair was getting patchier and patchier over time, between mending clothes and bartering for gear. Even four candies could give it a decent break.

Karin didn’t seem to be coming for her this time, so Sakura decided to get moving. It was easier to navigate Inside now that she knew what she was looking for. The stones weren’t completely identical, and The Others had left markers telling you how far out from the central zone you were getting. She was currently three hundred stones out.

Instead of going to the central zone, where most of The Others stayed, she overshot wide toward Sensei.

He was sitting on the surface, legs kicking idly against the pale stone. Sakura raised her hand in greeting as she approached, and he returned the gesture.

“Sakura,” he smiled. Everyone else called her Konoha, but Sensei seemed more immune to the idiosyncrasies of Inside than most, as if he knew he had to remain normal by Outside standards for the day he inevitably returned to his old life. “You’re bleeding.”

“On my face?”

He nodded, hands already cupping her cheeks and filling them with a warm, itchy feeling. “These aren’t fresh; I’m afraid you’ll have some faint scars.”

The idea of two facial scars would have broken the Sakura of old. The Sakura of now had more practical concerns.

“Can you teach me medical jutsu?”

She’d put it off because she didn’t want to become the new Sensei, forced to sterilise women and patch sparring injuries for the rest of her long captivity. But knowledge was power, and Sensei had remarked more than once that she had the chakra control necessary to be good at it.

“New clothes,” he remarked, instead of answering. “Did you get taken out?”

She nodded. “My plan didn’t work though. No marks, see?” She’d wiped as much blood as she could from her hands, and the rest would disappear over time as part of the weird cleaning magic of Inside.

Kabuto examined her bare hands politely. “What do you think that means?”

This is why she had come to him first. The Others would have dismissed it as a failed experiment, and resented her for reinforcing their helplessness against The Watcher. Sensei treated it as another lesson.

“I assumed it meant I didn’t have the chance to do anything when I saw them,” she began, and found it was easier for her brain to return to the problem now that it could be recontextualised as a puzzle. “But maybe I did have enough time to cut my hands, but not enough time to figure out what gender they are.”

“Interesting,” Sensei said, focused on his work. His glasses reflected the blue of his chakra so brightly that she couldn’t see his eyes properly, even inches away from them.

“That could mean…that could mean they’re androgynous, I guess. Or else, maybe their face was covered? That can be my next test: left hand for androgynous, right hand for face covering. And no mark at all if I don’t actually see a person.” Better to believe another pair of blank hands would be part of the test, and not a sign of its failure.

“Sound logic,” Sensei said, and Sakura thrilled at the praise.

“So will you teach me medical jutsu?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Sakura frowned. She’d gotten used to everyone sharing their abilities with her. “What do you want?”

“What do you have?” he asked, expression still calmly focused on healing her. She bit her lip. Did he know about the candy in her pocket somehow?

“I’ve got…I could…” She tried to assemble her assets in her mind’s eye. “Hair. I could give you a whole braid, cut it right at the scalp? Or else…” She hadn’t been around long enough to scrounge extra clothes, and she wasn’t quite desperate enough to strip the shirt off her back and run around in nothing but her (increasingly outgrown) training bra. But thinking about that made her think of another thing people bartered with Inside, something that had endless supply and demand. “What do you want?” she asked again, because if he wanted that, he’d have to be the one to say it.

“I’m not sure,” he smiled pleasantly, his chakra fading until it was just his bare hands pressed to her cheeks. She blushed at the intimacy of the gesture now that it wasn’t being done for healing, but at least he didn’t seem to be thinking about that as he removed his hands and tucked them calmly in his pockets. “We could just say you owe me a favour?”

A favour could still be that, but the vague idea of doing something, someday was a better deal than giving up a candy, so she agreed.

And just like that, the deal was struck. She spent a lot of time with Sensei, learning the theory of anatomy and medicine as best she could without books and proper resources, and slowly mastering the art of medical jutsu. Sensei had tried to teach The Others, but the level of control required to get really good was too finicky for them to bother with it for long. For Sakura, it was one of the easiest things she had learned since falling into the dark, and just after another six inches of hair growth had been marked in scars on her back, she had become a fully-fledged medical ninja.

Chapter Text

It had been a week since the disappearance of Haruno Sakura, and the only thing that had changed in Konoha was that the entire village now knew about it. Older ninjas watched out for younger ones, who looked out for each other. Naruto and Sasuke were no longer the only kids sharing meals and getting walked home. Kurenai and Asuma seemed afraid to take their rookies out of the village at all, and Gai (whose team, like Kakashi’s, was mostly orphans) hosted dinner at his apartment practically every night. Civilians, who had no particular reason to worry about their children getting snatched, were every bit as scared as the parents of ninjas, and had fewer reservations about showing it.

Kakashi felt like everyone he passed was either talking about him or about Sakura. She was the helpless child who had been stolen away, and he was the neglectful adult who had let it happen. Sometimes they were cast in harsher roles: Sakura as a body, lying broken in an unmarked grave after untold miseries, and Kakashi as the monster who had put her there, still walking boldly among the Good People until he could kill again. It was everything the Harunos had almost accused him of and worse, and he was keener than ever to get out of the village.

Worse still, his contacts had unearthed a rumour about a pink-haired girl in Lightning, who turned up suddenly, killed the lord of the region and his retainers, then disappeared as quickly as she had come. But the reports suggested this girl looked older than twelve, which made sense considering he couldn’t picture the rookie genin who got scared of seeing her crush injured in the bell test massacring civilians.

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Sakura couldn’t deny that she was getting older now.

Her tiny training bra, basically just a band of soft fabric with no padding or clasp, had to be cut open and extended with a lacing of her own hair. The hair itself had grown so long that her periodic marks had travelled halfway down her thigh, even though more than half of it was cut back to her shoulders from various trades. She knew it looked crazy, but she still couldn’t bring herself to cut it all back and start fresh.

The worst part was that The Others had noticed her ageing.

“Reckon you’re about sixteen, maybe even seventeen now,” Jun had said once, blushing furiously. It was still odd to see a full-grown man act so much like a teenager himself, but she supposed he had little in the way of role models growing up Inside.

When she didn’t say anything he dropped the subject, but she could feel his eyes on her whenever she spent time in the central zone.

The others were the same. Karin even said she looked gorgeous once, her scarlet eyes tracing a slow line up her body. Sakura hadn’t realised until later that she was flirting, and had cringed at how naively she’d accepted the compliment. Again, Karin had dropped the matter when it was clear Sakura wasn’t interested. It was a relief that nobody was pushing her, but it also left her feeling weirdly frustrated.

She had been taken out another four times, three of which seemed to be quite short stints. Possibly The Watcher was pulling her out for healing jobs, or possibly they just looked at her for a minute before putting her back. She was grateful not to have new injuries; but she was beginning to suspect she had become the favourite toy in the box, which probably wasn’t a safe thing to be.

That being said, the withdrawals were useful for information gathering. Her system, though simplistic, was now showing signs of working. The second time she came back, her right palm had been punctured with a row of bloody half-moons: The Watcher wore a face covering. After that she’d tried mask or cloth hood/veil (mask), short or tall (tall, and a decent indication that they were male), and forehead protector (no).

When she returned the fifth time (hair colour: dark), Karin found her right away.

“There’s something for you.”

“What do you mean?” She’d asked, but Karin had simply run off, and Sakura had no choice but to follow.

The Others were clustered around a rock about fifty stones from the central zone, and when Sakura got closer she saw that there had been another drop. But instead of food, a single katana stood up out of the rock like someone had driven it in, and instead of fighting over it, the others seemed afraid to go near.

“It’s yours,” Chu-chan said, wooden mouth clacking ominously.

Sakura took a closer look: wrapped around the handle was a braided loop of her own hair.

The Watcher had never given a personal gift before. Sakura hesitated to take it, and was repulsed by the idea that her hair had been cut without her awareness. But The Others urged her, the fear in their eyes almost superstitious. Take it away from here, they seemed to be saying. Don’t make The Watcher angry.

She could wield a sword as well as any of them by now, even though before the arrival of this katana there had only been two others, which they kept stored in the central zone and all took turns training with. Sakura would have been only too happy to add this one to the stockpile, but it was clear that nobody else would touch it. Not even Pinch tried to take it, even though it was in far better condition than the other two.

Karin had kindly donated a whole length of her hair to help tie the scabbard to Sakura’s waist, and Sakura carried it diligently thereafter. But she couldn’t shake the fear that it had been given to her because she had killed someone with it, or that she might receive more gifts in future.

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Sakura’s hair was to her knees when she finally had sex.

It was with Jun of all people. She was bored, pent up, and tired of her slow death in captivity. Karin and The Others had been right: there weren’t that many things to do or think about Inside.

Jun had been more than willing to take her up on her offer. She always thought her first time would be with Sasuke, but his enthusiasm reminded her more of Naruto. He seemed determined to make sure she enjoyed herself, probably so that he’d have a chance to do it again. But it was nice to feel taken care of for a while, and hurt far less than her sex ed classes had led her to believe. She turned to her medical knowledge for reassurance that hymens broke all the time without intercourse, especially for kunoichi. She hadn’t noticed whenever it happened because fighting and pain were such a common part of her routine, it probably hadn’t even registered at the time. She didn’t let herself think about her missing days Outside.

Her second time was with Siren, who sang her a song about a pink-haired beauty and told her stories about her days as a genin in the Hidden Cloud. Sakura didn’t think she was attracted to women – she’d never have what Karin and Naomi had with any of the Others, male or female – but sex was sex when your options were limited, and the women were all old friends by now. It made things easier to enjoy.

Karin had once again flirted with her, and this time Sakura understood what was being offered and took her up on it. Naomi had found out, and insisted on joining them both next time. She and Karin’s sex lives had never been exclusive the way that their romantic lives seemed to be, but Karin’s soft spot for Sakura had been a sore spot to Naomi ever since her arrival, and in any case Sakura didn’t mind sharing time. It was a resource they had in abundance, after all.

The only person she never had sex with was Sensei. She’d offered once, partly bored and partly curious, but he laughed.

“Maybe when I was younger, I might have taken you up on that,” he said. “But I’m an old man now.”

“You’re not an old man,” she’d protested, but it was true that Sensei was now objectively past what most shinobi would consider their prime. His hair was more white than grey, and he rarely came to the central zone. Sakura had checked on him more than once to make sure he hadn’t died.

“You know what I’d really love? A good book.”

Sakura had groaned in agreement. There were no books at all Inside, only a few ninja manual scrolls that everybody had read so often than they were practically burned in their minds. A real book would be like a whole bag of candy, one that could be eaten over and over. “Maybe we can ask The Watcher to send some in,” she’d said. It was a morbid joke, but Sensei indulged her.

“Tell them I’d love a medical textbook, then. Short of cutting someone open, I’m not sure I can keep my skills fresh without a primer. Failing that, a nice historical drama please.”

“Romance novels,” Sakura added, not caring whether it was embarrassing to admit. “I used to read them under the table at the academy.” She giggled at an old memory of getting caught by Iruka. It had been mortifying at the time, but now she’d give anything to have a novel to read, a desk to sit at, a teacher to throw a piece of chalk at her when he realised she wasn’t paying attention, and a classroom full of people her age to laugh at her for getting in trouble.

“Medical textbooks, historical dramas, and romance novels,” Sensei summarised. “If only The Watcher were so obliging.”

The next time Sakura got taken out (distinctive clothing: yes) she returned with an armful of books.

Chapter Text

Tobi knew he was spoiling the girl. He took everyone out eventually, either because they were a good fit for a mission or just to see how far they had aged and whether the time dilation needed adjusting. It had been a while since he’d taken someone out permanently, before they got too old to be useful. For that matter, it had been a while since he’d gone looking for a new genin for the collection. He was just having too much fun with Kakashi’s kunoichi.

At first he’d been all business, but he’d made a mistake comparing her to Rin. The scars on her cheeks never healed, and every time he looked at her he felt flustered like he hadn’t since he was a kid. She wasn’t Rin, of course: her hair and eyes were the wrong colour, and every time he took her out she was a little bit older than Rin had ever been allowed to get. But she was from home.

He asked her what she thought of Kakashi.

“He was late every time he met us.” Her blank expression pinched into a tiny frown. “And he read dirty books.”

Tobi grinned. It seemed Mr Perfect had picked up more than a few bad habits.

“I miss him,” Sakura said quietly. “I didn’t know him for long, but I was looking forward to being his student.”

That wasn’t as fun. “Tell me about Konoha.”

She talked about their shared home, and her nostalgia became his nostalgia. “I miss it too,” he admitted, because she wouldn’t remember anyway. “I miss my family, and my teacher, and Rin. I even miss that stupid Kakashi.”

She didn’t respond, merely stood there in what he privately thought of as ‘doll mode’. Tobi reached out to stroke her face, but once again her scars made him hesitate. She was his, completely under his control, but he still couldn’t bring himself to touch her.

“Rin,” he said, but of course she didn’t respond. “Call yourself Rin,” he ordered.

“I’m Rin.”

“What’s your name?”

“My name is Rin.”

“Smile at me.”

She smiled, obedient, and his chest fluttered.

“Call me- call me Obito.”

“Obito,” she said softly. He couldn’t quite remember what Rin’s voice sounded like, but he liked the way Kakashi’s kunoichi said his name. When had someone last called him that? He closed his eyes.

“Say it again, Rin.”

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Before long she had become an obsession for him. He brought her out for missions that suited others better, but mostly he simply brought her out to talk to her.

“Tell me you love me,” he said once, and had been so embarrassed at himself that he sent her back before she could respond. He knew she’d say it; she’d even say it convincingly. But it would only remind him that it was a lie. If he dropped his genjutsu, she wouldn’t love him at all. And she certainly wouldn’t be Rin.

Still, he kept bringing her back. He asked her about her life inside the Kamui; was she happy? Did she want anything?

“My freedom,” she’d replied dully.

“Anything else?” He refused to let their growing rapport be ruined by her honesty. “Something useful, like the sword you picked up in The Land of Rivers.”

She paused. “Medical textbooks. Historical dramas. Romance novels.”

“Books, huh?” he hadn’t really thought about the enrichment of his projects when he’d started collecting them a few months ago. He glanced around the house he was currently occupying. The owners hadn’t been particularly wealthy, but he was sure he’d seen a few books laying around upstairs somewhere. “Come with me.”

He led her to the master bedroom, where the parents probably slept before he’d killed them. There were a couple of books on both nightstands, and he gathered them up for her.

“How does this make you feel? Be honest.”

He hoped she might say she was pleased, or grateful. But instead of speaking, she leaned forward until her face was pressed to the books. She took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of old paper, and sobbed.

“Hey…” it was always awkward when girls cried in front of you, but he quickly realised her tears were happy ones. He had made her so happy she’d cried.

“Give me a hug,” he told her gently, opening his arms wide.

The books fell to the floor as she dutifully folded herself against his chest. He hadn’t really touched her, or told her to touch him, since he’d taken her out for her first mission. She was so much bigger now. Her head tucked perfectly under his chin.

“Love me,” he breathed against her ear, and the hands around his back tightened, then slipped free as she leaned up to kiss his masked face.

Her eyes were closed, lips flushed and parted, but Tobi could see the tracks of the tears she was still crying, even now, roll down her scarred cheeks.

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The remains of Team Seven finally had an away mission, a C-rank escort trip to the Land of Waves. Apparently a bridge builder needed help getting home. Naruto and Sasuke were actually enthusiastic about it, which would have been enough for Kakashi to fight for the contract; but the Land of Waves was also closeish to the latest rumours about pink-haired girls. This time, a woman had apparently cut through half a dozen soldiers with one of their own swords. Few reliable witnesses had been left alive, and there seemed to be some debate as to whether the person’s hair was actually pink or just stained with blood, but a lead was a lead. Once they got Tazuna the bridge builder back to the Land of Waves, he could suggest they take the long way home to Konoha.

The mission went wrong almost immediately. It seemed their client hadn’t been entirely truthful about how many enemies he actually had, or how rich they were. Mercenaries dogged them all the way south, on the orders of someone named Gatou. Kakashi wanted to press them for information, but it was all he could do to keep them off Tazuna and the boys’ backs.

Tazuna’s enemy had their ace lying in wait mere minutes from the man’s house. This was no grunt, but a seasoned shinobi with the sort of sword that nobody would carry unless they knew how to use it. His forehead protector was marked with the Hidden Mist symbol – a bad sign – and then slashed through to show that this particular had gone rogue – an even worse sign.

“Protect Tazuna,” he ordered the boys, because this opponent was a true killer and there was no way he was letting anyone else go. One was enough. One was too many.

They fought, and Kakashi’s assumptions about the man’s skills were proven correct. He fingered the plate of his own forehead protector, the perfect unmarked Konoha leaf he’d be prepared to die wearing. He slid it up to reveal his left eye.

The missing-nin, who surprisingly politely introduced himself as Zabusa, clearly recognised the sharingan.

“I’ll consider it a great reflection of my skills if I manage to kill you.”

Kakashi prepared a series of seals, using the nearby lake to his advantage. The kids couldn’t walk on water yet, so they wouldn’t feel obliged to follow him into danger.

The jaws of his Water Dragon Release opened wide to swallow Zabusa whole. He expected the man to dodge, and Kakashi was ready for a follow-up action; but the man simply allowed the chakra to break over him, slashing through the worst with his monstrous sword. It would have hurt, taking elemental chakra head on like that, but Zabusa’s riposte was immediate and unflinching. He fought like a man with nothing to lose, and Kakashi couldn’t do the same.

Horse, ram, monkey, rat. He was going to die, wasn’t he? If he did, would the mercenary just kill the builder and leave the boys alone? No, Naruto and Sasuke would never let him get close to their client without a fight, even if it was certain death for them at this level. So Kakashi couldn’t afford to die. Too many people were counting on him. Sakura was still out there somewhere, waiting for him to find her. Everyone else had given her up for dead. Even her parents had approached him just the other day, before he and the boys left for this awful mission. It had been a month, they’d said. They had to accept the truth for their own sanity. The truth? He’d asked, and they’d shared an expression that broke his heart all over again. She’s gone. Our little girl is dead.

He’d failed her, then. He’d waited too long, played it too careful, and by the time he got back home, if he got back home, there would be a piece of carved stone where a girl should be.

The grief he’d pushed back for thirty days mobbed him in his moment of weakness. It stole his speed, and Zabusa’s sword bit deep into his side before he could parry. It stole his energy, and as Zabusa spun into his blind spot it took precious extra seconds for Kakashi to turn and raise his weapon. It stole his resolve, and when the killing blow came for him it was almost a relief that he wouldn’t watch the others die too. Was this similar to what Sakura saw, in her own last moments?

And then, finally, the grief gave something back.

His sharingan exploded in pain, enhanced vision going dark in sickening speed. Blackness whorled in his vision, and without Zabusa’s grunt of surprise he might have assumed it was his own personal hallucination, the last flicker of movement before complete blindness.

The spinning blackness coalesced into a wall of grey that Kakashi realised, after desperately focusing his one working eye, was the back of a long hooded coat.

The figure stumbled, sinking to their knees in the lake before their chakra could compensate. They turned, seemed to take in the scene: two masked men, one with dark hair and camouflage pants, one with light hair and a green vest. Two people on the far bank.

The newcomer was wearing goggles and had the bottom half of their face hidden under so many shabby scarves that he couldn’t even tell their gender, but he could still see the fear in their posture, and guess at the calculations they were making. Their hand was tense on the hilt of a sword at their hip. Fight, or flee?

“Sensei!” Naruto yelled, throwing a kunai at the newcomer. They drew the sword and knocked it wide in one fluid movement. The decision had been made for them.

Zabusa made a lunge at them as they passed, more of a test than a genuine attempt to harm them. The newcomer side-stepped it with ease, their own sword disappearing into the man’s side almost too quickly for Kakashi’s damaged vision. And then they were moving again, making a beeline for Naruto and Sasuke.

“Stop!” Kakashi cried out, partly begging the stranger for mercy, or at least to change their target, and partly hoping that the boys would stop trying to be so damn brave. Sasuke was already forming the seals for a fireball and Naruto had left a cluster of shadow clones with the builder so that he could meet the attacker head-on.

Greenish chakra glowed from their bare feet as they raced across the water, finally reaching the bank. Sasuke’s fireball sizzled the mud where they had been standing, but they simply increased the output and used the burst to catapult over the top. Kakashi was already running of course, ignoring Zabusa, ignoring his depleted chakra and the pain in his side and left eye.

The newcomer landed behind Naruto, sword raised, ready to make a perfect arc toward, through, and then past the boy’s neck. The boy made an inarticulate yelp, once again freezing, certainly unable to save himself. He turned, facing into the sword, blue eyes wide.

The sword hesitated, then lowered as its owner used their off-hand to grab the shoulder of their almost-victim’s orange jacket.

“Naruto?”

Chapter Text

“Naruto?”

The figure’s voice was muffled by the many scarves they wore. Kakashi approached cautiously, one hand raised and the other pressed to his bleeding side. He didn’t want to startle them back into a fight when they were so close to his genin.

“Yes…?” Naruto cocked his head to the side. “Do I know you?”

The hand still fisted in his orange jacket released its hold. “Is this an illusion?” They backed up.

“No illusion,” Kakashi said, trying to keep his voice even. “Nobody has cast a genjutsu on you. And if you aren’t working with that man,” he pointed a finger toward Zabusa, who also had a hand pressed to his side, “then we aren’t your enemies at all.”

The newcomer’s gaze never seemed to rise higher than his navel, tinted goggles revealing nothing.

“Who are you?” Sasuke interrupted, eyes narrowed. “And where did you get that?” He pointed at the sword, and now Kakashi could see the braid of long pink hair wrapped around its hilt.

“Sasuke…?” They said his name like they could hardly believe he was real. “Sasuke-kun!” The voice rose in pitch, and now it was clear they were female. She ripped the hood back from her face, revealing her own head of pale pink hair, falling out of sight beneath her jacket in dozens of rope-like braids.

A terrible, icy fear collided with a terrible, burning hope and then exploded in his chest. If this was Sakura, then she was alive. But she was also very, very wrong.

“Hey!” Tazuna the bridge builder had been all-but forgotten in the excitement, but now he was pointing back out toward the lake.

Kakashi turned, kunai raised, but Zabusa was already gone. In his place, a water clone was rapidly destabilising. Within seconds it had lost all form and splashed back into the lake.

“Who was that?” the woman asked.

“Who are you?” Naruto screeched, and Kakashi agreed that it was the more pertinent question. “And where did you come from?”

“Naruto,” she said, dragging her scarves lower to reveal a pale face with identical scars on each cheek. “It’s me, Sakura.”

“No…?” Naruto shook his head, taking a step back as Kakashi took a step forward. She was too tall, her hair was too long, she had new scars that were too faded. It wasn’t her. It couldn’t be her.

“It’s…look, are we safe here? Where’s The Watcher?” the newcomer (he refused to think of her as Sakura just yet) glanced around warily, face still angled toward the ground.

“Who?”

“The Watcher, the one who brought me here.” She pointed at her face. “He’s got a mask, and a bloodline limit in his eyes; or at the very least, he can perform genjutsu without seals.”

“Kakashi-sensei has a sharingan,” Sasuke pointed at his still-bare eye. It no longer felt like it was spinning and the pain was starting to subside ever so slightly, but it was weeping bloody tears that probably looked terrible.

The woman gasped, pressing her hands against the dark glass of her goggles. “You did this to me?” she whispered, and Kakashi could feel the situation slipping from his control. Naruto looked confused, Sasuke looked vicious, and the woman looked terrified. As for himself, he was close to passing out and wanted to make sure nobody would start fighting again if he did.

“I have a sharingan, yes.” He tried to make his voice as calm and authoritative as possible. “It was given to me, freely, by an Uchiha before he died. I did not use it to harm or abduct you.” Whoever you are.

The moment stretched out, the four ninjas eyeing each other off while Tazuna glanced around nervously for the return of the mercenary. Eventually, the woman removed her goggles and stared at him with a pair of jade green eyes that he could no longer deny were Haruno Sakura’s. They hadn’t changed like the rest of her had.

“I trust you, Kakashi-sensei.”

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“So how did you take me out?”

They had reached Tazuna’s house after a short, quiet trek. Sakura (it was still odd to think of this full-grown woman as the same girl whose photo he currently carried in his pocket) had stopped several times to smell grass and trees, or stick her hands in mud. When she spoke, it was either too loud or too soft, as if she had forgotten how sound worked; but most of the time she had walked silently, and whilst that was easier to bear it also made Kakashi sad. She told them she ran out of things to say ages ago, and when she didn’t elaborate, they didn’t push.

But now that they had reached civilisation, it was time for a proper debriefing.

“I don’t understand your question,” he told her. It was just them, sitting out on Tazuna’s back porch while the boys helped his family with dinner and tried not to eavesdrop. He was currently trying to treat the wound in his side, and she was watching the sun go down. More than once he’d had to remind her not to look at it directly. “Take you out where?”

“Take me Outside,” she said, watching the dark blues that had replaced the sunset oranges. The twilight air was filled with the sound of crickets, and he kept losing her attention to them. “Only The Watcher can do that.”

“And The Watcher is the man who abducted you?”

“Yep.” She popped the ‘p’ like an insolent teenager, though in reality she was looked as old as him. “Male, tall, masked, dark hair, distinctive clothes. That’s what I managed to figure out in the first few…years?” She frowned. “Time’s weird there.”

“We’ll get to that,” he said gently, because yes, time seemed to have affected her in strange ways. He hiked his shirt up to examine the damage. The cut was clean; Zabusa’s sword must have been razor sharp. “What else did you figure out?”

“I figured out if I cut different fingers instead of just my palms, I could get more than two answers each time I went Outside.” She raised her hands to show him a constellation of pale half-moons. “So I tried to figure out what seal starts the genjutsu he uses on us, and when that was inconclusive three times in a row, we figured out that it’s probably an ocular jutsu. Those don’t require seals.” She glanced at his left eye. It was once again hidden under his forehead protector, aching dully and eating his chakra almost as quickly as he was regenerating it.

“And what did it look like, where they kept you?” You could narrow locations down a lot from the shape of a plant, or even the colour of a rock.

She gasped, and Kakashi turned his head quickly to see what had hurt her; but she was pointing up at the sky. “Star!”

The sun had completely gone now, and the first stars were coming out. Sakura started counting them like a small child, marvelling at each one.

“You never saw the stars, wherever they kept you?”

“No sky,” she said dismissively. “Did you want help with that?”

Before he could respond her hands were on his side, prodding his wound. Foreign chakra entered his system, and pure instinct made him shove her roughly away.

She didn’t cry out, or even look upset that he had struck her. She just raised her hands patiently. “Healing. Yes or no?”

“You know medical jutsu?” He asked, and she nodded.

“You want?”

“I…yes please.” He still didn’t trust this new Sakura, but if this was a trap then it was better to learn it now and not when he took her back to Konoha. And if she could heal him, it would make the next few days a lot easier. “Sorry,” he added, belatedly, but she seemed to take it in stride.

“It’s fine. Forgot some people don’t like to be touched.” She got back to work, her chakra washing over his wound and easing the pain almost immediately. They both watched as his flesh began to knit back together.

“You’re good at that.”

She smiled. “Learned it from Sensei.”

“You had a teacher in there with you?”

“No, Sensei as in doctor. He knew all kinds of medical jutsu. He’s the one who helped me figure out The Watcher probably had an eye technique. He didn’t know exactly who The Watcher was, but I guess he knew enough to be dangerous, so The Watcher put a gag seal on his tongue. But I figured out a way we could communicate.”

“How?” He wanted to keep her in a talking mood, learn as much as possible before he decided what to do with her.

She lifted her hand, still burning with chakra, and placed it over his heart. “Your name is Hatake Kakashi,” she said.

He frowned. “Yes...?”

“Mhm. You trust me.”

Did he trust her? His instinctual response was a resounding ‘no,’ but that didn’t mean he wanted to hurt her feelings either.

“False,” she declared, putting her hands back on his wound. “Sensei couldn’t say anything outright, but I could make guesses and see how his body reacted. We were just starting to get really good at it.” Her smile faded. “I don’t suppose I’ll ever see him again.”

“You never know,” Kakashi hedged. He still didn’t really understand what Sensei and ‘the others’ were to Sakura.

“All done.” She ran a finger along the pinkish line of new skin where the cut had been. “Do you want me to…?” she gestured at his covered eye. “It’s still hurting, right?”

He hesitated. “It just needs time to heal on its own.” Letting this woman heal a flesh wound was one thing, but the sharingan was virtually unique. Even if it seemed to be acting up worse than usual, he couldn’t risk her making it worse.

She continued to stare anxiously at his forehead protector, but Tsunami, Tazuna’s daughter, called them in for dinner and she let the subject drop.

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Dinner was a strange, tense affair. Tazuna’s grandson Inari clearly disliked the ninjas, and Naruto was making it worse by arguing with him. When he got into his stride about becoming the Hokage, Inari slammed his fists on the table so hard that his ceramic cup toppled over and shattered.

Meanwhile, Sakura bolted her food down like a wild animal, one arm curled protectively around her plate. Kakashi was surprised she even used chopsticks.

Tazuna and his daughter were too polite (and grateful) to comment on the strange rabble of ninjas who had taken over their dining table, but Inari stared openly as Sakura finished her meal and began licking the plate.

“You’re weird,” he said.

Naruto opened his mouth, and Kakashi knew he was about to start yelling and set everything off again, but Sakura didn’t miss a beat.

“You’re young.”

Inari scowled. “So? I’m not that young.”

“You’re the youngest person I’ve seen since I was their age.” She pointed at the boys.

That strange statement was met with a silence that lasted the rest of the meal. Afterward, Kakashi checked the bin where Tsunami had thrown the broken cup and found that it was empty.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

The ninjas were given the tatami room connected to the back porch. Tsunami offered to leave one of the sliding doors closed to divide the room and give Sakura some privacy, but she just cocked her head to one side like she didn’t understand the question.

“Kakashi-san?” She offered next, as he was the other adult present, but he also politely declined. He wanted desperately to have a nice long sleep without Naruto muttering or kicking him in the ribs as he slept, but he needed to keep an eye on things.

He fought his own exhaustion to watch the others as they drifted off. They had laid traps around the house to make sure nobody tried to ambush them in the night, so there was no need to set a watch.

Sakura laid down and closed her eyes obediently. She was still wearing her overcoat and sword (she had declined the offer to bathe before bed) but she didn’t seem to have any trouble drifting off to sleep. The boys were in a slightly more excitable mood, the events of the day warranting far more discussion that they had received, but Kakashi ordered them to get rest while they could, because he would be giving them plenty of training tomorrow while he recovered his chakra.

Before long, sleep claimed Kakashi too, offering some reprieve from his aching eye and turbulent thoughts.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Sakura couldn’t sleep.

She hadn’t slept in years, obviously, but she’d hoped it would all come back now that she was free. Instead, she remained as empty-feeling as she always had Inside. It wasn’t difficult to fake genuine enthusiasm for dinner, even though she hadn’t felt hunger, and at some point when her sense of self-preservation allowed her to strip naked, she was sure she’d enjoy taking a bath. She had made herself walk into the room where the toilet was kept a few times in the evening, even though all she did was turn on the tap, rub her hands on the towels, and stare at herself in the basin mirror.

It wasn’t that she intended to lie about it forever, but she could already tell she was making people uncomfortable and she wanted Kakashi to let her stay. He had been able, somehow, to take her out, and if she was still connected to The Watcher then she might be sent back Inside at any moment.

So she closed her eyes and tried to ignore how unsafe the darkness made her feel. Inside, the endless void of the ceiling was certainly dark, but you could never avoid the weird brightness of the floor stones. Here, bundled up in soft blanket with all the outer screens pulled shut against the light and bugs and other Outside things, she felt like she was lying in the warm, soft mouth of a gigantic beast.

She slipped outside as silently as she could, pulling the sliding door back before the starlight could wake the others. Oh, stars. She’d taken them for granted when she was a kid, but now they made her want to scream and cry all at once. They were all out now; it was still the same spring from her childhood, and the sky was split open with all the same constellations she’d never thought to memorise.

She lay on the hard wood of the porch, more familiar to her than the soft futon Tsunami had provided, and watched the stars wheel above. How many hours had it been since she was taken out? How many weeks or months did that translate to for The Others?

After an unrecorded amount of time, the door slid open and she turned to see who had found her. Kakashi stared at her, and she stared at him. Neither of them spoke, and after a few minutes he closed the screen and disappeared.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

“You’re up early.” Tsunami smiled at Sakura as she entered the kitchen. “Breakfast should be ready soon. Dad gets an early start.” She was moving about making something that already smelled amazing, looking so domestic that Sakura ached.

“Can I help?” The answer was probably ‘no’, because unlike Sakura’s mother Tsunami was clearly a competent cook, and Sakura had probably forgotten what things were actually meant to taste like by now.

Tsunami shook her head. “You’re a guest, and you saved Dad. Please just sit down and relax.”

Sakura had been sitting around for roughly a decade, but chairs were still something of a novelty so she took the same seat she’d used last night and watched as Tsunami added dashes of this and that to something on the stove.

“There is one thing I thought you could do, if you wanted,” she said, and Sakura straightened. “Dad and Kakashi-san mentioned briefly that you had been…away from home for a while.” Her eyes wandered over the long coat she’d patched with scraps of this and that until it was more scrap than coat, the dark goggles she’d bartered off Pinch for ten whole braids once she’d deduced that the genjutsu was an eye technique, and finally the sword hanging off her hip by a braid of red human hair. “I just wondered if you’d like to take a look at my wardrobe later, maybe pick out a change of clothes? Shoes, too,” she added quickly, glancing at Sakura’s bare feet. She’d outgrown her original pair a few years ago, and never got the chance to upgrade.

Sakura nodded eagerly. “Gift or trade?”

“Gift,” Tsunami assured her, placing a bowl of miso soup and a plate of rolled omelette in front of Sakura like it was the most normal thing in the world to hand people food. “Take your time,” she smiled gently, and Sakura forced herself to savour each bite.

While she was eating, Tsunami packed a small bento and put it aside. When the boys woke up and filed into the kitchen, she started preparing something for them too. Then Tazuna appeared, and Tsunami wrapped the bento box in a lavender furoshiki and placed it in his work bag.

“If you’re all still here then I assume that means you’ve agreed to stay and help even though our contract is technically done?” he spoke to Kakashi, who nodded.

“We have to stick around for a few days while I recover, so we’re happy to escort you to and from the job site in exchange for your hospitality. Naruto and Sasuke?”

The boys jumped to their feet and put their dishes in the sink. “Let’s go before that Inari jerk wakes up,” Naruto said.

“I’ll go too.” Sakura rose and put her empty dishes in the sink, but Kakashi held up a hand to stop her before she joined the boys at the door.

“Actually Sakura, can you stay here with me this morning? I want to make sure I have a medic handy if my injury starts acting up.”

“My work was perfect; you should feel fine.” Sakura wanted to go with the boys. She hadn’t seen them in years, and unlike Kakashi they didn’t look at her like she might explode.

“If you stay, we can spend some more time together,” Tsunami offered, and Sakura relented. She liked Tsunami, and she wanted to ask her something that would be easier if they were alone.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

“How about this one?” Tsunami held up a pink shirt with thick red trim. “It’d go well with your hair.”

Sakura nodded automatically. Everything Tsunami owned looked a thousand times nicer than anything she’d seen in years, but the woman seemed determined to find her something she truly liked. She decided to just pretend. “You’re right. Can I try it?” She started the slightly daunting process of removing her clothes, making sure none of her possessions left easy reaching distance. If The Watcher took her now, she’d lose it all.

Tsunami watched her layers peel back, and Sakura tried not to feel self-conscious. She’d stripped in front of The Others as a precursor to sex, of course; but that was always a shared experience, and not a particularly sensual one. Now, in front of someone as nice and normal as Tsunami, Sakura felt like her appearance was somehow offensive.

She got down to her underwear, and Tsunami gasped softly.

“It’s really old,” she explained, fingering the human hair lacing that she’d added sometime around puberty. “I know it’s too small for me.” She knew proper bras were probably expensive even Outside, but Sakura would happily trade her entire head of hair for one if Tsunami could spare it.

“How did you get those?” Tsunami wasn’t pointing at her ratty bra but at the ladder of raised scars running down her back and legs in somewhat even increments. It was clear that they were separate from the other scars dotting her body from various fights (some that she couldn’t even remember). Like the ones on her face, these were intentional, not incidental.

“I was measuring the length of my hair as a way of keeping time,” she explained, but the explanation clearly upset Tsunami. The woman’s hand hovered, aghast, against Sakura’s back. Those were the earliest scars.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

The girls had gone quiet in the bedroom, and Kakashi’s imagination raced through images of slaughtered civilians and orphaned little boys receiving terrible news. Sakura was his responsibility, but he couldn’t confidently vouch for her sanity. And she hadn’t put her sword down once.

“I just wanted to check-” he opened the door, preparing himself for a pool of blood and a broken window, but instead finding something differently terrible.

Sakura’s body was thin; not necessarily unwell, but devoid of even an ounce of extra fat. Scars, more scars than even he had collected, covered every inch of bare skin that he could see. And due to some clearly unfortunate timing on his part, he could see quite a bit. She wore only a bra and pants, white with tiny cherries and what he assumed was pink trim but realised was actually Sakura’s own hair extending and connecting the cups at the front. Even with the amendment she was practically falling out of it, and the pants were little better.

Tsunami gave a little cry of surprise, and grabbed a scrap of clothing off the floor to cover Sakura with, but Sakura herself just stared at him like she had last night. He looked away first.

“Sorry,” he muttered, closing the door so quickly that it banged on its hinges. He chalked his poor judgement up to chakra exhaustion.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Sakura ran her hands down her front for what felt like the thousandth time, marvelling once again at the softness of her new outfit. Tsunami had let her take two shirts, a skirt, some sturdy boots, and, best of all, had offered her a new bra even before she figured out a way to ask. It was sightly too big, but it had a real underwire and was heavenly compared to one that was too small.

Tsunami had offered to throw her shabbier clothes away, but she’d packed it all up and tucked it in her bag on top of the broken pieces of cup from last night. Nothing was too far gone that she couldn’t find some use for it; and besides, she couldn’t bear to throw out even a strand of hair that had come from The Others.

Chapter Text

In the afternoon, Kakashi gave Naruto and Sasuke a new challenge: climb a tree without using their hands. There wasn’t anything else for them to do until Kakashi recovered enough chakra or the magnate hiring mercenaries made another move, and it was as good time as any for them to learn to control their chakra output. He’d also discovered that Sakura was happy enough to stay in his sight as long as they could be outside.

Naruto had run full tilt at the tree before he had even finished explaining, and promptly declared it impossible.

“Naruto, you saw me and Kakashi and that other man walking on water yesterday,” Sakura said, and for a moment she sounded a bit like the girl he had met last month. She went on to demonstrate the technique, walking up the nearest tree and out along a branch until she was hanging upside down like a bat. Her hair came loose from her coat, the many braids waving gently as she grinned down at them. It was as long as Sakura herself was tall in some places, but he could see that other braids were significantly shorter, and some chunks were neck length at most. He had seen enough of her clothes to understand where it had probably gone.

“Karin told me,” she said, and even from the ground Kakashi could see her expression briefly blank at the mention of what was presumably another friend from ‘Inside’, “the trick is to keep the chakra at a constant output, not too weak but not too strong, either. And engage your core.” She strolled further out the branch. “Works best the first time if you take it at a run.”

The branch snapped, unable to carry her weight at the weaker point. Kakashi’s stomach tensed, and he ran halfway up the tree and leapt out to catch her on instinct alone. He landed at a more controlled angle, with her in his arms, and Naruto whooped.

“Nice catch, Sensei!”

Sasuke made an unimpressed noise that Kakashi knew by now was actually his backwards way of showing approval.

Even with her long coat and overstuffed bag, Sakura was far too light in his arms. He put her down as gently as he could, and she laughed awkwardly. “Forgot they did that.”

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

On the second day, mercenaries attacked the bridge.

All four ninjas had been escorting Tazuna that morning, which meant they were all there to witness the aftermath of the massacre that had taken place. Naruto was running a little low on chakra from his tree-climbing efforts and Kakashi still wasn’t at one hundred percent either, but when an unnatural mist started curling over the half-finished bridge everyone formed up around him without hesitation. Even Sakura fell into step; a sign that she had trained in group combat as well as solo.

But then one of the mercenaries, voice carrying through the fog, made some crack about being jealous of the two guys that got to deal with Tazuna’s pretty daughter instead of the Konoha nin, and Sakura had sprinted off before he’d had a chance to stop her.

Cursing silently, Kakashi turned his attention to the fight at hand. He didn’t have enough chakra to send a shadow clone after her, so he’d just have to finish things quickly and hope she didn’t do anything rash.

The same swordsman from before seemed to be leading the fight, and Kakashi quickly singled him out as the primary quarry. The rest of the band were small fry, more like thugs than actual mercenaries, and he was fairly confident that Naruto and Sasuke could thin the pack by themselves. The swordsman, Zabusa, immediately created water clones and tried to isolate the boys, but Kakashi came in close and cut off their lines of attack.

Once again, the man fought like someone who had nothing to lose. He was clearly a master swordsman, but there was an almost self-destructive recklessness to some of his attacks that left Kakashi reeling but also created several openings for his own attacks.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said, though it was probably futile. “You don’t seem the type to kill innocent builders just for money.”

Zabusa laughed hollowly. “Don’t act high and mighty with me, Copy-nin. You’ve killed plenty of people, and I bet you’ve even enjoyed it sometimes.”

Kakashi frowned, dodging a series of slashes that proved the man knew exactly where he was despite the mist. “That’s why you’re here? You enjoy killing?”

“I enjoy nothing. Not anymore.” The last part was said so quietly that someone with worse hearing might not have heard it at all. Then the man stepped in close, face looming in front of Kakashi as he reached up and withdrew the cloth covering his mouth. His teeth were filed to points, showing that he was part of the blood mist tradition that were forced to murder their entire class in order to graduate.

“I may not enjoy killing, but as you can see I am very, very good at it.”

The fight continued, and even though the boys were holding their own Kakashi once again found himself stymied by his own divided priorites. Unlike Zabusa, who fought like he had nothing to lose, he was often forced to sacrifice his position to protect Naruto and Sasuke.

Just as he was beginning to despair that the fight would never end unless someone made a fatal mistake (and there was a three in four chance of that mistake coming from their side), a cheer rang out from behind him, further down the bridge.

The mist cleared, and now everyone could see that the other mercenaries were being driven back by the townsfolk, who had gathered what weapons they could in order to defend the bridge. Then a woman with pink hair leaped clear over the crowd and sprinted to his side.

The thugs that were still standing no longer wanted to fight Naruto and Sasuke, so the boys also turned their attention to the swordmaster. Kakashi thought he might retreat again now that he was outnumbered, but it seemed Zabusa was determined to either win the fight or die trying.

And then Sakura opened her mouth.

“I knew a man with pointy teeth,” she said, as calmly as if they were chatting over tea. “He never told me his name, but he said he did it to honour the man who gave him purpose.”

“Sakura,” Kakashi hissed at her, begging her to focus. If he had to cover for all three of his genin then he’d almost certainly die, the way Zabusa was currently fighting.

Zabusa grinned, showing off the teeth in question. “If you met someone with these teeth, you’re lucky to be alive.” He pointed to her with his sword. “Nobody lands a hit on me twice. You die first, pinkie.”

“He could make real water, not just water-type jutsu.” Sakura continued like she hadn’t heard him. “And he said he could walk through mirrors, but he never got to show me that.”

Zabusa’s sword was at her throat before Kakashi could move to intercept, and his water clones had re-formed to stop any of the boys interfering. He leaned in close to Sakura, who met his gaze calmly.

“Where is he?”

“Oh, it is you?” She bounced on her heels, forcing the blade at her neck to make tiny adjustments in order to avoid hitting her. “This is amazing!”

“Where is Haku!” He repeated, louder. Sakura sobered.

“Haku, is it? He never told us his name. Unfortunately, he aged out a little while ago. Hard to say exactly when out here, but a week maybe? I’m pretty sure the man who took him wears a mask and has dark hair, distinctive clothes and an ocular jutsu. Seriously dangerous genjutsu; don’t look him directly in the eye if you can help it.”

Zabusa nodded once, a jerky movement like he was unfamiliar with the gesture, then to Kakashi’s surprise he turned on his heel to leave. They were going to win after all.

“Wait!” Sakura called after the mercenary, who turned back warily. “You should know…he’s going to look different. This is him now.”

She formed the seals for a henge, and the pink-haired woman was replaced with a black-haired man. He had dark, soulful eyes ringed with crow’s feet, and sharpened teeth.

“Time moves differently, where he kept us,” the henge said, before dissipating.

Zabusa groaned softly. “I’ll kill the man who took him.”

“Please don’t,” Sakura said. “Teeth and I aren’t the only ones who got taken, and The Others can’t get out by themselves.”

The villagers seemed to have noticed that the fight with their enemy had become a conversation, and were muttering to each other. “Sakura,” Kakashi repeated, glancing meaningfully behind her.

Sakura nodded to show she understood. “You should leave now,” she told the swordmaster. “But take this with you.” She fished around in her bag before tossing him a coiled braid of black hair. “That’s his. Might make tracking him easier, I don’t know.”

Zabusa examined the hair before tucking it carefully in his pocket. “Thank you,” he said, the words sounding strange and stilted. Kakashi doubted he used them often.

“Good luck,” Sakura raised a hand in farewell, and then all the Zabusas were collapsing into puddles. He was gone.

“Whew!” She brushed her hands together. “That was lucky!”

Naruto gave her an incredulous look. “So you weren’t completely sure he knew your friend when you confronted him like that?”

She shrugged. “I knew Teeth’s mentor was a swordmaster from Mist with pointy teeth, so it wasn’t a total stab in the dark.”

“He almost killed you,” Sasuke pointed out, saving Kakashi from having to do it. That sword of Zabusa’s had been razor sharp and far too close to her neck. It was a reckless move even if she was one hundred percent sure of his identity.

Once again Sakura shrugged. “He certainly would have tried.”

Chapter Text

The villagers were ecstatic, of course. The mercenaries were defeated, the magnate was ruined, and the bridge was safe. Everyone patted the ninjas on the back as they passed, and Kakashi could tell that Naruto and Sasuke were trying hard not to show how much of a toll the fight had taken on them.

Tazuna and his family were all at the back of the crowd. He looked just as jubilant as the other villagers, but Tsunami and Inari were trembling.

“You’re okay!” Naruto cried out when he saw them. “We heard the mercenaries talking about getting you too, but I guess Sakura arrived in time?” He glanced at Sakura, who seemed to be preoccupied with watching the water flowing under the bridge.

Tsunami nodded stiffly. “Yes. She…dealt with them.”

Inari was crying, and his mother tucked him closer to her skirts. Naruto took a step forward.

“It’s okay now, crybaby Inari,” he said, but the boy only cried harder, and Tsunami physically moved her body in front of him before Naruto could get closer. Her expression was one Kakashi had seen many times on mothers determined to protect their young from threats.

Tazuna looked as confused as Naruto. “What’s wrong, eh? These folk saved us, and the bridge. We always knew things were going to get a bit bloody.”

Tsunami made a snorting noise, sharp and loud.

“I was in a bit of a hurry getting back here,” Sakura spoke up at last. “So I didn’t have a chance to clean up. Maybe I’ll just go on ahead and do that now.”

Tsunami and Inari just glared at her.

“I’ll come with you,” Kakashi said before the girl could run off alone again. “Naruto and Sasuke, you keep watching Tazuna, just in case. At a distance.”

Naruto grumbled, but Sakura was already running so Kakashi took off too, wondering what she had done to the mercenaries that made the woman and child she’d saved so afraid of her.

Before long they had reached a wooden dockyard a short walk from the family’s house.

“They dragged them out here,” Sakura said quietly, slowing down to a walk. She had a fistful of braids in her hand and was stroking them nervously. “It’s really not that bad.”

It…wasn’t the worst thing Kakashi had ever seen, but to Tsunami and Inari it had probably seemed excessive. The two mercenaries had been decapitated with such force that their heads lay several feet from their bodies. There was a great deal of blood, though Kakashi hadn’t noticed any on Sakura or the civilians.

Sakura bent down to the nearest body, untied its still-sheathed sword and quickly patted down the pockets. Seemingly satisfied there was nothing else of value, she dragged it back toward the packed earth of the riverbank.

“I take it you’ve killed people before now?” he said, gingerly carrying one of the severed heads and placing it with its body.

Sakura shrugged, tossing the other head carelessly. “I guess so.” She wiped her hands on the grass. “I figure we burn these and then maybe use those buckets over there to wash off the pier?

“Sure.” She was all business, and once again it was a sobering reminder that this woman was not the twelve year old girl of a month prior. “What do you mean, ‘I guess so’?”

Sakura formed the seals for a fire jutsu, and within seconds the bodies were blackened beyond recognition. Within minutes they were little more than ash and a few metal fastenings. When the smell got too much, they retreated back to the pier and started sluicing bucketfuls of water over the bloodstains. “Not killing allowed Inside,” she told him, voice flat. “But when we go Outside, we can’t remember what The Watcher makes us do. This,” she gestured at the blood, “wasn’t difficult, so I guess it’s not my first time.”

“And the…looting?” It was a distasteful thing for a paid ninja to do; it gave the impression that your village was poor, and your shinobi were little better than savages making corpses just to steal the shirt off its back.

“Waste not.” She shrugged again. “I don’t want the swords or anything, but it seemed a shame to just burn them.”

“Is that how you got that sword?” He nodded at the katana on her hip. “Or did it come from Inside?” He hoped he was using the terms correctly.

Sakura glanced down at her sword like she’d forgotten she was wearing it. “It’s from Outside.”

“It’s nice.” It was: the handle was wrapped with flashy red silk in one of the more complicated styles, and the first time she’d unsheathed it he could tell it had been well made and well kept.

“It’s cursed.” She threw another bucketful of water on the sticky blood. “I only use it so that nobody else has to touch it.”

In truth, he didn’t know what to make of that. He’d hoped to find Sakura alive and well, or at least alive and with the expected amount of trauma for a young girl who had been held captive for an entire month. But this woman claimed it had been years, and her traumas were so complex and disturbing that Kakashi had no idea how to help her. He wasn’t suitable for this, he realised. He could maybe hack it as a normal jounin teacher, but Sakura needed professional help. He’d just have to get her back to Konoha as soon as possible, and hope that they declared her fit for reintegration.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

‘As soon as possible’ turned out to be almost immediately.

Tsunami refused to have them in the house a moment longer, so despite Tazuna’s protests they packed their things and prepared for an immediate start. Sakura hadn’t left anything at the house, so she simply waited outside.

“She saved your life,” Naruto argued, offended on her behalf. “You should be thanking her, not kicking us out.”

“That’s enough, Naruto.” Kakashi placed a gloved hand on his shoulder. “Time for us to go.”

“She’s a hero,” Naruto said, and Inari spoke up for the first time since the battle of the bridge.

“There’s no such things as heroes.”

Kakashi wouldn’t say it aloud, because Naruto would get the wrong idea, but he privately agreed that Sakura wasn’t a hero. She was an incredible ninja, that much was clear; but he knew better than most that there was nothing heroic about the shinobi life. Naruto still seemed to think their work was about valorous deeds and the adulation of the masses, and Sasuke seemed to think the village’s investment in his skills left him free to use them as he pleased (namely, to kill a certain man), but in truth they weren’t allowed to have their own desires. They were weapons, unthinking tools, and in that sense Sakura was far beyond even his own capabilities.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

“I can take first watch,” Sakura offered, the first night on the road.

Kakashi shook his head. “That’s alright, you just rest. Things are going to get very busy once we’re back in Konoha.”

“Busy how?” Sasuke asked, sitting up on his bedroll.

“Well for starters, our C-rank escort mission turned into a lot of extra work that the three of us didn’t get paid to do.” He’d have to put the food and accommodation they received, as well as other more creative things, against the cost of Tazuna’s bill until he could make the report look reasonable. “And then there’s the fact that we found Sakura.”

“Technically she found us,” Naruto grinned.

“In any case, she’s been gone a whole month.” He turned to Sakura. “You’ll end up being interviewed when we get back, just standard stuff to find out what information you may have shared, what kind of support you might need after a traumatic experience…”

“Whether I’m going to snap and start killing people in the streets,” Sakura supplied. “I get it.”

“You wouldn’t do that!” Naruto argued. “Sure you look different, but you’re still Sakura.”

“Thanks, Naruto.” She gave him a small smile.

“You’re still Sakura,” Sasuke agreed, “but you are different. You’re older, and way more skilled.”

“And way less annoying, I hope?” Her smile turned wry.

Sasuke looked away, staring at the dark ground. “You weren’t really annoying.”

“Nah, you were right; I was a bit of a brat.” She scratched one of her scarred cheeks. “I was weak, and self-centred, and I cared more about my appearance than anything else.” She flicked a handful of her chaotic braids. “Clearly I don’t have that problem anymore.”

“You’re still pretty.” Naruto said, a blush darkening the spaces between his whisker marks.

It was true: Kakashi had memorised the photo of Sakura as a genin, and she’d been a cute enough kid. As an adult woman his age, her striking features were a little overwhelming.

Sakura laughed. “You’re gonna make me vain all over again with talk like that.”

Naruto laughed too, and even Sasuke’s mouth twitched with a small smile.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

They were stopping for an early dinner on the last day of their trip when Sakura asked Kakashi to cut her hair.

He’d seemed perplexed by the request. He seemed perplexed by most things she did, which was of course the problem. “Why?”

“It’s long and uneven.” She fingered an unbraided section that just grazed her neck. “This is probably the shortest bit, if you need a guide where to cut.”

“But isn’t it…important to you?”

Was he really going to make her say it? The boys were eating dinner closer to the fire, too far away to hear. “When we get back, I don’t want everyone in Konoha looking at me the way you look at me.”

It was clear, now that she had known her would-have-been teacher for more than a day, that he never removed the mask on the lower half of his face. The forehead protector over his sharingan had also stayed put since the day it had somehow taken her out of Inside. She itched to examine it, ask all the probing questions that Sensei would have encouraged; but this sensei was clearly protective. She couldn’t push him without losing him, and currently, she needed him.

“And how do I look at you?” he asked, tone suggesting he knew exactly how he looked at her but wanting her to say it.

“Like I’m crazy. Like I’m dangerous.”

“Are you?”

She hadn’t expected him to just come out and ask; it kind of impressed her. “Crazy? Probably a bit. Dangerous? Depends who asks.”

“I’m asking.”

“Then no, I’m not dangerous. If I wanted to hurt you I’d have done it by now.” She turned around and sat with her back to him. “Now will you please cut my hair?”

He made a noise like a huff of frustration, but she could feel him sit down behind her and remove a kunai. She tried to ignore the instinct to rip it from his hand put herself in a less vulnerable position, letting him raise it to her shoulders and start hacking through her poor hair. She said she trusted Hatake Kakashi, and she meant it. Now she needed to prove that he could trust her.

The first few braids began to fall away, the loose hair unravelling. She gripped the goggles around her neck to stop herself flinching. She could do this. She could store it in her bag instead of on her head, and if she did go back Inside without it then she’d simply trade other things.

Kakashi kept talking. She wanted to believe it was a kindness, that he was keeping her mind off the increasing lightness of her head. But she knew he just wanted information.

“How did you get so good at…everything?”

“I had a lot of time to practice.” More time than he realised, seeing as she barely had to rest.

“And the place where this Watcher kept you all; tell me more about it.”

Another rope of hair fell to the ground. “There isn’t much to say. It was just a void. Rocks and darkness in every direction. And time goes faster Inside than it does out here. A month for you is, I don’t know,” she considered her scars. “Ten years? More? For us.”

“So you really lived ten or so years in the last month? This,” he patted her shoulder, “could just be cosmetic. I know of a kunoichi in her fifties who can make herself look twenty-something, and some genjutsu-”

She bit back a growl of frustration. “It’s not a jutsu. I mean, it is, but not like that. Nobody zapped my body ten years older then made me think ten years had passed. I remember it all.”

“Okay, okay” Kakashi soothed quietly. She might have liked being comforted if it were Karin or Sensei, but from Kakashi, who didn’t understand and would never really understand, it just felt condescending. “It’s just that time-space jutsu of the magnitude you’re describing are extremely rare, basically theoretical, and would take a phenomenal amount of power.”

“I once asked Sensei if he knew much about sharingans. I had a Hyuuga girl in my class at the academy, so I’d already seen the byakugan, but I only knew about the sharingan from books.” Books about the Uchiha family, that she had read because of the boy sitting on the other side of the clearing arguing with Naruto. “Sensei seemed to think they were as strong as ocular jutsu could get.”

“It’s true, the sharingan is strong,” Kakashi acknowledged, “but I’ve had this one for half my life and it’s never done what you’re describing.”

“Until it did.” Sakura twisted back to look at him. “You took me out with it. And you only have one, which means the other one must belong to The Watcher.”

“The other one was destroyed.” His voice was quiet. “It’s hard to believe anyone could have recovered it from Obito’s…remains; but it’s definitely one of the things I’ll be raising when we get back to Konoha.”

“That’s fine then.” She turned back to let him finish her hair. “Just don’t let anyone take yours and dissect it or anything.”

“That would never happen.”

“Never say never.”

Chapter Text

Haruno Sakura took her first glimpse of Konoha in more than a decade.

It was night when they arrived, so there wasn’t much to see. After a brief delay with the gate guard (Kakashi had bypassed the entire issue of explaining her appearance by telling her to keep her hood up and signing her in as a new client), they walked through the streets she had called home as a girl. Now, seeing how little had changed, it truly struck her that it had only been a month for everyone else.

Ichiraku ramen was still open, doing a roaring trade by the looks of things. Naruto made an automatic beeline for it, and Sakura followed, hypnotised.

“Tower first,” Kakashi said before they could get too close.

She forced herself to obey. He was right; the village needed to know she was alive and technically well. It was just a shame she couldn’t eat ramen before they locked her up and asked her hundreds of difficult questions.

The Hokage tower always had some sort of skeleton crew at all times, for this exact sort of situation. Kakashi led them to a desk, muttered something to the attendant in a low voice, and then suddenly everyone was either running somewhere or staring at her. She stared right back.

Before long everyone was ushered to an empty room, and then she and Kakashi were led to a different room, and when the Hokage himself arrived, looking exactly as he had in her childhood (it felt like he should be long dead by now), she was moved to a mirrored room labelled ‘Interrogation Room 3A’ all by herself and left there.

Time passes differently when you don’t get tired or hungry or need to use the toilet. Her isolation seemed to last a while, though. Possibly they were trying to make her uncomfortable and impatient before the actual interrogation. If so, they would be sorely disappointed. She could wait forever.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

“So someone has had Obito’s other sharingan this entire time?”

Kakashi fought the urge to rub his temples. “It would seem so, Hokage-sama. I maintain that he was beyond recovery at the time, but the apparent connection of this ‘Inside’ to my sharingan is difficult to deny.”

“No possibility it was just a well-timed substitution jutsu? The girl jumps into action just as you reveal the sharingan, makes it look like you did it?” That was Inoichi Yamanaka. He was a bit older than Kakashi, but the handful of times they had worked together he had struck him as a fair man. He’d also been unafraid to disclose that he already knew (and liked) Haruno Sakura from playdates with his daughter; an admission that made him look potentially biased, but increased his standing in Kakashi’s eyes.

“I think it’s time to check the sharingan for ourselves.” Danzo weighed in at last. “Kakashi?”

He couldn’t refuse an implicit order from a village elder, but he still glanced toward the Third for confirmation. The Third nodded imperceptibly, and so, resigned, he pulled back his forehead protector. He’d been putting off using the sharingan because it seemed so sensitive after Sakura’s appearance. Even now, several days after the incident, his chakra hadn’t fully recovered from whatever it was doing.

The others in room crowded around to examine it. “It didn’t always look like that, did it?”

Perhaps he was a fool for not checking it sooner. He stood up to examine himself in the (probably two-way) mirror: the black tomoe marks, formerly separate, were now connected by a new ring of black.

“No, it wasn’t,” Danzo said, and Kakashi didn’t like how easily he knew that. “This is an evolution.”

“Into what?” Inoichi voiced the question on Kakashi’s lips.

Danzo and the Third exchanged glances. “It’s unclear,” the Third finally said, “but for now you should keep it covered until we can find out more. Dismissed.”

“Dismissed?” Kakashi blinked. “Aren’t my genin still being interviewed somewhere?”

“Naruto and Sasuke already gave their report and were released,” Danzo said. “Now that your report is complete, you’re also free to go.”

Kakashi bristled. “Sakura is also one of my genin. Where is she?”

“She is still in processing, with Ibiki.”

Morino Ibiki specialised in what people generously called ‘enhanced interrogation’ but was actually just torture.

“Respectfully, I’d like to stay and watch. I brought her to Konoha, so she is my responsibility.” He didn’t aim this at anyone other than the Third. The Third had let him keep searching for Sakura all this time, and he wasn’t about to walk away now that he’d actually succeeded.

“Very well.” The Third Hokage looked very old in that moment. “Then let us all make our way to interrogation room 3B.”

They walked into the darker room behind the two-way mirror connected to Sakura’s. Kakashi’s imagination had run wild with the many devices that Ibiki could have been applying to loosen her tongue, but it seemed like it had been a normal interview thus far.

“So just to summarise,” The heavily-scarred man looked down at the coded script in his notebook, “you were kept in a large, lightless room or cave-”

“It was a void. Like a pocket dimension,” Sakura interrupted, and Ibiki made a note.

“Pocket dimension, with no day or night, no plants, animals or running water, no things living or dead of any kind except large grey stones and eight other people: one from Mist, three from Cloud, two from Waterfall, one from Grass, and one unknown. You shared with them all some minor details about the village and your life over a period of,” he made another show of checking his notes, “ten or possibly more years, you lost count once your hair grew too long and you got ‘taken out’ too many times.”

“That’s right. Except Teeth aged out and then it was only seven other people.” Sakura leaned back in her chair. It had already been about three hours since they had arrived in Konoha, meaning Sakura had been in there for at least two and a half hours (half of which was probably spent sweating her). Even Kakashi, who had not been treated like a possible hostile, was thinking longingly of cup noodles and his warm bed by now. Sakura, on the other hand, was still sitting upright, speaking calmly, and otherwise seemed completely at ease. They had taken her sword, bag, goggles and coat, and between Tsunami’s civilian clothes and Kakashi’s haircut he was impressed with how normal she looked. Things might work out after all.

Ibiki opened up a file and slid it across to her. “Do you recognise any of these people?”

Sakura opened it and started rifling through photographs. Some, Kakashi knew, would be dummy photos designed to test whether she was making things up; but he could see the three photographs of the fake Konoha nin in the mix, and he knew the confirmed abductees from other villages would be there as well. Sakura pulled the picture of Yakushi Kabuto almost immediately.

“This is Sensei,” she breathed, staring at the photo. “Wow, he really did spend a long time Inside if that’s how he looked. He’s kind of handsome. And this is Karin. She’s practically a baby in this, but the hair and glasses are exactly the same. That’s Pinch, Siren, and Manami. No picture of Chu-chan by the looks of it.”

Ibiki frowned, eyes sliding to his notes. “Which one was…”

“The puppet. Oh and here’s Jun. Ha, he’s so skinny! And that’s Naomi, but with long hair and – wow – the biggest smile I’ve ever seen on her face. And…you don’t have one of Teeth, and I don’t recognise any of the rest.” She tucked the leftover photos back in the file. “Anything else?”

Kakashi glanced at the examiners watching in room 3B with the rest of them. They nodded to one another.

“She picked all the real photos, except for the other two Konoha plants.”

That was a big point in the ‘telling the truth’ box, and Kakashi felt a weight in his chest ease. If this was indeed the real Sakura, then there was a chance she could recover even from the hell she had clearly gone through.

There was a knock on the exam room door, and a man with pale eyes and a medic’s cowl entered. “Morino-san.” The newcomer bowed.

“Hyuuga-san,” Ibiki greeted, “come in. The subject has completed their interview. We just need you to examine them, and barring anything unusual, we should be done here.”

The Hyuuga nodded, then turned politely to Sakura. “Miss. Do you mind if I begin now?”

“Go ahead.” For the first time since Kakashi had started watching, Sakura looked a little uncomfortable.

The Hyuuga formed the seals for the byakugan, staring at Sakura from across the room. Usually these examinations were a simple formality, just to make sure there were no hidden control or spying seals on a newcomer wishing to stay in the village. A byakugan was second to none for this particular task, as they could examine the entire body within seconds.

Two minutes passed, and the Hyuuga had to be reminded more than once not to approach Sakura. In the end he asked if she’d be willing to lie on the table so that he could get a better look. She obliged, her expression difficult to read. Amused? Embarrassed?

He spent another four minutes staring at her before making an imperceptible nod at Ibiki. They both exited the room and joined the audience in 3B.

“Well?” Kakashi knew Ibiki was a patient man, if it got him the results he needed. But drawing out the physical exam clearly wasn’t his plan, and certainly hadn’t done much to rattle Sakura (who was still lying on the interview table like a polite cadaver). The torturer sounded annoyed, which made the Hyuuga flinch.

“I apologise for the delay. It’s just – it was a bit difficult to make sense of what I was seeing.”

“What does that mean?” Danzo had once again taken an interest, which got Kakashi’s back up immediately.

“Well, at first it looked like she was just moulding a lot of chakra through her internal organs. Almost everything inside her is blindingly bright, which would make sense if she were, I don’t know, about to perform an extensive medical jutsu on herself; but none of it seems to be moving.”

“None of what?” Inoichi asked.

“None of the chakra. None of the organs. Her chakra looks like it’s burning so quickly, doing something so powerful inside her, that she should have died of exhaustion within minutes. But the entire time I was examining her, none of those organs moved. Her reproductive organs look normal enough, though I can see scars from old sterilisation procedures so I doubt they have full function. Her entire digestive and lymphatic systems on the other hand are just…frozen.”

“But she eats,” Kakashi argued. “I’ve seen her do it.”

“Interesting,” the Hyuuga stared at Sakura through the two-way mirror. “I wonder, could we test something?”

Ibiki and the Hyuuga went back in, and this time Ibiki was carrying a brightly coloured tin. “Biscuit?” he offered, while the Hyuuga reactivated their byakugan.

“Yes please.” She sat up and ate as enthusiastically as she had every time he’d seen her, and Kakashi wondered what flavourless gruel she must have been living on if even a few dry biscuits could make her so happy. When she’d finished the entire tin, she smiled wryly at the Hyuuga. “Are you trying to figure out where it goes?”

“Where does it go?” the Hyuuga asked, before Ibiki could reassert control over the interrogation.

Sakura hopped off the table and back into her chair. “The prevailing theory is this: The Watcher’s time-space jutsu can do more than create a void to put us all in, it can also connect our bodily functions up to his. That’s why he had to sterilise the women manually; because he didn’t have the equivalent organs on the Outside.” She picked a crumb off her shirt and placed it in her mouth. “It’s also why I’ve barely eaten or bathed in the last ten years, and never used the toilet or slept.”

“Slept?” the Hyuuga and more than one examiner in the watching room gasped.

“That’s right. Take a closer look at my brain.”

After silently confirming with Ibiki that it was okay to approach, the Hyuuga stepped forward and gently examined her head.

“Wow,” he breathed, “that’s…wow.”

“What is it, man?” Ibiki snapped. Protocol had clearly gone out the window. “She says parts of her brain are connected to her kidnapper; which parts?”

“Nothing that makes me dangerous.” It was Sakura who answered instead of the Hyuuga. “Just the parts of that control sleep, temperature regulation, stuff like that. My decisions are all my own, believe me.”

“She’s right,” the Hyuuga confirmed, and once again everyone crammed themselves in 3B to discuss what should be done.

“It’s certainly odd, but it doesn’t make her inherently dangerous, does it?”

“If she’s still connected to this Watcher, it means he’s still connected to her. Who knows what he could make her do!”

“He could send her back in.” Kakashi realised why Sakura had been so keen to make sure his sharingan was working.

“Possibly,” The Third mused. He’d been quiet ever since they joined the interrogation, but now it seemed he was ready to make a decision about Sakura’s fate. “In any case, everything is speculation unless we can confirm it with further testing.”

“Further testing? It’s already been hours, isn’t it inhumane to keep her any longer?”

“Clearly not, if she doesn’t get tired or hungry,” Danzo said, watching Sakura through the mirror. “In some ways, she’s the ideal ninja.”

“I want to talk to her,” Kakashi declared, and stalked out of 3B. The Hokage must have indulged him because he managed to get into 3A and close the door behind him without getting tackled to the ground.

“You look like shit,” Sakura said by way of greeting.

“You…don’t.” Now that he was looking for it, she really didn’t seem tired after the countless hours of gruelling interrogation. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

Sakura shrugged. “Because it’s weird as hell, and you were already debating whether or not to keep me?”

“I wasn’t,” he said, but she gave him a look like she didn’t need to be touching his chest to see the lie in his heart. “Alright, of course I was cautious. But you can hardly blame me.”

“No, I can’t.” She smiled sadly. “In fact I completely understand.”

“They want to run more tests. You’ll probably be here all night.”

“That’s fine. Most interesting that that’s happened to me in a while, believe me.” She nodded at the door. “You should go home and get some sleep, though. Honestly, I thought you already had. You didn’t hear all the embarrassing questions about my childhood, I hope.”

“I’ll come back first thing tomorrow,” he promised. “You’ll get to see your parents then, too.” This doubled as a threat to the men behind the mirror that any attempts to make Sakura disappear would go badly unless they wanted the rest of Team Seven to disappear as well.

“Until then.” She waved cheerfully enough, but Kakashi still felt monstrous for leaving her in yet another prison, even temporarily.

Chapter Text

Kakashi slept poorly, battling dreams of pink-haired women floating in specimen jars. But he had woken to find that his chakra had finally gone back to normal, and so when he opened his eye in the mirror he wasn’t too surprised to see that the strange black bars had gone away and his sharingan looked like the usual tomoe marks once more. Whatever he had activated that day had finally deactivated.

‘Relieved’ had been an understatement. The prospect of losing Obito’s last gift aside, he had come to rely on the sharingan as a tool. Without it, his personal range of jutsu was severely handicapped. With it, he could do almost anything.

True to his word, he arrived at Hokage Tower just before the night shift ended and the day shift began. He was invited to wait in the general holding area on the ground floor while they 'wrapped things up' upstairs. The image of a dissected Sakura surrounded by medics frantically sewing her back together came unbidden, and he hid his clenched fists in his pockets. 

Eventually Sakura emerged, looking much the same as she had; but Kakashi couldn’t feel too much relief, because the man guiding her by the arm was Danzo.

“Kakashi!” She gently extricated herself from Danzo’s grip so that she could come over. “Be honest: did you actually go home and rest, or have you been camped out here the whole time?”

“I went home,” he assured her. “And now I’m back to make sure you’re okay.” He glanced at Danzo.

“I’m okay,” she said. “Feels like all I’ve done since I arrived is talk, which is weird.”

An ANBU agent Kakashi didn’t recognise entered the room and whispered something in Danzo’s ear. 

“Send them in,” Danzo said, before turning to Sakura with a smile that she didn’t return. “Your parents have arrived.”

Seconds later, the main door burst open with a bang, and Kakashi turned to see the Harunos Mebuki and Kizashi stride in with the agent trailing behind them. He felt, rather than saw, that Sakura had moved behind him, and his heart briefly twinged with the same protective instincts he felt for the version of her he had lost. This must be as strange for her as it was for her parents, who until this morning had likely been preparing to assume the worst and move on with their lives.

“Sakura?” Her father called uncertainly.

“Dad.”

Kakashi looked back at Sakura, and found that her eyes were half a head lower than he was expecting. She waved shyly at her parents from behind his shoulder, then finally stepped out so that they could see her properly.

“Oh, Sakura!” her mother rushed to hug her, her father only a half-step behind. 

Kakashi could only stare. Sakura had a round, youthful face free of scars, and wore a long red dress with a white ring on the back. In short, she looked exactly as she did the day she went missing.

“We were so worried,” her mother sobbed, squeezing the child Sakura against her chest.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Sakura reassured her, voice muffled.

Her father was also crying, stroking her long, even hair. “They told us you looked…different,” he said finally. “They said you went through something that ‘changed’ you.”

“She did,” Danzo spoke up, reminding the parents that he was in the room. They immediately stood back up to greet him respectfully. 

“Danzo-sama.”

Kakashi, who had definitely not forgotten the man was still there, gritted his teeth. The young Sakura was glancing nervously between them, as if begging him to intervene before Danzo did exactly what they both knew he would.

“Sakura, please remove that henge.”

She stared at Danzo a moment longer, but it was clear from his expression that he would offer her no further reprieve. Defeated, Sakura stepped back away from her parents and dropped the illusion. 

Her father gasped, and her mother made a noise halfway between a sob and a shriek.

“Who are you?!”

Everything got a little chaotic after that. Sakura tried to explain, but she also seemed to understand that the explanation would just hurt her parents even more. Kakashi didn’t know how to help her, either. He knew she couldn’t have kept up a henge the entire time she was with her parents, especially since the news of Sakura’s aging was bound to sweep the village eventually. But seeing how they reacted to her new, hardened appearance, he could understand why Sakura had tried to soften the blow.

Eventually Danzo stepped in, smoothly removing the distraught parents to another room where they could discuss the ‘problem’ in private. Kakashi and Sakura were left alone with the agent who had escorted her parents. He leaned against the wall, masked face unreadable.

“That went better than I expected,” Sakura laughed self-consciously, and Kakashi could see she was trying hard not to show just how badly her parents had hurt her.

“They just need a little time to get to know the new you,” he said, hoping it was what she needed to hear. “They’ll come around.”

The rest of their wait passed in silence. Eventually the others returned, along with two new ANBU agents, this time ones that Kakashi did recognise. They discreetly broke off from the main trio and stood against the wall opposite the first agent, who didn’t acknowledge them at all.

The Harunos had stopped crying, but now they seemed almost too calm, lips pressed together as if uttering a single word would crack everything open again. As for Danzo, he looked sad as he approached Sakura, clasping her shoulder sympathetically.

“Your parents and I have discussed what to do with you, and I’m afraid we’re at something of a loss,” he told her. 

She looked to her parents, who seemed unable to return her gaze.

“They believe it would be best if you stayed somewhere neutral for now, and then once you’re settled back in we can look into arranging some visits home.” Over the top of her head, Danzo smiled at Kakashi. “I have a splinter cell of the ANBU called Root, that always has a place for talented ninjas in need of purpose. I would be more than happy to-”

“I’ll take her.” The words were out of his mouth before he’d even properly made up his mind. He’d even stuck his hand up like a child volunteering to clean the blackboard after class.

Sakura stared at him. Her parents stared at him. Danzo was outright glaring at him, but he was pretty sure he saw one of the new ANBU agents give him a small thumbs up.

“You’ll take her?” Danzo repeated, scoffing.

“That’s right.” The more it upset the man, the more resolved he became. 

“She’s not a puppy, Kakashi. She’s a woman, and if I recall correctly you live in a one-bedroom apartment in the bachelor’s district.” He turned to her parents. “Would you really prefer such an arrangement for your daughter?”

For a moment, Kakashi thought they would simply leave without saying anything further. Sakura’s mother still looked like speaking was beyond her. But eventually her father gave her a tiny glance.

“Whatever she wants, we’ll support.”

“I want him,” Sakura pointed to Kakashi without hesitation, and once again the need to protect her flared in his chest so strongly that it almost burned away the panic at what he had just agreed to.

Her father gave a small nod, and then both he and his wife made for the exit. “We’ll…see you later, Sakura,” he said quietly before they left.

“I hope you realise what you’re both agreeing to.” With his last potential allies gone, Danzo turned on Kakashi and Sakura. “Even if the Third agrees to this arrangement, which I highly doubt, you’ll effectively be putting your career on hold to play babysitter for an unstable woman who may never be fit for anything ever again.”

“Actually, Danzo-sama,” the ANBU agent who had given Kakashi the thumbs up produced a file and held it up. “Haruno Sakura’s test results indicate that she is surprisingly stable, given the circumstances, and the Third has personally requested ongoing assessment for fitness to return to service under Team Seven, to be conducted by her jounin sensei. That’s what we were coming to announce when we met you in the hall just now.” He lowered the file, and even though he couldn’t see his face, Kakashi could guess at the smirk hiding underneath his Tiger mask. “And I believe the correct term is ‘handler,’ Danzo-sama.”

“You will come to regret this,” Danzo said gravely, pure contempt in his eyes. He turned on his heel and left without another word, taking his Root agent with him.

“Here.” Tiger handed the file to Kakashi. “The results of all the tests. So you know what you’re getting yourself into,” he added quietly, before nodding to Sakura. “Miss.”

Then he and the other agent disappeared into smoke.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

“Is there anything you need from your parents’ place?” Kakashi asked, trying to mask the awkwardness of the situation he had found himself in.

Sakura had been released into his care, and now he had to figure out what to do with her. The details of their arrangement were still getting ironed out, but for now he had taken her back to his apartment to give her the grand tour.

“I can’t think of anything I need.”

“Really? Not even a change of clothes?”

“Wouldn’t fit me.”

“Toothbrush?”

She quirked an eyebrow at him. “Don’t need one.”

“Listen, if there’s something you need then I can just go and grab it for you. You don’t have to talk to your parents.”

“It’s honestly fine, Kakashi. I’ve gone without my stuff for ten years. I can handle a little longer.”

They stepped into the entrance of his home, from which you could see pretty much every inch of it. “It’s kind of small.” It was a perfectly nice size for just him, but for two people it was going to be extremely cramped.

“Books!” Sakura sighted on his bookshelf, and almost left the genkan area before removing her shoes. She realised her mistake and quickly tugged off the spare boots Tsunami had given her. For a second Kakashi wondered if she would put them in her bag with all the rest of her possessions, but she seemed to trust the security of his apartment enough to deposit them in the little nooks provided.

Then she was sprinting for his books, running her hands across their spines and leaning close to take deep breaths of their papery smell. “You have so many,” she grinned, already removing one with a bright orange cover. “We only had a handful, and we all read them about a thousand times each.”

“Not that one!” Kakashi threw out his hands automatically, snatching the book and hiding it behind his back. 

Sakura let him take it. “Sorry, I should have asked before touching.”

“No, I’m sorry, it’s just…” he held up the cover to show her the bold ‘18+ only’ on the corner. “It’s for adults.”

She looked at him like he was a bit simple. “I am an adult.”

He blushed under his mask. It was true, she was clearly much older than eighteen; but he couldn’t really handle it if her first act in the apartment they now shared was to read his favourite porn. “But you’re also my student, so it’s not really appropriate for me to lend you this sort of thing.”

“First of all, you didn’t lend it, I grabbed it entirely without your permission.” She smirked at him. “And second, isn’t that the book you were reading when we first met? I remember the orange cover.”

He floundered. “Well it’s one thing for me to read it…”

“Ah, so you can read it around your students, but they can’t read it around you? Got it.” She grabbed a history book about the Country of Fire instead and started leafing through. “Maybe you can read it to me one day, then.”

He made a noncommittal noise and stuffed Icha Icha Paradise in his back pocket. He’d find a suitable hiding place for it later.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Sakura would have been happy to sit and read Kakashi’s entire bookshelf in one sitting, but when he suggested they go find the boys and grab some lunch together she remembered just how badly she wanted to see the rest of Konoha. 

The circumstances of her return were not officially public knowledge yet, but gossip travelled fast in a ninja village. Half the people they passed stared at her, and some even tried to approach her before Kakashi smoothly redirected them to Hokage Tower for official news.

Since she’d been taken out, she had tried to stare right back at those staring at her. It was a way to take back control, to show that unless they were a madman with an ocular jutsu, there was no way they could harm her just by looking at her. But for the last ten years she had only spoken to eight other people, and unlike The Land of Waves everyone in Konoha knew exactly what she was. It was a little overwhelming to have that many pairs of eyes on you at once. She drew up the hood on her jacket before they had even reached Naruto’s house, and it stayed up while they collected Sasuke. 

The boys and Kakashi were debating where to eat (they had kindly asked her if she had a favourite place, but in her starved imagination everywhere had become her favourite), when they passed a yakiniku place that smelled so strongly that Sakura was practically towed over to the open window.

“How about here?” she suggested, and the boys shrugged. Kakashi, however, was eyeing a booth in the opposite corner.

“You know Asuma’s kunoichi, right?” he asked quietly, and now Sakura could see that Team Ten was also eating lunch. “Are you gonna be okay?”

Sakura climbed through the window.

“Hey!” Kakashi snatched at her wrist but she shook him off. If she had still been much of a crier, the sight of her first ever friend would have been enough to set her off. She looked a little paler and smaller than Sakura remembered (the Yamanaka Ino of her memories was a ten-foot tall, shining goddess of childhood mercy) but it was still Ino, her lovely kind Ino that she’d stopped being friends with for a reason that seemed laughably foolish now. She could have Sasuke. She could have anyone as long as she also kept Sakura. 

It was only when Ino looked up and noticed her that she considered how hard this moment might be for the girl.

“Sakura!” Chouji choked on his meat and had to be slapped roughly on the back by Shikamaru. Asuma was looking behind her, having some sort of silent conversation with Kakashi. He looked much as he always did, but as an adult Sakura could better appreciate that he was the very definition of ‘tall, dark and handsome.’ 

But still she only had eyes for Ino. Would she scream and make a scene? Worse, would she reject her like her parents had? She really shouldn’t have just walked over and confronted her, she should have waited until she was sure Ino was ready. Her friend was back from the dead, and looked like an adult who had gone through absolute hell; of course it was going to be too much. Besides which, even though their fight felt like ancient history to Sakura, did Ino even consider them friends anymore?

All these worries evaporated when Ino stood up and threw her arms around her.

“Careful.” Asuma stood, putting his hands out awkwardly. Sakura could tell he was trying to think of a way to separate them that wouldn’t offend her.

Shikamaru was taking his cues from Asuma, and was close enough to gently tug at Ino’s shoulder. 

“Oi, Ino,” he said, but she slapped his hand away.

Sakura was frozen, afraid to hug Ino back just in case the others thought she was hurting her. They were already starting to make the scene she was afraid of, and after a moment she patted Ino gently on the back and stepped out of the hug. Ino clung to her hands instead, as if breaking the physical connection between them would make Sakura disappear.

“It’s good to see you, Ino-pig.”

“Dad told me you were back, and a little about what happened.” Ino’s pretty face was blotchy and streaked with tears. “I wanted to go to your place right away, but Asuma said we should give you time to settle in first.”

“I’m not staying at my parents’ place.” She sat down in the empty booth across from Team Ten so that they could still talk but didn’t have to keep making a spectacle of themselves. Kakashi and the others quickly followed suit, and before long the other diners returned their attention to their meals.

Ino frowned. “Where, then?”

“Kakashi’s.” The arrangement had seemed normal enough at the time, and certainly preferable to what the elder Danzo had suggested, which would have completely removed her from the orbit of her old life. But the other genin looked shocked.

“With a teacher?” Ino wrinkled her nose.

“With Kakashi?” Naruto cried, and Sasuke punched him in the arm.

“It’s temporary.” If only she had thought to explain it to Team Seven on the walk over. She’d forgotten how excitable kids could be, especially in large groups.

“But he’s so old.”

“We’re the same age,” Kakashi and Sakura said at the same time. They glanced at one another and then immediately looked away again.

Now they’re guaranteed to get the wrong idea…

“Jeez guys, can everyone calm down?” Asuma had decided to rescue things, speaking in that deep voice that made everything he said sound super reasonable. “It’s just like camping on a mission. Not a big deal.”

After that, everyone managed to get through the rest of the meal without any more comments or questions. They didn’t even ask about where she had been or any of the other hundred things she’d been grilled on last night, either because Ino had already passed on the highlights or because Asuma was shooting his team little warning looks any time someone opened their mouth without putting food in it.

As for the food, it was probably delicious; but Sakura could barely taste it. She was home enjoying her freedom, eating yakiniku while The Others continued to wait Inside. How much time had passed by now? Years? Did they all assume she’d ended up killed on a mission, or even - she shuddered - murdered by The Watcher himself as some horrid culmination of his obsession with her?

And had he noticed yet, that she was missing? Was now going to be the moment that she got sent back Inside? Or now? She was so distracted by these thoughts that she ate one of the meat slices raw and didn’t even notice until Chouji pointed it out. The other genin laughed, and she forced herself to laugh along with them. Kakashi might not look at her with outright suspicion anymore, but if she broke down now she’d undo all the progress she’d made with him. She needed tonight to go well, or he’d end up sending her back to Danzo and his strange Root.

Chapter Text

Tobi was on the border of Konoha and The Hidden Sand, covertly observing the movements of both sides as they tried to out-bluff one another. Orochimaru was using the Kazekage as a pawn in the upcoming chunin exam, and it was amusing to watch the border guards pretend that they weren’t preparing for war. 

He had decided a little while ago to alter the time dilation field of kamui. The new ratio wasn’t perfectly 1:1, but now one day outside was only a week or so for his toy soldiers. It meant he didn’t need to worry about them getting too frail to be of use while he considered how best to employ them. It also meant that Kakashi’s kunoichi wouldn’t end up growing older than him before he decided what to do with her. 

The unfortunate side-effect was that even prisoners with a poor sense of time would notice if his favourite toy started disappearing every week instead of every few months, so he couldn’t keep taking her out every night. He’d been good about it so far, though his pink-haired obsession was never far from his thoughts. Sometimes he was tempted to just take her out full time, like his new bodyguard; but there was a chance she would distract him from his work, and that simply wouldn’t do. How could he ever look Rin in the eye if he ended up forcing her to wait longer, just for the sake of a cheap imitation?

And so he would be good, and leave his toy in her box where she belonged. Perhaps he could treat himself to a nice, long reunion with her once Orochimaru’s plan threw the ninja world into abject chaos. They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, after all. 

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Ino had insisted on staying with Sakura.

“We’ll go shopping,” she said, and every male under twenty made a face like she had suggested getting waterboarded. They all silently decided to be elsewhere for a while.

Sakura looked to Kakashi. “Can I?”

She still wasn’t completely sure what a handler was supposed to do. Did he need to be supervising her 24/7? She wasn’t sure Kakashi really knew either, so today might be her last chance to spend quality time with her best friend before they both found out.

Kakashi hesitated, and Ino’s eyes went round. “You’re not seriously going to keep letting her walk around like that, are you?”

“Like what?” Sakura looked down at herself. This was the nicest she had looked in years.

“It’s not your fault,” she assured her, with a sympathetic pat on her arm, “but between the clothes and the hair…”

“I cut her hair,” Kakashi argued, and Sakura nodded. 

“It’s true; I have it here, actually.” She unslung her backpack and showed off the coils of pink braid close to the top.

Ino gently took the bag from her hands, then promptly handed it to Kakashi. “Perhaps you can keep this safe until we get back?”

It was almost funny watching her twelve-year-old friend boss around a twenty six year-old jounin, even if the thought of leaving her bag behind was far from a laughing matter.

Kakashi took the bag without argument but raised his eyebrows at Asuma, probably silently asking where his kunoichi had developed such an attitude.

Asuma simply shrugged. “I don’t have a problem with it if you don’t.”

“Fine. But take Pakkun with you.”

“Who?” Sakura asked, but Kakashi was already biting his thumb through his mask and forming seals she didn’t recognise.

A tiny puff of smoke later, and a wrinkly pug dog was standing with them on the street.

“A dog!” All concern for her precious bag was put on hold as Sakura dropped to the ground to get a better look.

The pug had doleful eyes and its own tiny forehead protector. Sakura hadn’t seen an animal of any sort up close for such a long time that she fell in love instantly. She reached out to pat his velvety-looking ears, but he smacked her hand away.

“Watch it, lady.”

“You talk!” Sakura gasped.

The pug had clearly decided she wasn’t worth dealing with, because he ignored her and turned to Kakashi. “You need something, Boss?”

Kakashi knelt down with significantly more dignity than Sakura. “Pakkun, this is Sakura. She’s the girl I’ve been looking for. Sakura, this is Pakkun. He’s one of my ninken, so he can track me down if anything happens while you’re out shopping.”

“Wait, what?” Pakkun squinted at his master in disbelief. “You summoned me to supervise a shopping trip?!”

“Sorry,” Kakashi gave him an apologetic pat on the head, which Sakura watched jealously. She would gain this dog’s trust if it was the last thing she did.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

The first place Ino took her was a salon. 

“You know I don’t have any money, right?” Sakura said as the hairdresser started fluffing her hair with a critical eye.

Ino flapped her hand in a dismissive gesture. “My treat today.”

“Is Kakashi’s haircut really that bad?” She looked at herself in the mirror. It was pretty uneven at the ends, and when you looked at both sides front on, you could tell that they weren’t quite the same length. But there were no braids, and Kakashi had handled her hair like he understood its value to her.

“Yes,” Ino and the hairdresser both said at the same time, and Sakura resigned herself to losing yet more hair.

It actually wasn’t too bad, having her best friend catching her up on everything she had missed while someone fussed over her. The lady insisted on washing her hair first even though it never got dirty, and the hot water and the scalp massage was so heavenly that if she was capable of falling asleep, she would have. Aside from three hugs and a few medical examinations from the night before (which didn’t count), nobody had really touched her. The Others might have spent literally half their time fighting, but they also understood the value of even platonic physical intimacy.

When the lady finally got to cutting, she ended up giving Sakura a choppy, layered bob that made the uneven patches look intentional and stylish. She even cut in a fringe. 

“I have to admit, it does look a lot nicer like this.” She ran her fingertips through the feathery ends while Ino simply smiled like she had known all along that it would end this way. Sakura remembered another time, when her friend had solved her hair troubles with the help of a little red ribbon. It was amazing how a tiny strip of cloth could change a person’s life. She looked at her friend in the mirror. “Guess Sasuke won’t like it this short, huh?”

Ino’s smile faltered. “Wait, do you still…”

“Like him?” She shook her head. “It’s funny, I held onto that crush way longer than I should have. I hated that I was getting older and he wasn’t. But when I got out, and finally saw him after all these years, I realised I was just as happy to see Naruto. And getting to see you again made me happiest of all.” She held out her hand. “Which is to say, I’d like to officially resign as your rival.”

“I gladly accept.” Ino took her hand and squeezed it. “And not just because it means I get Sasuke all to myself now.” She winked.

“I wish I’d done this way sooner. It sucked, not being your friend.”

“You were always my friend, Forehead. Now come on, let’s get you some new clothes.”

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Clothes ended up being a lot harder than hair. Like Tsunami, Ino refused to get anything for Sakura that she didn’t actually like. She would pick some things out for her, holding them against her body like Sakura was the main flower in an arrangement and she was trying to find complementary blooms. Then she’d march Sakura to the fitting room and make her show off everything one by one. It was the most Sakura had changed clothes in a decade, and strangely exhausting.

“Clothes are a part of your identity,” Ino had declared at one point. “What you wear tells the world who you are.”

“What if I don’t know who I am?” Sakura tugged at the hem of a short dress Ino had insisted on seeing her in. Even if she’d had a whole wardrobe of clothes Inside, what was the point in cultivating a personality when there were only a handful of other people in your world, and they already knew you intimately?

“That’s too short.” Ino confirmed what Sakura had known even when it was on the hanger. “Try this instead.” She handed her another small mountain of fabric. “We’re going to find you somewhere.”

Sakura shot Pakkun a ‘help me’ look, but he just stared up at her with his droopy eyes. “Don’t ask my opinion, unless you just want to grab a vest and a forehead protector and call it a day?” He turned to show off his blue vest with a little henohenomoheji face stitched on the back.

“Very cute,” Sakura agreed, “but I’m not sure they come in my size.” She would need a new forehead protector at some point. Maybe Kakashi could help her with that.

She put the latest clothes Ino had given her in the fitting room, but instead of trying them on right away she escaped to browse the racks furthest from where her friend was currently hunting. 

Red used to be her favourite colour. She still mourned the loss of her little red dress somewhere Outside, even though it would have been tiny on her by now. Was red still her favourite? To be honest, such a bold colour just made her feel nervous. Any time she ended up topside in just her dress, The Others would be on her in minutes. She was like a beacon for fights back in the day. 

But red was also the colour of Karin’s hair and eyes.

She picked out a pair of wide hakama pants in maroon. Red, but dark and muted. And it had nice deep pockets, too.

“How about these?” She held them up to show Ino.

Ino came over at once, inspecting the pants with clear approval. “There you are!” Possibly she would have said that no matter what got selected, but Sakura glowed anyway. “Now we need to find you a top. What were you thinking?”

“I don’t know, just a black shirt?” She grabbed the first one on the top of a nearby pile. It was sleeveless and made of the same stretchy material as Kakashi’s, but without the mask. Most ninjas wore something similar, so pretty much every clothes shop in Konoha stocked them.

“That’s a good start,” Ino hedged, sizing up her patchy coat. “But how about we get a new jacket, too?”

“Sure,” Sakura said, but she meant it this time. She wasn’t just saying yes to whatever ended the experience the fastest; she wanted her friend to help her complete her new outfit. Her current coat was just another strange trophy from Outside, so she didn’t mind if it ended up at Kakashi’s with the rest of her things.

“Oh, definitely this!” After a few minutes of both girls searching the racks with renewed enthusiasm, Ino pulled something free and presented it with a triumphant flourish.

Sakura examined the offering. It was a simple haori half-coat, which would match her hakama well. The print was a tessellating geometric pattern in bottle green and white, a little like the fletching of a thousand tiny arrows.

“It’s nice,” Sakura agreed, “but why this one?”

“This pattern is called yabane, which means ‘arrow feathers.’” Ino spoke with that same easy confidence Sakura had admired when they were both children. “It’s auspicious because, you know, once you fire an arrow it isn’t meant to come back. People use it for brides’ kimonos and stuff.”

“I like that.” Sakura hugged the jacket to her chest. She wanted to be like an arrow, flying so far that it could never be called back.

Pakkun trotted over. “Does this mean we can go home now?”

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

It was after dinner. Sakura was in the shower, and Kakashi was taking the opportunity to re-read the scroll that had arrived for him earlier.

His official mission directives as Sakura’s handler were about as bad as he had suspected. The elders had clearly drafted it, because it was full of bureaucratic nonsense and excessive penny-pinching. Danzo himself had probably suggested the crueller sections, like a three-strike policy against Sakura (unclear what would be considered a strike, or what would happen to her if she reached three), mandated regular blood tests for her and eye tests for him, and a ban on her leaving the village without an escort of at least jounin status. The worst part of all was the calculation of his stipend. Because Sakura didn’t need to eat, the budget didn’t factor in any food-related expenses. Essentially, if he wanted to ‘waste’ food on her then it would have to come out of his own pocket. 

He’d already bought the ingredients for their dinner that night when he got the scroll, and had considered breaking the news during the meal to make it a sort of last treat. But she’d eaten his go-to recipe of broiled saury fish and eggplant like it was something special, asking all sorts of questions about the spices he’d used and how to get the cooking times just right.

Kakashi rarely cooked at home for anyone other than himself, and he’d only taught himself how to cook in the first place to fill the void of time after his father’s death. He had flavours he liked, sure; but it was hard to break the idea that eating was just one of the many banal rituals of living. If his body had stopped needing nutrients, would he still bother with food? 

But then he saw Sakura’s face light up just because the fish tail was crunchy, or the eggplant wasn’t as bitter as she remembered it being. For her, the whole meal was a thousand little sensations, a thousand little joys that he had been able to give her. When he mentioned that it was one of his favourite dishes, Sakura had offered to cook him one of her favourites the next night (she had also requested that he supervise her closely while she did, just in case her skills were so rusty that she burned his apartment down). He decided then and there to just ignore the stipend limitations and never mention it to Sakura; he could stretch his food budget a bit, if it meant she got to feel a little normal.

The bathroom door cracked open and Sakura emerged in a waft of scented steam. Her even shorter hair was wrapped in a towel, and she had changed out of her new green and maroon outfit and into...something else.

“Ino bought this for me.” Sakura gestured to the nightgown that Kakashi could only describe as ‘slinky’ (actually, he could have described it in a lot of ways; but not while the person wearing it was supposed to be under his care). “I told her I didn’t need to sleep so why would I need pyjamas, but she said I’d still want to be comfortable at night. Honestly, I think she just enjoys dressing me up now that I can shop in the adult section.”

“And is it? Comfortable, I mean?” Kakashi was trying hard not to stare at her legs.

“Sure.” Sakura ran her hands down the front, inadvertently pulling it tighter against her body. “It’s super silky.”

“That’s nice.” It was not nice.

“Speaking of being comfortable,” Sakura gestured to his face, “do you always wear your mask at home, or is it because I’m here?”

“Ah.” The honest answer was that yes, he had only kept the mask on and eaten in his usual speedy way (which hardly mattered because Sakura was too engrossed with her own meal to notice at the time) because she was there. He already had to share his house and his time with her; did he really have to share his face, too?

But the moment he had the thought, he realised it was stupid. He’d sworn, prayed even, that he’d do anything for Haruno Sakura if only he could save her. Showing his face was nothing compared to what he was prepared to do to make this work.

He tugged the mask down. “Forgot I was wearing it.” 

Sakura was staring openly, and he forced himself to focus his eyes on his scroll and ignore the itchy feeling of her scrutiny.

“You’re really handsome.”

Did she mean to say that out loud? He glanced up at her in spite of himself. She didn’t seem embarrassed at all, and paradoxically that made the moment even more embarrassing for him. “Uh. Thanks.”

A little-known fact about the great copy-nin Hatake Kakashi was that he blushed easily. Maybe he should have just claimed he wore the mask at all times; the discomfort would have been nothing compared to having a girl in a nightie calling him handsome.

Sakura removed the towel around her head and hung it back up. “So did you want to go to bed?”

“What?”

She pointed to the window. “It’s dark outside. Are you still reading, or did you need to go to sleep?”

“Oh, right. About that…” It hadn’t escaped his notice that the number of beds in the apartment had failed to change just because the number of residents had. Obviously the guest got priority, but unfortunately he didn’t even have a couch to crash on in the meantime. Sharing was out of the question even before he had seen her pyjamas, but a viable alternative hadn’t managed to present itself either. “There’s only one bed.”

“Yeah, I know.” Sakura glanced at the bed which, due to the open plan layout of his shoebox apartment, was a fairly prominent feature. “I figured I’d just sit on a chair, but if you’re worried about privacy I can go into the bathroom?”

“You can’t just sit on a tiny chair all night,” Kakashi argued. “You’ll be taking the bed.”

“Why?”

He blinked. “Because.”

“Because it isn’t gentlemanly to sleep in a bed while a lady goes without?” Sakura teased. “I don’t sleep, you do.”

“But don’t you miss it?” he asked, still unable to come to terms with Sakura just…sitting in a chair all night. 

“Having a bed?” She went over to his bed and fell back onto the covers. Her nightdress rose a little higher over her scarred thighs, but she either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Instead, she closed her eyes and rolled gently from side to side like a fitful sleeper. “It’s nice, yeah.” She opened her eyes and hopped back up. “But so are chairs.”

“Well, if you’re sure…” He switched off the main lights until only the bedside lamp was still lit.

“I’m sure.” Sakura went to one of the armchairs and spun it around so it faced away from the bed. There was still basically zero privacy, but he had to agree that it was better than her watching him sleep all night.

It’s just like camping on a mission…

He might have insisted longer, but tomorrow he had to decide whether or not to nominate Team Seven for the chunin exam. Before Sakura’s return, the answer had still been complicated, just in a different way. The exam was strictly for teams of three, so Naruto and Sasuke would have had to find a genin whose teammates had already been promoted; or, more likely, the elders would have taken the chance to assign a permanent replacement for Sakura. Now that she no longer needed replacing, the problem wasn’t whether the boys could play nice with a new teammate, but if all three of them could still work as a unit well enough to survive. 

He needed enough energy to put them through their paces tomorrow, before registration closed and they were forced to wait another six months. Sakura’s mission scroll made it clear that certain restrictions could be loosened for the duration, so clearly the elders were keen to see Team Seven participate. If they blamed Sakura for delaying, would it count as a strike against her?

He drifted off to this unpleasant thought, and in his dreams he was visited by his father.

“You’re letting your friend sleep on a chair?” Hatake Sakumo’s eyes were wide with all the gentlemanly angst Sakura had accused Kakashi of before.

“She doesn’t sleep,” he murmured, even though you probably weren’t supposed to talk to ghosts. 

Sakumo’s ghost ignored him. “A lady friend.”

“Please go away.”

“The first lady friend you’ve had over in a while.”

“Dad…”

“Basically ever.”

“Dad!” Kakashi had been too young to have such embarrassing conversations with his father before he died. Perhaps it was because it was a dream, but it felt easy to imagine. “She’s not a lady friend, she’s a mission.”

“Ah, Kakashi…” Sakumo leaned over the bed like Kakashi was still a child. But instead of tucking him in, he took a short tanto blade and thrust it into his own stomach. Dark blood splattered the sheets. “It’s the missions that get you killed.”

Chapter Text

Kakashi woke with a jolt, flinging off his blanket like it was still covered in his dead father’s blood. It wasn’t, of course, and he immediately looked at the armchair to see if Sakura had witnessed his ridiculousness.

The chair was empty.

He froze, forcing his dream-panicked brain to wake up properly before it ended up panicking harder. There was a light under the bathroom door. She wasn’t gone.

“Sakura?” He knocked gently.

“Kakashi?” Sakura’s voice sounded strange.

“Can I come in?” He wasn’t sure what he’d do if she said no. 

After a moment the door clicked open. Sakura was sitting on the bathmat, legs curled under her and half a dozen books stacked nearby on the closed toilet lid. There was another book in her hands, but Kakashi was too distracted to read the cover.

“Are you crying?”

The panic returned with a vengeance. Was she hurt? Did the trauma of her parents’ rejection (and quite literally everything else that happened to her in the last decade) finally catch up to her? If so, how could he possibly help? He was hardly the picture of mental health himself, especially if he was now having nightmares about his dad.

Sakura sobbed harder, tears running freely down her face. One fell onto her hand and Kakashi watched as she licked it clean, seemingly without realising she had even done it. “Misaki just broke up with Haruto.”

“Who?” Kakashi blinked. It was still barely dawn, and he doubted even she would go outside in the infernal nightie; but those names did sound familiar for some reason. “Oh, in the book.”

“He doesn’t know that she’s only leaving because she’s sick!” Sakura wailed, and Kakashi couldn’t help but laugh. He thought Sakura had been turned into some ultimate ninja, the hardest of the hard, but here she was crying over fictional characters.

“I forgot I had that book.” He crouched down and gently removed it from her grip before she soaked it. “It was so sad I never read it more than once.”

“It’s horrible,” Sakura agreed, but she had calmed down a bit. “I wish I could show it to Siren; she loves tragedies. Knows a dozen by heart, and made up hundreds more. Oh.” She looked at Kakashi as if finally noticing he was there. “Good morning. Did you need the bathroom?” 

She made to rise, but Kakashi held up a hand to stop her. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay in here. It’s still pretty early.”

Sakura stood to look out the tiny bathroom window. “Sun’s barely up,” she confirmed. “For some reason I thought you were the type to sleep in really late.”

“Not today,” he said, relieved she hadn’t witnessed the reason he’d woken up so early. “Too much to do.”

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Kakashi told Sakura about the chunin exam on the way to meet the boys at the third training ground. He had told Naruto and Sasuke about it yesterday, and they were keen to attend (apparently they had already heard about it from some Sand genin they met in the street), but Kakashi didn’t tell Sakura that their participation would be contingent on hers. He wouldn’t force her, even if it annoyed the elders.

“Is it a long exam?” She asked. “I thought we’d all start looking for The Watcher soon.”

“Some parts will only take a few hours, but others might take a few days.” As for finding The Watcher, the mission scroll had made it extremely clear that Team Seven would not be involved. But he wasn’t sure Sakura would just accept that, so once again he decided to keep it from her. “There will be a lot of foreign ninjas participating; perhaps you’ll find out something along the way?”

She agreed readily enough after that, and when they reached the training ground she went to stand with the boys automatically, and they automatically made space for her. It was like she had never left the team at all.

“So what’s this ‘test’ going to be anyway? Another bell test?”

He smiled beneath his mask. “Something like that. But before I explain any further, we need to wait for the fifth member of our training session to arrive.”

There was a bang, and smoke filled the clearing. When it dissipated, it revealed a tortoise with a man standing on top of its shell in a pose that he probably considered ‘cool.’”

“Team Seven, meet Maito Gai. He’s going to be our opponent for today.”

“Our?” Sasuke squinted at him. “You’re not fighting us?”

“Oh no, you’ve already faced off with me before. This time you can consider me a friendly ally, and all four of us are going to fight Gai together. For these.” He held up two coloured scarves: one in blue and one in green.

“Four against one?” Naruto said. “That seems too easy.”

“Easy, is it?” Gai boomed. Much like his entrance, he had clearly been waiting for the best moment to speak. He leapt from the back of his summon with surprising lightness for such a large man, squaring up to the trio. “Perhaps my reputation hasn’t preceded me, but I happen to be your teacher’s eternal rival. You may have beaten him; but I’m stronger,” he flexed, “and faster.” In almost the blink of an eye he was no longer in front of them, but standing by Kakashi’s side. “Konoha’s beautiful green beast, Maito Gai!”

Kakashi, who was used to this by now, simply handed him the green scarf. “Thanks again for helping out, Gai.”

“Such a lukewarm reply,” Gai muttered as he tied the scarf to his hip pouch, but Kakashi was already holding out the blue scarf to his team. “Gai’s going to be trying to capture our ‘flag’ at the same time we try to capture his,” he explained. “So, who wants to carry it?”

“Maybe you should just keep it?” Sakura suggested. “You’re the jounin, and you know the opponent the best.”

“Good tactical assessment, Miss!” Gai gave her a thumbs up.

“However,” Kakashi cut in, “we’re here to test you guys, and therefore one of you has to carry the flag.” Of course, there was another reason it wouldn’t be fair for him to start out with the flag, but it would spoil the fun to tell them that.

Sasuke started reaching, but Naruto snatched it from Kakashi’s hand first. “I got this!”

“Make sure it’s always visible,” Kakashi instructed, and Naruto tied it to his own hip pouch. 

“In that case,” Gai started backing up, “ready…set…go!”

Unlike the original bell test, where they all ran off in random directions (or immediately attempted to fight him head-on without support), Sakura made the seals for some sort of jutsu that immediately enveloped the area in white particles, like a snow storm of rock dust. It didn’t impede breathing, so Kakashi concluded it was probably a genjutsu rather than actual dust.

This was confirmed when Sakura’s voice spoke clearly in his ear. “Go left.”

He did as instructed, and not a moment too soon because Gai wasn’t about to let low visibility stop him charging forward immediately. The smoky haze swirled around a fist that narrowly missed colliding with Kakashi’s face, and he could hear its owner’s booming cackle as they snuck off to regroup.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

“What’s this guy’s deal, Kakashi-sensei?” They were all crouching under a tree with low branches, and as expected they were using the time they had bought to come up with a group strategy. Naruto was staring at the direction they had come from. “He wasn’t wrong when he said he was a beast.”

Sakura nodded. “I feel like the direct approach is probably just playing into his hands.”

“His enormous hands,” Naruto added.

“He’s fast, and he’s clearly strong,” Sasuke said. “But we have superior numbers; especially if Naruto makes shadow clones.”

“All of which have an identical blue flag,” Sakura guessed. “Smart.” She reached down to pick up a stick and start tracing arrows in the dirt between them. “If the Narutos drive him toward us, we could set up a trap in the meantime?”

“Can do!” Naruto grinned.

“Except this guy doesn’t seem like the type to run away from a fight, even when outnumbered. Instead of chasing him, he’ll want to chase you.” Sasuke started tracing out the basic features of the grounds with a stick of his own. “Lead him here,” he tapped a section of his mud map, “to the KIA monument.”

Sakura didn’t say anything, but Kakashi could see a minute tightening in her expression. Then the moment passed, and she nodded along with the others.

Naruto split off to find Gai and lead him on a merry chase while the others laid the trap. Kakashi followed Sasuke’s orders, stringing wires through the nearby trees and helping Sakura cover up a ground trap she had made using an earth jutsu.

“I actually thought I’d fallen into something similar. That night.” She nudged a few more leaves over the seams in the ground.

She went to set the next trap before he could think of something to say in response, and so the moment passed. Perhaps she hadn’t even realised she’d spoken aloud. 

After a few more minutes of being a perfect ally and no sign of Gai, Kakashi decided to start the true training exercise.

“Look there.” He pointed urgently to the far treeline, and as the other two turned, he threw a volley of shuriken at their backs. 

They heard the whistle and managed to dodge in time, albeit with difficulty because of all the traps they had just laid.

“What the hell!” Sasuke yelled at him even as he launched a volley of his own right back.

Sakura was clinging to the side of a tree with her chakra, and she grabbed a handful of Kakashi’s shuriken from where they had thunked into the wood nearby. “What is this?” She also counterattacked without hesitation, flinging shuriken with one hand and drawing her sword with the other.

“Sorry guys, but I’m betraying you.” He sent a wave of water at Sasuke before he could use his favoured fireball jutsu, then sprung at Sakura. He knew she had stopped only part way up the trunk because they had laid traps in the higher branches. Her only options would be to fight back or drop down to the ground.

She chose to stay, standing at a right angle to the trunk with her sword at the ready. It was an awkward position to maintain; if she took a step then the only contact point with the tree would be her other foot. Nobody could fight like that for long, so it was only a matter of time until he had her where he wanted her.

She gritted her teeth as his kunai clashed with her sword. He was putting his whole weight into the blow, hoping to knock her loose with momentum alone. She managed to maintain her chakra control and engage her core enough to take the initial blow, but once he was inside her sword’s reach it was easy enough to just grab her around the waist and pull. 

There was a feeling of resistance like magnets being forced apart, and a second later her feet came free from the trunk. The second before gravity kicked in she felt completely weightless in his arms, just like that day in The Land of Waves; and then he simply let go. 

She fell away from him as if in slow motion, but her sword moved faster than ever. The tip grazed his left shoulder before he could fully dodge it, and he hissed under his breath.

“Sakura!” Sasuke was running to catch her in another strange mimicry of that day when Kakashi had done the same thing. He broke her fall, helping her roll slightly on impact.

Now both of them were standing on the KIA monument itself; exactly where they were hoping to lead Gai. Kakashi only had to cut a certain wire, and the trap sprung.

A tree trunk swung toward them, high enough that it would just cut off the victim’s escape rather than crush them. At the same time, all the wires they had strung in the trees pulled taught around the stone, snaring them in a web. They struggled, but the wires were surprisingly strong for how thin they were. They could escape with enough time, but would need to work carefully in order to avoid hurting themselves.

“Looks like you guys aren’t going to be a problem anymore. I’ll just finish you off, then go help my real ally get the flag from Naruto,” he called to them from the nearest safe patch of grass.

Sasuke glared, and if looks could kill Kakashi would be a smoking crater on the ground.

“Except you don’t have time to do both,” Sakura said calmly.

“No?”

“No.” She dropped her sword (which was admittedly useless here) and pulled out a single senbon. “If you want to get to the others before I do, you have to start running now.” 

Kakashi could dodge her throw easily, of course, but possibly she had some way of multiplying it mid-air. He tensed up, preparing to jump clear of the whole area once she let it fly.

Instead of throwing it, she plunged it into her neck.

Blood spurted in an arc, splattering the base of the KIA stone. Kakashi could only stare in horror, viscerally reminded of last night’s dream.

Sakura’s entire body wobbled, then it and her abandoned sword burst into a puddle of watery blood. 

It splashed Sasuke’s ankles, and he threw himself further against the wires to avoid it. “A clone?” he murmured, and for a moment they both shared a look of surprise despite currently being ‘enemies.’ Then Sasuke smirked. “That means she’s got a head start on you.”

“Not for long.” Still rattled, Kakashi left him where he was and sped off to find where the real Sakura was hiding.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Sakura jolted; her blood clone had just died, sending all of its knowledge straight to her brain. Kakashi, their ‘friendly ally’, had switched sides and was on his way to warn Gai about their plan.

She had hidden herself in a tree at the start, mostly out of habit. Blood clones were one of the first original jutsu she had developed Inside, with Sensei’s help. They were basically a modified water clone with a little bit of blood (or whatever else) added. It made them hardier, and if you added more of your body they used less of your chakra; but because they were partly real flesh, you couldn’t dispel them like a normal clone. You had to kill them each time.

She had been trailing Gai while he chased Naruto’s small army of clones, picking them off one by one with his monstrous strength and speed. He hadn’t just been bragging when he said he was a taijutsu master: he could have given even Jun a run for his money. As it was, the Narutos had more than halved, and those that remained shared a single expression of terror.

What to do with the information she had? She could try to intercept Kakashi, but Naruto had been leading Gai toward the monument for a little while, so that window was almost closed. Instead, she’d have to just warn Naruto and get ready to improvise.

She raced ahead of the pack and used a henge to change her appearance. Once she also looked like Naruto, she joined the rest as they turned a corner.

“Hey, Naruto,” she tapped one on the shoulder as she ran. “You’re not the original, are you?”

“No,” the clone said, still running surprisingly fast considering how long the chase had been going. Gai may have been the strongest and fastest, but not even he could match Naruto for endurance.

“Good. Listen, Kakashi double crossed us and is coming to warn Gai about the traps. We need to get to the monument now. Tell the others.”

“Okay, but how did y-” his words were cut off abruptly as Sakura put a kunai in his back, causing him to poof out of existence.

The other Narutos jolted slightly, but then continued their mission with renewed speed. They no longer wove through the trees in an apparently random direction, but made a beeline directly for the monument. If they could send Gai into the trap (along with a few disposable clones) before Kakashi interfered, they would still have a chance of getting the flag first.

“Not you? How about you?” Gai was utterly merciless. He kicked one clone so forcefully that it flew twenty feet and took out another three. He had probably deduced that the Narutos were leading him into an ambush or trap, but seemed happy enough to keep following them anyway. His absolute confidence was rather scary.

Sakura deliberately slowed so that she wasn’t in the lead when they hit the first traps; and just in time, because a half dozen Narutos at the front disappeared simultaneously, forcing the rest to halt.

“Ah, my ally!” Gai grinned. The Narutos (and Sakura) were now pinned between two jounin. Kakashi had arrived from the side and was a little out of breath, suggesting he hadn’t come directly from the monument but had doubled back after zeroing in on them. He stood on the edge of the leaf litter, clearly wary of the sinkhole; but with Gai kettling the clones from behind, Green Team still had the better position overall.

There was no sign of Sasuke, but Sakura had good reason to believe he had managed to escape. She whispered to one of the clones, who grinned and rushed at Kakashi just to get taken out like the rest. But it meant her message reached the others with their enemies none the wiser.

Kakashi turned to Gai. “Keep an eye out for the others,” he said quickly. He raised his forehead protector, revealing the swirling red of his sharingan.

Sakura baulked at the sight. She trusted Kakashi, and didn’t believe he would use it recklessly; but what if it was still broken, and he ended up sending her back?

She tried to run from his gaze, but that only drew more attention to her.

“That one’s real!” He called to Gai, and instead of retreating to the green beast’s waiting arms she quickly changed course to attack Kakashi instead.

She yelled like Naruto always did when he was desperately outmatched. Kakashi thought she had the flag, which meant he’d go for it instead of her if given the chance. If she gave him the right opening, he might play right into her hands.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Naruto was coming at him like a man possessed, launching into the air and kicking out at his head. It bought him a little height against a taller foe, but it also meant that all Kakashi had to do was grab his leg and use its momentum to send Naruto flying toward the covered sinkhole behind him. He wouldn’t know to avoid it, and so the trap designed to catch the green flag would snare the blue instead.

Kakashi grabbed the flag in question as it soared past his head; but the second he pulled it free from Naruto’s belt it disappeared in a puff of smoke.

He blinked. Shadow clones had the same amount of chakra as the original, but it moved through their body in slightly different ways. He was sure that Naruto hadn’t been a clone, so he must have switched flags at one point.

“Check the others,” he called to Gai, rushing forward to help. Sakura’s sinkhole had been pretty deep, so with any luck the impact would be enough to make Naruto lose control of his clones. Then he and Gai could just pick the blue flag off the ground and call it a day.

He made it two steps before Naruto (who should have been lying at the bottom of a pit) grabbed him from behind, tackling him to the ground and pinning his arms to his sides so he couldn’t use jutsu.

“Kakashi!” Gai had seen his comrade fall, but the clones were all swarming him, forcing him to focus on taking them out. He was almost hidden in the cloud of smoke his efforts were producing. But even with Kakashi out of the fight, it would still be over in a second whenever he dispatched the clone with the flag.

Gai grabbed one of the last Narutos with both hands, squeezing it roughly. But unlike the others, this one didn’t pop. Instead, it sunk its teeth into Gai’s forearm.

“Ouch!” Gai shook it violently, but it managed to hold its form somehow. As he was yelling and flinging the clone around the clearing, someone entered his blind spot and reached for the flag.

“Look ou-” Kakashi’s captor’s hand closed over his mouth before he could warn Gai, but it was already too late. Sasuke tugged the green flag free and held it above his head.

“We win!” the Naruto that had been biting Gai finally stopped, raising his arms in triumph. “Also, put me down! That hurts, dattebayo!”

Gai dropped the Naruto in his hands while the one on top of Kakashi began to change shape. A lock of pink hair tumbled into Kakashi’s vision, and suddenly it wasn’t Naruto’s jacket zipper pressing into his back but something much softer. Two somethings, actually.

“Sakura,” he wheezed, and the woman laughed softly in his ear and rolled away.

“Didn’t mean to crush you.” She stood and helped him to his feet.

“So you were the non-clone, huh?” Kakashi glanced behind him where there should have been a gaping pit. Instead, there was a strip of disturbed leaf litter where Sakura must have landed, and nothing but flat earth underneath. “How did you avoid tripping the sinkhole?”

“Sasuke moved the leaves.” Sakura looked back at her comrade. “Right?”

Sasuke smirked. “I wondered if you’d notice.”

“I can recognise my own handiwork.”

Naruto, the real Naruto, still sat where Gai had dropped him. “And once you both thought you’d gotten rid of me, it was easy to hide among the clones until you let your guard down.” He frowned at Sasuke. “Grab the flag faster next time, huh? I thought I was gonna get crushed to death.”

Gai laughed uproariously. “Quite a bold plan, putting yourself and your flag in harm’s way! I definitely would have crushed you eventually!”

“It wouldn’t have worked if you didn’t trust your teammates to have your back,” Kakashi added, and Sasuke rolled his eyes.

“We know the teamwork lesson already. Was all this really just to make sure we’d work together during the exam?”

“Not entirely.” Kakashi dusted off the front of his vest. “The chunin exam will certainly require you all to work together, so I’m glad to see you all learned that lesson so well the first time. But the exam will include other teams, from Konoha and beyond. We’re technically on friendly terms with the participating countries, but it will be every team for themselves, so be careful who you trust.”

“That’s why you betrayed us halfway through,” Sakura guessed, “to see how we’d react and adapt.”

“That’s right.”

“So does that mean you’re letting us enter?” Naruto asked.

He nodded, and Naruto jumped to his feet.

“Alright!” Let’s go, then!”

“Right now?” Sakura turned to Kakashi. “You said this could take a few days, right? There’s stuff I need to do first.”

“What stuff?” Naruto cocked his head to the side.

“Well…” Sakura’s eyes slid to the ground. “I don’t even have a forehead protector, for one thing. I guess I’ll catch up in a bit.”

Neither of the boys moved. “You can’t walk back by yourself,” Sasuke said flatly. “Come with us, and we’ll get you one on the way.”

Sakura looked moved by their offer, but continued to hesitate. Kakashi decided to step up. 

“As her teacher, that’s my responsibility. Why don’t you boys get cleaned up and pack a few things, and we’ll meet you at registration in an hour?”

“Good luck, Team Seven!” Gai gave them all a thumbs up. “If I don’t see you at registration, let me offer you one piece of advice: all three of you clearly burn with the fire of youth,” he glanced briefly at Sakura, “which is as much a state of mind as it is a state of the body; but my team is also competing in this exam, and their fire is at least a thousand times hotter! Challenge them at your own peril!”

And with that strangely ominous warning, they all parted ways.

Chapter Text

Sakura turned her forehead protector over in her hands. Her original was still Inside, probably still in the same cache unless Karin had grabbed it after giving her up for dead. She never wore or carried it in case it got left behind Outside, but despite all her care, she had still managed to lose it. This one was going to be different.

She considered putting it around her brow, where a ‘forehead’ protector was actually supposed to go. But Pinch’s goggles were sitting on the top of her head and one would surely get in the way of the other. She loved Konoha, and was so happy to wear the leaf again; but she loved The Others too, and needed the protection from ocular jutsu within reaching distance.

She tied the band around her neck instead, the way she had seen Hyuuga Hinata and a few other ninjas do.

Kakashi gave her a thumbs up. “Looks good.”

“Thanks. Listen, are you sure you don’t want me to heal that?” She nodded at the cut on his left arm. “I feel kind of bad.”

Kakashi glanced at his bandaged arm like he’d forgotten all about it. “Don’t go wasting your chakra on something so minor.”

“That’s the second time I’ve seen you get hit on that side,” she observed, remembering the nasty wound Zabusa had given him. “I guess it makes sense that you’d have a blind spot.”

“The sharingan does have some drawbacks,” he agreed. “But stop worrying about me and start worrying about yourself. Ready to go see if you’re ready to become a chunin?”

“Actually,” she fingered the short ends of her hair, “there’s one other thing I wanted to do first. But you don’t have to come along.”

A crease formed between his brows. “I kind of do. That’s part of what being a handler entails. Also, the boys would kill me.”

“It’s just…” She took a deep breath. “You said the exam might take a few days, and that it’s sort of dangerous, right? So I thought I should probably let my parents know I’m doing it.”

The same parents who were unable to bear the sight of her. Kakashi had witnessed their disgust firsthand, so she was prepared for him to call this a stupid idea.

Instead, he smacked his forehead. “Of course. Sorry, I’m not used to being responsible for students with parents.” He nodded down a certain street. “Your house is that way, right? Let’s go.”

It felt strange, knocking on her own front door instead of just barging in and kicking her boots off.

After a minute, her father answered the door. “Sakura.” He looked startled, but maybe not as upset as he had the day before. “Come in.” It sounded more like a question than an offer.

“That’s okay.” Sakura waved her hand. “We can’t stay long. I just wanted to let you know that I’m entering the chunin exam, so I’ll probably be busy with that for the next few days.” And I helped beat two jonin this morning. And I want you to be proud of me.

“You can’t stay?” For a man who had made it clear his daughter wasn’t welcome under his roof, he seemed almost distressed that she was cutting her visit short. “Let me get your mother so she can see you. Mebuki! Sakura’s here!” He called for her in the vague direction of the kitchen.

“I’m not sure she wants to see me, Dad.” Sakura glanced nervously at the sliver of her old life that she could see through the door. There were some of her shoes in the genkan, still waiting for her to come back and put them on even though they would no longer fit.

“Listen, we feel terrible about…before.” Her dad looked like he wanted to say more, but then Haruno Mebuki arrived and he fell silent.

“Sakura.” Her mother’s eyes were still red-rimmed, and Sakura felt a pang of heartsickness in spite of herself. “I…we…hoped you’d visit.”

“I’m not staying long. I just wanted to tell you I’m doing the chunin exam.”

“Oh.” Like her father, her mother seemed a little thrown. “Well…good luck.”

“Thanks.” Clearly this had been a mistake. She turned to go.

Her mother grabbed her arm. “I know we handled it poorly.” She spoke hurriedly, like Sakura might break free from her grasp and run off at any second. “I - you can’t imagine what it’s like. To look at you.” Her eyes filled with fresh tears. “You should still be a little girl. You were our little girl, and now you’re…” She choked up.

“Not.” Sakura finished the sentence for her. “I get it. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

“No!” The grip on her arm tightened. “You’ll always be our little girl.” She looked suddenly fierce. “I gave birth to you! But your father and I, we’re just so…sad. And angry. Because someone took you away from us, and when we got you back we missed everything. We don’t know who you are, because we didn’t get to see it.”

“It’s just been…hard,” her dad added quietly. “For us. Not as hard as it’s been for you, and I know we’re making it even harder. But remember, it’s only been a month for us. We thought you were dead, sweetheart. And we’re so, so happy you’re not, but you’re also not what we expected.”

“I understand.” And the part of her that they could see, the adult who had been forced to grow up without parents, did understand. She must have seemed like a monster wearing their daughter’s skin, making a mockery of their grief. But their daughter wasn’t completely dead, either. She still lived deep inside Sakura’s heart, and she didn’t understand why her parents couldn’t love her like they used to.

“Be safe,” her father also reached out and squeezed her arm. It wasn’t as nice as the hug she had stolen yesterday, but it was probably as much as they could handle. “The exams are tough.”

“Oh! Take this.” Her mother reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a small green silk bag. It had a little Konoha leaf and the words ‘protection of children’ embroidered on one side. “It’s a charm I bought, to keep you safe.”

“You should get your money back,” she joked weakly, but accepted the charm with both hands outstretched. It was more than she had hoped for.

“Oh, I don’t know. It brought you home, didn’t it? It might help with the exam.” Her father gave her a tiny smile. “Though you’re not really a child anymore…”

“It’s perfect.” Sakura tucked it in her hip pouch. Like her forehead protector, she would keep it on her person at all times. “Thank you, both.”

She left before the mood could turn awkward again. Kakashi fell into step beside her.

“You still want to do the exam? We could go see about moving you back with your parents instead?” He gestured toward Hokage Tower, which rose several stories above every other building in the village.

“Trying to get rid of me already?” She made it sound like a joke, but in reality she was terrified that he was already sick of living with her. “I’m glad my parents are feeling a bit better, but they’re not ready to live with me.” Her parents would only be tortured by her presence, and she’d only be tortured by the knowledge that she was torturing them. Better to stick with small doses for now.

“That’s fine, then.” Kakashi didn’t press. “Do you need anything else from home before registration? My home, I mean.”

“Hmm…” She had already grabbed her bag that morning, a nice new backpack that Ino had bought her. It had enough pockets for all her worldly possessions, including the threads of hair she had painstakingly removed from the tatters of her old clothes and bag. She pulled a bundle free. “Can you hold onto these, in case something goes wrong and we need to try Plan B?”

“If something goes wrong?” Kakashi’s eyebrows creased. “I know I said the exam can get dangerous, but you’re more than capable of handling anything they throw at you.”

Sakura pressed one of her own pink braids into his hands. “The Watcher could send me back at any time, and you’re the only one who can pull me out again. I don’t know if it would help to have something of mine, but it certainly can’t hurt.”

He handled it politely, like Ino had handled her tattered bag the other day when it was clear she didn’t want to hurt her feelings. “I’ll keep it safe.”

She shook her head. “You’re not getting it.” She placed a thin scarlet braid the length of a bracelet on top. “This is Karin.” Then a thicker, shorter braid of sandy blonde hair. “Manami.” A loc of curled black hair. “Siren; real name Yoshi, in case it helps.” Light brown hair. “Pinch; real name Tomo.” Dirty blonde hair. “Jun.” A tiny square of fabric, with a few short dark brown shavings folded inside. “Naomi. Be careful, I don’t have much of that.” And finally, a tuft of steel grey hair, held together with a scrap of rust-stained fabric. “And Sensei; real name Kabuto, apparently. That’s his blood, too, if it helps.”

“You want me to try using the sharingan to take them out, like I took you?” Kakashi guessed, and Sakura nodded.

“I do. Every day we’re not looking for the Watcher is years for them. This,” she nodded at the pile of hair, “is more productive than waiting.”

“Thing is…” Kakashi gently transferred the hair to his pocket. “I didn’t take you out on purpose. My sharingan has gone back to normal, and I don’t know how to make it do whatever it did again. And even if I could, I think I only managed to summon you because I happened to be thinking about you.”

Sakura frowned. “Why were you thinking about me?”

“Because I thought I was about to die?” Kakashi shrugged. “You were part of a long list of regrets.”

“Well.” She wasn’t really sure what to say about that. “Please just…try to think of my friends the same way.”

“I don’t really know them, Sakura.” He said it gently, but it still made her heart sink. “I promise I’ll do my best, but don’t be too disappointed if Plan B doesn’t work.”

“When I get back, I’ll tell you everything I can remember about them.” She had years of memories; far more than Kakashi would have had of her. “I’ll make them as real for you as they are for me.”

And if that still wasn’t enough to save them, then Plan C was clear: she’d just have to make Kakashi feel like he was about to die.

Chapter Text

Naruto fought the urge to scratch his cheek. The cut from earlier, when that crazy…lady threw a kunai at him, itched like hell. It was shallow, but still. Now he was injured in the Forest of Death. That jonin lady said there were all kinds of wild animals they’d have to avoid, or fight, or whatever; how many could smell blood?

Oh wait, Hinata gave him something for cuts. Where did he put it…

He was so busy looking for the little ointment tin that he ended up getting separated from the others. Not a great start. They were only a few hours in, and so far nothing had come to attack them or steal their scroll or anything, but Sasuke said something about passwords just in case this exact thing happened, and obviously Sakura wouldn’t want any of them heading off by themselves after all the trouble it had caused her.

He ran in the direction that he was pretty sure they went and found them both standing on a criss-crossing section of the ‘path’ (the path was clearly made by some kind of animal, because it was crappy and also no sane human would come in here just to make a road). He guessed they didn’t want to pick a direction until he got back, just in case they lost him forever (probably Sakura’s idea) (Sasuke would have loved nothing more than to get rid of Naruto) (Actually, that wasn’t really fair these days, ever since Sakura disappeared and Kakashi-sensei made them look out for each other) (Sasuke refused to use the ‘f’ word though, and Naruto sure as hell wasn’t going to be the first to do it) (‘Friends’, not the other ‘f’ word).

“I’m back! I forget the password.” He grinned sheepishly. It was a really long password, and Sasuke had been acting like such a know-it-all when he said it that it distracted him. “But I remembered that we made one? Does that count?”

Sasuke turned around just so he could roll his eyes at him (Naruto rolled his eyes back twice as hard) but Sakura kept looking in the opposite direction. Another team was coming along the other path, one with Cloud symbols stamped on their forehead protectors. They didn’t seem too bothered about crossing by Team Seven. They even waved, like they were all on a stroll in the park or something.

“Don’t mind us. We’re not in the mood to fight.”

Sasuke drew a kunai. “That’s not really how this works, if you have the scroll we need.”

The one who had spoken, a boy with dark skin and long blue locs, pulled out a scroll with the kanji for ‘heaven.’ “Well, do we?”

“No,” Naruto said. They also had heaven, so it was ‘earth’ they needed. But Sasuke continued to glare at them.

“What’s to stop us taking your scroll just to stop you advancing?”

A white-haired girl shrugged. “Nothing. But it’s only day one of the test, and they already cancelled the written section because there weren’t enough of us to make it worthwhile. I’d be surprised if any teams last three days out here.”

It was true; probably because of the guy who took Sakura and all her friends, but the turnout for this exam was pretty dismal, especially from foreign villages. But it would suck if Team Seven passed only because there wasn’t enough competition to ever really challenge them.

He was just about to open his mouth and do the unthinkable (agree with Sasuke) when Sakura spoke up. 

“No point fighting anyone unless we need to, right?” She looked at the boys hopefully, and Naruto’s eagerness disappeared.

“Right,” Sasuke agreed after a moment. He was an ass, but Naruto knew he didn’t want to upset Sakura either. Still, he glared at the Cloud team as they passed. “You go your way, and we’ll go ours.”

“Happy to.” The blue haired boy smiled and began to lead the others by. As he passed Sakura, he paused. “Actually, there is one thing you might like to know.”

“What’s that?”

He leaned in. “Hikari Mei says hello.”

Sakura grunted, and Naruto watched in horror as a red stain bloomed across her nice new jacket. A kunai stuck out of her side. 

The other two Cloud nin had already backed up before the boys could retaliate, and the blue haired boy turned to join them while Sakura examined the blade that he had left in her. 

Before anyone could do anything else, she pulled it free (with a horrible meaty noise and a lot more blood) and, just as casually, plunged it into the boy’s neck. 

“Sakura!” Naruto was torn between horror at what had happened to her and horror at what she had just done back.

Unlike the boy, she didn’t leave the kunai there but pulled it free from his neck immediately. Blood squirted from the wound with so much force that it splashed her face, and the boy made a gurgling noise while his teammates cried out. He tried to stumble toward them but Sakura wrapped her left arm around his front from behind. She pressed her right hand to his neck.

“Shh,” she said softly, holding the boy upright against her. It might have looked almost…tender, if they hadn’t both been covered in their own blood. “I’m healing it now. You can feel that, can’t you?”

Naruto looked closer at the hand over the boy’s neck, and yes, there was a faint glow of greenish chakra where Sakura was (presumably) healing him. 

The boy tried to say something, but once again there was nothing more than a bloody gurgle. 

“Ponzu!” The third member of the Cloud trio, a pale girl with black hair like a ghost, took a half step forward.

“That’s far enough,” Sakura said calmly, twisting Ponzu’s body to keep him between them. “If I take my hand off his neck he’ll bleed out in seconds, so let’s all just talk while I fix him up for you.”

They both stopped, eyeing Team Seven warily. Naruto glanced at Sasuke, who looked just as shocked as he felt.

“What do you want to talk about?” the white haired girl said.

“First of all, who’s Hikari Mei?”

The Cloud girls stared at Sakura. She stared back.

“De Facto ruler of the southern Lightning region?” The ghost girl said. “Adopted daughter of Hikari Tsubasa, the former ruler? Currently waging a civil war against her uncle Hikari Ando?”

Sakura shrugged. “Never heard of her.”

“You killed her father.” The ghost girl’s glare was chilling. “You’re the reason there’s a civil war in that region. Mei-hime hired us to get revenge.”

“What?” Naruto breathed. Sakura didn’t kill someone’s dad, did she? He looked at her, hoping to see shock, even anger at being accused of something so awful. Anything that showed him she was innocent.

“Did I use a sword?”

The girls blinked, then looked at each other uneasily. This clearly wasn’t how things were supposed to go.

“A letter opener.” Ghost girl finally answered. “The lord took an urchin into his home after finding her injured, and she repaid him by cutting out his throat and jumping out the window. She killed a handful of attendants, too, just for good measure.”

“Sounds like something you’d remember,” White hair added tartly.

“Sounds like it, yeah.” Sakura gazed pensively at the ground, as if bored by this whole situation; but Naruto could see that she was still healing the hole in Ponzu’s neck. “How do you know it was me?”

Ghost girl retrieved a bundle of red fabric from her backpack, moving slowly to avoid giving Team Seven a reason to attack her. “Witnesses said the girl had pink hair and a red dress, before the lord gave her a change of clothes.” She threw the bundle on the ground, revealing a white ring emblazoned on the back. Sakura’s dress.

They all stared at it. Sakura’s hand even twitched forward a few times, as if she was tempted to let go of Ponzu and grab it instead. 

“A girl,” she said quietly, before making a harsh barking noise that Naruto realised was a laugh. She reached into her own pack. “Give the daughter this, and tell her your mission was a success.” She tossed them a braid of long pink hair, and Ghost girl caught it. “That girl,” she nodded at the dress, “is dead.”

She pushed Ponzu gently forward, removing her hand to reveal angry pinkish skin and a lot of dried blood. He stumbled a little, but was able to totter back to his comrades.

And that seemed like it would be it. The Cloud girls grabbed Ponzu’s arms and began to walk away with him limping between them. He glanced back at Sakura one last time, as if he couldn’t quite believe she would first attack him and then heal him.

Naruto wanted to get far, far away from them and anything else that might be attracted to that crossroads by the smell of blood, but once again Ponzu stopped in his tracks, and once again Team Seven tensed up for a fight.

But Ponzu only pointed at Sakura’s head. “Where did you get those?” His voice was raspy.

The Cloud girls, who had also tensed up when Ponzu stopped, followed the direction of his finger. Ghost girl frowned. “That’s…?”

“Couldn’t be,” the white haired girl breathed, equally affected by whatever they were looking at.

Sakura raised her fingers to the top of her head. “My goggles?” she said, and then she gave another barking laugh. “You know Tomo?”

“Yes,” Ponzu wheezed.

“Then I guess you also know Yoshi and Mayumi. And Chu-chan.” 

Ghost girl nodded. “They were in the year below us at the academy.”

“Makes sense.” She unslung her pack and grabbed a few scraps of the multicoloured hair that used to be all over her old clothes. She picked some strands and locs free. “I’m running low, but this belonged to them.” She held it out. “I’ll trade it for a promise that you’ll leave me and my teammates alone for the rest of the exam.”

The trio seemed to confer silently, before the ghost girl reached forward. “Deal.”

Sakura tipped the snarl of hair into her open palm, and she pocketed it carefully. 

“Are they…?”

“Alive?” Sakura bit her lip. “They were the last time I saw them, but that was several days ago. A lot could have happened since then.”

“Take this too,” Ponzu rasped, lobbing the heaven scroll gently toward them. Naruto caught it, and only realised afterwards that it might have been trapped (oops). “We’re leaving the exam anyway.”

“Seriously?” Naruto blurted out. Clearly there was a lot going on between these guys and Sakura that he didn’t fully understand, but he couldn’t help but speak up. “What about becoming chunin?”

“We’re already chunin,” White haired girl shrugged. “This was just a mission for us.”

“Yeah, there’s no way Cloud would send actual genin out of the country just for a stupid exam.” Ghost girl shuddered. “Way too risky.”

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Kakashi had been getting a headache even before he found out that Orochimaru had somehow infiltrated the chunin exam. Now that he knew one of the most powerful enemies of Konoha was in the same forest with his three genin (one of whom he was directly responsible for), the throbbing feeling in his temples might never go away.

“You can’t tell anyone.” Genma’s face was hidden under his tiger mask, but the warning in his voice was clear. “And you definitely can’t go anywhere near the Forest of Death until the three days are up.”

“What if he’s the one capturing genin?” Kakashi struggled to keep his tone level. “It fits his MO.”

“Except for the part where your girl said they use an optical jutsu,” Genma countered, languidly rolling a senbon between his long fingers.

“She isn’t my gi-”

“In any case, we haven’t ruled it out. The Third hasn’t ruled anything out, Kakashi, and the only reason he wanted me to tell you about Anko’s discovery is so you wouldn’t do something reckless if you found out later.”

“Does the Third think I’m so irresponsible that I need a direct order to behave myself?” Kakashi scoffed, but inside he was hurt deeply.

Genma punched him lightly on the arm. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. If the Third didn’t respect you, he could have just sent you on a three-day mission somewhere instead of warning you like this. He knows you’re unusually attached to your comrades, for a ninja. It’s probably why he made you responsible for the last Uchiha and the jinchuuriki, because he knows you’d risk life and limb to protect them. Same for Haruno Sakura, now that you’re her handler.” Genma raised the senbon to his mouth before seeming to realise that he was still wearing his mask. He sighed. “Point is, whatever happens to them out there isn’t on you.”

“Is the Third expecting something to happen to them?” Kakashi asked, and Genma shrugged carefully. 

“I didn’t say that. But like I said, nothing has been ruled out at this point.”

Kakashi’s head gave a particularly sharp throb, right behind his left eye.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

“Do we need to stop, so you can deal with that properly?” Sasuke pointed at Sakura’s wound. After the encounter with Cloud, she had snatched up her old dress and led them far away from the area, but even though she had been pressing her hand firmly to her side the entire time, it still oozed blood. The Cloud boy’s neck had only taken a few minutes to heal over, so a (slightly) less serious injury should have been perfect by now.

Sakura just blinked at him for a few seconds, and suddenly Sasuke wished he knew more first aid. Was she in shock? “Sure,” she said finally, and went over to sit on a nearby rock.

She lifted her jacket, and Naruto hissed. “That looks painful.”

It did. There was a small puncture wound that went right through her black undershirt. It bled sluggishly, and when Sakura peeled back the shirt her skin was tacky with blood.

Naruto caught Sasuke’s eye, trying to communicate something without words; but Sasuke didn’t have time for Naruto. Sakura was an adult, but after years without sunlight or adequate food she wasn’t a particularly big one. How much blood did she have? How much could people usually spare?

“Have you healed it at all?” Naruto asked suddenly. He still had that serious expression, almost like he was mad at Sakura.

“A little,” she admitted, and Sasuke frowned. Maybe Naruto wasn’t a complete idiot after all, if he’d realised Sakura wasn’t even healing herself. “It’s hard to do it on the fly, and I wanted to get some distance first.”

“Are you out of chakra?” He asked. Had she wasted it all on that Cloud boy?

She shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s…” She seemed to be struggling to find the right words. “It’s easy to heal other people, but it’s hard to heal myself. You know how your own chakra has a certain signature? Some people describe it as a colour.”

Sasuke nodded immediately, but Naruto seemed to think about it for a few seconds. “I never really thought about it, but I guess my chakra is mostly ‘blue’ when I imagine using it.”

Sakura smiled. “Right. So my chakra feels green to me, but because of whatever The Watcher did when he connected my body with his, half of my body is just constantly burning with it.”

Sasuke stared at Sakura’s abdomen, wishing he had the sharingan so that he could see the flow of her strange chakra. “Why aren’t you exhausted, then?”

“Forget all that,” Naruto flapped his hand at Sasuke, who scowled. “Start healing!”

Sakura seemed to oblige, because the wound went a little blurry and there was a smell like ozone. “There are a lot of theories about why it doesn’t kill us,” she continued answering Sasuke’s question, “but I don’t think we’ll know for sure unless we catch the Watcher and force him to explain. Sensei and I concluded that it was another time-space jutsu, freezing some of our chakra in time so that it could keep our end of the ‘bridge’ open between us and him. But the point is, when your body is already lit up with your own chakra, it’s hard to manipulate the rest of the chakra while it’s still inside your body. It’s like trying to draw a green line on a green piece of paper; there’s no contrast.”

“So you need to focus harder,” Sasuke concluded. “But using normal jutsu wouldn’t be as difficult because the effect produced is outside your body?”

“That’s correct.” Sakura winced as the dead blood began to burn away and the flesh slowly began to knit back together. “Elemental jutsu, ninjutsu, even healing other people is fine. It’s just when I try to heal myself that things get tricky.” She smiled ruefully. “One of the many reasons I miss Sensei and Karin.”

“Those were some of your friends, right?” Naruto asked gently, and she nodded. 

“Once we’re properly safe somewhere, I’d like to tell you more about them all. I hate feeling like I’m the only person out here that knows them as they are currently. Or at least, as they were a few days ago. That’s years to them.” 

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Naruto raced against the rapidly dimming light. There had been some sort of hurricane (or hurricane jutsu) and before he could blink he was blasted halfway across the forest with nobody in sight except a giant snake (which hadn’t hesitated to swallow him whole). He managed to free himself with some quick thinking (and a horde of shadow clones) but now the gross snake juices were all over him and he had no idea where Sasuke and Sakura were. 

He strained his ears, and before long the sounds of human voices reached him. Hoping he wasn’t about to run into someone else’s fight, he dropped from one massive branch to another about a storey lower (and still about four storeys from the ground). 

He rounded the huge trunk, and finally he could see his friends. They were facing down only a single opponent, the Grass girl that had been standing behind him at the start of the exam. She had been creepy then, but she was downright terrifying now. Even with her attention focused solely on Sasuke and Sakura, Naruto could feel the killing intent radiating from her. 

“Prey should try to run,” she called out, before dropping to her belly and slithering forward like a snake, “when they come face to face with a predator.”

Sakura grabbed Sasuke’s shoulder, clearing preparing to flee. Naruto couldn’t deny this girl was freaky, but if she had the scroll they needed then Team Seven couldn’t let themselves get scared off by a weird snake body and intimidating aura. He flung a handful of shuriken in front of the girl, halting her progress. “I’m here!” He called to the others. “Let’s beat her together!”

The girl laughed. “Two opponents or three, the outcome will be the same.” Then she struck out at the other two as if Naruto had never spoken. 

He jumped toward her back and grabbed her long black hair, hoping to pin her before she reached the other two; but at the last moment there was a puff of smoke and a giant snake, even bigger than the one he had just fought, burst forth and hit him like a sucker punch from Maito Gai. He wheezed, stunned.

“Naruto!” Sakura jumped out to catch his limp body before it crashed into the tree. But this left Sasuke alone, and the snake girl grabbed him around the middle with arms that lengthened and constricted like a pair of boas.

Sakura set Naruto gently on the ground in order to rush back to Sasuke, but the giant snake intercepted her. She drew her sword.

“Naruto, help Sasuke.”

After another second of trying to catch his breath, Naruto rejoined the fight. While Sakura was distracting the snake he was able to slip past and plunge a kunai in the girl’s back. “Drop him!”

Poor choice of words. The girl did drop Sasuke, and Naruto watched as he toppled off the branch and out of sight. Naruto would have gone after him, but it turned out that the girl wasn’t as fazed by the injury as Naruto hoped she would be; she just calmly turned and grabbed him instead. 

One hand held both of his over his head, the arm stretching to keep her body safe from his kicks.

“You’ve grown up interesting,” she remarked, the other hand reaching forward to lift the bottom of his shirt. 

“What are you-” he struggled, but he couldn’t prevent her from placing five fingertips against his belly and twisting like she was opening a jar. He shrieked. Beyond the pain, there was a tightening feeling like a tap being turned off, and after another second all he felt was exhaustion. He closed his eyes, unable to call for help. Unable to stop this girl killing him if she chose to…

“Wake up, idiot.”

There was a rush of air, and suddenly Sasuke was standing between him and the girl. His back was to Naruto, but he turned to give his usual annoying smug smile. Naruto would have been furious if he hadn’t been so relieved he was okay. And another thing…

“Your eyes…” Sasuke’s eyes were red.

Sasuke blinked, turning back to the enemy before she got any ideas about attacking him while he was distracted. “I got stronger.”

Naruto knew Sasuke was an Uchiha, like Kakashi’s friend who gave him his left eye. But he hadn’t fully appreciated that Sasuke might end up with similar eyes one day; he sort of assumed that eye colours never changed, the same way Hinata’s eyes didn’t change colour when she activated the byakugan, so Sasuke had just been born without the knack. Clearly, he was wrong.

“Such beautiful eyes,” the girl cooed at Sasuke. “I think I’ll take them.”

There was a crashing noise, the sound of a snake carcass falling out of a tree and onto the forest floor. Sakura, sword flashing, shot past the girl and onto the far branch. 

The girl stumbled, and Naruto’s stomach lurched when he realised Sakura’s strike had decapitated her. But no; her awful snake body seemingly included a long, bendy neck. Her head had simply ducked out of sight behind her body and now reared back at them in a fanged scowl. 

“Too slow, girly,” she hissed, and lunged for Sakura.

Sakura sidestepped the attack, but the girl’s snake body simply turned in midair like a human body could never have done, and struck a vicious blow to her wounded side. Sakura made a coughing noise, digging the tip of her sword into the branch so she wouldn’t fall off. 

Naruto tried to jump in and help despite his sudden exhaustion, but Sasuke was faster. In fact, Sasuke was faster than Naruto had ever seen him. He met the snake girl blow for blow, steel ringing out so violently that it sounded like an army was fighting.

Sakura hesitated, clearly afraid of skewering Sasuke if she didn’t anticipate their movements perfectly. Eventually she chose her moment, plunging forward and driving her sword into the girl’s shoulder. She dug in her heels and shoved the girl further and further until sword and girl thunked into the trunk of the tree.

“Way to go, Sakura!” Naruto joined them on the branch, and was just about to check the girl’s pockets for a scroll when her entire body dissolved into brown sludge.

“Look out!” Sakura spun around at the same time that Sasuke cried out in pain. 

Naruto felt like he was moving in slow motion, turning to watch the horror unfold. With her clone defeated, the girl had used the moment of relief to attack Sasuke from behind. Her fangs were sunk into his neck like he was her prey. Just how similar to a snake was she? Did she have venom?

They rushed forward to help. Naruto punched the girl in the head just as Sakura swung her sword from behind, so that his punch sent her head flying back into the path of Sakura’s sword. Once again it managed to bend in an unnatural way, but Sakura corrected her angle accordingly. 

Instead of dodging, the girl (more snake than girl at this point) opened her mouth wider and wider, until she could swallow the entire sword as well as both of Sakura’s arms up to the elbows. She bit down and something crunched. 

Sakura made a noise like a choked off scream, tugging her arms free. The humanoid snake spat out the sword and it tumbled, spinning, over the edge.

“Until next time,” she murmured, wide mouth turned up in a horrible smile, and then her whole body sank into the trunk and disappeared.

Sasuke wobbled in place, but Naruto was close enough to catch him and take his weight. “Are you okay?” He called to Sakura, who was turning pale. Her left arm hung at a bad angle. 

“We need to get to the ground,” she said. “How’s Sasuke?”

“He’s hurt.” Naruto shifted his dead weight to get a closer look at his neck. “She bit him. It looks…bruised?”

Sakura scrubbed her face with her good hand. “Alright. Can you take him?” Before he could answer, she dropped to the next branch down, and the next, and so on. 

Naruto hefted Sasuke and followed until they were both on the ground. He went to lay him gently down among the roots, but Sakura stopped him.

“Not here; you need to find somewhere safe for the night.”

“Me? Not we?” Naruto tried to keep the trepidation from his voice.

Sakura shook her head. “I’m also about to pass out, and it’s…it might look strange.” She leaned in closely, and now Naruto could see just how much of a toll the fight had taken on her. The giant snake had clearly body-slammed her a few times, judging by the scrapes and bruises he could see, and if her left elbow wasn’t dislocated then it was badly sprained. “Listen carefully Naruto: if I completely disappear, wait until Sasuke wakes up and then both of you leave the forest and tell Kakashi right away. Don’t wait for the third day, leave as soon as you can.”

“Disappear?” Naruto was listening hard, but Sakura’s words barely made sense. “Why would you disappear?”

“I hope I won’t.” Her eyelids fluttered. “But if I do…tell Kakashi he needs to get me out again.”

“Sakura? Stay with me, okay?” If she toppled over now, he wouldn’t be able to catch her without dropping Sasuke.

“Get Sasuke somewhere safe and then come back for me,” she said, and then her eyes went dull. Naruto braced as well as he could with Sasuke’s dead weight in his arms, but she didn’t actually fall. She remained standing, sightless eyes still wide open. The ozone smell returned.

“Hey.” He nudged her gently, and other than rocking slightly in place she neither moved nor reacted in any way. It was as if Sakura was just…gone.

Chapter Text

Even from his position on the border, Tobi could tell when Konoha first became aware of Orochimaru. The border guards went from wary to outright nervous, increasing and randomising their patrols. Tobi, who had no particular need to enter Konoha (especially while Orochimaru had them all on high alert) simply retreated further into The Land of Rivers, closer to the Wind border but still far north of the Akatsuki base, and ordered his bodyguard to stay close.

He considered summoning another ninja from Kamui for good measure. The redheaded woman had a prodigious sensory range that might have been handy. And there was Kakashi’s kunoichi, of course; holing up somewhere with her might make the time pass more enjoyably, but he could hardly claim it would make him safer.

“What can my other soldiers do, Bodyguard?”

The bodyguard responded immediately, voice surprisingly soft considering his scary face. “Sensei is a medical expert. Manami is a puppet master. Chu-chan is a puppet. Pinch is an elemental polymath. Siren is a genjutsu specialist. Jun is a taijutsu specialist. Naomi is a weapons master. Red is a natural healer and sensory type. Konoha is a medical expert, swordmaster, and all-rounder.”

“Konoha?” he snorted. “She never told me she had a nickname.” It was hard to get that kind of information out of his soldiers without relaxing his control. He did it when he had to send them on missions that required a certain amount of autonomous thought, but it was tedious if you didn’t get the level just right. Wake them up a little, and they could act almost normal. Wake them up too much, and all they did was scream.

He was considering his options when he felt a menacing aura on the edge of his awareness. But it was only one person, not a whole patrol unit. No need to give away his position by looking for trouble.

In hindsight, he shouldn’t have dismissed a lone ninja traversing the border of two great nations so easily. After all, he had been a lone ninja traversing borders for years, and he was about as dangerous as they came.

The shinobi honed in on them immediately, and it was only his bodyguard’s standing order to protect Tobi above all else that saved him from being cut in half. As it was, their sword (more like a long meat cleaver) passed so close to his body that he could see his own masked reflection in it.

His bodyguard had placed his own body between him and his assailant, parrying so forcefully that his feet sunk half an inch in the sandy soil. While his face remained as blank as ever, his opponent’s face was contorted with emotion.

“Haku…” the man tugged at the cloth covering the lower half of his face, revealing a grimace of pointy teeth that matched the bodyguard’s. His sword was raised in a master’s stance, but instead of attacking he simply stared at the bodyguard. “She showed me how you’d look now, but…”

She? Just who had this man been talking to, that knew about his bodyguard? That origami bitch from Akatsuki had never really warmed to Tobi; had she figured out what he was doing?

“Who sent you?” he asked, trying not to reveal how much he cared about the answer.

The man turned suddenly toward him, but the bodyguard once again placed his body in harm’s way.

“You cannot harm him, Zabusa.”

“Why not?” Tobi could tell ‘Zabusa’ was absolutely furious, but struggling to keep himself in control. After all, an emotional swordmaster was no master at all. “Because of the other ones?”

Tobi relaxed his control over the bodyguard ever so slightly; just enough autonomy that he could use the history these two clearly shared to his advantage. He needed to get answers at any cost.

“Because he controls me.” Tobi couldn’t see his face from this position, but the bodyguard’s voice was flat. Somewhere inside, the man was probably railing against his prison of obedience, but on the surface he showed neither deference nor resentment. “I am his tool.”

“It wasn’t too long ago that you were my tool,” Zabusa said softly, and the bodyguard sighed.

“It was for me.”

“So you were his old master?” Tobi raised his brows. He’d taken this one from the far west, and travelled all over since then. “Again: who sent you? How did you find us?”

“I’m not going to tell you.” The man’s voice was pure hatred, but he never raised his gaze higher than Tobi’s ribs. Either he was a coward, or he knew what could happen if he made eye contact.

How interesting.

“Oh well then,” he replied cheerfully, before slapping his bodyguard on the back. “Hurt him badly, but don’t kill him until he tells us what he knows.”

He leapt out of danger just as the bodyguard leapt into it. This swordmaster might hesitate to kill his beloved former tool, but in Tobi’s grasp that tool wouldn’t hesitate to run the swordmaster through. If he survived the onslaught, Tobi would find a quiet place to have a nice, long interrogation.

The swordmaster retreated a short distance, buying himself the space to parry the attack he must have known was coming; and indeed, when the bodyguard threw a fistful of senbon, he raised his sword almost reflexively. These two had clearly sparred many times.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the boy from a few months ago. That boy had been quite impressive, especially thanks to his curious bloodline limit; but the man that he had become in Kamui was in another league entirely.

Still, the fight was close. The swordmaster knew how to avoid getting caught in the bodyguard’s ice mirrors and other traps, and his abilities were admittedly impressive. The awful meat cleaver might actually have been a legendary sword, because every time it so much as nicked the bodyguard, the blood seemed to disappear into the metal like it was drinking it. Was this one of the seven ninja swordsmen? Tobi had never bothered to learn their identities; Mist loved killing each other so much that their bingo books should have been updated hourly.

The swordmaster seemed to be trying to wear the bodyguard down with dozens of these cuts, never slicing too deep or hitting anything too vital. But he was receiving just as many cuts in turn, from the bodyguard’s many needles and ice shuriken. It was probably the reason the battle was lasting so long; nobody was willing to land a killing strike.

After a few minutes, blood stained the sandy field and splattered the nearby trees. Tobi was watching from a safe vantage point near the treeline, ready to scoop up the enemy when the bodyguard had finished with him. A lucky senbon had just managed to find the man’s achilles tendon, so it wouldn’t be a long wait now.

Undeterred, the swordmaster raised his weapon, preparing once again to face down the bodyguard’s exceptional speed. His footwork was greatly impacted, which was probably why he stood still instead of continuing to move around. This would be the strike that either stopped him for good, or forced him to kill the boy he had come to rescue.

The bodyguard seemed to suck all of the moisture from the air, racing forward in a flash of ice crystals. Tobi relaxed his control even more; the swordmaster was bound to have some final trick up his sleeve, and he didn’t want to lose one in the process of capturing the other.

The enormous sword acted like a mirror, blending in with the flurries of snow so that it seemed to disappear in Zabusa’s hand. But wait; Tobi flinched hard as he realised the sword really had disappeared from the man’s hand, because it was flying straight at him. 

He activated Kamui just in time for the sword to pass through his body; or more precisely, the parts of his body that were about to be hit went into Kamui and back again.

The sword thunked harmlessly into a tree somewhere behind him, and there was a grunt from the swordmaster as his former tool slammed into him with an armful of needles. Fresh blood splashed onto the snow, steaming.

“Haku…” The man swiped his hand down the bodyguard’s cheek, leaving a smear of red.

The bodyguard looked at what he had done, and too late Tobi realised that his face was no longer an emotionless mask but filled with horror.

“Zabusa…”

Before he could regain control, the bodyguard threw up his arms.

With a great shrieking sound, the snow surrounding the two men turned to jagged spikes of ice. The splash of red became a carpet, and suddenly the only sound in the clearing was the soft creaking of melting ice, broken bones, and punctured lungs. At the centre, the men remained standing, impaled against one another in an almost-embrace.

“What have you done?!” He raced forward, grabbing the bodyguard’s slender chin and raising it to look at him. Not even the connection to Tobi’s own lifeforce could save the man now, but with the sharingan he could still make his final seconds last days.

The bodyguard’s face was frozen in a jagged smile. His eyes were utterly destroyed, gouged out by the ice blast. The swordmaster’s soon-to-be corpse was in much the same shape, and therefore useless. The bodyguard had used his first taste of freedom in decades to make sure that Tobi could never hurt him, or his beloved master, ever again.

Tobi raked his fingers down his masked face, rage warring with despair. Yet another setback on the road to saving everyone. Yet another distraction. Yet another betrayal. Why couldn’t anyone see what he was trying to do for them? And why was he cursed to do it alone?

“Why did you have to get in my way?” He asked the two men, but they were beyond hearing now. He kicked at their bodies until the last spikes of ice cracked and they finally fell apart. He knew the bodyguard had carried nothing but weapons, which would be redistributed to his siblings in Kamui; but what of the swordmaster?

He patted down his pockets, and quickly discovered how the man had been able to track them. There was a coil of oil-black hair in his pocket, the exact same shade as his bodyguard’s. It might have been cut before the boy was taken (the boy’s hair had been girl-long even then), but the way it was tightly braided and tied with a scrap of cloth reminded him of someone else. Someone who should have been safe in Kamui, obediently waiting for Tobi to summon her.

“Kakashi’s kunoichi.”

A pit opened in his stomach. He tried summoning her now, forming the black vortex through which his possessions normally travelled. But nobody appeared.

He tried again, ignoring the rising panic and focusing on scouring Kamui for any sign of her. There were only seven living beings, only seven lights glowing in the darkness of his pocket dimension. He pulled them out one by one, putting them under his control until they were all lined up, silent, waiting.

“Where is Haruno Sakura?” he asked them, grasping desperately for the breezy attitude of his Tobi persona.

They simply stared, doll-like, ahead of them. He adjusted his control slightly. “Speak freely.”

Now they could say whatever was in their hearts. They turned their necks to gaze at their surroundings: the glorious sun above and the bloodied corpses at their feet. They were all noise now, mostly inarticulate sobs and cries that were of no use to Tobi.

“Teeth,” a brown-skinned woman spoke in a melodious voice, eyes on the bodyguard. “Oh, you poor soul.”

“The Watcher got him,” a shirtless man cried.

“Shut up!” he snapped. “Shut up.”

The mewling ceased, replaced with a thick blanket of fear. Some whimpered silently, while others merely trembled. Only Yakushi Kabuto, the oldest and most defiant, dared raise his head more than an inch off the ground; but even he wouldn’t quite meet his eye. Again, it might have been simple cowardice; or it might have been knowledge.

“Who am I?” He asked. “Tell me the truth to the best of your ability.”

“The Watcher,” they intoned as one voice. And then Kabuto continued to speak.

“Most likely an Uchiha, with a sharingan powerful enough to create a pocket dimension and exert absolute control over others through eye contact alone.” His mouth twisted and grimaced like it did when he fought the curse seal Tobi had given him, but this time it was clear he was trying not to speak. “Possibly Uchiha Itachi, the only living Uchiha with a fully realised sharingan.”

“Itachi…” Not a bad guess, and far too close for his liking. He knew Kabuto had been Orochimaru’s man before he’d taken him, and therefore knew more than the idiot children he otherwise stole. The curse seal should have prevented him from sharing his suspicions with the class, but clearly Tobi hadn’t been careful enough.

“Where is Haruno Sakura?” he repeated. “Where is the woman you call ‘Konoha’? Answer to the best of your ability.”

“Taken out,” the red-haired woman he had snatched in Grass spoke up. “I felt her go. You took her out like you always do.”

His hands clenched into fists. Taken out? For once he hadn’t taken her out, but if she was indeed gone from Kamui and not just hiding somehow, then all his worst fears were confirmed. This was bad, not just for him but for his plans. The things he had told her could destroy him, if she ever remembered them. And even though part of him wanted to believe she loved him as much as he made her say, she wouldn’t have sent the swordmaster after him if she did.

“We thought she was with you,” a blonde woman said in a trembling falsetto while the ugly puppet in her arms flapped its mouth open and shut. “Or you finally killed her.”

Rage finally won. He lashed out, striking the girl to the ground and wrenching the ridiculous puppet from her hands. He tore its head off, then twisted its stupid flapping jaw until the hinge warped. He threw it at the girl, who wasn’t allowed to defend herself and therefore could only cry silently as it struck her.

The sight of her tears only made Tobi madder. How dare these tools act like their feelings mattered to this world? Kamui was meant to make them the strongest ninja possible, but look at them all: others were crying now, crying for the bodyguard, for the girl, for themselves, for the stupid fucking puppet. Didn’t they know a shinobi must never show their tears? Kakashi had always loved reciting that one, every time poor Obito lost control of his tear ducts - which was often.

“You are all pathetic!” Tobi screamed at his victims, dismantling the puppet joint by joint just to keep himself from dismantling them. He hated them: their silence, their judgement. He hated that if he did turn his hand to them now, they would simply let it happen. Kakashi’s kunoichi, Sakura, Konoha, the not-Rin of his heart, would have let anything happen to her as long as he was the one doing it. He had feared that power at the time, but now he understood that by sparing her, he had spoiled her. ‘Freedom’ was an illusion in this world, one that should be shattered as quickly as possible so that people could see through the cracks to the new world he was making for them. He should have hurt her worse, taken out all of his rancid emotions on her flesh, and watched as she still smiled, and kissed him, and told him she loved him. Then she might have been saved.

When the puppet was in a hundred pieces and his desire to hurt something was somewhat satisfied, he carefully wiped the memories of his last seven soldiers and sent them back to Kamui along with the broken pieces, the bodyguard, and the swordmaster (minus his sword and the braid of hair). Let their deaths bring them a little pain, as punishment for letting one of their fellow prisoners escape. Perhaps the bodies would rot, or perhaps his precious savages would give in to their endless hunger and eat them. Either way, there would be enough suffering to satisfy Tobi for a little while.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

The Others stood in a cluster, silent but for the sobs and wails of Manami. This was where they had all found themselves, with Chu-chan in pieces, two dead bodies, and no memory of what had transpired. Blood and mud caked the soles of their feet, but aside from a nasty cut on Manami’s forehead and Chu-chan’s brutal murder, there wasn’t a single scratch on any of them. Usually it was only Konoha who came back totally uninjured from Outside, and it wasn’t a state any of them particularly envied. Better to be a tool than a toy, after all.

“Why Teeth, but not Konoha?” Karin murmured to herself, staring at the body of their old friend. Teeth had been missing for ages, but Konoha was taken out only recently; possibly only minutes Outside. If the fighting was as brutal as the state of the bodies suggested, even someone as skilled as Konoha couldn’t have avoided some injuries. So either she was dead too - in which case where was her body? Or she was only injured - in which case, why not send her back Inside to heal?

“Maybe The Watcher didn’t let their precious pet get involved?” Naomi suggested, scuffing her heel against the ground. “Or maybe she’s the one who did it.”

“No way.” Jun came to Konoha’s defence. “She wouldn’t do Teeth like that.”

“Not like she’d have a choice though,” Naomi countered.

Sensei bent down to inspect their fallen comrade. “There are a few superficial cuts; possibly from a sword. And his eyes are destroyed, which might have been an act of mercy from whoever did it. But the worst wounds are too wide to come from a blade, and there’s no rock or debris in them that suggests an earth jutsu.” He stuck two fingers up to the knuckles inside one of the larger holes, and Siren gagged. “It’s colder than the rest of the body. Teeth did this to himself, with ice.”

“How?” Karin frowned. “Did the Watcher order him to? And who’s the other guy?” Pinch had already started looting the other body, but the contents of his pockets hadn’t revealed much, and nobody was interested in searching for smells beyond the blood.

Manami’s sobs finally stopped, distracting everyone with the sudden quiet. Chu-chan’s death had hit her so hard that Karin was worried she’d need to be sedated by one of Siren’s genjutsu or else go all the way crazy, but the look in her eye as she picked herself up off the ground was the sanest Karin had seen her.

The next words out of her mouth, however, were not.

“Let’s kill the Watcher.”

There was a beat of awkward silence, before Naomi scoffed.

“That’s a great idea,” she said, sarcasm dripping from each word. “If only we’d thought of that sooner, maybe we wouldn’t have had to rot here for so long.” The word ‘rot’ was emphasised with a pointed glance at the bodies.

Karin loved Naomi, but she was the hardest one of them and Manami was the softest on a good day; let alone when she was still literally picking up the pieces of her best friend’s death. But instead of breaking down all over again, Manami only looked more resolved.

“I know we all want to kill him, but we also let ourselves believe it was impossible for so long that we stopped trying to make it happen.” She pointed at Sensei, still kneeling over Teeth’s body. “Sensei and Konoha have been trying to figure out who he was for years, with their experiments. We have information, even if we can’t easily test it and it never felt like we could do anything with it. It’s something. And as for Teeth,” her finger lowered to point at him, “I believe The Watcher made a mistake, and Teeth made the most of it.” 

Sensei stood and gently wiped his hands on the cleanest part of the stranger’s body while the rest of them digested Manami’s statement. 

“I’m in, obviously. I’ve been here long enough.”

“We all have,” Pinch murmured. He still looked strange without his dark glasses.

“I’ll do it for Teeth,” Jun said. “He deserved better than this.”

“For Teeth,” they all repeated, like it was a refrain.

“The stranger, too,” Siren added. “He’s got the same pointy teeth, so there’s a chance they were friends. Before.”

“For the stranger.” Once again they responded in chorus, leaning into the impromptu ritual.

A shiver ran down Karin’s spine. Even after immeasurable years, the idea that their closest friends were all still out there, barely changed and waiting for their return, was a little overwhelming.

“Even if they weren’t,” she said, “any enemy of The Watcher is always a friend of ours.”

“Fuck The Watcher,” Manami whispered, clutching Chu-chan’s broken skull to her chest.

“Fuck The Watcher!” Jun repeated, and the others laughed. 

Naomi raised her tanto like a warrior dedicating their glory to a lover. “For Chu-chan,” she declared. She may have been the most pessimistic, but even she understood that Chu-chan wasn’t just a puppet. “A rat among rats.”

“For Chu-chan!” The chorus was enthusiastic now, clinging to anything that made them feel brave.

“And for Konoha,” Karin added, “wherever she is.”

The Others nodded immediately, but their expressions became clouded with some complicated emotion. They were probably all thinking the same thing: Haruno Sakura was dead. And if she wasn’t, the alternative was almost certainly worse.

“For Konoha.”

Chapter Text

Rock Lee had been hunting for scrolls on the morning of the second day, when he came across a fight. He could have walked away, or even waited around to pick off the weakened victors at the end. He might have gotten two scrolls out of it.

But unfortunately, though he had never properly met the blond boy facing off against a trio from Sound, nor the unconscious teammates he was desperately defending, Lee’s sense of honour required him to intercede. 

Tenten would have killed him, and Neji would have scoffed and silently judged him, but even as he blocked the next blow headed for the boy and firmly committed himself to a fight in which they were still outnumbered, he knew in his heart that Gai would approve.

“Who the hell are you?” The blond boy was half-conscious himself, but he still squinted suspiciously at the newcomer. “You look kinda like that Green Beast, Maito Gai.”

He thinks I look like Gai-sensei! Rock Lee was screaming internally at the compliment. He must have looked really cool, coming to Uzumaki Naruto’s rescue.

“I’m Rock Lee, Gai-sensei’s pupil.” He kept his eye on the enemy as he spoke. “And you three are the students of my teacher’s eternal rival: Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, and,” he paused for a moment, unable to avoid looking her way, “Haruno Sakura.”

He had been eager to see her ever since Gai told him she would be competing in the exam. And he had been rehearsing and editing his first words to her far longer than that. While she was missing this often included fantasies of being the one to rescue her (“so won’t you please date me?”). After she came back, they became promises that he would protect her with his life and never let anyone hurt her again (“so won’t you please date me?”). When he found out from Gai that she had suddenly turned into a woman twice his age, with sad eyes and a scarred face that suggested deep trauma, he knew he’d have to change tactics. He’d introduce himself, tell her that he’d always admired her beauty from afar, and assure her that she had only grown more radiant with age and experience. He’d declare himself her stalwart defender, champion, and friend (“so won’t you please be my eternal rival?”).

She did look beautiful as an adult, but she also looked…strange. She was sitting up, unlike the Uchiha boy lying supine beside her; but it was clear that even though her eyes were open, she wasn’t actually seeing anything. She didn’t speak, move or even blink despite the fight currently taking place. There was an orange jacket laid across her shoulders, the sleeves knotted at the front. Probably it was meant to soften her bizarre appearance or offer her a little comfort, but all Lee could see was a doll someone had dressed up. How long had she been like this?

The Sound ninja were clearly in no mood for introductions.

“Shut up and give us Uchiha Sasuke,” a brunette with long hair called out. “If you’re quick, we might let the rest of you live.”

“I already told you creeps,” Naruto got into position next to Lee, “nobody’s getting close to my team while I’m still alive.”

It would have been a cooler line if he didn’t look half-dead already, but fortunately Lee was well-rested and prepared to do anything to defend Team Seven in their vulnerable state. He wanted the chance to meet them properly, and that chance would only come if he could fend off the wolves long enough for them to recover.

Unfortunately the fight, which had started out promising thanks to his superior speed and strength, quickly took a turn for the worse when the Sound ninja revealed how much damage their jutsu could do using vibrations in the air alone. They didn’t need to land a hit on him when they could burst his eardrums from a distance. In less than a minute, he found himself lying on the ground with the canopy spinning overhead.

Naruto was similarly disabled by the sound-nin’s attacks and the fact that he had been fighting the longest of them all; but he wasn’t content to simply lie there and watch. He dragged himself, dry-heaving from the inner ear trauma, over to his comrades. There was a sword with a red hilt and a pink strap, and he drew it from its scabbard and held it as high as he could. 

The Sound nin laughed, but Naruto didn’t waver. Lee had always heard that Uzumaki Naruto was the worst ninja, but watching him now, he realised that he was just like Lee: not a genius, to whom things came easy, but someone who had to work harder and fight smarter in order to keep up. Moved almost to tears by such a valiant display, Lee forced his own body to join him. Hopefully the rest of Team Gai would arrive before the Sound ninjas simply killed them both and stepped over their bodies to get to Sasuke and Sakura; but if not, Lee was prepared to die doing something honourable.

A dark energy flared into existence from somewhere behind him. He turned, thinking that the enemies had somehow circled around without him realising, but instead he saw that Sasuke had woken up, and looked…well, angry wasn’t doing it justice. Black marks were spreading across him like a liquid bruise, and his chakra was so strong and so unstable that he was warped and flickering. Worst of all, his eyes were red as blood.

Everyone else turned to look, and for the first time since Lee had arrived, the Sound nin looked a little worried.

“Is that…?” the girl said, and the man with the wrappings nodded slowly.

Sasuke took in the four strangers (three obvious enemies, and one he hopefully recognised was trying to help) and the state of his own team. Sakura still looked like a doll, staring empty-eyed and unresponsive, and Naruto still lay on the ground with bleeding ears and a deathgrip on the sword.

“Who did this to you?” Sasuke asked Naruto, who tried to smile.

“Hey, Sasuke…it’s not as bad as it looks, you know? And Sakura seemed to know she was gonna do…that,” he gestured back at her with the sword, “last night.”

“Who hurt you?” Sasuke repeated, voice deceptively soft. “Them?” He nodded at the Sound nin. 

The enemy remained defiant.

“So what if we did?” The loud-mouthed man with fluffy hair sneered. “Anyway, it’s your fault for making us wait. You’re the only one we want to kill; but don’t think we wouldn’t hesitate to kill your friends too, if they’d kept getting in our way.”

Sasuke reached down to take the sword off Naruto.

“Sasuke,” there was an edge of warning in Naruto’s voice. “Seriously, it’s okay. You know me; I’m already feeling better.” He began to struggle to his feet, but Sasuke placed a foot on his chest and wrenched the sword from his grip.

“Then help me kill them, if you like. But don’t get in my way.”

He moved so quickly that Lee almost didn’t catch it. One moment Sasuke was standing over Naruto, and the next he was standing behind the Sound ninja with fluffy hair.

“What-” was all the man could say before the hilt of the sword cracked into the back of his skull. The girl shrieked and moved to help, but the leader threw an urgent hand out to stop her.

“You little punk.” The man was still conscious, but it had to have hurt. He spread his hands, clearly preparing to parry the next blow with the air holes in his palms.

Lee had just opened his mouth to warn Sasuke when the sword came down on the man’s left hand. The high-pitched whistle of the jutsu was unmistakeable; it should have stopped the sword mid-air, and possibly even forced it back on Sasuke. But Sasuke must have been stronger than the enemy as well as faster, because there was barely any resistance as the sword continued its arc.

Everyone watched in horror as four fingers fell to the ground.

“You!” That was all the man could manage in his current state. He pinned his left hand with its four bloody stumps between his right arm and torso, trying to stop the bleeding whilst keeping his remaining hand free.

Sasuke simply raised the sword again.

Now everyone was screaming, but Sasuke didn’t even seem to hear.

“I am an avenger,” he murmured, bringing the sword down.

Despite being unsuccessful last time, the man attempted to block with the air in his uninjured palm. Possibly it was the only truly powerful weapon in his arsenal, one that he had come to depend on for every situation no matter how suitable.

Like me, Lee thought grimly.

Once again it didn’t work, and once again the sword broke through the barrier of air to strike its opponent. This time it bit deep into his shoulder, almost severing the entire arm. Lee winced, the urge to vomit from the vertigo suddenly compounded by the sight of the man’s shoulder cleaving away from the rest of him. If it had been further along the arm, it might have been a clean amputation; differently awful, of course, but a man could live without an arm.

The victim tried to scream, but who knew what was happening to his lungs right now. What came out of his mouth was a wet hacking noise, almost like a sneeze, and then he dropped to one knee.

“Stop!” His female comrade shrieked, and it was unclear whether she cared about the man or just wanted the violence to end now that her team was on the receiving end.

“Sasuke!” Naruto roared, and the boy blinked rapidly. His red eyes faded to black and the bruising retracted back across his skin like it had never been there at all. He stared at the bloody sword in his hand, then at the man kneeling before him.

“I…” Sasuke seemed unsure what to do. Nobody was jumping to administer first aid, and even if they did, it would need to be some top-tier medical jutsu to save the man now. He turned back to Naruto, and for all that he had looked like a demon straight from hell only a few seconds ago, now he looked impossibly young. “I didn’t-”

“Sasuke.”

The voice was quiet, so quiet that Lee barely heard it over the sound of his own racing heart. But it was unmistakable: Haruno Sakura was no longer frozen. She stood, stretching her limbs as if she had only been sleeping. The orange jacket was still over her shoulders.

“Sakura!” Naruto’s bruised face cracked into a relieved smile. “Are you alright?”

“Thanks to you,” she smiled back at him, and then her entire focus was on Sasuke. 

She stepped over to him and the man. Lee couldn’t see her face as she silently took the red sword from his hands, but Sasuke couldn’t seem to meet her eye.

“They attacked Naruto,” he explained, his voice filled with a different emotion to the white-hot rage he seemed to be emanating earlier. “They said they wanted to kill me, and they’d kill him too if he got in the way.” He bit his lip. “Can you heal him?”

Sakura hesitated briefly. “No.”

“So I killed him.” 

Lee realised this would be Sasuke’s first. It wasn’t a good one to start with; for one thing, he clearly wasn’t used to wielding a sword, and had made a mess of it. For another, that final blow had come from a place of malice rather than duty. Gai always said that fighting should be about protecting something important. Otherwise, win or lose, kill or die, the outcome would be tainted.

“No, no.” Sakura shook her head vehemently, placing a comforting hand on his head. This gesture, more than anything, made it clear that Sakura was now older than all of them. The dynamic between her and Sasuke in that moment was closer to a mother comforting a child than a girl interacting with her crush. “You only wounded him. Look.” She turned, and before anyone even realised what she was about to do, she was sliding her sword into the man’s neck. There was a final gurgling cough, and then he went limp. “I killed him.”

Lee could see her face now, and where Sasuke’s had been a maelstrom of self-doubt, hers was utterly calm.

“Sakura!” Naruto struggled to his feet, but nothing he said or did could undo it now..

Sakura gave him a brief, apologetic smile before rounding on the two remaining Sound nin. “So; you’re only here to kill Sasuke?” She raised the sword just enough to make her threat clear. “Is anyone in this exam actually a genin?” she added, quieter.

“Those were our original orders.” The leader slowly raised his hands to his pocket and produced a scroll. “But I see now that this was merely a test within a test. Take this scroll and we’ll leave in peace for now.” He placed it on the ground and backed up carefully.

“For now?” Sakura frowned, but both Naruto and Sasuke spoke up.

“Let’s just let them go.”

“We can deal with them later.”

The moment stretched a little longer, Sakura watching the enemies as her teammates watched her. Then she bent to wipe her sword on the dead man’s clothes.

“Go, then.”

They went, and it seemed like the entire forest released the breath it had been holding. Lee, who had until then been happy merely observing Team Seven while they decided the enemy’s fate, suddenly found a pair of green eyes on him.

“Who’s this?”

“That’s Rock Lee,” Naruto answered quickly, perhaps worried what Sakura would do if she thought he was another enemy. “He helped me. He’s from Konoha.”

“Hello.” He couldn’t remember a single word of the speech he had prepared. How could someone’s eyes be so familiar and yet so alien?

“Helped, huh?” She sheathed her sword. “You are in pretty bad shape.”

She knelt down and laid a hand on the back of his head. Before he could even consider the fact that Haruno Sakura was touching him (with the hands he had fantasised about holding, and the hands that had just killed a man), healing chakra stopped the world spinning, and then all he could feel was relief. He sat up, flexing his muscles to make sure everything still worked the way it should. “Thank you.”

She smiled, and the full weight of their proximity was suddenly overwhelming. “You’re welcome, Rock Lee from Konoha.” She glanced down at his clothes. “I don’t suppose your teacher is Maito Gai?”

“He is!” Lee nodded enthusiastically before wincing at the latent pain in his head. “How did you know?” Had Gai mentioned him this morning? What exactly had he told her?

She gently pinched the shoulder of his green jumpsuit. “You look like him.”

He could have died of happiness right then and there. Not only had a gorgeous woman tended to the wounds he had sustained while protecting her, but just like Naruto earlier, she’d told him he looked cool!

“Heal Naruto next,” Sasuke told her. “He could barely stand before.”

“Wait a minute,” Naruto frowned at his teammates. “You guys were unconscious only a few minutes ago! Don’t act like you’re both fine now just because you’re awake.”

“I am fine now.” She assured him, and maybe it was just because she’d seemed so dead and frozen before, but she actually did look the best out of all of them. “I’m more concerned about you and Sasuke. And Lee-kun, of course.” She winked at him, and he blushed scarlet.

“I’m fine.” Both of her teammates spoke up at the same time, then glared at each other as if disgusted to be so in sync.

Sakura scoffed. “Naruto, you look dead on your feet. And Sasuke, Naruto said that weird grass girl bit you before you passed out?” She stood up and made a beckoning motion. “Let me see.”

Sasuke backed away. “I said I’m fine,” he repeated, tugging his collar higher up on his neck. “Right, Naruto?”

They never found out what Naruto would have said, because that was the same moment that Neji and Tenten finally found their teammate. Unfortunately, because they found him sitting injured in a clearing while surrounded by another team, they went in swinging.

Neji struck out at Sakura, the closest ‘enemy’ to Lee, while Tenten forced the boys apart with a barrage of kunai.

Lee tried to make his body move at its usual speed. He needed to block Neji’s blow, even if it meant taking it himself. Despite appearances, Sakura had only just recovered from…whatever had made her freeze like that. One hit from Gentle Fist might be enough to send her back to that awful state, and this time it would be Lee’s fault.

He needn’t have worried. Sakura held her still-sheathed sword between two hands like a quarterstaff, and Neji’s fist collided with the scabbard. She used the momentum to pivot the hilt outward, forcing Neji to back up or else break his jaw on the steel cap. As it was, the tuft of pink hair attached to the hilt just barely tickled the Byakugan user’s chin.

“Stop!” Lee cried out before Neji could try again. Gentle Fist could hit dozens of times in a second, and Neji still didn’t realise that Team Seven weren’t hostiles.

“I take it this is the rest of your team?” Sakura asked Lee. She was barely looking at Neji, but Lee had no doubt she could still counter anything else he threw at her.

He nodded, then addressed his friends. “Neji and Tenten, the Team Seven rookies aren’t our enemies. I chose to help them.”

“Everyone’s an enemy.” Neji continued to glare at Sakura, but at least he was no longer on the attack.

Tenten dropped out of a nearby tree as lightly as a feather. “Oh relax, Neji. If Lee stuck his neck out for them, it’d be pretty awkward if we came along and kicked them while they’re down. As easy as that would be, right now.” She eyed the earth scroll still sitting on the ground where the Sound ninja had left it.

“Don’t underestimate us,” Naruto snapped, but Sasuke pulled out a scroll.

“We’ll give you this heaven scroll if you leave us alone.”

“Deal,” Lee said quickly. Heaven was the one they needed, and he didn’t have the stomach for any more fighting. Especially not against the team he had just given his all to protect. And especially not while Haruno Sakura still held that sword.

Chapter Text

Kakashi leaned against the railing, watching the digital reader cycle through pairs of names. 

Part one of the chunin exam was over, and his team had survived seemingly none the worse for wear (they might have been acting a bit weird, but it was hard to tell yet if it was something that required his intervention - they were, after all, somewhat weird by default). 

In fact, several people had made it through this year, including all three Konoha rookie teams, Team Gai, and a single Sand team. It was a little too convenient for so many Konoha nin to pass a Konoha-based exam, so the Hokage had decided to hold preliminary fights and reduce numbers before the main event. The first team that had made it to the tower (the Sand team) was declared exempt so that there would be even numbers.

Sasuke had been first off the mark, along with Gai’s kunoichi, Tenten. It was a decisive victory for Sasuke, who had slouched off back to the viewing area the second they had finished making the sign of reconciliation (much to Tenten’s disappointment, if Kakashi was any judge of expressions). 

Naruto had gone to give him a congratulatory pat on the back, but hesitated just before his hand touched Sasuke’s shoulder. Kakashi filed that away for later.

Then it was Hyuuga Neji vs Nara Shikamaru (Shikamaru played it smart, but had ultimately given up once the outcome was clear), then Hyuuga Hinata and Rock Lee (both fought well, and when Gai’s student clinched the final victory Kakashi noticed his own team cheering particularly hard) and now…

The names had finally stopped cycling, landing on an intriguing combination.

“Yamanaka Ino and Haruno Sakura,” Hayate announced.

Sakura gave Ino a smile, but it was returned a beat too late.

“This is gonna be tough,” Asuma murmured somewhere to Kakashi’s right while the girls dutifully squared off in the centre.

Kakashi didn’t respond. Perhaps in another life the girls were closely matched, but Sakura was in another league entirely now. 

The girls shifted into fighting stances and Kakashi tensed, ready to leap into action the second his student did anything odd or dangerous. He didn’t really expect anything to go wrong, but he knew there were others present who would also be watching the fight closely, and they wouldn’t be half as gentle if they reached her first.

He needn’t have worried; Asuma was right. It was clear from the first pass that Sakura was going easy on Ino, moving too slowly and missing openings that a complete novice could have seen. She didn’t even draw her sword.

Ino quickly called her out on it, aiming for lethal targets that forced Sakura to take her seriously. 

Sakura tried her best to correct, but it was clear she was struggling to match her opponent’s level; there was just too much difference in their speed, strength and accuracy. She went to punch Ino in the solar plexus, and Kakashi could tell she had pulled the punch as much as possible despite the fact that it still sent the girl tumbling backwards in a cloud of dust. Sakura backed off, bobbing on her feet like a boxer waiting for their opponent’s counterattack. In truth, she could have pushed her advantage and finished the fight then and there, but she held back. 

The dust settled, but Ino remained on the ground. Onlookers hissed in disappointment that the fight had come to such an anticlimactic conclusion, and Hayate cleared his throat to announce the outcome. 

Sakura sighed, a rueful smile playing on her lips. Then she doubled over like a mannequin whose top strings had been cut.

“Got you,” she said, her voice suddenly loud and triumphant. She raised her head. “Sakura.”

Those in the crowd who weren’t aware of Mind Swap jutsu muttered to one another in confusion as ‘Sakura’ turned to Hayate and raised her hand.

Chouji, who was standing on Asuma’s far side and eating chips like his life depended on it, grinned. “She did it.”

Kakashi sighed. He wasn’t naive enough to assume that Sakura had actually fallen for Ino’s plan to kick up dust as a distraction for her bloodline limit. But had she thrown the match out of love for her friend, or defiance of the village? In the end her intentions didn’t matter, only what the village elders chose to make of it.

“I, Haruno Sakura,” she announced, but then her pale brows creased and her eyes went unfocused. “Who are you?” She paused, as if listening to something. “Who?”

“What’s going on?” Naruto murmured, head cocked.

“Ino has taken over her mind,” Chouji explained, but he was no longer grinning. “But something’s…”

“Wrong,” Asuma finished, confirming Kakashi’s suspicions.

“How did you get in here?” Ino-as-Sakura murmured, still talking to an imaginary person. Then: “Sakura…Haruno Sakura…She’s my friend…” A shake of her head. “I don’t know who that is.”

That was enough for Kakashi to intervene; rules of sparring be damned. He vaulted the rail and dropped down to Sakura’s side, reaching out to…do what? Ino was still in her head, still talking to some strange intruding presence. How was he supposed to help?

Asuma sprang down a second later, but he also didn’t seem to know what to do. Ino didn’t acknowledge either of their presences, but her eyes (Sakura’s eyes, really) were growing wider. Kakashi had never seen an expression of true fear on this older Sakura’s face, and it made something twist urgently in his gut.

“I’m leaving,” Ino told the air, and then once again Sakura’s body collapsed forward for a moment. When she raised her head, Kakashi could tell that the real Sakura was back in control.

She noticed Ino lying on the ground, who after a few moments began to stir. “Sakura?” She asked uncertainly, and Sakura grinned.

“Congratulations, Ino!” She held out her right hand, index and middle finger extended to make the seal of reconciliation. 

Ino simply stared at her.

Hayate coughed politely. “Technically, the match has not concluded yet.”

Sakura’s smile turned to a frown. “Really?” Only then did she notice that Kakashi and Asuma were standing on either side of her. “What, wait happened?” She looked back at Ino. “You were gonna make me forfeit, right?”

Ino nodded slowly.

“Okay, then I forfeit.” She raised her hand and waved it at Hayate. “I’m out.”

Hayate glanced at Kakashi, unsure how to call such a strange match. Kakashi nodded.

“Sakura’s out. I interfered.”

“The winner is Yamanaka Ino,” Hayate declared, and the crowd broke into stilted applause.

Sakura, still unaware of what had happened while she was under, once again extended her hand.

“Well done, Ino. You deserve it.”

This time Ino took it, gingerly completing the mock-seal and ending their fight. Then she leaned in, speaking so quietly that Kakashi would have missed it if he hadn’t been standing right next to them.

“Who the hell is Nohara Rin?”

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

After that, everything happened very quickly.

Asuma quietly informed his father and summoned the experts while Kakashi ushered the girls to a quiet room far away from prying eyes. Ino was confused and angry, while Sakura was just confused.

When Yamanaka Inoichi arrived, Ino practically ran from the room to give him her report. She had barely said a word since the end of the fight, especially not about what had transpired, and Kakashi was relieved. There were no good explanations for what had happened, and he wanted to stay in the blissful ignorance stage just a little longer.

“What if we miss Naruto’s fight?” Sakura asked glumly.

He sighed. “We probably will.”

“That’s not fair. Can’t this,” she gestured to their little waiting room of hell, “be put off for a few more minutes?”

“They should be ready for us soon.”

“Maybe you should go and watch, at least? You’re his teacher.”

“I’m your teacher, too.” He would have loved nothing more than to walk away, but the only thing worse than knowing would be not knowing. “You’ll need me here.”

“Am I in trouble?” she whispered, but he was spared from answering by the door finally opening.

“Sakura?” Inoichi smiled, letting himself in along with Asuma and the only man that could possibly make the situation worse. 

Danzo swept into the room, taking a seat in the corner and gesturing for his masked agents to guard the door. “It would look off for the Hokage to leave halfway through the bouts,” he explained, “so I volunteered to take care of this matter on his behalf.” He smiled at Sakura. “Miss Haruno. It seems you have been keeping more secrets than we realised.”

“I genuinely don’t know what’s going on,” Sakura said. “I don’t even recognise the name that Ino said.”

“It’s okay, Sakura.” Inoichi raised his hand in a placating gesture. “We believe you. We just need to run a few more tests.”

“You want to read my mind again,” she guessed. “Fine. It’ll prove I’m telling you the truth.”

“Actually, this time I’m going to be probing a step deeper than your surface thoughts.” He gave her an apologetic smile. “I’ll tap into your subconscious, a bit like hypnotism. It doesn’t hurt,” he assured her, but she just shrugged.

“Do what you have to do.”

He stood behind her, placing his hands gently against her temples. “Just relax,” he instructed, and she closed her eyes. “That’s it. Let me through.”

Despite the assurance that it didn’t hurt, Sakura’s hands were balled into fists on the top of the table, going white at the knuckles. Kakashi reached out to place his hands atop hers before she dislocated her fingers.

Her eyes fluttered open, and he thought he must have broken her focus. But then she smiled hesitantly, with eyes like a sleepwalker’s.

“Kakashi?” those glazed eyes welled up with emotion. “Oh my god, it’s really you.”

She leaned forward as if to hug him, but Inoichi gently guided her back in place. “Calm down,” he ordered quietly, and she immediately went still. “Tell us your name.”

“Nohara Rin.”

Asuma gasped from his position in the opposite corner to Danzo, and Kakashi gritted his teeth to avoid making a similar outburst.

“Rin?” Inoichi confirmed. “Rin, can you tell us where you are?”

Sakura gazed around the dingy room. “I’m…not sure.” Her eyebrows creased slightly. “I’ve never seen this place before.”

“That’s alright. Do you recognise any of the people in the room?”

She looked at Kakashi immediately. “That’s Kakashi.”

“Okay. Anyone else?”

She looked at Danzo, then Asuma, and finally twisted her neck slightly to look at Inoichi himself. “I’m sorry, no.”

The real Rin had gone to the academy with Asuma, so he at least would have been recognisable to her. But Sakura’s face was utterly guileless.

“What age are you, Rin?”

“Sixteen,” she said, and Kakashi glanced at Asuma before he could react openly. They exchanged a silent look instead.

The same age she was when she died.

“Can you describe your appearance, Rin?”

Sakura looked down at herself, frowning. “I look like this.”

“Pink hair?” Inoichi supplied.

“No?” She grabbed a handful of her pale pink hair. “It’s brown.”

“Alright.” Inoichi let it go. “What’s the last thing you remember, Rin?”

Sakura hummed, something Rin used to do when she was thinking. “There was a blonde girl. She asked who I was. I asked who she was. Then she got mad and left.”

“And before that?”

Sakura’s face brightened immediately. “Before that, I was with Obito.”

Kakashi could feel, rather than see, Danzo lean in closer. He himself had forgotten how to breathe. This couldn’t be real, could it?

Sakura looked at the door hopefully. “Is he here?”

“Sakura.” Kakashi no longer cared if he threw off Inoichi’s interrogation, or revealed something that Danzo could use against him later. His hands tightened over hers and shook them slightly. “What…happened to you?”

She gave him a puzzled look. “Who’s Sakura?”

“Rin.” Inoichi smoothly reasserted control over the interrogation. “Who is Obito?”

“He’s our teammate.” She smiled. “Kakashi’s and mine. And…” The smile turned awkward, and she blushed. “He’s also my boyfriend.”

“No.” Kakashi hadn’t meant to speak again, but the implications were just too horrible. “No, that can’t be.” He’s dead. And you’re not Rin.

She looked down at their hands before gently removing hers. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way, Kakashi.” She smiled apologetically. “We didn’t mean to keep it from you, but you weren’t around, and, well.” her blush deepened. “The truth is, I’ve always loved him.”

“What did he do to you?” He didn’t want to know, but he had to ask or he’d always suspect the worst.

“Kakashi,” Asuma called softly from somewhere behind him. “Go easy on her.”

“He didn’t do anything, Bakakashi!” Sakura’s voice rose sharply, then dropped to a shy murmur. “If you must know, we’ve only kissed.” She fidgeted in her seat, looking every bit like a teenager talking about her first boyfriend. Except she was a grown woman, and her eyes still had that slightly glazed look to them.

Kakashi turned away from her in disgust. The relief that her answer brought was greatly undercut by the fact that she had just called him a nickname only one person had ever used.

“It’s the real Obito.”

Sakura frowned. “Of course he is? Who else would he be?”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” he snapped, and she recoiled.

“Kakashi?” Her hands inched back across the table toward him, wide eyes pleading. “I really am sorry for keeping it a secret. We both are. Let’s not fight, okay?”

“You are not Rin,” he ground out, unable to pretend any longer. “Your name is Haruno Sakura, and you were abducted last month and forced to…pretend, that you were someone else. Nohara Rin is dead.”

She was crying now, and it should have made him feel terrible to be the cause. He knew it wasn’t fair to get angry at Sakura, or even her strange ghost of an alter ego, when the person he was truly mad at was Obito. But Obito had been dead up until a minute ago, and it was still too hard to imagine the boy out there somewhere, hurting people, turning all of Kakashi’s grief and love into lies. And in any case, he thought bitterly, the real Sakura probably wouldn’t remember any of this.

“Let’s leave it there,” Inoichi suggested, and Kakashi agreed before Danzo could order them otherwise.

Sakua inhaled deeply, and her eyes became clear. She smiled blithely.

“How’d I go? Did I pass the test?”

Chapter Text

“You threw your fight.”

Sakura looked up from the blue notebook she was currently writing in. “Of all the things I thought you’d finally want to talk to me about, that was low on my list.”

Kakashi looked at her like she was being difficult, which was extremely unfair seeing as it was he that was keeping her in the dark. He had whisked her back home before they could even congratulate Naruto on his victory against Kiba, started asking her all sorts of questions about the last few days in the Forest of Death, and then lapsed into silence while he recorded her answers in a report she wasn’t allowed to read. Her own questions had gone ignored so long that Sakura had long since given up and started working on her personal project instead.

“Don’t you want to be a chunin?”

She shrugged. “It’s not really a priority for me like it is for Ino. Besides, it’ll take three days just to get to Lightning, so we’d never make it back in time for the final exam.” Apparently the finals were originally scheduled for a week’s time, but they had moved up the schedule for reasons that Kakashi (once again) neglected to explain.

“Why would we go to Lightning?” He frowned, and Sakura stared at him.

“Because that’s where The Watcher sent me to kill a man a few weeks ago? Were you even listening to me earlier?” She, at least, was perfectly happy to share information with others, as long as it meant they could actually make some progress.

“We can’t go to Lightning, Sakura.”

“Sure we can,” she cajoled, because the alternative was screaming and throwing a pen at his head. “We just start walking north.”

“I’ve put your intel in my report,” he gestured to the sealed scroll in front of him, “and when they come by to collect it, you can ask them yourself if we’ll be the ones sent to track down your lead. But I think you know we won’t be.”

She deflated slightly. “Because I’m still connected to The Watcher, and you’ve got the only key that opens Inside?” The logic was sound, even if she ultimately disagreed with it. It would be too easy to lose her, and too dangerous if they lost Kakashi.

“That and…several other reasons,” he agreed, and for the first time since they had gotten home, he tugged his mask down so that she could see his entire face. He looked as defeated as she felt. “I’m sorry.”

“It has to be me,” she whispered, silently begging him to understand. “I tolerated the chunin exam for a while, because the boys needed a third teammate and you said I could get information. Well now the boys are through to the individual rounds, and I’ve got a lead.”

“Truth is,” Kakashi said, running a hand through his already-wild hair, “we’re both going to be under strict supervision from now on.”

She frowned; that wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. “I thought we already were.”

“Stricter.” He looked down at his sealed report, and then, to her surprise, stood up and went to the fridge. Under a bag of slimy green stuff that might have been lettuce once, he retrieved a half-empty bottle of saké.

She watched, bemused, as he returned to the tiny coffee table and sat the bottle between them. “Did you forget glasses, or are we just going to drink it straight from the bottle?”

“It’s not for drinking,” he told her. “The bottle has a jammer for listening jutsu.”

“Oh.”

“I’m only telling you this because you have a right to know,” he said, and she leaned closer. Finally, finally, he was ready to talk to her. “About Nohara Rin.”

It was the first time she had heard him say The Name, and it seemed to require some effort.

“Yes?” she eventually prompted, because he had fallen silent again.

“She was part of my original team. And the third member of that team was the Uchiha who gave me the sharingan.”

Pieces were starting to connect in Sakura’s mind, but the image being formed was still too blurry to fully comprehend. “You said that Uchiha died.”

“He did.” Kakashi looked miserable. “When I was nine, and he was thirteen. I saw him get crushed by a rockslide.”

“Nine? Wow.” She hadn’t realised the village let anyone younger than twelve join active service. “But you didn’t see the body?”

He shook his head. “He was beyond recovery. That’s why we thought someone might have stolen his right eye later, and transplanted it.  Like this one.” He brushed a hand over his forehead protector.

“And the girl? Rin?”

“She also died,” he confirmed. “Aged sixteen. She, at least, is definitely dead.” He bit his lower lip, and Sakura wondered if he had forgotten his mask was down.

“So why was Ino asking about her?” The full picture was congealing in all the wrong places. “If she died, what? A decade ago?”

Kakashi took a deep breath, and Sakura had a strange urge to place a hand over his mouth before he could say whatever came next. She had waited years to learn the name of The Watcher, but suddenly she wasn’t ready.

“When Inoichi talked to your subconscious, it had a distinct, separate personality. That can happen when there’s sufficient trauma; the mind splinters into different identities who can help manage it better.” His eyes slid away from hers. “In this instance, your subconscious believed it was Nohara Rin.”

“The dead girl.”

He grimaced, then nodded.

“And the reason my subconscious believes it’s Nohara Rin is because that’s who I become whenever The Watcher takes me out.” It was like one of Sensei’s lessons, a chance for her to theorise aloud until the facts formed a narrative that made sense. “That’s what you all think?”

He nodded again, eyes on the table.

“And that’s because The Watcher knew Nohara Rin. Because it wasn’t someone who stole your dead friend’s eye, but the dead friend himself. Yeah?”

“You…called me a nickname that only he would have known.” Kakashi’s voice was quiet. “So yes, that seems to be the case.”

They sat in silence for a moment, chewing on that disturbing thought and all its implications. There was a dead woman in her head, wearing her skin. Warping her mind.

She reached out, unscrewed the bottle’s cap, and downed half of the remaining saké.

“What’s the Uchiha’s name?” she asked, trying to enjoy the burning in her throat and belly. She wasn’t sure how alcohol would affect her, but it felt good to do something that accurately reflected the situation she was in.

“Obito,” Kakashi murmured, and the name meant nothing at all to her. No twinge of recognition, no jolt of understanding. Perhaps he had never revealed it to her, despite his apparent nostalgia for his old life.

“No wonder you don’t think you’ll be part of the mission to get ‘Obito,’ if he’s your old buddy.”

“We’re not friends,” Kakashi interjected, rising to Sakura’s bait. “Not since...”

“Since he died?” She raised an eyebrow. “Or since he became a monster?”

He seemed to wilt before her eyes. “Either.”

She felt strangely disappointed by his lack of fight. It would be easier to set this feeling inside her free, if she could aim it at him.

“Uchiha Obito,” she murmured. “Nohara Rin. Hatake Kakashi .” She drank the rest of the alcohol slowly, willing it to lend her its strength. When it was empty, she placed it back on the table between them like a punctuation mark in their conversation.

“Why me?”

“...What?”

“It’s a simple enough question. Why me, do you think?”

“I don’t know,” he said after a moment.

“Do I look like her?” she gave a little bark of laughter. “Did she have pink hair?”

“Brown.”

“Brown.” She nodded to herself. “Do you remember when I gave you all that hair? Everyone from Inside?”

“Yes?” Her eyes were fixed on the bottle, so she could only guess what expression he was currently making.

“Naomi has brown hair. Why not her?”

“I don’t…”

“I think you do.” She placed the bottle on its side and spun it in a circle, round and round, like that game kids played together when they were an age Sakura had already passed alone. Better to keep moving; inertia was death. “Were your teammates in love?”

The silence stretched so long that she almost looked up at him, but then he finally sighed. “I think he loved her, yes.”

“Rin didn’t love him back?” She laughed again. “Can’t imagine why.”

“I know this is a lot, but listen, there are certain people out there who are trained to deal with this sort of thing.”

“This sort of thing?” That was so absurd that Sakura couldn’t help but look him in the eye. To his credit, he looked properly abashed.

“Trauma comes in a lot of forms,” he explained, “and if you talk to these professionals, they might be able to help you with yours.”

“I want to talk to you .” She twisted the bottle until the neck pointed toward him. “You’re the one who knew them best. Uchiha Obito.” She sent it spinning again. “Nohara Rin.” Another spin. “And Hatake Kakashi.” The bottle was spinning fast now, making a hollow, glassy sound against the faux wood table.

“I never once imagined that Obito could be alive, and if I had, I would never have expected the boy I knew to become someone who could do this.” Kakashi spoke in a rush, like he needed her to forgive him before the bottle stopped spinning again.

“And what exactly did he do, Kakashi?” Sakura tapped the bottle so that it lost control, skating off its axis. She caught it before it toppled onto the floor, and promptly set it spinning again. “Did ‘Rin’ give you details?”

The Others had always joked about favouritism, until the sword and all the other gifts arrived and the joke became a little too real.

“She said,” he began, and even though he’d set him up, she hated that he spoke about her subconscious mind like it was a different person. It wasn’t Nohara Rin, not really. It was her. It had happened to her. “She said you had only ever kissed.”

“Do you believe her?”

“I think it’s possible.” Kakashi looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but here. “Obito was always…bashful. Especially about Rin.”

“But I’m not Rin, am I?” she smiled wryly, and it gave her a perverse pleasure to see Kakashi squirm.

“All the same,” he said, clearly choosing his words carefully, “I choose to believe it.”

The bottle finally came to a stop, rocking gently.

“Do you think he took me because of you?” she asked, digging her fingernails into her palm to keep her voice calm. “Do you think he made me special because he knew I was yours?”

“I don’t know,” Kakashi admitted. “But…if I could go back to that night-”

The bottle smashed against the wall.

Chapter Text

Kakashi sat atop a rocky outcrop, trying to focus on the student in front of him and not the one he had left with Ebisu. He had assumed he’d end up having to watch Sakura like a hawk now that certain developments had made her a potential flight risk, but instead he had been ordered to focus on developing Sasuke’s newly awakened sharingan into an impressive specimen prior to his fight in the chunin exam.

“What about Naruto?” That had been Sakura’s only comment on the development, and one of the only comments she had made since the night before, when she had thrown a bottle at the wall and locked herself in the bathroom with the blank notebook he had given her earlier.

Kakashi had arranged for Ebisu to take Naruto, and had even managed to convince the intractable man to supervise Sakura at the same time. It may not be the freedom she craved, but a supervised outing to the hot springs was surely better than moping around his tiny apartment for the next three days.

He had tried to apologise one last time before he left with Sasuke, if only so that it would be less awkward when he came back home that night. But she still wouldn’t leave the bathroom, so he had to say it all through the door and hope that it was making a difference. 

The tiny sounds of her scratching pen were the only sign that she hadn’t jumped out the window and left him talking to an empty room.

“What can I do to make this right?” he had eventually asked, frustration getting the better of him. 

He regretted it instantly; if she asked for something that ran counter to the village’s orders, they’d end up arguing all over again. But instead Sakura finally opened the door (he had been leaning against it at the time, so nearly fell backwards into her), and pressed her notebook into his hand.

“Read this.”

He hadn’t had a chance to even open the book all morning, but Sasuke had finally reached his limit with the sharingan and so they were taking an early lunch. 

He flipped to the first page, and almost laughed at how childish Sakura’s handwriting was before he realised she hadn’t had the opportunity to write anything at all since she was twelve. It must have been painstaking to fill an entire notebook in one night.

I have nine friends, it began. Their names are Sensei, Teeth, Pinch, Siren, Manami, Chu-chan, Naomi, Jun, and Karin.

Karin was the first one to find me, shortly after I first went Inside. She has red hair and red eyes, and wears glasses. Most people call her ‘Red.’ Her favourite food is okonomiyaki and she has a sensory jutsu that allows her to track people’s movements over long distances, as well as the ability to share chakra through bites.

It continued on like this, summarising her friend’s abilities, likes, dislikes, and seemingly anything else that crossed Sakura’s mind.

One time Pinch used a fire jutsu that was smaller and kept going longer than usual. We all sat around it and pretended we were camping.

One time Sensei dissected my leg so he could show me how muscles worked. He let me do the same thing to him later.

One time Naomi threw a shuriken so hard it got lodged in my hip bone, and when I finally got it out she let me keep it.

One time Siren sang a song called ‘the fisherman’s wife’ and Jun and Chu-chan danced around and around in circles until Jun tripped over Chu-chan’s wires and both of them fell off the mesa. Manami didn’t let go so she ended up getting pulled after them. Jun fractured his back and Manami got stabbed by one of Chu-chan’s weapons. Sensei and I managed to fix everyone, but Manami refused to speak to Chu-chan for ages afterwards. It was the biggest fight they ever had - which was awkward for the rest of us, because they still had to spend all of their time together.

One time Teeth broke my leg and when I set the bone it hurt so badly that I passed out. He kept making me ice to reduce the swelling, and stayed with me until I woke up and could walk again.

Half the entries were either extremely violent or extremely grim, but he was compelled to keep reading. He knew this was Sakura’s way of making her friends ‘real’ to him, in the hopes that they would eventually become real enough for him to summon. 

He doubted it would work; freeing Sakura herself still felt like a total fluke. But living with her was tense enough already, so he wouldn’t give up on this project until they were both satisfied it was impossible. It was, as she had rightly pointed out, the least he could do for her.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Sakura had started the day with low expectations. Obviously the guilt of running out her friends’ clocks in a hot spring resort had obliterated any possibility of actually enjoying herself. But it turned out Naruto’s stand-in teacher seemed to hate them on principle, which meant they both hated him right back. She could have forgiven that as long as he proved himself a capable jonin instructor for Naruto; but unfortunately a man had just knocked him out, seemingly using nothing more than a toad the size of a wolfhound.

She had been fetching an ice-cream at the time, meaning she had missed most of the action. But Ebisu was definitely unconscious, and Naruto had taken off after the white-haired man with the toad before she could so much as call out to him.

The ice-cream melted a sticky line down her forearm as she weighed her options. On the one hand, she was meant to be supervised by someone of jonin status any time she was out of the village (which the hot springs technically were). On the other hand, if she lost track of Naruto then anything could happen to him.

No contest, really.

Luckily, tracking Naruto was as easy as following the sound of his voice. He was yelling at the toad man loud enough that she could walk at a leisurely pace and finish her ice-cream before having to get involved in whatever new, awkward social encounter this was sure to become.

Seriously, meeting new people was so exhausting. Old friends like Naruto, Sasuke and Ino were the only people she could bear to spend any time with Outside.

And Kakashi too, she had to admit. She was still mad at him (and part of her would probably keep using him as the proxy for her anger until Uchiha Obito was finally within throttling distance) but her housemate had grown on her. It was nice to have a friend her own age, for one thing.

She caught up to them on the edge of town, where the buildings had thinned and the forest was starting to take over.

“I said, take responsibility, pervert sage!” Naruto declared, flinging a handful of shuriken at the old man.

“Naruto!” Sakura gasped, dropping the wooden stick she was currently crunching to bits; but the shuriken thunked harmlessly into a tanuki statue.

“Jeez, kid, do you ever give up?” The man reappeared from behind a tree further along the path. “And stop calling me ‘pervert’ in front of…” he seemed to notice Sakura’s presence for the first time, and his irritation smoothly transformed into charm. “Beautiful ladies.”

Suddenly he was rushing back down the path toward them, side-stepping Naruto and coming to a halt right in front of Sakura. “Pleasure to meet you, miss.” he reached down and took her hand in his, pressing his lips to her knuckles.

She could have avoided his touch easily, or even punched him in the face for his audacity. The Sakura of old certainly would have done it, because even at twelve, she fancied herself a ‘lady.’ But this Sakura hadn’t been touched in so long, especially not by an adult she wasn’t related to. She probably wouldn’t have sex with a stranger; the ‘sex’ part sounded nice, but the ‘stranger’ part sounded excruciating. Still, it was nice to pretend it was possible.

“Leave her alone, pervert!” Naruto came to her rescue, pulling her out of the man’s reach and standing between them. It was a terribly sweet gesture, even though he was a head shorter than both her and the man.

“What the hell is your problem, kid?” the old man glared at him. “You’ve been chasing me for twenty minutes, asking me to train you. Now I’ve finally declared you worthy and come to introduce myself, and you treat me like a creep?”

“Worthy?” Naruto repeated uncertainly.

“Indeed!” the man beamed at him, but his eyes still kept coming back to Sakura. “I only ran away because I was too busy to train you when I’m currently on the hunt for new research. But now that your lovely friend is here, I can do both.”

“Research?” Sakura frowned. She didn’t want to be interviewed again, especially if it involved losing more time.

“Certainly.” He grinned. “I’m an author, you see, and at times I have to portray the sensual beauty of the fairer sex as accurately as possible. To do such a thing with any authenticity requires research; and,” the grin widened, “I am nothing if not dedicated to my craft.”

“Pervert!” Naruto shrieked for the umpteenth time. “Come on Sakura, we’re leaving.” He grabbed her hand and tried to lead her back to town.

Sakura didn’t move. “An author? You write books?” Storytelling was a valuable skill Inside. Siren used to recite tales she remembered and even a few she made up; but the made-up ones were always tainted by a lack of inspirational material.

“Sakura,” Naruto tugged harder on her hand, but the man clearly understood he had her interest now.

“That’s correct. I happen to be the esteemed erotic author and great toad sage, Jiraiya of the Sannin!” He struck a pose like a kabuki hero, but Sakura could only think of Gai doing his muscle man routine.

“Are you going to start your lesson, then?” It wouldn’t be fair if poor Naruto got the brush off for the third time that day. He hid it under his usual bluster, but Sakura could tell he was genuinely hurt by Kakashi and Sasuke’s ‘exclusive’ training.

Jiraiya glanced at the boy like he’d forgotten he was there. “I’m not sure a kid like that could grasp my advanced techniques.” He leaned in closer with a leer. “But I’m sure I could teach you a thing or two.”

“Pass.” Author or no, she wouldn’t tolerate that kind of talk about her teammate. “I’ll train Naruto myself, if you’re going to be like that. I bet there isn’t a single thing you could teach him that I couldn’t.”

“Bet?” His eyes lit up, and Sakura knew she had him. “What are you willing to bet?”

She tapped her finger against her chin like it hadn’t occurred to her that he would agree. “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “How about I promise to spend the rest of the day with you?”

“Deal.” He reached out his hand immediately, and she shook it.

“Sakura, you don’t have to spend any time with this guy.” Naruto continued to act as her little protector, and her heart melted.

“Well, he hasn’t proven he can do anything I can’t yet,” she said, and the man scoffed.

“Then prepare to be amazed, gorgeous! As one of the legendary sannin, I’m a master of all forms of ninjutsu.”

“Such as?”

He seemed slightly put out by the question, but recovered quickly. “I’ve mastered all four forms of elemental jutsu, for one thing.”

“Me too.” It took ages to learn the elements you weren’t adept at, but time to practise new jutsu was one of the few pros of being stuck Inside.

“Interesting.” He seemed to look at her with new eyes. “How about genjutsu, then?”

“Yep.” She had spent a lot of time training with Siren, partly because she’d always had a knack for genjutsu, and partly because there was a time where she thought she could get good enough to beat The Watcher at his own game. It turned out The Watcher’s genjutsu was in a league of its own, but Sakura’s skills were more than a match for normal folk.

“I’d say ‘weapons’ next, but I can see the sword on your hip. Nobody carries a katana like that unless they know how to use it.”

She nodded. “Keep going.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” He threw his hands up like he was out of options, but Sakura had been haggling with The Others for years. She knew you left your best offer for last. “I suppose I could teach him to do…this.” He bit his thumb and pressed it to the ground like Kakashi had done the other day when summoning his dog. Suddenly the big toad was back, and Jiraiya stood on its back like an actor about to give his final bow. “Can you do this, missy?”

“Nope.” She leaned in closer to get a better look at the toad. “Hello. Can you talk?” If it was as smart as Pakkun, she’d have to win its trust before getting to touch it. Petting a toad wasn’t nearly as appealing as petting a dog, but an animal was an animal.

“Boss?” the toad’s bulging eyes swivelled to look at Jiraiya. “What do you need?”

“Just giving a demonstration of my talents.” Jiraiya leapt nimbly to the ground. “And unless you can perform a summoning of your own, I do believe I’ve won.” He smiled sweetly at Sakura, who smiled back.

“I guess you have. Did you hear that, Naruto? The great toad sage Jiraiya is going to teach you how to do summoning jutsu!” And Sakura had an excuse to stick around and watch.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Sakura flopped down onto Kakashi’s empty bed, not because she actually felt tired (it took a lot to wear her out) but because it seemed like an appropriate thing to do after a long day out.

Jiraiya hadn’t gotten around to teaching Naruto how to summon after all, because Naruto was still woefully behind on the basics, and for all that Jiraiya was working under duress, he turned out to be a stickler where it counted. He had spent the rest of the day teaching Naruto to walk on water instead, going back to town and using the heated canals between the hot spring pools. From Naruto’s perspective it was probably a valuable lesson in chakra control, but for Sakura it was so boring that she almost went looking for Ebisu. Even the toad was gone, disappearing back to wherever the animals came from.

Naruto eventually got water walk down, and when Jiraiya said they could both come back tomorrow (Naruto for the summoning lesson, Sakura for ‘the pleasure of her company’) they headed back to Konoha. Naruto walked her all the way home, gushing about his progress and promising that he’d make sure Jiraiya kept his hands to himself if she did come along tomorrow (Sakura still found it adorable, but she kept that to herself).

Kakashi’s apartment was empty, and it occurred to her that she wasn’t sure if he was even coming home that night. The prospect of amusing herself for the foreseeable future left her feeling a little bereft; it was a little too much like Inside, where the only thing you could do alone was stare at a rock and wait to die of boredom. At least with another person there two things you could do: fight or fuck.

There were, of course, far more options available to her now even if Kakashi didn’t come home (and even if he did, she was thoroughly tired of one thing and unlikely to do the other). She could read, or shower, or even find another notebook to fill. She weighed each option from her position on the bed, gazing around the apartment at the many possibilities. Hell, she could just lay there for a while, like a normal person.

The old guilt came back immediately; how dare she relax instead of doing something productive, like manipulating an old man into teaching her a new jutsu? But honestly, the bed was very comfortable. She’d been lying when she pretended it didn’t interest her, knowing that Kakashi’s sense of honour would compel him to give it up and sleep on the floor or something. However, Kakashi wasn’t here right now…

She snuggled deeper under the covers. At first it felt nice, like a big, fabric-y hug. But she shifted a little, and the blankets weighed her down just enough to make the movement slower than usual. What if she was attacked right now? She was so exposed, lying on the flat plane of the bed with nothing between her and the front door but a large square of cloth that offered no protection and impeded her reaction time.

“Nope.” She kicked her way out of the blanket’s cloying embrace and rolled onto the floor. Better to be out of sight, hidden down below instead of exposed on the surface. That was the first lesson she had learned Inside.

There was enough space to crawl beneath the bed, which felt like an even better hiding spot if she wanted to avoid attacks from above. She lay on her back, looking up at the wooden slats supporting Kakashi’s mattress, waiting for the darkness of the evening to become absolute.

‘Wait to die of boredom’ it is, she thought glumly.

And then she noticed that there was something wedged under the second last slat, hidden so well that only a tiny orange corner was visible.

Chapter Text

Kakashi wasn’t sure what mental state his housemate would be in when he got home. Would she be volatile and vengeful, or silent and reproachful? A selfish part of him hoped she was still locked in the bathroom, where he could almost pretend she wasn’t there at all.

But that kind of thinking wasn’t healthy for either of them. She was back staying with him for the foreseeable, and despite her…outburst yesterday, he knew she had been making an effort to be a considerate guest. He just needed to meet her halfway and figure out a system that they could live with.

He opened his front door to find that his ‘considerate guest’ was currently curled up in his armchair, wearing the tiny nightgown that showed off half her chest and all of her legs, and reading Icha Icha Tactics like it was the morning newspaper.

“Where did you get that?” he sputtered, fighting the urge to cross the room and smack it out of her hand.

“From under the bed.” She didn’t even look up at him. 

Kakashi stared. Despite his idle wish that they could go back to ignoring each other, he wasn’t sure he could manage it under these circumstances.

“Did it occur to you that I put it there for a reason?” He decided not to go with the obvious questions about what she had been doing under his bed in the first place. Sakura’s ways were difficult to understand at the best of times, and he had more pressing problems to deal with. Such as making sure she put the book down before the last chapter.

He watched, stricken, as she licked the tip of her finger and used it to turn the page. “I actually met this guy today.” She angled the book so that the cover faced toward him.

“Jiraiya?” A new problem appeared, jumping straight to the head of the queue. “How…was he?”

She shrugged. “Fine, I guess. Bit of a pervert, but I have to admit, he knows his stuff.” She turned yet another page, and then snickered. “I knew Hideo would put it there.”

“Listen, you really shouldn’t be reading that stuff.” He stepped further into the room. “It’s…inappropriate.”

That got her to put the book down. She rested it in her lap, looking up at him with amusement. “This is your book.”

“I know that.” He could feel heat creeping across his face. “But it’s different for me than it is for you.”

“This again,” she sighed, but it wasn’t the harsh noise of last night but the softer, almost laughing sigh of the Sakura from before the Forest of Death. “You know I’ve had sex before, right?”

Oh goody, they were going to have another fight…

“If you’re referring to…The Watcher,” he began, and she cut him off.

“Whatever happened there, I don’t consider it sex.” Her shoulders tensed briefly, then she relaxed. “I’m talking about good, old-fashioned fucking.”

Kakashi tried, and failed, to think of a normal way to ask that she never say the ‘f-word’ in his presence again. “I still don’t understand.”

Her amusement seemed to grow. “Well, when two, or more, people are horny, or even just bored-”

“I understand it!” This was as bad as talking about girls with his nightmare-dad. “I just thought that, since you were all forced together under the worst possible circumstances, how could any of you possibly consent?” Especially Sakura, if she was the youngest of the group; someone the rest had met when she was only a child. If whatever happened with Obito wasn’t sex, then why was anything that happened with The Others?

She stood, the book sliding to the floor with a dull thump. Kakashi braced himself for yelling, but when she spoke, she sounded almost pitying.

“For such a handsome man, you’re really clueless, huh?” All relief about avoiding violence evaporated as he realised that from this angle he could see right down the front of her dress. “We just ask. For example, if I said: Kakashi.” She placed a hand on his chest, and the soft pressure felt like a steel trap snapping closed around him. “You’re attractive, and fit, and you’ve been nice to me even though I’m blaming you for a lot of stuff outside your control right now. You’re also extremely tense.” Her hand shifted toward his racing heart with a wry smile. “So, I think we’d both enjoy it if I sucked your cock.”

Kakashi’s hand shot out automatically, grabbing her wrist and stepping back before she could perform her lie detector trick. “Not interested.”

“Really?” She had the audacity to act surprised by his answer. “Like I said, you’re pretty tightly wound.” She glanced meaningfully at their current position, and he loosened his grip slightly. “I assumed adult ninjas all fucked like rabbits, or else they’d die of stress.”

His apartment was far too small for this conversation: the bed was close enough that with the slightest push, he could send her sprawling onto it. The smell of her was everywhere, fresh soap and shampoo mixed with even fresher arousal. Was that just from the book? Or was she actually serious about wanting to…

He couldn’t even let himself think it.

“You’re teasing me.” He dropped her hand.

“Yes,” she laughed, and it sickened him to discover that he was disappointed. He had removed his mask when he first got home but was sorely tempted to put it back up now, in case those feelings were written all over his face.

“You shouldn’t make jokes like that.” He didn’t want to think about her like that. She might be an adult, and she might be..experienced; but he was the reason for it, indirect as his role may have been. If he derived any pleasure from her fate whatsoever, that would make him a monster.

“But I’m not joking.” She returned to the armchair, sitting down and crossing her legs. “I’m teasing you, sure. But it’s not a joke.”

“Don’t you hate me right now?” This time yesterday he had been picking glass off the floor. “Why the sudden change of attitude?”

“I wouldn’t call it sudden.” The faintest hint of colour crept across Sakura’s cheeks, and Kakashi’s brain latched onto it like a hound scenting its prey. Her outrageously tiny pyjamas and casual mention of sucking his…cock, were certainly impactful, but the idea that this strange and confident woman might also be feeling a little vulnerable right now made the whole situation seem less like psychological warfare and more like an actual proposition. “Like I said, you’ve been good to me. And besides, even if I did hate you, that doesn’t mean we couldn’t still fuck.”

That word again . “I’m taking responsibility for your care because you’re my student.” Better to assert the boundaries now, because he couldn’t survive a repeat of this conversation. “I know things were different for you Inside, but the fact that I’m the only other adult you know well enough to…” Fuck. “Ask, isn’t a good enough reason Outside.”

Sakura stared at him a moment longer, then she recovered Icha Icha from the floor and flicked through until she seemed to find her page. “Shame. But I respect your answer, because no matter what you might think, I understand consent perfectly well. I may be insane, but I do have standards.” She smiled to herself, as if enjoying a private joke.

He exhaled slowly through his nose, partly proud of himself for talking Sakura down, and partly desperate to flee and hide somewhere that didn’t smell like her.

“Of course,” she continued, eyes once again fixed on the book, “as a consenting adult, I could always find someone who is interested.” She turned another page. “I know you’re my handler, so it’d be easier if it was you; but I hope you won’t deny me the opportunity if it comes up.’

The image came unbidden: Sakura kneeling, mouth open, doing everything they had just talked about…but to someone else.

“Of course not.”

“Great.”

That seemed like it would be the last word on the matter, and Kakashi no longer had the will to fight her over the book. He tried to think of something he could do, ideally in a part of the apartment far away from her and the bed. Perhaps he could cook them both a late dinner, or just take a long, cold shower.

A terrifying thought occurred to him.

“Not Jiraiya though, right?”

It seemed to take Sakura a moment to understand what he meant, but then she laughed. 

“No, not Jiraiya.”

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

It was day two of three for Naruto’s training, the day that Jiraiya would finally show him summoning jutsu. Kakashi was still doing his intensive training with Sasuke, and Sakura assumed the latent awkwardness of last night’s conversation would be enough for him to sneak out while she was still in the bathroom (which she had come to think of as ‘her’ room). But he had made a point of knocking and inviting her to share breakfast (Sakura chose to believe the silence was companionable rather than awkward) and then, just before he left for the day, summoned his little dog.

“Now that you’re no longer being supervised by Ebisu, keep Pakkun close by today.” That was all he said before disappearing to meet up with Sasuke.

Sakura hadn’t gotten an opportunity to win the pug over during their shopping trip with Ino, so she was more than happy to take him along for the day; especially the day she was going to learn how to summon him herself.

She was practically walking on air (albeit very slowly, because Pakkun had little legs and refused to be carried) by the time she met up with Naruto and headed over to the meeting point where Jiraiya was already waiting for them. Unfortunately, the day took a steep decline once she learned how the animals came to be summoned.

“As you can see,” Jiraiya gestured to the scroll he had just produced from thin air (along with a frog that was even bigger than the one from yesterday), “you simply write your name in blood on the next line, and then you can get started moulding chakra to perform the actual jutsu.” He handed the scroll to Naruto, then turned to Sakura. “You can sign too, if you like.”

That was actually very kind of him; she could tell the scroll was old and special, and Naruto was the only one he was under any sort of obligation to teach. But when Naruto handed her the scroll (his own name still glistened with fresh blood) she couldn’t even touch it.

“So the animals have no choice?” she glanced uneasily at the scroll-carrying frog, and then at Pakkun. “They have to come when you call them, no matter what?”

“Those are the terms of the contract, yes,” Jiraiya explained. “Assuming your chakra output is high enough; but we’ll get into that.”

“Is it possible to use the jutsu without signing the contract?”

He shook his head immediately. “Not recommended.”

“Why?” Naruto scrunched up his face, suddenly intrigued. “What happens?”

“If you’re lucky? Nothing. Otherwise, it’ll be you that ends up going there .” Jiraiya waggled his fingers like he was telling a spooky story. “That’s how I got stuck on Mount Myoboku eating bugs for every meal, back when I was a kid.”

Sakura shuddered, and Naruto placed a comforting hand on her arm.

“Bugs are gross.”

“Yeah.” She didn’t have the heart to tell him that her problem with getting stuck at Mount Wherever wasn’t the ‘eating bugs’ part, but the ‘stuck’ part.

“You get used to it,” Jiraiya dismissed, rolling the scroll back up and feeding it to the frog. “Alright kid, let’s see what you got.”

Naruto began his attempts to summon a toad while Sakura watched from the sidelines with Pakkun. Once again, he was far from naturally gifted; it took all of his strength just to make a tadpole appear. Jiraiya began chastising his efforts, which made Naruto yell something back about his chakra feeling weird lately. That made Jiraiya take a little more notice, and they paused his summoning training to look into the cause.

“It’s not all bad, you know.”

Sakura looked down at Pakkun, laying on his back in the grass. “What isn’t?”

“Being contracted.” He rolled over onto his stomach so that the henohenomoheji on his vest was visible. “It’s not ownership, it’s partnership. You think I’d agree to follow you around all day just because of some contract?”

“The toads didn’t get a say before Naruto made his contract.” She said it quietly, because for all that she hated the idea, she didn’t want to make Naruto feel bad. He didn’t have a family, so adding his name to something big and old like the summoning scroll (or the KIA monument) probably appealed to him in ways that Sakura couldn’t fully appreciate.

Pakkun shrugged. “The toadfolk have always respected power. As long as your pup can prove himself, they won’t mind answering his call. And if they do mind,” he sniffed, “They’ll just eat him.”

Sakura chose to assume that was a joke. “What do dogs respect?”

“Eh?” Pakkun cocked his head to the side, making his ears flap (so cute!).

“If toads respect power, what does a dog respect?” She sat down on the grass next to him. “What makes you serve Kakashi?” 

She hadn’t really meant to think about Kakashi, let alone bring him up in conversation. Last night’s conversation hadn’t been nearly as embarrassing for her as it clearly was for him, but it was still a rare experience to be turned down so absolutely. The Others might negotiate and barter over sex, but at the end of the day (or timeless black void), pretty much everybody wanted it, as often as possible. Thinking about it, Sensei might have been the only person to turn her down before Kakashi; and it had hurt far less.

It wasn’t just that she was currently so pent up she might explode without some kind of relief. It was the way Kakashi had looked at her: like he was disgusted by the very notion. She was pretty sure he liked women; and even if he didn’t, she and most of The Others were living proof that sex didn’t necessarily have to equate to sexuality.

Perhaps he already had someone, and their sexual relationship was exclusive. Maybe they were in love. He seemed like the type, all tradition and propriety. Perhaps that was the real reason she wanted to see him come undone.

“Dogs also respect power, I suppose.” Pakkun broke into Sakura’s reverie. “But we usually make contracts with just one person, or one family. We’re Kakashi’s pack, and we take those bonds seriously.”

“A pack? Just how many dogs does he have?”

“Eight.” He lifted a leg to scratch idly at his chin.

“Eight?” Even for Sakura (who would have chopped off a finger for the chance to pat just one dog), that seemed like a little too much ‘dog’ for one person to handle.

“It’s a reasonable pack size, for a working ninja. We’re not like the Inuzuka clan’s dogs, who live with their human and work one-on-one. We have our own lives in our own realm, and it’s rare for the boss to need all of us at once.”

Sakura watched as his scratching got more forceful. “Can I help you with that?” She finally offered, when the temptation became too much.

Pakkun lowered his foot and offered his chin to her. “Please.”

It’s happening!

She forced herself to act normal as she took up the duty of scritching his chin. “You’re very soft,” she complimented him, and he smiled smugly.

“Boss shampoos us all once a week. Floral Green.”

“Really?” she laughed, bending a little lower to sniff at his fur. “That’s what I used to use…before.”

“I know,” Pakkun said. “Boss tried to track you when you first disappeared. Confused the hell out of us, too.”

She tentatively moved her other hand to stroke the top of his head, and when he didn’t bat it away, she let it wander to his ears. They were like two little flaps of velvet, and even though it was clear that Pakkun was merely tolerating her touches, she felt like she could have stayed there all day.

Like I have nothing better to do…

“I have to find my friends,” she told Pakkun softly, and suddenly everything was too much. She pressed her face to his tiny body and sobbed, quietly, so that Naruto wouldn’t get distracted from whatever Jiraiya was currently showing him. “I don’t know where to start, and even if I did, helping them would mean betraying the village; which would probably get Kakashi into trouble. But hate feeling useless. I can’t even learn a new jutsu.” She sighed, breathing in the doggy scent of fur and floral green. “I wish I could track people like you.”

“Hey,” Pakkun began, clearly awkward. She figured he was about to tell her to back off, so she raised her head. But his doleful eyes didn’t seem annoyed. Instead, he held out his forepaw to her. “Would touching my paw pads make you feel better?”

Chapter Text

Sakura tried not to cry into the rice she was currently frying. The aroma was so familiar, one of the staples in the Haruno household. She had been half convinced she would screw it up, but it turned out cooking was one of those things you never really forgot how to do. Pakkun had stuck around just long enough to make sure she didn’t burn the apartment down, and then it was just her and her thoughts.

When Kakashi finally got home after yet another long day of training with Sasuke, he stared at her with an unreadable expression.

“I cooked.” She gestured lamely to the rice.

“I can see that.” He didn’t seem upset, but she still felt like a child caught playing with matches.

“Naruto loaned me some money.”

“Alright.”

She floundered. “Are you hungry? Should I serve you some?”

He reeked of sweat and ozone, and appeared to be ever so slightly favouring his left side. In short, he looked absolutely wrecked. But just when Sakura expected to get brushed off in favour of a shower and an early night, he tugged his mask down and took a deep breath. 

“Smells good.”

They talked while they ate, mostly about how the boys were coming along.

“I hoped I might be able to teach Sasuke a lightning jutsu I developed specially for sharingan users,” Kakashi said around a mouthful of rice, “but it might be a bit tough to nail in three days.”

“Naruto is learning how to summon toads.” It was like they were two parents bragging about their kids’ grades. “Apparently that fight in the chunin exam did something to his chakra output?” She hadn’t been paying too much attention to the details, but it sounded like Jiraiya had it covered.

“Sasuke also has some…lingering issues from your encounter with that person.”

She frowned. “Anything I can help with?”

Kakashi shook his head. “I’ve fixed the issue for now, and his problems shouldn’t have anything to do with…yours.”

Translation: it wasn’t Watcher-related. “I wish I could ask Karin about that Grass girl. She might know her.”

“I doubt it,” Kakashi sighed, but he didn’t elaborate and Sakura got the sense that pushing would only make things tense between them again.

Once the last grain of rice had been cleared from their plates and the leftovers moved to the fridge, Sakura cornered Kakashi before he could escape to the shower.

“If you still have enough energy after today, would you mind if we did something?” It was a bit awkward asking for a favour so soon after her peace offering, but her friends didn’t have the luxury of time.

“What sort of something?” He eyed her with suspicion, back pressed to the kitchen counter.

“Well,” she took a deep breath, “I was hoping we could try summoning one of The Others. You read the notebook, right?”

“Oh, that.” He visibly relaxed, which was odd; Sakura had been expecting more resistance. “I think I have enough chakra to try it once. But,” he warned, “don’t get your hopes up too high. I’ve been using the sharingan all day, and I still don’t know exactly how to do this.”

She nodded eagerly. “I know, I won’t.” Despite what she said, she backed away to make a human-sized space between them.

He pushed himself up from the kitchen counter, taking a solid stance. “Who should I…?”

“Try?” Sakura bit her lip. It was like asking which family member you wanted removed from a burning building first. She couldn’t bear to leave anyone behind. “Sensei.” He was the oldest and smartest. If they got him out, he could figure out a way to help the rest.

“Real name is Kabuto, right?” Kakashi tugged his forehead protector higher, revealing his closed left eye.

Sakura’s hands went to her goggles automatically, but she forced herself to relax. She needed to be the calm one when her friends arrived. “That’s right. You still have his hair?”

He dug around in one of his many pockets, finally producing the grey hair and the bloody rag. “Got it.” 

The sharingan opened, the black misshapen pupil spinning against the red like a camera lens trying to focus. Kakashi frowned in concentration, staring at the empty space between them.

Sakura wasn’t actually sure what the process looked like from Outside, but after a few moments of absolutely nothing happening, he closed his eye and shook his head.

“Sorry. Last time there was a black…” he gestured vaguely in the air, “swirly thing, and then you just sort of fell out of it. It doesn’t feel the same, either.”

“You’re probably too tired.” She tried not to think about the ways she might push him harder, force it to ‘feel the same’ as last time, when he had been staring down certain death and a lifetime of regrets. Sensei would have pushed him to the limit, if their places were switched; but she wasn’t Sensei, and she wasn’t quite ready to burn the only lifeline she had left in the outside world. “Thanks for trying.”

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

On the morning of the last day before the exams, Sakura informed Kakashi that she would be staying home.

“I already told Naruto I wasn’t planning on coming,” she explained to Kakashi. “And I warned Jiraiya not to exploit him or make him do weird stuff while I’m not around.”

Kakashi cocked his head to the side. “What kind of weird stuff?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Something Naruto calls ‘Sexy-no-Jutsu.’ He did it once when Jiraiya was ignoring him.”

“I don’t think someone as strong as Jiraiya would fall for something as obvious as a henge.”

“Wrong. He thought it was the best jutsu since substitution. He wanted him to do it full time, but there’s no way I’d let Naruto get perved on by an old man all day, even if it is a fake appearance.” She thought back to that interaction. “Jiraiya said that in that moment, he reminded me of a scary girl he used to know.”

“Oh?” Kakashi was probably late to meet Sasuke by now, but he still listened attentively. It was hard to give up on the idea of fucking him when he looked at her like that, but she forced it from her mind.

“Yeah. I thought he might have meant, you know, Rin; but he said a name I’d never heard before.”

“Let me guess,” he interjected with a smile. “Tsunade?”

She shook her head. “No, someone named Kushina.”

Kakashi froze, expression neither shocked nor sad nor happy. After a moment, he nodded to himself. “I think I understand why he said that.”

“So you know her?” she pressed. She’d take anyone over Nohara Rin. “Who was she?”

“Someone from the past,” he said enigmatically, pulling his mask up. “She’s dead now.”

“Oh.”

“I should go.”

“Alright then.” She wasn’t really sure what she had hoped to get out of repeating this story to Kakashi. Perhaps she had just wanted a little more of his time. “Be safe.”

He looked at her in surprise, before smiling through his mask. “You too.”

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

There was a knock on the door around midday. Sakura was almost going to ignore it; Kakashi would have just let himself in, and anyone else would have been looking for Kakashi. But then she heard Ino’s voice calling softly, and she bolted across the room.

“Ino!” she cried, and then realised she wasn’t sure what to say next. Was she meant to apologise, or demand that Ino did?

“Sakura.” Ino smiled nervously, which was a good sign. “I just wanted to…see if you needed to get your jacket mended.”

Sakura blinked. “My jacket?”

She nodded. “I saw it was damaged, and since you don’t have any money I wasn’t sure if you needed a tailor, or a replacement.”

Sakura twisted to show the repair job she had done on it. “All good. I even got most of the bloodstains out.”

“Oh.” Now it was Ino who didn’t seem to know what came next. “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then? At the…exam.” She turned, haltingly, to leave.

“How’s training going?” Sakura asked, desperate to keep the conversation going.

“Oh, good. Asuma and the boys have thrown just about everything they’ve got at me by now.” She smiled sheepishly. “I should probably still be practising, but I think the nerves are getting to me a little. And I wanted…”

“To make sure I fixed my jacket.” Sakura supplied wryly.

“...right.”

“Well, seeing as you’re here, did you want to do a little training with me? Your first opponent is a puppet user, right? I could show you a few tricks for handling him.”

The last tension in Ino’s shoulders seemed to disappear. “Yeah? I mean, yes please. I’d like that.”

Sakura grinned. “Great. I’ll have you kicking puppet butt in no time.”

Sometimes, Sakura thought, it didn’t matter who was meant to apologise to who, as long as you ended up back on speaking terms.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Lee’s searching had finally paid off. Sakura was sitting in a clearing near Training Ground One with a tangle of wires in her lap and the blonde girl from the chunin exam leaning over her, watching her work.

“Um!” He called out from a safe distance, just in case this was some kind of training exercise he wasn’t familiar with. “Excuse me, Sakura-san!”

Sakura and the other girl both looked up at him: Sakura with a smile, and the blonde with a frown. “Oh, hi Lee. What’s up?”

This was it: the point where they would become eternally bonded by the spirit of friendly rivalry and mutual respect. “I was hoping to ask you for a training session before tomorrow.”

Sakura’s glanced at the blonde. “Seems I’m popular today.”

“She’s already training me.” The blonde’s expression shifted from vaguely unimpressed to downright hostile. “Go find someone else.”

“There’s no reason we can’t all train together.” Sakura, the angel, dumped the wires onto the ground and got to her feet. “Besides, I don’t think we’re going to get much more puppet training unless we go buy a real one. Manami taught me a few tricks for construction, but it was mostly theoretical. And my skills are nothing compared to what Chu-chan can do.” She kicked the tangle of wires, and across the clearing a crude assemblage of logs twitched haphazardly. 

“Puppets?” Lee blinked. “Wow! I didn’t realise you were so multi-talented!” As expected of his eternal rival.

“Oh, no,” Sakura demurred, “it’s definitely not my strongest fighting style.”

The blonde, Ino, tugged Sakura’s arm. “Do we really have to train with this guy?” She leaned in to whisper something that Lee unfortunately heard perfectly. “He looks weird.”

“I look like the great Maito Gai,” he said hotly, the desire to defend his master winning out over the desire to keep his cool in front of Sakura. He tugged at the wrappings on his hands, showing off the callouses and hardened bones beneath. “And I can fight like him, too.”

Sakura nudged Ino’s shoulder. “That’s perfect! I’ve personally encountered a little of Gai’s taijutsu, and if Lee is even a fraction as skilled then you’ll get great practice.”

Ino still looked dubious, and Lee ground his teeth. He considered himself a cheerful guy, but when it came to his training he had to be more serious than anyone else, to make up for his lack of natural talent. He wanted to fight Sakura, or at least see her in a real fight, not just the mercy-killing of the Sound-nin or that tepid spar at the eliminations. But it sounded like she would once again be holding back.

“How about this? He suggested, hoping to salvage the match he had been looking forward to for three days now. “Ino and me versus Sakura.”

“I don’t need you on my team, weird-brows!” Ino snapped.

I don’t need you either! He wanted to yell, but forced himself to remain smiling. “This way we can both get the fight we actually want, without having to wait and take turns. Unless you’re worried I’ll show you up?” He couldn’t help but throw out that last challenge.

Ino’s mouth had already been open (probably to make some new dig at his appearance) but it snapped shut, and for a moment she simply glared at him. He glared back.

When she did speak again, she seemed different. Lee knew that change; it was the attitude shift of a fighter who has finally started to get serious with their opponent.

“You’re on.

Chapter Text

The arena was abuzz with excitement, ringing with cheers and groans in turn. Coin was changing hands in every corner as people bought food and placed bets. 

The sun was high, scorching the inner ring where the fighters competed for promotion to chunin and turning the outer stands into a veritable sauna.

Sakura, whose stomach and temperature seemed to work independently to the rest of her body, still felt sick. Granted, that had a lot more to do with her friends than the heat.

Ino was first up, against the puppet user from Sand. It was a phenomenal match, with Ino clearly surprising even herself with how well she held up against her opponent. Sakura was bursting with pride, of course, but she was also scanning the fighters’ waiting area for any sign of Naruto or Sasuke.

Kakashi had left the house early to squeeze in one last session with Sasuke, promising to meet her there. Sakura has foolishly assumed he meant ‘on time.’

As for Naruto? She had no idea.

Ino finally fell to a scrape from a poisoned needle that had been hidden somewhere on the puppet. Her little gasp seemed to ring out like a scream, followed shortly by a tch sound that Sakura realised came from Kankuro. He didn’t seem triumphant, or even relieved when Ino skidded to the ground, body wracked with shivers. If anything, he seemed annoyed.

“What’s his problem?” Sakura murmured to herself.

“Maybe he wanted to save that technique for a later match,” a familiar voice suggested, and Sakura flinched so hard she almost bit her tongue.

“How long have you been there?!”

“Hmm?” Pakkun lounged in the seat next to her like they had been hanging out all morning. “About five seconds?”

“You just gave me a heart attack.” She glared at him. “Where’s Kakashi? Sasuke’s up soon.”

“Running late.” There wasn’t a trace of apology in the pug’s tone. “He sent me on ahead to keep you company.”

“Save him a seat, more like,” Sakura grumbled, turning back to watch how Ino was faring.

She had just been hoisted onto a stretcher, conscious despite her shaking. Suddenly she sat up.

“Wait.”

Kankuro, who was already halfway across the arena, paused, and Ino lowered herself back off the stretcher and started to walk toward him. 

The crowd, which had clapped warmly enough for a clan heir who had put up a good fight against a foreign opponent, erupted into hearty applause at the sight.

“That’s Konoha grit for you,” one man said.

Watching Ino was like watching a fawn taking its first steps, and after a few moments of watching her, Kankuro seemed to lose patience and cross the distance himself.

“What is it?” He snapped.

Ino just stuck her hand out, face determined. “Good match.”

He looked her up and down like he didn’t quite understand what she was doing. When he finally took her hand and completed the seal of reconciliation, the contact was brief, and even from the stands Sakura could tell he was avoiding her eye.

Then he murmured something, but with his back turned Sakura couldn’t read his lips. 

Ino’s face, however, she could see clearly. “What?” She mouthed, but Kankuro was already disappearing back into the lower ring of stands where his siblings waited their turn.

“Hmm,” Pakkun’s doleful eyes narrowed.

“What is it?” Sakura turned to him. “Did you hear what he said?” The stands were still roaring for Ino, but a dog’s senses were sharper than a human’s.

“He said, ‘tell your medics it’s paulinus.’”

Sakura blinked. “Wait, really?” Sensei had taught her about all sorts of poisons. Paulinus came on quick, but the symptoms were mild enough that many shinobi mistakenly assumed they could just retreat and wait it out. Unfortunately, that ended up being the last thing many of those shinobi would ever do.

“Seems he was being kind.”

“Hmm.” It was Sakura’s turn to murmur to herself. “A truly caring person might not have used poison in the first place.”

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

After Ino and Kankuro it was meant to be Naruto versus Temari, the girl from Sand. The announcer, a bored-looking man with a senbon in his mouth, had entered the arena and started talking, but there was still no sign of Naruto.

“Where is he, anyway?” Yet another familiar voice was calling out to Sakura.

She turned. “Ino! How are you? Should you be walking around like this?”

Ino smiled confidently, but her face was even paler than usual and there were still mild tremors running through her body. “Medics gave me the antidote fast enough that aside from a few muscle aches, I’ll be fine.” She nodded further up the stands, where an ANBU agent in a bird mask was watching them. “That guy also gave me a once-over when I stumbled on the stairs just now.” She waved at the man, and after a moment he waved back. “But forget about me: where’s Naruto?”

“I’m here!” Naruto came hurtling from gods-knew-where, covered in what looked like half the dirt in Konoha. He landed gracelessly next to Temari. “I made it, we can start!”

“I forfeit,” Temari declared, raising her hand.

The announcer stared at her, then at her opponent (who was trying to discreetly dust himself off). “Really?”

“Yep.” She left, using her enormous fan to propel herself back up into the stands.

Based on what Sakura had overheard, the crowd hadn’t particularly cared about this fight (they just don’t know what they’re missing, Naruto!), but a forfeiture right out of the gate was downright insulting. There were boos and even some shouts; mostly from Naruto, who only left the arena when the announcer promised he would now be first up against Shino (the odd man out in the first bracket) once round two began.

The last sand sibling, a short boy with brown hair, neither booed nor cheered his sister’s decision: he simply stared at her. It wasn’t clear to Sakura whether he disapproved of her poor sportsmanship, or was simply an intense person by nature; but his gaze was unnerving, and Sakura could understand why both of the older siblings were avoiding it.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

“Up next…” The announcer checked his clipboard assiduously, even though the opening fights were surely memorised. “Sasuke versus Neji.”

This fight was clearly what the crowd had all been waiting for, but once again Sakura’s teammate left it to the last second to actually turn up.

“Move over, doggy.” Ino made a shooing gesture to Pakkun, who simply stared at her. “Sakura, tell your dog I want to sit there.”

“He’s not my dog,” Sakura said at the same time Pakkun said “I’m not her dog.”

“Whatever.” Ino made a face. She looked like she was about to keep arguing, but then a roar erupted from the crowd and they all turned to see Sasuke stalk into the ring.

“Sasuke-kun!” Ino cheered, dropping into the seat next to Pakkun.

“I swear they’re doing this on purpose just to mess with my blood pressure,” Sakura grumbled to herself, even as she clapped along with everyone else.

“Whoa.” Ino leaned forward, shaking hands gripping the back of the seat in front of her. “He looks so cool.”

Sasuke wore a charcoal jacket similar in style to his original blue version, complemented by new black hakama pants. The nod to her own wardrobe wasn’t lost on Sakura, but the overall effect of his darker, bulkier silhouette was more than a little dramatic. Even Neji, a similarly stone-faced boy, hesitated a moment before making the seal of confrontation.

“He sure does.” She wasn’t sure she liked it. “Can you see Kakashi anywhere?”

“Yo.” For the third time that day, Sakura’s head swiveled at the sound of a familiar voice.

“There you are!” She fought the urge to punch his arm. “I was just about to get Pakkun to track you down.”

“Sorry,” just like his dog, there was no hint of actual remorse in his tone. Instead of taking the seat Pakkun was saving for him, he sat in the row just behind them. “Now everyone be quiet, and pay close attention; you’ll need to.”

The fight itself was almost too fast to follow. Neji had been practising with the byakugan techniques for years compared to Sasuke, who had only awakened the sharingan a few days ago. But despite this, they seemed evenly matched.  

Part of that was Sasuke’s attitude. His aura was almost as unstable as the time he killed the Sound nin, like he was fighting for his life and not just a shot at promotion. Where Neji was all calm and precision, Sasuke never seemed to do the same thing twice.

“Damn, Kakashi,” Sakura breathed, partly in awe and partly horrified. “What did you do to him?”

“Me?” From this position, Kakashi’s mouth was so close to her ear that he barely had to raise his voice above a whisper to be heard. “I’m afraid this is all Sasuke; I just taught him a few tricks.”

“That’s an understatement.” Sasuke had cycled through almost a dozen fire jutsu by now, clearly playing against the byakugan’s strengths by using mid-ranged techniques that didn’t rely on too much precision. “I knew he was gifted, but this is something else.”

It was almost as if Kakashi had placed him in a time dilation prison of his own, where he had all the time in the world to learn as many jutsu as possible. Despite the heat, the thought left her cold.

“They don’t call me ‘copy-cat’ for nothing.” Kakashi seemed to be enjoying her reaction. “Besides, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

She turned back to him, regretting it instantly; their faces were way too close. She turned back quickly. “What does that mean?”

“Just watch.”

Sakura forced herself to keep watching even as the pace of the fight became sickeningly fast. Just as she felt that the stalemate could never end, Sasuke switched up his tactics.

Neji went to strike, and instead of backing off Sasuke stepped even closer. Neji was forced to adjust course, and even though it was a fraction of a second’s difference, Sasuke took that time to land several rapid hits of his own.

Neji cried out, clutching his arm like he couldn’t quite believe he had been hit.

“Did he just hit Neji’s chakra points?” Sakura gaped.

Kakashi shook his head. “Not quite. Even though you can’t see them with the sharingan, after watching Neji’s technique for long enough, Sasuke can get pretty close.”

Ino frowned. “Pretty close shouldn’t do that to a Hyuuga.”

“Astute observation.” Kakashi shifted smoothly into his teacher voice. “But if you add a few subtle lightning jutsu…”

“You can cover enough area to make a difference.” Sakura followed the fight with fresh interest.

Neji was getting slower and slower, his original misstep snowballing into outright mistakes. On the other hand, Sasuke was only getting better over time.

When he finally got Neji on his back, one of his kunai pressed against his throat in an automatic yield, the boy just stared at him.

“You weren’t meant to win.”

Sasuke blinked, and for a terrifying second Sakura thought he was going to plunge the knife into Neji’s throat. But then he shifted backwards. “Maybe not; but I needed to win.”

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

“Next up: Rock Lee versus Gaara of the Desert.” The announcer continued to sound colossally bored.

Sakura stood up to cheer extra loud. Lee was a good kid, and like with Ino, she felt she had a small hand in preparing him for this fight.

She needn’t have worried about a lukewarm crowd response, because the voice of Maito Gai resonated over all: “FIGHT WELL, MY YOUNG PROTEGE!”

Lee took a classic taijutsu stance to begin. Gaara, on the other hand, barely seemed to acknowledge that he was in a fight at all. He hadn’t made the sign of confrontation or any other change in attitude from when he was merely spectating. 

Still, Lee didn’t hesitate. He aimed a kick to the side of the boy’s head that was fast, fluid, and utterly brutal.

“Wow,” Ino murmured. Despite yesterday’s animosity, it seemed even she had to acknowledge he was a phenomenal physical fighter.

Unfortunately, the kick never landed. Sand seemed to appear out of nowhere, blocking the strike and sending Lee sliding back a few paces. He tried again, and again; every kick was faster than before, until his speed was basically on par with Sasuke and Neji’s fight. 

But still, Gaara just stood there; and still, the sand rose to block him.

Just when it seemed like Lee would tire himself out before Gaara so much as flexed a muscle, Lee changed up his tactics. He reached down to untie his leg weights.

Ino shook her head. “Idiot. That won’t make enough of a difference.”

The weights fell, and the baked clay of the arena cracked like an egg. Shards shot up everywhere like he’d performed a sand jutsu of his own, and then the fight really began.

Gaara seemed to realise he had to be more proactive about stopping Lee now. He sent a volley of sand like grasping arms to catch and crush his opponent; but Lee dodged.

Next, Lee punched Gaara square in the face, sending him flying backwards. But then a layer of protective sand crumbled away from his face, revealing unblemished skin beneath. 

Gaara reached down and turned half the ground to loose sand, clearly hoping to stymie Lee’s speed. Lee simply leaped from one safe spot to another. 

Lee attacked. Gaara defended. Gaara attacked. Lee dodged. 

“Die!” Gaara was starting to lose his composure. “Just die already!”

A new sand jutsu, larger than anything that came before, swept the ring like a tidal wave and threatened to overflow into the crowd.

Before it reached Lee, he did…something.

Up until now his fighting style had been entirely taijutsu based. And whilst Sakura couldn’t deny it was excellent, at a certain point during yesterday’s training session she had come to the conclusion that the body might not be very gifted at any other forms of ninjutsu. 

But this…whatever it was, was extremely powerful. Lee’s entire aura seemed to ripple with it.

“Gai, you idiot,” Kakashi muttered, and Sakura looked at him in concern.

“What is it?”

“‘Gate Release.’”

“Is that bad?”

“It’s…” he looked like he was trying to find the right words, “effective…”

They paused to watch as Lee once again attacked Gaara, this time kicking him high into the air and restraining his limbs. After that, the sand user was basically suplexed into the ground from fifteen feet up. There was an awful crunch, and the crowd collectively flinched.

“But it’s also dangerous,” he finished grimly.

“I’ll say,” Ino retorted. Both boys were currently unmoving, but based on the fall positions Gaara, at least, was surely dead. “Dangerous doesn’t even begin to cover what he just did.”

“Not dangerous to the opponent,” Kakashi clarified, as the dust settled. “Dangerous to the user. The further you go, the more harm you do to your body. At a certain point, death is basically assured.”

“Seriously?” Ino cupped her hands around her mouth. “Get up, Lee!”

After a moment Lee rolled to his feet, alive but bruised. He approached the other boy warily.

Gaara was still lying prone, face hidden. It seemed Sakura’s suspicions were correct, and he had died on impact; his siblings and teacher clearly thought so too, based on their stricken expressions. But as the crowd grew silent, it became clear that he was not only alive, but muttering something to himself.

“...them all…Kill…them…all…”

“Hey…” Lee reached out a hand to the boy.

And the boy exploded.

Chapter Text

Things got hazy after that.

It took precious seconds for Sakura to realise the haziness wasn’t just shellshock from whatever had burst out of Gaara’s body, but a genjutsu that was trying to lull her into a deep sleep. 

“Kai.” Reality snapped back immediately, along with the terrible realisation that they were under attack. There were distant cries and muffled booms coming from outside the stadium. Inside it was comparatively quiet, but just as unsettling: ANBU agents, like the one who had healed Ino earlier, were the only people moving. Everyone else was quiet, heads bowed as if in prayer.

“Ino.” She turned, already forming another rat seal, but Kakashi reached out to stop her.

“Don’t.” He placed his gloved hands over hers. “She’ll just be dead weight.”

Her relief at seeing him awake evaporated as quickly as it came. “Dead weight?” She wrenched her hands free from his grasp.

“Quiet.” He kept low, pointing “Look.”

Others in jounin fatigues were starting to pop up from different places in the stands; but instead of joining forces, the ANBU were attacking them.

“The ANBU are the ones doing this,” Sakura concluded grimly. Whether they were imposters or this was the start of a coup, the outcome would be the same. “We have to stop them.”

She tried to rise in her seat, but Kakashi forced her back down. 

“Listen to me, Sakura.” His expression was more serious than she had ever seen it. “You have to go after Gaara.”

“Gaara?” She looked back at the arena. Aside from a whole lot of disturbed earth, there was no sign of either boy.

Kakashi nodded. “He’s…it’s tricky to explain, but as of right now he’s the bigger threat to Konoha. His siblings rushed him out of here once things kicked off, but Lee and our boys were hot on their heels. I need you to go support them. Pakkun can help you catch up.”

“What about you?” The thought of Naruto and Sasuke (and Lee, of course) rushing off after some strange enemy was terrifying; but so was the thought of leaving hundreds of sleeping people to their fates.

“As a jounin, I’m needed here.” His words were emphasised by a stray kunai that he deflected before it could pierce his normal eye. 

The kunai clattered somewhere in the crowd, and Pakkun whined quietly; it seemed he was only pretending to be asleep. Sakura scratched his ear gently.

“Then I’m needed here too.” Her official rank might be genin, but she was better than any jounin in a fight.

He shook his head firmly. “You have your mission. Go.”

He scooted partway down the aisle before springing into the fray without so much as a goodbye.

I wished for this, she thought miserably, watching him go.

“Come on, girly.” Pakkun seemed resigned to their orders, but Sakura stood firm. She wasn’t Kakashi’s pet. She wasn’t even his student anymore, really.

“Kai.” She tapped Ino’s forehead, and after a moment the girl’s pale eyes fluttered open.

“What…?”

“I’ll explain on the way,” she said, biting the inside of her cheek until she felt a chunk of flesh tear free.

She formed the necessary seals for a blood clone, finishing by spitting the bloody glob onto the ground.

“Ew, Sakura!” Ino squealed, and Pakkun pressed his paws to her mouth.

“Quiet, blondie!”

After a moment, the flesh and spit bubbled and seemed to grow until an identical Sakura was kneeling in the narrow gap between rows.

“Okay,” it said, nodding at Pakkun and Ino. “Let’s go.”

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Block, stab, step forward, repeat. If Kakashi thought about anything more than the immediate future, he’d end up worrying. And if he started to worry, he would get distracted. And if he got distracted right now, he might just die.

As her handler, Sakura technically should have stayed with him; but the writing was on the wall, and Konoha was about to become a bloodbath. He hadn’t mentioned it to her, but he had seen the Kazekage rip off his face and grab the Third Hokage a few seconds before the arena went to hell. Orochimaru had made his move at last, and he wanted his team as far away from it as possible.

With the Third fighting, Kakashi’s job was to regroup with the other jounin and get to the far roof to back him up. If they managed to accomplish this task in time, maybe he could still catch up with Team Seven before they got into their own fight.

Unrealistic, he chided himself immediately. Even if he escaped the arena and saved the Third, Orochimaru would have enough contingencies to keep them all tied up for ages. His team - two twelve year olds, a feral kunoichi, and a pug - were far beyond his reach now.

Or so he thought. He caught a flash of pink in his peripherals that could only be the feral kunoichi herself, heading into the heart of the battle. 

His current opponent took advantage of his momentary distraction to rake a blade down his left arm, and Sakura’s words came back to haunt him.

I guess it makes sense that you’d have a blind spot…

He killed that agent with maybe a little more force than necessary, and then got himself into a more defensible position.

Now that he could scan his wider surroundings without getting murdered, he could see Sakura clearly.

She was also scanning the arena, clearly searching for something specific. Him? No; she sighted on one masked man, and her change in demeanour was like a hound scenting a rabbit. He wasn’t her closest enemy, nor was he the biggest threat: where others were cycling through a variety of attacks, this man was just holding the ram seal and trying to look inconspicuous. Kakashi had assumed he was the genjutsu user and dismissed him from the original threat assessment when it was clear he wasn’t going to be able to do anything else for the remainder of the fight.

But now Sakura was engaging, cutting down the other enemies who materialised to defend him. He broke his hold on the genjutsu, and had just enough time to reach for a kunai before she ran him through.

“Shit,” Kakashi muttered under his breath. Sakura probably thought she was helping the civilians, but if they woke up now it would only create a panic.

But the damage was done; the haze fell from the stands, and suddenly there was movement all around as people began to stir. 

“Sakura!” Kakashi waved to her urgently. “Come here!”

The least he could do was keep her close, and safe, before this chaotic fight got even more chaotic. But Sakura, Mistress of Chaos, looked right at him and shook her head.

“That’s an order, Haruno!” Frustration forced him to use his Captain Voice; but instead of snapping to, she started forming the seals for a jutsu.

The shimmery haze of genjutsu began to fall over the stands once more. Kakashi went to dispel himself out of reflex, but then he heard Sakura speak.

“Attention,” she said, and her voice sounded amplified like she was talking through a speaker. “The chunin exam is now over. Please leave the stadium in an orderly fashion.”

The crowds paused for a moment, still half-waking. And then, as one, they obediently made their way to the exits.

Now it was Sakura who was forced to hold a jutsu; but unlike the enemy genjutsu user, she wasn’t trying to hide. In fact, she stepped right up to the edge of the inner ring of stands, still repeating her message to evacuate, and then leapt down into the fighting circle.

“Is she insane?” Genma, who had been adjudicating the chunin exam’s battles when the real fight broke out, landed next to Kakashi. “She’s a sitting duck down there.”

It was true. She was still walking, heading toward the middle of the arena and making no attempts to hide the fact that she was the one thwarting the enemy’s plans.

“That’s the point,” Kakashi realised. He turned to Genma urgently. “She’s drawing fire away from the civilians, buying them time.”

Genma’s eyes widened. “So she is insane,” he murmured, but Kakashi could tell he was impressed. “Let’s help her out.”

They weren’t the only jounin who willingly leapt down into the killing bowl once the enemy started converging on Sakura. Either the others had figured out what she was doing and wanted to help, or else they just couldn’t bear to watch someone so helplessly outnumbered.

In any case, the outcome was that the ring of enemy shinobi surrounding Sakura were suddenly being kettled in by an outer ring of jounin.

Despite the tactical advantage this gave them, Kakashi’s heart was in his mouth as he tried to push through the wall of fake ANBU agents to reach the centre. If they didn’t kill Sakura outright, her own allies would end up crushing her before long.

Her voice was still unnaturally amplified, but it was starting to grow thin. “Attention…The chunin exam is…over. Please...”

“Sakura!” He shouted, clawing at the masked figures like they were rocks at a cave-in. “Drop the genjutsu! The civilians are all out!” He actually had no idea if that was true, but if there were a few stragglers then they weren’t going to be anyone’s priority at this point.

The bodies were no longer falling to the ground but remained standing, propped up by their desperate allies, until Kakashi was surrounded by a forest of dead men. 

The voice had gone silent. 

“Sakura!” He yelled again, hand reaching, reaching, until it wrapped around a wrist.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

A hand closed around her wrist, tugging her free from the centre of the crush and away, toward the exit tunnel at the edge of the fighting circle. She fell against her saviour, and they dragged her along until there was enough fresh air and personal space that she could once again stand on her own.

“Thank-”

She stopped. It wasn’t an ally who had rescued her, but a masked ANBU agent. She assessed him warily.

“You’re that man from before. The one who healed Ino.”

“Oh, Sakura.” The man spoke, and tears sprang to her eyes before her conscious mind could even process what it was hearing. He removed his mask. “I’m so much more to you than that.”

“Sensei?” She fell into the man’s arms, all thoughts of self-preservation or natural suspicion forgotten at the sight of her lost friend. “You’re here! You’re Outside! You’re…” she paused, taking a closer look. “Very young.”

Sensei smiled down at her with the wrinkle-free face she had seen in his photograph. “Just a cosmetic jutsu. Explaining everything to my comrades would have been tedious.”

She had tried a similar thing with her parents, though Sensei’s disguise was far better than a mere henge. But more importantly than that: “by comrades, do you mean the people attacking Konoha?” She placed a hand over his heart automatically.

“Do you think I’m going to lie to you?” He looked at her with disappointment, but made no move to remove her hand. “Yes, these people work for my old boss, and I pretended to join back up so I could help them infiltrate Konoha. But I’m only here for you, Sakura.” His face turned wry. “Now, is that a lie?”

“No.” She could feel his pulse and all the other telltale signs, and Sensei was telling the truth. “Where are the Others? Are they alive?” So much time had passed, it hardly seemed possible to hope.

He nodded. “Alive, but still Inside. The Watcher seems to have changed the ratio between Inside and Outside time, so we’re on a similar schedule to them now.”

She made a sobbing noise, and the hand that wasn’t on Sensei’s heart wrapped around his shoulder and squeezed gently. It wasn’t too late. She could still save them. “We have to get them out.”

“We will,” Sensei assured her. “You just have to come with me.”

“What?” She blinked. “Come where?”

“North, to The Hidden Sound Village. My former Master controls it. If you come to Sound, the Others can get free.”

“I don’t understand.” He still wasn’t lying, but what he was saying didn’t make any sense. “Listen, we can get them out here in Konoha. The Watcher’s real name is Uchiha Obito, and you were right: Inside is some sort of sharingan jutsu.” She tugged gently on his shoulder, willing him to understand. “We can get the Others out the same way I got out.”

“No.” Sensei shook his head urgently. You have to come with me. It’s the only way.”

“But why?” The battle was dying down now, and it would only be a matter of time before whoever survived came to investigate. “How did you escape?” Had Kakashi’s jutsu worked after all?

Sensei readjusted his glasses slowly, taking his time before speaking. “My old master,” he finally said, “Orochimaru…he’s a brilliant man, with knowledge of a great many things.”

“Orochimaru.” The name didn’t mean anything to Sakura. “So he can help?”

“You have to come with me now, Sakura.” Kabuto grabbed her suddenly, dark eyes desperate. “Please.”

“Sakura!”

That was all the warning they got before Kakashi slammed into Sensei; but as two people who spent most of their life training Inside, it was more than enough time for them both.

Sensei used the split second to draw a long, thin blade and aim it at Kakashi’s heart. Sakura used the split second to grab Sensei’s wrist and yank both arm and blade up into the air, then twist her own body into Kakashi’s path.

Kakashi slammed into her instead, knocking her back into Sensei. She wheezed as the breath was once again forced from her lungs; but at least she had avoided a worse outcome.

“Kakashi,” she coughed, fighting for enough oxygen to explain the misunderstanding. “It’s Sensei.”

Kakashi stepped away so that he was no longer crushing her between them, but he dragged her back with him. “Get away from her,” he growled at the other man.

“Sakura.” Sensei continued like they had never been interrupted. “Please, I need you.”

“Hey!” More people were coming over now, more Konoha jounin who would only see things in black and white.

Sensei seemed to understand the situation. “You know what you need to do,” he told Sakura, dark eyes boring into hers, before turning and sprinting down the dark hallway.

“Don’t!” she cried, straining against Kakashi’s arms. “Don’t leave!”

“It’s a trap,” Kakashi told her, voice low. “He’s lying.”

“He’s not lying!” She knew better than anyone when Sensei was lying, and even without her hand on his heart she knew his desperation was real. She twisted to face Kakashi. “He said I still have time to save the Others.” That, at least, had to be true. The alternative was unthinkable.

Kakahsi’s arms tightened around her, and under other circumstances their closeness might have registered as intimate. Now, it felt like a cage. “Sakura, he’s the enemy.”

“He’s not!” She considered biting him to make him let her go, but he was so stubborn he’d probably just stand there and let her. “He’s…” How to make him understand? “He’s one of my people.”

“What about me?” Kakashi shook her, gently. The other jounin had caught up and were now pouring into the tunnel after Sensei. “Aren’t I one of your people too?”

“I…” She knew he was just manipulating her, disrupting her emotions long enough to make catching up to Sensei impossible. But…

“Yes.” Of course he was. So were Naruto and Sasuke, and Ino, and her parents, and everyone in Konoha. Of course they were her people too. “But they need me.”

“We need you too,” Kakashi assured her, and she scoffed.

“I’ve caused nothing but problems since I arrived.” She was still causing problems, forcing him to hold her back from high treason instead of helping save Konoha from whatever was happening right now. “I should have stayed los-”

Pain, or the memory of it, lanced through her body like a razor wire. She screamed, but possibly that was also just a memory, and then doubled over, twitching, until both memory and pain faded into something bearable.

“What’s wrong?” Kakashi hadn’t quite loosened his grip on her, probably too suspicious of a ruse. “What just happened?”

“I died.” She gingerly scanned her new memories. “My blood clone just got poisoned by that puppet boy, Kankuro.” She grimaced. “Definitely something worse than Paulinus.”

“And the others?” Kakashi prompted, but Sakura shook her head.

“We hadn’t caught up to the boys yet, but Ino and Pakkun went on ahead, and I bought them several minutes before my organs got liquidated.” Hopefully she hadn’t made the wrong call, sending them the clone instead of the original. They were already several clicks outside the village, and so, like Sensei, there was no chance of catching up to them now.

“Ino?” Kakashi frowned for a moment, but perhaps he was too relieved she wasn’t dying because he didn’t fight her about it. Instead, he gave her a stern look. “If I let you go, are you going to behave?”

It was all a little too intense for Sakura, who wasn’t used to extended eye contact (especially while being bear-hugged by the person in question), but she nodded obediently. “Yes.”

“Good.” He released her. “Because this day isn’t over yet.”

As if in response to this statement, there came a low roar from somewhere outside the stadium, followed by a booming crash and a chorus of screams.

Sakura wasn’t religious by nature, but she still sent a silent prayer on behalf of the growing number of people beyond her reach.

Just stay alive, she pleaded, following Kakashi back into the fray. I’m coming as fast as I can.

Chapter Text

Losing the Konoha forces was easy for a shinobi of Kabuto’s calibre, especially with the monumental distraction provided by Orochimaru’s coup de main.

Part of him wished he would get caught, even though they would almost certainly just kill him before he got a chance to explain anything. In fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if he would be compelled to kill himself in that scenario. His master may have been growing impatient, but he wasn’t stupid.

He ditched the ANBU mask and cloak just outside the village, and reached his rendezvous point across the border in Sound before the sun had even set. It helped, of course, that he had no need to stop for food or rest. 

“You failed.”

That was the only greeting he received from his master, and he braced himself internally.

A masked figure stepped out of the shadowy depths of the natural cave he seemed to be using as a base of operations. “You failed,” he repeated.

“Yes.” He had been given just enough free will to pass as normal and adapt to new situations; but that act had been for Orochimaru and Sakura’s benefit. If The Watcher - Uchiha Obito, if Sakura was to be believed - wanted him to talk, his tongue would work of its own accord.

The Watcher struck Kabuto across the face once, twice, thrice. 

Kabuto couldn’t even flinch. Blood bloomed in his mouth, and he spat heavily on the ground before he choked on it.

“Report.” The Watcher continued like his outburst had never happened. Kabuto suspected that he had done such things many times before. He was no better than furniture to the man.

“I reached Sakura and managed to speak with her,” he reported obediently, words coming cottony through his swollen jaw. “I told her to come with me to Sound, but we were interrupted before she could decide what to do.”

“Interrupted?’

“Hatake Kakashi prevented her from leaving.”

The Watcher landed yet another blow to the side of Kabuto’s face, leaving his ears ringing. “Does she know I sent you?”

“She doesn’t know anything for certain. She checked if I was lying, but technically none of my statements were untrue, so unless she deduced it herself…” He hoped she did. He hoped she listened to Hatake Kakashi, and stayed far, far, away from Sound. It’s what he would do. “Then as far as she knows, I’m back working with my old master of my own free will.”

“Good.” The Watcher began to pace the length of the cave’s entrance. “That’s good.”

Kabuto watched the man with disgust. The Others had long suspected that their captor had more than a passing interest in Haruno Sakura, and based on what he had been able to observe since being taken out, he believed it was true. This man wasn’t just retrieving a lost asset. Sakura’s disappearance was personal, somehow.

“Even if she does figure it out,” he added, pushing gently at the limits of his agency, “she won’t be able to stay away forever.”

The pacing stopped. “Why? What did she tell you?”

“She didn’t say anything specific. But you have her friends.”

“Oh, I see.” Kabuto couldn’t see his face, but he imagined the man was smiling. “You think she’ll come back for you.”

“Yes.” Sakura wasn’t like him. As much as he wished she would do the smart thing and stay away, he knew she was coming for them, and he wanted The Watcher to know it too. “She’ll do anything to free us. And kill you.”

“And that’s the only reason I’m not burning Kamui down with you inside.” The Watcher strode back to stand in front of Kabuto. “You’re all more trouble than you’re worth, but if I can kill you one by one while Kakashi’s kunoichi watches, I’ll consider it a fair trade. Now drop your ridiculous transformation jutsu and forget everything that happened since you left your prison.”

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Kabuto woke up with an aching, swollen face and his only friends crowding around him.

He checked his palms. Their latest question since banding together was ‘is the Watcher alone?’ and there was a tiny, half-healed puncture wound on his left hand that meant ‘yes.’

“You were gone about three weeks.” Siren reported. “Based on the timescale, that should be less than an hour.”

He held up his left hand. “This is at least three days of healing.”

“So your theory’s correct.” Jun breathed a loud sigh of relief. “The scale changes.”

“And Inside time is getting closer to Outside time.” Pinch poked at Kabuto's leg. “New clothes. Konoha style.”

Kabuto checked himself more carefully. “More specifically, it’s ‘Sound ninja pretending to be from Konoha.’” Years as a master spy meant he knew a counterfeit outfit when he saw one; but also, this was almost exactly the sort of thing he had worn several decades prior, when he and his team were preparing to infiltrate Konoha’s chunin exam.

The Others inspected his appearance with new interest, sniffing the soles of his feet and speculating on what he might have done. He focused on his aching jaw: nothing dislocated, thankfully. Also no blood under his fingernails or bruising on the knuckles, so he hadn’t fought back.

“Look at this.” Karin lifted something off his shirt and held it up to the Others. “Oh gods, look.”

Kabuto leaned closer, adjusting his dirty glasses. Once he realised what he was looking at, a sealed box he had long ago buried deep inside himself cracked open, and a tiny sliver of hope spilled out.

Pinched gently between Karin’s fingers was a single pink hair.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Sakura ended up borrowing a black dress from her mother.

It made her feel simultaneously too old and too young; too old for her friends, who were still in the hospital after fighting Gaara (and the thing inside him). It was hard to believe that, despite everything they had gone through, they were still children compared to her. Still, when she looked at herself in the mirror she couldn’t help but feel too young for the woman that stared back. She looked almost normal; but it was a lie. Inside, she had been twice as awake and half as alive, and that had made her Wrong. Celebrating life and grieving loss with the other mourners felt like an insult to them.

“Want some?” Kakashi held out a small spiced cookie, one of the many delicious foods that had been prepared for the wake.

She shook her head. “No thanks.”

“You sure?” His brow creased. “You haven’t eaten anything since that day.”

“Why waste the food?” In truth, food had lost all its appeal after seeing Sensei. How could she eat when one of her own was out there, potentially suffering? It was bad enough that she was still laying low in Konoha when she should have been running to the Hidden Sound as fast as her legs could carry her. Kakashi wasn’t letting her out of his sight for that very reason, though he needn’t have bothered; Sensei wouldn’t have run away from her unless he was bait, and she couldn’t risk losing her leverage by jumping headfirst into the trap. She would pick her moment.

“Hatake Kakashi.” 

Where other mourners were subdued in their grief, Shimura Danzo was as businesslike as ever. He even had a handful of Root agents in tow, despite the tension that followed the appearance of any ANBU masks currently. “May we speak for a moment?”

Kakashi looked back at Sakura, who forced herself to smile. “I’ll wait here.”

“I won’t be long.” He pressed the cookie into her hands before she could protest.

Even if the wake had been her ideal moment to sneak off, it would have been instantly thwarted by the Root agent with violet-grey hair that attached himself to her side the moment Kakashi left. 

“Hello.” She assumed it would be futile to attempt conversation, but it would have been too awkward to say nothing at all. Especially now that their combined strangeness was drawing a little too much attention from other mourners.

To her surprise, the man (boy really, probably still a teen judging by his voice) responded. “Hello, Haruno Sakura.”

“Have we…met?”

“I’m afraid not, but I’ve heard a lot about you.” He extended a gloved hand. “I’m Shin.”

She took it, perplexed. “Most masked people don’t give up their name so easily.” Understatement of a lifetime, in her case.

“It’s just an alias,” he shrugged, “but I didn’t see any point in being unfriendly. Spec ops agents might have to act tough and serious on the job, but in reality, we’re just normal people.”

“That must be nice,” she murmured.

The boy cocked his head to the side. “What?”

“Being normal.”

He laughed. “You’re funny!”

“Am I?” she was even more perplexed now, but the boy seemed to think this was an even funnier answer.

“Yep! I wish you could meet the rest of Root.”

“Oh?” If her guard hadn’t already been up, that comment certainly would have raised it.

“Sure. You’re actually a lot like us; everyone else thinks we’re gloomy and weird, too.”

Ouch. 

“But we don’t care what other people think, because we have each other.”

She made a non-committal noise, letting her gaze wander over to where Kakashi was speaking with Danzo. It was hard to tell when his mask was up, but she got the sense that the topic was an unpleasant one.

Shin followed her gaze. “Oh, that’s right; you actually live with Hatake Kakashi, don’t you? Gosh, that must be awkward.”

She blinked. “Not at all.” Which was a lie of course, but Shin didn’t need to know that.

“Really? A famous bachelor from a disgraced clan suddenly taking in a vulnerable, female, student? If it’s not awkward for you, it must be for him.”

This is a tactic, Sakura reminded herself. He’d say anything to make you reconsider.

Instead of rising to the bait she decided to try a little manipulation of her own, and potentially get some intel. With wide eyes, she asked, “‘Disgraced’?”

“Oh, you don’t know?” Shin shook his head. “It’s a pretty tragic tale, so I can see why he didn’t mention it. Apparently Hatake Kakashi’s father, Hatake Sakumo, failed a mission.”

She frowned. “So?”

“Well, the failure wasn’t an accident: he made a choice to sacrifice the objective and save his men, because his emotions got in the way. Eventually he realised he made the wrong call and killed himself out of shame. But that didn’t undo the damage.”

“...Oh.”

“Now poor Kakashi has to live with the shame. A similar slip-up could completely ruin his career…or worse.”

It was strange hearing a man Kakashi’s age be talked about so disparagingly by a boy that was probably no older than sixteen. If it had been about anything other than his father’s suicide, it might have even been funny. As it was, Sakura regretted ever opening her mouth.

“I think I understand now,” she said, and Shin seemed satisfied, because he fell silent. He had probably been coached on this conversation, exactly what to say and where he should pause to allow Sakura to mull it over. “In fact, I think I understand better than most people.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.” She quickly checked that Danzo and the others were still wrapped up in their own conversation, then, quick as blinking, reached out and tucked the spiced cookie into Shin’s pocket.

“Why did you do that?” She couldn’t see his expression under the mask, but she could tell they were off script now.

“Because you deserve nice things.” She smiled sadly. “Even if your life is controlled by someone else, it’s still yours. Remember that.”

“I don’t…”

“It’s okay,” she told him. “I know you have to try. Tell them I seemed to buy it.”

Shin was spared from any further attempts to win her over by the sudden return of Kakashi. 

“Let’s go,” he said, pushing the small of her back until she started moving. “Wake’s almost over, and we have work to do.”

“Bye, Shin.” She waved at the boy, who waved back a beat too late. 

Kakashi’s hand tightened ever so slightly, probably from concern that Danzo’s mind games were working on her. He needn’t have worried, of course; when she left, it wouldn’t be for Root.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

The next morning, they went to the hospital. 

This had become part of their daily routine, visiting the four genin who had gotten injured fighting Gaara and the other Sand-nin before yet another day spent helping to rebuild the village. Except today, when they reached Sasuke’s room, he was no longer wearing a hospital gown and a murderous expression, but was dressed and waiting for them.

Sakura glanced between him and Kakashi in confusion. “What’s going on?”

“We’re all getting out today,” Sasuke explained, frowning at Kakashi. “Didn’t he tell you?”

She shook her head. “No, but that’s great! Are you and Naruto stuck on light duties, or do we all get to work together today?”

“Actually,” Kakashi jumped in, “Naruto already has a mission. He left this morning.”

“Seriously?” Sasuke looked ready to spit venom; apparently, it wasn’t only Sakura that had been blindsided. “He’s already left the village on a mission?”

Kakashi shrugged carefully. “He’s a fast healer.”

“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” Sakura asked. They hadn’t visited yesterday because of the funeral, and went straight home after the wake. “We didn’t get to say goodbye.” Or remind him to look out for clues about The Watcher. “How long is he gone for?’

“Classified,” Kakashi said, looking at the door instead of them.

Sasuke scoffed. “Well, who’s he with? The rest of his team is here.”

“Classified.”

“What does that mean, classified?” Sakura frowned, and Kakashi made a face. 

“It means classified. You don’t need to know, either of you. Your mission is to assist with rebuilding the village. Now let’s go, already.” He turned on his heel and left the room.

Sakura stared at Sasuke in confusion. “What was that about?”

Sasuke shrugged. They hadn’t had much chance to talk since the Forest of Death, and with everything that had happened since then it felt like a gulf was forming between them; one that hadn’t been there since before she disappeared. “I guess we aren’t worth keeping in the loop.”

“Don’t say that.” Sakura went to place her hand on Sasuke’s shoulder, but he flinched away from her. “Something weird’s going on. Kakashi had a conversation with Danzo yesterday that I think-”

“You two,” Kakashi barked from the hall. “Now!”

Sasuke gave her a look like ‘I told you so,’ and silently followed.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

They were so busy for the rest of the day that even if Sakura had known where to begin trying to defuse the weird tension in their trio, there wouldn’t have been much opportunity. If Naruto were there, he would have brought it all out with his usual clumsy candour, and they wouldn’t have had to spend the whole day tiptoeing around each other’s weird funks. As it was, Kakashi was brusque, Sasuke was sullen, and Sakura slipped quickly into survival mode - which for her, meant becoming invisible.

When they finally got home, covered in rock dust and blisters, Kakashi spent a little longer than usual unlocking the door.

"Anything wrong?" Sakura asked, thinking longingly of the shower on the other side.

"No, no, I'm just checking my security seals. Making sure they're still working as they should."

"So that I can't sneak out and run off?" She guessed, figuring now was as good a time as any to address the elephant in the room. "Because just to be clear, I have n-"

Before she could finish her sentence, Kakashi pressed her against the outer wall of his apartment with a hand against her mouth. "Don't say that sort of thing," he breathed against her ear, reminding her of the chunin exam. "You don't know who could be listening."

She glared at him until he removed his hand from her mouth, but he still had her caged against the wall. "That's what you're afraid of?" she asked, speaking just as quietly. "Is it Danzo?"

"Sakura," he sounded frustrated, "this is a ninja village. Anyone could be listening to us. And what you're talking about, oh-so casually, is treason." The last word was inaudible; she had to read his lips.

"I'm telling you I wouldn't do that to you." She tried to make him understand. "I wouldn't do anything that would hurt you." Heavens knew she'd tried. Kakashi was the only obstacle preventing her from joining Kabuto that day, and she couldn't eliminate him.

"This isn't about me, Sakura, it's about you." They were still whispering, and even though he was probably using her name to emphasise the importance of what he was saying, it still sent a little jolt of warmth through her every time. However, his next words left her cold. "You need to start acting like a ninja of Konoha."

"What does that mean?" She frowned. "I'm covered in half a tonne of dirt right now because I'm a ninja of Konoha. Where else would I be from?"

He didn't answer at first, just stared at her with an expression halfway between frustration and despair. Finally, he spoke. "A true ninja of Konoha follows orders."

She opened her mouth to argue, to refer him to the previous statement about the half-tonne of dirt she had accrued while following orders, but his hand crept back over her mouth. "No, listen. This is an order, Sakura, one that I fully expect you to follow: you will behave. You will be good. You will obey my commands, both on and off the battlefield. And you will give nobody any reason to suspect that your loyalties lie anywhere but with Konoha." The hand tightened minutely, and his voice grew urgent. "And with anyone but me. Do you understand?"

She stared at him silently. Yes, she did understand what he was ordering her to do. He was telling her to forget her friends entirely. He was telling her to treat him like The Watcher.

He removed his hand once more, backing up to give her space. "Do you understand?" He repeated, sternly.

I should have let Kabuto kill you. "I understand."

Chapter Text

"What are you doing?"

Sakura blinked innocently. "Following orders?"

It was later in the evening, the time in their routine when Kakashi would go to bed and Sakura would retreat to the bathroom to wait out the night in her sleepless state. Kakashi had been counting down each awkward minute, desperate as he was to escape Sakura's judging eyes.

But he had just left the bathroom after brushing his teeth, and instead of trading places, Sakura stayed where she was. And where she was, was…

"I don't understand," he said finally.

"Well," Sakura spoke slowly, like he was a particularly dim-witted child. "You ordered me to behave and be good. So here I am," she gestured to herself, "doing that."

"And why do you need to do that in my bed?" And in that nightie.

"On your bed," she clarified, as if he could miss the fact that she was lying on top of the blankets, leaving her body in full view. "And I need to be here because by ordering me to behave and be good, I assume that means you're worried I'll misbehave and be bad. And since you have to sleep at night, I thought I'd make your job of monitoring me easier." She smiled like a knife, all teeth and no warmth.

"That won't be necessary." Kakashi approached the bed. "Get out."

"I'll remind you that you offered me this bed at one point." She flung back the covers and patted the sheet below. "Now hop in; I don't bite."

He narrowed his eyes. "Sakura…"

"If you can give me one good reason this isn't the most logical way to prove my loyalty, I'll move." She shrugged, and the thin strap of her nightdress slid lower on her shoulder in a move that just had to be calculated. "But this way you don't have to lose sleep worrying if I'm sneaking out to misbehave, right?"

"And if I lose sleep for other reasons?"

The words slipped out before he could stop them. He meant that he wasn't used to sharing a bed, and with his finely tuned senses he'd be unlikely to find the experience comfortable enough to drift off. But Sakura gave him a scandalised look.

"Kakashi-sensei!" She sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees like a maiden hiding her modesty from a pervert; an effect that was somewhat diminished by the amount of leg she was now showing.

Definitely calculated.

"I'm not suggesting anything lewd! I'm your student."

He scoffed. It wasn't too long ago that this 'student' had asked to suck his cock. Unfortunately, thinking about that particular conversation was a mental misstep.

"Fine," he huffed, flopping down on the bed and rolling the covers over himself before Sakura could spot the growing tent in his pants. "Anything to shut you up."

"Shut me up? I'm offended, Sensei." She breathed the last word against the shell of his ear. "But I'm sure you're just tired from monitoring me all day, so I won't hold it against you." He was faced away from her, but he could feel her shift the blankets and wriggle in beside him. "That would be disrespectful, after all."

"I thought you were sleeping on top of the covers?" He asked, wincing at the nervousness in his voice. His dream-father was right, he was seriously out of practice when it came to women. Mind you, he doubted he'd be prepared for Haruno Sakura even if he'd been with a thousand women.

"Sorry, what was that?" Sakura rolled over. She wasn't quite touching him, but the distance between her chest and his shoulder blades was narrow enough that he could feel the heat radiating from her.

"Never mind." He refused to rise to her childishness. Yes, he was an ass for giving her that big speech about following orders earlier. He deserved this punishment-

Bad word choice! He could practically hear Jiraiya cheering.

He deserved this revenge, even if he had been doing it all for Sakura's own good. Danzo had made it clear that he would be watching her closely, and now that her actions at the chunin exam had earned her a strike…

"Alright, then.” Sakura shifted a little further away, and he exhaled quietly. “Goodnight, Sensei."

Yes, Jiraiya was definitely cheering somewhere. "Please don't call me that. Just 'Kakashi' is fine."

"As you command," she murmured, and for a moment he considered rising to her bait. Yes, he may have been out of line with the 'you will obey me' stuff, but if he didn't at least seem to be able to control her, Danzo would find someone who could. Unfortunately, controlling Sakura was like controlling lightning. He could redirect her, but he could never contain her.

"Goodnight, Sakura."

He resigned himself to a sleepless night.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Sakura spent the next eight or so hours watching Kakashi pretend to sleep. She had been prepared to pull out all the stops to make sure he didn't get so much as a moment of peace, but her earlier performance must have made a bigger impact than she thought.

Just how purehearted are you, Hatake Kakashi?

At times, she considered ‘accidentally’ rubbing against him or blowing on his ear anyway; teasing him was just so easy. But if she came on too strong too fast, he might lash out and ruin her fun early. Or he might turn around and call her bluff, and even though that would make things very fun, it would also make things more difficult later.

When he finally 'woke' and dragged himself tiredly to the shower, she didn't even have the heart to offer to join him (lest she get into trouble while unsupervised, of course). Instead, she slid gently into the empty space he had just left, to feel his body heat lingering on the sheets. They smelled like him too: the masculine and slightly bitter musk of human sweat, which was never quite right Inside. She tugged the covers over her nose for a moment, breathing him in.

Despite spending the whole night thinking up ways to push his buttons, the thought of him walking in on such a scene was far too embarrassing. She slipped free and got dressed for the day, making sure every last one of her possessions, old and new, were safely secured in her bag. She considered filling the remaining space with a few of Kakashi's books, but she didn't want to accidentally take anything he loved as much as Icha Icha. He might notice its absence too quickly, and she didn't want the time they spent together to be tainted by theft. High treason would be bad enough.

When Kakashi came out of the bathroom, he looked marginally more awake, but also more defeated than she could have imagined after only one night of torment. Was he softer than he looked? Or had Sakura just forgotten how important sleep was for normal humans, and how devastating even one missed night could be?

"How about we grab Sasuke and get a snack in town before we start work today?" he suggested, and Sakura blinked.

"If that is your wish," she said, but the jab was half-hearted. Unbeknownst to Kakashi, this could be their last day together. Her last day ever spent in Konoha, probably. They might as well part on good terms; especially if it disrupted their daily routine.

When they reached Sasuke's place and suggested the detour, he simply shrugged.

"Whatever you want."

Kakashi rolled his eyes. "There's two of them. Well yes, I do want, so we're going. Get your stuff."

They happened to reach the teahouse at the same time as Sarutobi Asuma, who was accompanied by a pretty brunette woman Sakura didn't recognise.

"Yo." Kakashi smiled and waved in an almost-convincing impression of a man who had received a normal amount of sleep recently. "Oh: Yuuhi Kurenai, let me introduce you to Haruno Sakura."

"It's nice to meet you." The pretty woman shook her hand, and Sakura saw genuine warmth in her crimson eyes.

Sakura felt her own eyes prickle with involuntary tears. "You too," she managed to gasp out despite the emotion suddenly choking her up.

"Are you alright?" Kurenai frowned, withdrawing her hand with an uncertain glance at Asuma. "I heard you…went through a lot. But I hope I didn't upset you…?"

Kakashi and Sasuke were also staring at her like she was an embarrassing weirdo that burst into tears without warning. Only Asuma had the decency to look away from the spectacle (clearly Ino had trained him well).

She swiped a hand across her face. "It's nothing." Another breath and she was calm enough to smile without it wobbling. "Really. Your eyes are just a similar colour to someone else I know."

"Oh." Seemingly relieved she hadn't accidentally offended Kakashi's charity case, Kurenai gestured toward the teahouse. "If you guys were about to go in, we could sit together?"

"Oh, don't let us interrupt." Kakashi waved her away quickly. "Besides," his eyes roved over the half-empty shop, "there's plenty of empty…"

He paused mid-sentence, and Sakura wondered if the sleep-deprivation was worse than she had thought. But then he turned back from the teahouse and smiled at them apologetically. "Actually, I just realised that I didn't let our rebuild supervisor know we're coming in late this morning. "Sakura and Sasuke, can you please run ahead and apologise for our lateness? I'll order us some food and bring it along in a minute."

Sakura's heart, which was already racing from the sight of Kurenai's red eyes, felt like it was about to leap from her chest and splatter onto the ground. Was it really going to be this easy?

Sasuke's protest was immediate and predictable. "By 'a minute', do you mean an hour late with a crappy excuse? Why don't we order the food and you can go talk to the supervisor?"

"Sasuke." Kakashi's tone was level, but his eyes were as serious as they had been yesterday, when he was pinning Sakura against the wall. Those eyes met Sakura's, and somehow grew a shade darker. "This is an order."

A true ninja of Konoha follows orders…

"Hey, Kakashi…" Asuma and Kurenai looked uncomfortable. "If it's a problem, we can just-"

"It's fine." Sakura grabbed Sasuke's arm before he could shrug her off. "Let's go get Kakashi in trouble with the supervisor."

He let them go without any further warnings or reminders for her to be on her best behaviour, which felt…suspicious. Why was he suddenly brushing her off? It seemed genuinely unplanned on his part, so it was possible he really did just want to catch up with his friends alone (nobody came to visit him while she was around, and she was always around, whether she wanted to be or not), but it was more likely that this was some sort of test, to make sure she didn't run for the village gate the second she was out of his sight. If it was the latter, he had badly underestimated her.

"Hey, can we stop here?" She paused in front of the clothing store where Ino had taken her. It had survived the attack and was now a hive of activity as it soaked up the custom of the less-fortunate stores. "I want to try something on that I saw the other day."

Sasuke shrugged. He, at least, didn't seem surprised or suspicious about Kakashi's behaviour. "Sure."

"Thanks." She grabbed the first item she saw and took it into the changing rooms. The second the curtain was drawn, she spat on the floor and formed the seals for her blood clone. Saliva was just filtered blood, and with any luck this clone wouldn't be doing much fighting. It would hold long enough.

The clone took the garment from her, nodded, and went back outside. "Doesn't look as nice on me as it does on the rack," it called. "We can go now."

The real Sakura silently counted to one hundred. Her original plan had involved giving Kakashi the slip with as little violence as possible, ideally after wearing him down to his natural breaking point. She had been prepared to wait several days if necessary, before he handed her this window on a golden platter.

She formed the seals for a henge, taking the form of Naomi (she was probably the most normal-looking of the Others, and there were plenty of strangers in town helping with the rebuild so she'd be unlikely to raise alarms anyway).

When she left the shop, she would have two options: go left, and at some point overtake Sasuke, or go right and at some point pass by the teahouse where she had left Kakashi. Either way, this would be the last glimpse of home she'd get with her own eyes.

She went right, telling herself it was tactical. That way also led to the river, which would be the easiest way out of town right now.

Kakashi and the others were no longer at the teahouse. She stared at the scene a moment, trying to picture what else was different and why it bothered her. She always had a good memory, and it was only improved by half a lifetime spent navigating a world of identical rocks.

Two other patrons were missing.

"Did you happen to see which way the two men that were just here went?" She asked the waiter, trying to sound casual. "They were sitting right there."

"The out-of-towners? They paid up and went that way," he pointed to the road to the river, "a few minutes ago."

"Thanks."

He seemed to appraise her more closely. "Are you with Hatake Kakashi, by any chance?"

"What?" she spluttered, glancing down just to make sure her henge hadn't slipped somehow. "What makes you say that?"

The waiter shrugged. "He asked about those two as well. And then he and the Third's son followed them, so I thought you might have been called in as back-up or something."

She shook her head. "I was just curious. Did they seem like trouble?"

"Not at all; they were perfectly polite, even left a tip. Mind you," he shrugged again, "I never saw their faces, so I suppose they could have been anyone."

Sakura forced herself to maintain a normal walking pace. Going to the river was always the plan, so this didn't change anything. It might even be a total red herring. Kakashi was probably on his way to the main rebuild site right now with tea and snacks, and the two foreigners in strange clothes (they had been strange, those black robes with the red clouds - she had never seen anything like them before, but they stuck out in her mind for reasons she couldn’t fully articulate) were just that: two foreigners, completely unremarkable, heading for home in one of the satellite villages.

In any case, if she did run into Kakashi, and he was in some sort of fight, that still didn't necessarily mean he was in trouble. And if he was in trouble, and it was with anyone other than The Watcher or her friends, that didn't mean she needed to ruin her escape by barging in to help. If Kakashi got himself hurt today, it would only make her getaway that much easier. And this way, she didn't even have to be the one that hurt him.

It was sound logic, but unfortunately some stupid, irrational part of her broke into a run instead. She tugged Pinch's tinted goggles over her eyes, turning the sky to night and the river beside her to an oil slick.

She couldn't help but think of the first time Naomi had come back to Inside after being taken out: Karin had run to her just like this. Like the world was ending, and she needed to make sure they were together when it did.

Chapter Text

Sakura kept to the tree line, acting casual. Whether she ended up leaving Konoha or stayed to investigate whatever had gotten Kakashi spooked, stealth was always the best policy. As it was, after decades of suppressing her aura to avoid and ambush The Others, she was confident only a sensory type could have noticed her; and even if they did, with her Naomi disguise she would hopefully just look like a random civilian out on a stroll.

The river rounded a bend, and she found herself on the edge of…not quite a fight, not yet. However, it was clear from everyone's body language that it was only a matter of time.

Asuma and Kurenai faced down the pair of travellers from the teahouse, faces grim. There was no sign of Kakashi.

"I never expected you to come back here," Asuma told the traveller on the left. "And as for you," he told the right, "I've seen your face in the S-rank bingo book. Hoshigaki Kisame: suspected of national covert activities, and killing a feudal lord."

Sakura couldn't see either of the traveller's faces, but they seemed unfazed. "Get out of our way," the first man said calmly. "We don't want trouble."

"Don't want trouble?" Kurenai laughed mirthlessly. "That's rich, coming from a comrade-killer."

"These people are annoying," the bigger man, Kisame, removed a wrapped parcel from his back that was almost as tall as he. The wrappings fell away with a single tug, revealing a sword covered in hundreds of serrated points. "Let's just kill them already."

"Wait," the unnamed man commanded, but Kisame had already sprung at Asuma, and Asuma leapt to meet him.

Kurenai wasted no time forming a series of complex seals. Sakura was out of range and clearly not the target, but she could feel the cottony tickle of the genjutsu wrapping itself around the enemy. To be able to feel it from even that distance, it must have been powerful.

She leaned forward, intrigued in spite of herself. If she wanted to actually leave the village, a high-level fight like this was as good a distraction as any. But she still hadn't seen Kakashi, and also there was something about the unnamed stranger that intrigued her.

He hadn't moved yet; probably the genjutsu had him convinced he was bound or blinded while Kurenai went for the kill. Asuma and Kisame were still trading blows, enormous sword against a pair of close-combat knuckle knives. They either couldn't let their focus waver long enough to check in with the others, or they were both confident their own comrade would win without help.

That should have been Kurenai's first warning sign. As she went for a strike that was, even with genjutsu, just a little too easy, her whole body seized up.

"You reversed it?" She stared down at herself in shock.

The man didn't reply, simply kicked out and sent her flying out across the river. She struggled, but whatever the genjutsu was showing her prevented her from breaking her fall.

Sakura swore silently. If the shock of hitting the water didn't jolt Kurenai out of it, there was a good chance she might drown.

So much for my great escape…

She dropped her henge and prepared to jump into the river after Kurenai, when another figure beat her to it.

Kakashi caught Kurenai in his arms, dispelling the genjutsu and setting her on her feet. A moment later, Asuma broke free from Kisame to join them. The river was, strategically, a worse position for them; but there was safety in numbers, and based on Kisame's close quarters fighting style there was a good chance they could force the enemy to join them anyway.

And indeed, both strangers dropped neatly over the path's side railing and onto the surface of the river below.

Sakura bit her lip, thinking fast.

Pros of Leaving:

-Actual freedom

-Chance to save The Others

-Chance to kill The Watcher

Cons of Leaving:

-Konoha will hunt me like a dog for the rest of my life

-Kakashi will hate me

-Kakashi might get in trouble for letting me escape

-I'll never see my friends again

Pros of Staying:

-Can help Kakashi and the others

-That might earn me a favour

-Kakashi wouldn't hate me

Cons of Staying:

-Plans for rescuing The Others will be delayed (again)

-I might never be truly free here

"Careful of this one," the unnamed man warned Kisame. "He's got a sharingan, which makes him dangerous. Even if he wasn't born with the body required to manage such power."

Kakashi lifted his forehead protector to reveal the sharingan in question. "Whatever you do," he murmured to his own allies, "don't look him directly in the eye. Only a sharingan can withstand another sharingan."

Something cold passed through Sakura's heart. Was this…

Kakashi stared the man down, sharingan swirling faster than Sakura had ever seen it. She didn't dare look at the other man's face, but he seemed to be staring right back at him.

Approximately three seconds passed, and then Kakashi jolted violently. The chakra he was forcing to the water's surface died, and he sank in past his knees before anyone else could blink.

But Sakura was already running. She caught him round his middle and hauled him up.

"Hey," she shook him gently when he didn't regain his footing but continued to loll against her side.

He groaned quietly, just enough to prove he definitely wasn't dead and probably wasn't dying.

"Take him," she commanded Asuma and Kurenai, pushing him backwards and trusting them to catch him before he sank again. As terrifying as the sight of him collapsing had been, he didn't have time to worry about him and the man in front of her.

She rushed forward, sword drawn. Even with the goggles hiding her eyes, she didn't dare look higher than the man's sternum. It would be more than enough information to lop off his head; but what if this was The Watcher? Kakashi was out of it, and if the connection to The Watcher's vitals was severed, her friends might starve to death Inside without ever knowing how close they had come to freedom.

The moment's hesitation was all Kisame needed to interrupt her first strike. His sword was almost as thick as Sakura, the complete opposite of her delicate katana, and he slammed it down on her with so much force that for a tense moment she thought it might snap through her blade and slice her to ribbons.

She chose not to fight strength with strength, but instead lowered her sword and pivoted out of the way. The man's momentum carried him forward, and instead of hitting her square on, the horrible sword only grazed her.

That was more than enough, though; each serrated tooth dug a chunk of flesh from her arm and she bit down on a cry of pain.

This is nothing compared to what you've endured before, she reminded herself, tightening her grip and spinning it back at the maybe-Watcher. As brutal as Kisame was, she couldn't waste a single strike on him until she was sure the other man was dead.

Kisame clearly disliked this. "What, am I not enough fun for you?" He tsked loudly, swinging to parry her faster than expected for such a bulky weapon. "Or else…?" He titled his head slightly, to show that he was now talking to the man behind him, "Hey Itachi, is this your jilted ex or something?"

Not ‘Obito ’?

The man named Itachi had barely flinched at either of Sakura's attacks, seemingly confident that his ally would cover for him. But now Asuma had recovered enough from the shock of Kakashi's defeat and Sakura's arrival, and he ducked under Kisame's next strike to aim a bladed punch to his ribs. It sliced through the man's grey flesh like butter, and he stepped back with a muttered curse.

This was enough of a window for Sakura to sidestep the melee fighters and come at Itachi for the third time. She dragged her sword up from hip height, catching the surface of the water so that droplets scattered in an arc ahead of her. This blow wouldn't be stopped.

Something tugged at the side of her head, pulling her goggles free. She turned automatically to catch them; but too late, she realised she had fallen for a trap.

The real Itachi held her goggles in one hand and grabbed her chin with the other.

"It's over."

The goggles fell from his hand.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Sakura opened her eyes to find that the world had disappeared. Instead, an unnatural orange sky roiled overhead, fading into blackness as it reached the horizon. She tried to move, but her body was bound against something that froze her into a standing T-pose.

"Where are we?" She dreaded the answer.

"I didn't want to have to use this more than once, if I could help it." Itachi spoke surprisingly softly for a supposed comrade-killer. "Hatake Kakashi could barely withstand my Tsukuyomi with his normal body, but without even a sharingan of your own, I'm afraid you won't survive this."

He drew a blade from thin air and plunged it into her side.

The pain caught her off guard, and she screamed; why hold back now? When that breath ended, before she could inhale to scream again, another Itachi appeared, with another sword. This one went higher on her chest, puncturing a lung.

Suddenly screaming wasn't nearly as cathartic anymore, and so she focused on keeping her breathing shallow and steady while the pain rolled between her twin wounds like a wave.

A third Itachi, a third sword. A third wound, this time in her leg, where it barely registered compared to the first two.

She watched the fourth blade disappear out of sight just below her chin. A hot scratch on her throat, then coldness, then nothing.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

"There's 71 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds left."

Sakura blinked. The swords, wounds and pain had all disappeared. Once again she was face to face with a lone Itachi.

"How long is that Outside?" she asked, and her throat wasn't even hoarse from screaming. It was a total reset.

"Outside?"

"Outside the genjutsu." Since she was already caught, she looked him square in the eye.

His sharingan was framed by long, raven-black hair the same shade as Sasuke's. He was handsome, and a lot younger than she had originally thought. Possibly even younger than her. "At first I thought it might have been another pocket dimension, but," she glanced meaningfully at her unblemished body, "clearly not."

"Tsukuyomi: Nightmare Realm, may be a genjutsu, but it's indistinguishable from reality while you're inside it." He withdrew another sword and plunged it into her side, as if to illustrate his point.

She was ready for it this time, and while it still made her scream, it wasn't the throat-tearing shriek from before. "Tsukuyomi, huh?" she wheezed. "Listen, are there any other Uchiha besides y-"

The second Itachi appeared from out of her blind spot, stabbing her through the join of her shoulder.

When she was done screaming, she fixed him with a glare. "Ow."

When the third Itachi appeared, he paused.

"You bear pain well."

Sakura laughed. "I don't want to give you any ideas, but suffice to say I've gone through something similar before."

The third Itachi drew his sword. "Perhaps; but without the sharingan, you won't survive 72 straight hours."

She gritted her teeth against the blow to come, refusing to give him the satisfaction of another scream.

Want a bet?

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

"70 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds."

Sakura's wounds were once again healed back to whole, leaving only the memories of the last hour. It was like a blood clone dispelling, but on a scale on par with Naruto's mass shadow clones. And it wasn't close to stopping.

Luckily, neither was she. "Do you work with Uchiha Obito?" she asked, before he could stick a new set of swords in her. They'd managed a full hour (and innumerable Itachis) without a reset, which had been a gruesome study in the body's tolerance for pain and blood loss. Or it would have been, if this were her real body and not an advanced hallucination.

"Uchiha Obito is dead," Itachi calmly drew another sword.

"Wait!" She tried to throw up her hands, but of course they were still tied to the crossbar. "He's not, he's alive and he-"

The sword plunged into her side, and she resigned herself to another hour of silent agony.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

"69 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds."

"He's called The Watcher and he steals kids and puts them in a place like this, but real."

She'd had an hour to think of what to say, and now she waited, tensed, to see if it was enough to spare her.

Itachi seemed to absorb her words in that methodical manner of his (after two hours at his hands, she had gotten to know his mannerisms pretty well). "There are only two living Uchiha," he finally said, expression revealing nothing.

Sword. Stab. Pain.

But Sakura had picked up the rhythm now. "You and Sasuke, right?"

New Itachi. Sword. Stab. Pain.

"You're his brother."

New Itachi. Sword. Stab. Pain.

"Why did you do it?"

Pain. Pain. Pain.

"Why didn't you kill Sasuke?"

Pause.

"You know my brother?" Itachi asked, expression as neutral as ever.

She nodded as best she could with six swords in her torso. "We're teammates."

Now, she could tell, she had more of his attention. "Hatake Kakashi is the jounin teacher of Team Seven."

"I know. I’m not his teacher, I’m his classmate."

Stab. Pain.

"It's true!" She howled. "I'm Haruno Sakura - look me up. A month ago I was twelve, and now I'm like this because of your!" Stab. Pain. "Fucking!" Stab. Pain. "Bloodline limit!"

A sword hovered somewhere around her navel, but she didn't care anymore.

"Fucking do it," she growled. "Thanks to your relative, I've spent half my life like this. I've been stabbed, beaten, fucking dissected…" That one, at least, had been consensual; and Kabuto had let her do the same to him. "I thought you might have been him, but you're not." She smiled, hoping the blood running down the edges of her mouth and along the scars on her cheeks made her look as crazy as she felt. "And he's scarier."

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

When Sakura had been Inside long enough for her hair to reach halfway down her calf, she had gone to visit Siren.

Perhaps her intentions had been written all over her face, or perhaps everyone went to her at some point, but Siren didn't seem surprised by her request.

"It's not as good as you think it'll be," she had told Sakura in that lilting voice of hers. Genjutsu has its uses, but that is not one of them."

"But why not?" Sakura pressed, and it sounded like begging even to her own ears. "Under normal circumstances, sure, but here…"

"Konoha." Siren took her face between her hands with a sad smile. "Illusions are lovely. But if you treat them as anything other than that…" She shook her head, and even the whispering swish of her locs had a musical quality. "You'll miss out on reality."

"Reality is awful." Sakura couldn't take it anymore. This place had eaten her entire childhood, and she had finally given up hope of anything changing now that she was an adult. "I want to see the sun again."

Siren's beautiful face turned serious. "Alright," she said eventually, "let's go for a walk."

Sakura's senses, used to a wasteland, were suddenly overwhelmed by sights, sounds, and sensations.

She was strolling along a wide street, the cobblestones beneath her feet slippery with condensation. People jostled her as they went about some unknowable urgent business, and like a dream, she couldn't seem to focus on their actual features.

A cool mist hung at the edges of the hubbub, diffusing the sunlight into a halo. Sakura stopped and raised her face skyward, drinking it in.

"Is this Cloud?" she asked, and suddenly Siren was standing next to her as if it had always been so.

"Yes and no. It's based on Cloud, but no illusion could ever do my home justice."

"But isn't it better to be here," Sakura argued, "where it's almost perfect, instead of back there where there's nothing except rocks?"

"There's also us," Siren countered, but only half-heartedly. "In truth, I understand your point. But could you really enjoy this forever?" She gestured at the illusory scene around them. "You have a knack for genjutsu-breaking. Could you really convince yourself this is real?"

"Yes," she said, but even now her instincts were prickling, urging her to disrupt her chakra flow and break free.

Siren made a few extra hand seals, and Sakura felt the edges of the genjutsu pressing so close against her psyche that the prickling dulled to a vague tickle.

"I could make you believe it was real," she said softly, "and you could waste away inside any dream or nightmare I decided to give you. And if you told yourself to stop fighting enough times, you'd eventually lose the ability to do so."

The sunlight grew stronger, burning hot and bright until Sakura seemed to burn along with it. It raced over her skin like a thousand tiny electric shocks, like pleasure meeting the borders of pain. She groaned quietly. "Siren…"

"If you kill the part of you that knows it's fake, you'll kill yourself." Siren continued to push the illusion, spearing her with needles of white light.

"Stop!" She was unravelling, burning from the inside out. "Siren!" Her heart was racing, and her nerves were seconds from short-circuiting entirely.

"Make it stop," Siren urged, gripping her shoulders with fingers like tongues of flame.

"It hurts."

"Do you want it to be nice again?" Siren asked sweetly, and she nodded helplessly.

"Please."

"Then make it nice, Konoha."

"I can't," she sobbed. Her body was going to explode. "It's your genjutsu."

"But your mind. This," Siren shook her like she was a ragdoll, "isn't your real body, it's just another part of the dream. If you let yourself believe you're really here, you're trapping yourself for me."

Sakura tried to fight the burning feeling, tried to tell herself it wasn't really her heart that was racing, but an illusory heart. An idea.

"It still hurts," she said finally, and Siren nodded.

"And if it were a nice dream, it'd still feel good." The light receded, slowly, like the sun was setting. After a few minutes the sky was totally dark, and Sakura realised they were back Inside. Or rather, they had never left.

"So why not make a nice dream, and just keep it that way?"

She braced herself for another punishing illusion, but Siren seemed to have already made her point.

"Because you'd have to shatter your psyche to do it. You'd have to open your mind up to the illusion, or have it opened up by force. Good or bad, the dreamer is always separate from the dream. Don't forget that."

“So no endless dreams of freedom for me, huh?” Sakura smiled wryly, and Siren wrapped her arms back around her shoulders.

“Not unless you want a lobotomy to go along with it. I’m afraid you’re stuck with us, kid.” She leaned in, pressing her dark lips to Sakura's.

They had enjoyed each other's company enough that the invitation was clear. Sakura's head was still buzzing with the aftershocks of the genjutsu, but if she was stuck in hell without even dreams to comfort her, at least The Others would make sure she'd never have to endure it alone.

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"72 hours have passed."

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There was a splashing, and dimly Sakura realised it was the sound of her goggles hitting the water.

I'm back.

Itachi released her chin and stepped away like she was already dead. And indeed, now that her body was no longer suspended in the air, she dropped into the water like a stone.

Every nerve was so tense that even the coldness of the river felt like a brand new assault. But, she reminded herself, she wasn't really wounded, and if she didn't do something quick she really would drown.

Moulding chakra felt like an ordeal unto itself, especially when her body was in panic mode. If she waited too long underwater, she'd draw breath just to scream, and then she'd be no help to anyone.

She forced herself to pause, to look up at the surface and follow the glowing outlines of chakra-infused footsteps just above. Itachi was moving away from her and toward the others. What had he told her, three days ago?

"I didn't want to have to use this more than once, if I could help it."

But he had, and if he did it a third time it would break any one of them. It had already broken Kakashi, and he was the strongest.

That thought threatened to send her panicking all over again, but she clamped down on it and focused on angling her body just so. Then, when she forced all her chakra to her feet…

She shot out of the water like a cork out of a champagne bottle, right at Itachi's back. Her sword was still in her hand; weapons training gave everyone a death grip, of course, but also she knew it would take more than Uchiha Itachi to separate this particular sword from its master. It was cursed, after all.

Itachi’s reaction to her miraculous recovery was just delayed enough for her to graze a stripe up his back. It was shallow, and he recovered from the surprise far too quickly, but hopefully it was enough to keep his attention on her and not the others. Kakashi was still limp in Kurenai's arms, and Asuma was covered in his own blood after going toe to toe with the awful, serrated sword.

Sakura landed lightly, keeping her eyes focused on Itachi's feet. Even now, part of her wanted to run away instead of risk going back to that genjutsu space; but an even bigger part of her was prepared to fight Itachi to the death out of pure spite.

Fortunately, Itachi didn't seem willing to test her. "Let's go," he said to Kisame. "No more distractions."

If there was anything more than complete apathy in his expression when he looked at her (still standing, still fighting), then she would never know.

In a second, the pair had disappeared, and after another five seconds, she allowed herself to believe it was for good.

Chapter Text

Kakashi was underwater, pulled helplessly by the current until he lost all sense of which way was up and which was down. There was a pressure on his chest that seemed to build a thousandfold with every second that he sank, and the water was making all the sounds that reached his ears simultaneously muffled and amplified, like they were travelling a long distance to reach his ears.

"…shi."

It took what felt like a thousand years to finally comprehend that the sounds he was hearing were actual words.

"…kashi ple…"

He tried to follow the source to freedom, but he was in too deep and his body no longer knew how to swim.

"…"

The speaker, whoever they were, had gone silent. Kakashi strained to hear even another syllable, but it was no use. Either they had left him to his fate, or he had finally reached depths where nothing could ever reach him again.

"…ey, what are y…"

Suddenly they were back, and this time there was a jolt of panic in their voice. He listened hard, willing his body to fight for its life even as some part of him shied away from whatever waited at the surface.

"Stop!"

The voice was scared. And Kakashi's head was beginning to clear, the water ebbing away and the light drawing nearer. He could feel the edges of his body now, feel that he wasn't underwater at all, but lying on his back somewhere.

"Kakashi." This was a different voice, he could tell. "Wake up."

"He was sedated for a reason." The first voice was still there, growing clearer. "Whatever this is about, he's in no condition to deal with it right now."

That's right, Kakashi realised. Something happened to me.

"I'm afraid that if he doesn't wake up and deal with this now, you're both going to have to deal with Danzo."

That name was enough to bring full clarity back to Kakashi's world. He forced his eyes open, hissing against the fluorescent lights overhead. Two figures peered down at him.

"Sakura." She had been the first voice, the one trying to bring him home. The one trying to protect him from the second voice. "Tiger."

"Glad you're awake." Tiger's masked face revealed nothing, but he had known Genma long enough to sense that there had been some uncertainty he would wake up. "Sorry, but there's not much time to explain everything."

"You haven't explained anything." Sakura glared at him. "You just walked in here, unhooked his sedatives, and then injected him with…" she glanced at something just out of sight, and grimaced. "Flumazenil."

Tiger shrugged. "I needed him to wake up."

"It's okay, Sakura." Kakashi struggled into a sitting position. "Tiger's on our side." He took in the room properly for the first time, and what he saw confirmed his suspicions. "I'm in the hospital."

"Sorry for the rude awakening, but as I said: Danzo's on his way to see you. He'll want to talk to you about what just happened with Itachi, and if you're non compos mentis he'll make the doctors keep you here forever. Then he'll start in on her." He nodded to Sakura.

"Itachi." Memory flooded back in, threatening to force him under again. He looked down at his body, half expecting it to be hacked to pieces.

A hand was on his shoulder immediately, grounding him.

"It's alright," Sakura soothed. "He's gone, and what he did to you was never real."

"It felt real," he murmured, wondering if it was the combination of sedatives and sedative antagonists fighting it out in his system that made him feel like throwing up, or three days' worth of genjutsu at the hands of a blood traitor.

"I know," Sakura said, and Kakashi shook his head (which unfortunately made the nausea worse).

"No, you don't." He knew she was just trying to comfort him, but she wasn't there. He could still hear the calm way Uchiha Itachi had spoken, like they were back in ANBU discussing a mission strat instead of counting down the remaining seconds of torture.

"Yes, I do." Her hand tightened, and Kakashi noticed for the first time that there was a bandage snaking its way up her bicep, disappearing under a set of standard-issue hospital scrubs.

"Not here," Tiger snapped impatiently. "Catch up all you want once you're home; I've already updated your security seals. But you need to get discharged first. A doctor's going to arrive about sixty seconds from now, and it's your job to convince her that you're well enough to leave. I've updated your chart so it looks like another doctor was already prepping you for discharge and just got sloppy with the paperwork, so hopefully she won't ask too many questions about why you're already awake; but don't be afraid to turn on the old Kakashi charm, if you have to. Got it?"

Without waiting for an answer, he crossed the room and stepped out the open window.

"Who was that guy?" Sakura murmured, as the window slid shut once more.

Kakashi didn't answer. He had to save whatever energy he had left for the upcoming performance to the doctor; not to mention the walk back to his apartment, if he did manage to get discharged. At least he'd be walking away from the hospital.

Part of him wanted nothing more than to hook the sedatives back up and let the water rush over him once more. Hadn't he suffered enough recently? Didn't he deserve to rest?

But if Tiger was right, the next time he woke it would be under Danzo's supervision. And in the meantime, Sakura would be without her handler. Root would swoop in, and all their fights about obedience would be for nothing. She'd disappear as thoroughly as if he'd never found her at all.

The door swung open and an older woman in a lab coat stepped through.

"Mr Hatake." She blinked, clearly surprised to see him awake. "How are you feeling?"

He forced himself to smile. "Great."

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Sakura was too tense to sit, so she stood at the edge of Kakashi's bed instead. She knew her hypervigilance was stressing out a man who was, frankly, already stressed to his limit (she had been supporting him on the slow walk home and had felt every tremor that had passed through his too-tense body), but until she could believe he was actually going to be okay, she wasn't going anywhere.

Now that it was just them, with no doctors to impress, he looked…bad. It wasn't surprising for someone who had been forcibly woken up from sedation to be twitchy until one or both drugs wore off, but it was clearly more than that. It was only when the washing machine changed cycles and Kakashi flinched hard enough to rock the bed that Sakura realised what was happening: he no longer felt safe, even in his own home. It was a feeling she understood all too well.

There was a brief knock at the door, and now they were both flinching.

"Who-?" Sakura had barely crossed to the door when it opened of its own accord; something that, if Tiger was to be believed, shouldn't have happened for anyone but the residents. Or a particularly powerful ninja.

Her hand reached automatically for the space at her hip, but grasped air; she had left her sword propped against the wall.

"I'm home~" The newcomer spoke in Sakura's own voice, and Sakura could have kicked herself for getting worked up over her own blood clone.

The clone must have already figured out that the original didn't leave the village when she meant to; but clearly, she hadn't expected to find her wearing nurse's scrubs while Kakashi lay in bed. "Am I interrupting?"

"No." Sakura glared at her copy. "Go kill yourself already."

It sounded harsh, but it certainly wasn't the first time she'd had to dismiss a clone outside of battle, and she needed the chakra back.

"Fine." The blood clone walked to the bathroom (less messy to do it there), but Kakashi held out a hand to stop her.

"Actually, if there's two of you, that means one can go fetch Gai for me. I need to talk to him."

The blood clone gave an exaggerated bow. "At once, sire."

Sakura grimaced. She'd formed the clone when they were still giving each other attitude. It all seemed so childish now. "Just go already."

Once it had left, she turned back to Kakashi. "Sorry about her. Me."

"Don't be." He waved his hand dismissively, and his whole body seemed to sway with it.

"Are you okay?" Ninjas weren't usually given the strong stuff, and for good reason. "If you want to try sleeping, I can give Gai a message?"

"It's alright.” He threw back the covers. “Time I got up anyway."

He seemed steady for a moment, but then he tried to take a step and almost ended up faceplanting onto the floor.

Sakura was at his side automatically. "Actually, I think you should sleep."

"Don't want to," he said softly. He was still swaying in place like his scarecrow namesake; just how long had he been fighting the sedatives?

She placed her hands firmly on his shoulders, forcing him down to a sitting position on the edge of the bed.

He didn't resist. "I should be sorry," he murmured. "It was stupid to tell you that you have to act like a 'proper' ninja." He made a slightly strained noise that Sakura realised was a laugh. "You'll always be exactly what you are."

"Kakashi…" She pressed the back of her hand to his clammy forehead. She wasn't sure he was even aware of what he was saying. "Worry about yourself, not me."

"You shouldn't have to pretend you're someone else."

"Just rest, okay? You've been through a lot today." And you’re still drugged out of your mind.

"Today?" He laughed hollowly, and then a shiver ran through his body. "Feels like longer."

Her hand wandered further up his forehead and started smoothing back his flyaway fringe. She hoped he didn't remember this later. "I shouldn't have brought it up."

"You said you knew it was like. Before. At the hospital." He gazed up at her with some complicated emotion in his (slightly glazed) eyes. "Because of what Obito did?"

She shook her head. "No." It wasn't the time to tell him everything. Later, when he wasn't drowsing, she might let him know that she had seen what Itachi could do, and very much understood why his mind was desperate to outrun it. But for now, it was too much for them both.

"I'm sorry for that, too." His head tilted forward, so that she couldn't see his face. "For Obito."

"I know." Again, if he weren't so loopy then she might have given him a harder time. But she wasn't a complete monster, no matter what people whispered behind her back. "Now, what is it you need to tell Gai?"

"Need to tell him…" He was still talking to the floor, head basically resting against her abdomen. She shifted him gently until he was laying back on the mattress. "Tell him that he needs to look after Sasuke and Sakura. I'm not sure I'm up to it right now."

"No kidding." She lifted his feet and tucked them back under the covers.

"Tell him Sasuke still can't control his seal."

"Seal?" Sakura frowned, but Kakashi's eyes were fully closed now, sedatives pulling him further from consciousness with every passing second.

"And whatever you do…don't let Sakura get another strike."

Chapter Text

It was like a dream and a nightmare all at once.

Sakura, the prettiest girl woman in Konoha, would be joining Team Gai's training for the next few days while her teacher recovered from a recent fight. Lee would see her every day, spar with her, learn from her, and even have dinner with her (she was sleeping at Gai's house, where the team had all been sharing meals since her original disappearance).

On the other hand…he was also part of their team now. Uchiha Sasuke was, admittedly, very cool. He never smiled, even when he did something right and got praised (which was often). He wore all black these days, and basically looked like the baddie samurai from movies (minus the topknot hairstyle). He even fought in a cool way, now that his sharingan had awakened. Lee couldn't pretend Sakura's attention for the boy was romantic anymore, so he really shouldn't have been jealous; but he still resented his former love rival's effortless style.

He also couldn't pretend that he himself had any chance of catching Sakura's eye in that way though couldn’t help but dream. She was an adult now, closer to Gai's age than his (that was a scary thought; Gai was basically the most eligible bachelor in Konoha, but Lee wasn't sure what he'd do if his favourite teacher in the world ended up dating his crush). Despite the obvious obstacles, he had still hoped that when the day came that he could finally spend more time with Sakura, it would be one-on-one. Like a friendly, platonic date rival challenge.

The first day of training, Gai just tested Sakura and Sasuke's skills by going over the basics (running laps around the village, climbing the cliffs using only their right hand, climbing the cliffs using only their left hand, etc.). Sakura was, of course, brilliant at it. By the end, she and Gai were the only ones still standing, and she’d barely broken a sweat. Tenten and Neji looked at her like she was a demon from hell; but to Lee, she was more angelic than ever.

During dinner at Gai's house, after the five of them finished demolishing a protein-rich meal (Sasuke was invited as well, but luckily hadn't been interested in attending), Gai pulled Lee aside.

"I'm thinking of teaching Sakura the Eight Gates," he said, and Lee almost choked on his tea.

"Really?" The gates were a huge deal; it had taken ages of training for Gai to even mention them, let alone agree to teach him. Still, if anyone was going to be worthy, it would be Sakura.

Gai nodded. "She's got stamina and control in spades, and she's already made it clear she wants to learn as much as possible while she's with us." He smiled at Lee. "Want to help me teach her?"

"Me?" Lee glanced at the woman in question. She had only eaten a small portion of the meal itself, but was now crunching down the discarded chicken bones like they were an exquisite feast in and of themselves. Tenten and Neji were both making disgusted faces in between bickering with one another, but she didn't seem to notice, let alone care.

If she had still been a year younger than Lee, a rookie genin with an insecure streak he had often imagined helping her overcome with the power of love rigorous training, maybe he would have understood why Gai had asked. But what could he possibly teach this Sakura?

Gai didn't seem to share his reservations. "Of course. You're my first pupil, and you've already mastered the gates one through five. I'm sure Sakura would value your assistance."

He glowed at Gai's words. He may not be any good at ninjutsu, but not even Neji had shown aptitude for the Eight Gates. And obviously, if Sakura needed him, his shinobi way wouldn't allow him to give anything less than one hundred percent of his effort.

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The next day, Tenten, Neji and Sasuke were split up from Gai, Sakura and Lee to do separate exercises.

Sakura took to the gates as quickly as she seemed to take to everything else these days, but it would still be a gruelling process where every new gate got orders of magnitude harder than the last.

Lee helped where he could, offering encouragement and support and, at one point, tips about posture that required him to actually touch her (just her shoulders, but it still had him practically hyperventilating). He was the perfect mentor.

And Sakura was grateful, and polite…but nothing more. She barely talked outside of asking questions about the exercises, and when they weren't actively training she just stared off into the distance and sighed, like her thoughts were a million miles away.

Lee's dreams of becoming her beloved rival were being crushed before his eyes; and not only was he powerless to stop the ordeal, but when he was finally at his lowest point, the worst possible person came along to witness it.

"Sakura!" Ino found them while they were all taking a break for lunch. She raised a wicker basket. "I brought sandwiches for you and Sasuke-kun. And everyone else, I suppose," she added, glancing around like it was a surprise to find Team Gai at their own training session.

“Wow, you’re too kind,” he said sarcastically, but she ignored him which was even more infuriating.

Despite treating them like an afterthought, there were more than enough sandwiches to go around.

"You're Asuma's kunoichi, right?" Gai asked her, after graciously inviting her to join their little circle. "Lee's talked about you before, but he forgot to mention your generosity."

Lee shot Gai a warning look. The things he had mentioned about the blonde weren't entirely flattering.

"Lee talks about me?" Ino grinned in a way that made him want to pick her up and throw her. "How sweet."

"Mostly I talk about how I had to save you from getting crushed by that Gaara monster," he muttered, and that shut her up. For a moment.

"I already thanked you for that," she said (which was a lie; Lee was pretty sure the world would end before that ever happened). "Besides, it was Sasuke that actually stopped that guy."

"Actually," Sasuke spoke up for what might have been the first time all morning. "It was Naruto."

"Well…" Ino smiled awkwardly. "You were both really great."

Lee frowned at his sandwich. He would have been great too, if he hadn't been knocked out early trying to save her. First Sakura, now Ino. Not that getting snubbed by Ino was at all comparable to getting snubbed by Sakura, of course.

Speaking of Sakura…

"None of us would have even caught up to Gaara if Sakura-chan hadn't fought off the other two," Lee declared, earning a rare smile from the girl woman herself.

"Thanks, Lee," she said, and his name never sounded so nice as it did coming from her lips. "But you were all amazing in that fight. And you too, Tenten and Neji," she added kindly. "Everything I've seen you guys do these last few days has been very impressive."

"What about me?" Gai pretended to pout, and the others laughed while Sakura rushed to assure him that he was also an excellent and formidable ninja and teacher.

It felt like Lee was a flower, and Sakura was the sun. Every time she looked at him, his heart was warmed by the attention. But every time she turned to share her warmth with the others, it was like the sun had gone behind the clouds and left him cold.

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Ino decided to stick around and watch their training.

"I always learn so much just by watching you, Sasuke." She fluttered her pale lashes.

"Nonsense," Gai boomed. "Why watch when you can do?" He had her join Neji in a spar against Tenten and Sasuke, and Lee wasn't sure who looked more upset about the prospect. He wished he had time to watch the chaos unfold, but gate training required one hundred percent of his focus.

Gai called it once the sun began to set. They used to train long into the night, but these days most genin teams packed it up before dark. They always walked home in pairs or groups for the same reason, and Lee had been hoping to walk with Sakura and Gai. Working with the two adults made him feel more grown up, and he wanted to keep that feeling alive for as long as possible.

"Hey," Ino intercepted him before he could fall into stride with the others. "We live close to each other. I'll walk you home."

"See you at dinner, my young pupils!" Gai waved before disappearing eastwards with Sakura. Sasuke, Neji and Tenten left shortly after, heading west.

Lee wanted to scream. "Why didn't you get Sasuke to walk you home?" That was the whole point of her being out here, right?

Ino looked at him like he was an idiot; a look he was unfortunately getting used to seeing on her face whenever she talked to him. "Because he lives in the east and I live in the north? Also I'm walking you home, not the other way around."

"Ridiculous," he muttered under his breath, but now that they were the only ones left out in the forest he couldn't actually run off and leave her behind.

"So…" Ino began, barely a minute into the walk home. "You like Sakura, huh?"

Of all the things he had expected her to say, that hadn't been on the list. He considered giving her some sort of breezy response, something cool and unbothered like Sasuke. But the words wouldn't come.

Instead, he sighed. "It's not like it's a secret or anything," he told her. "But now that Sakura is an adult, it might be awkward for her, so I try not to be too obvious."

"Well, you're failing," Ino said matter-of-factly.

"Gee, thanks.” He kicked at a pebble in his path, sending it flying into a nearby tree with a satisfying thunk. “That makes me feel so much better. I was worried I wasn't making things awkward for the girl I like, but it's such a relief to know that she's probably super uncomfortable being around me." Maybe he should just skip dinner and jump into the river run some more laps.

"Don't be so dramatic." Ino rolled her eyes at him. "I know you're not about to ask her out or anything, and so does Sakura."

He hoped that was just women's intuition, and not a sign that Ino had been discussing his lack of a love life with Sakura.

"Why bring it up, then? If you're just trying to get a rise out of me…"

"Sheesh, you're so sensitive!" She scowled at him. "I'm trying to help you."

He side-stepped a fallen log. "Help me? Help me what?" Didn't they just establish that Sakura was officially out of his reach?

"Help you make a good impression on Sakura." Ino smiled smugly. "You might not be able to date her anymore, but you still want her to think you're cool, right? Well I'm basically an expert on that subject."

He laughed, and her smile turned to a scowl.

"And, I know what Sakura likes in boys. Come to my house tonight, and I promise by the time I'm done with you, you'll be almost as cool as Sasuke!"

"Is that what this is about?" He narrowed his eyes at her. "You don't like the way I look, so you want to give me a Sasuke-style makeover?"

"I couldn't care less what you look like," she huffed. "And I'm not doing this for fun or out of charity. I want something in return."

"What?" Why was he even considering this?

For the first time all day, Ino looked a little self-conscious. "You might not be very cool-looking, but you're undeniably skilled. At fighting, anyway."

The backhanded compliment caught him off guard. "Thank you?"

"And I also have people I want to impress." She blushed. "So I…I want you to teach me taijutsu!" She said it all in a rush, like it was a terrible thing to confess.

"Is that all?" He cocked his head to the side. "I don't mind training with you whenever I'm not busy with the others. But you don't need to pay me in makeovers, or whatever."

"No." She eyed him up and down while making a sour face. "No, I definitely do."

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Lee inspected himself sceptically in the mirror. "You're sure this is a cool look?"

He had modelled himself off the coolest adult he'd ever known for so long that he barely recognised himself without the bowl cut and green jumpsuit. And they weren't the only thing Ino had fixed her sights on: his poor eyebrows had been plucked to within an inch of their lives by the unapologetic sadist.

"Very sure," Ino said from the other side of the door. "Now come out and show me how the clothes fit."

"Why did you even have these?" He'd been handed a stretchy black tank, long white vest, and a pair of men's pants in a shade of green closer to what chunin wore than the vibrant blue-green of youth that he was used to. They gathered around the ankle so that they wouldn't get in the way of his weighted leg warmers, which Ino had not only allowed him to keep but paired with a band of matching orange fabric that held the vest close to his body. All of it was clearly tailored for men, as it fit him perfectly.

"What a stupid question; I bought them for you."

"I only agreed to do this a few hours ago!"

"Yes, but I knew you'd agree to do this days ago. Now come out, already."

He emerged from the bathroom Ino had transformed into her studio. "Well?” He spun slowly in place. “Am I cool now?"

Ino was staring at him, which was never a good sign. The clothes had seemed simple enough, but maybe he'd messed up and was meant to wear the vest as a hat or something. "Ino?"

She turned away from him so he couldn't see her face. "It's fine."

"Ino," he cajoled, grabbing her shoulder to turn her back around. "It can't be that bad, can it?" For all that she was the most annoying girl alive, he was surprised to find that he really did care what she thought of him. They'd just spent a surprisingly enjoyable couple of hours together, and you didn't let anyone get close to you with scissors and tweezers without also letting them get a little close emotionally.

Ino stared up at him (was she always this short?) and after a moment of silence, she coughed into her closed fist. "Sorry, I was just taken aback by my own skills."

He raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow "So I look good?"

Instead of answering, she reached out a hand and placed it on the top of his head.

"Hey…" He could feel his face heating up. "What are you-"

Ino's fingers carded roughly through his fringe, pushing it back until it was sticking up at odd angles. Then she mussed the shorter sides for good measure.

"Stop flattening it down!" She ordered him. "This haircut is meant to be messy."

"You could have just said so," he grumbled, even as his hands reached automatically to fix what she’d done.

Ino smacked them away. "Don't you dare! It looks perfect now."

"Yeah?" Lee twisted his neck to look back at the bathroom mirror. His new haircut was way shorter at the back and sides, and Ino had hacked his ruler-straight fringe into jagged pieces; but he had to admit it did look kind of cool. He grinned. "So you think Sakura'll like it?"

"Sakura?" Ino repeated, like she hadn't quite heard him. "Of course she will. You're just her type, now."

Chapter Text

Sasuke needed to get stronger.

Sakura was basically a goddess these days; in fact, she had just mastered the first level of some amazing new jutsu that only a select few people were ever invited to learn. Naruto was also off doing some amazing secret mission with the old man that taught him to summon giant frogs. Even the members of Team Gai were better than he realised: Sasuke had always prided himself on his marksmanship, but Tenten could hit literally anything. And when it came to hand-to-hand combat, Neji and Lee were in another class entirely.

He knew it was wrong to sneak out after dark without telling anyone where he was going, but he needed the extra practice time. And a small, guilty part of him wondered if it wouldn't be such a bad thing if The Watcher took him next. He could get decades of training done in a single month; and unlike Sakura, there would be no family to miss him. He caught himself daydreaming more and more about the possibility of confronting Itachi, this time as the older brother. And yes, time "Inside" had made Sakura a little bit mad along with all that power -but his nemesis was also a little bit mad (how else could he have done that to their whole family?) and perhaps understanding him better was the key to defeating him.

In spite of these justifications, when an unfamiliar - but extremely powerful - aura flared into existence right in front of him, his first and only thought was of escape.

"Stop," a male voice commanded, and Sasuke sensed another three people at his back that forced him to comply.

The four ninjas stepped closer, so that even in the dim moonlight that managed to filter through the forest canopy he could see the musical notes engraved into their forehead protectors.

"You're Sound," he said, pleased to find that years of feigning disinterest in things had paid off: his voice didn't waver. "Your people killed the Third Hokage."

"Guilty as charged," a tall man chuckled. "What're you gonna do about it?"

In all honesty, Sasuke knew he could do very little about it. But he shifted into a fighting stance regardless.

"Pfft, calm down kid." The third and last male of the group raised not one, but two sets of hands in a placating gesture. "We're not here to fight."

"We're here to deliver a message." The final Sound nin was a woman with pinkish-red hair. She grinned at him. "How're you handling your gift?"

"Gift?" He frowned, but didn't let his guard down.

The blue-haired man who had spoken first tapped at the crook of his own neck. "Our master Orochimaru's little love bite."

"The curse seal?" That's what Kakashi had called it, when he discovered it during their one-on-one training. He had sealed it with some ritual, claiming it would interfere with the sharingan, but Sasuke felt like the opposite was true; yes, killing that man in the Forest of Death had been terrifying, but because it was easy. And nothing else had come as easily since.

"One man's curse is another man's gift, you know." Blue Hair smiled. "And our master only bestows his gift to those with the potential to do something great with it."

"Like us." The woman turned, brushing her vibrant hair back to show three hooked lines converging on her skin of her nape.

The others showed off similar marks, all placed somewhere on their bodies. All like his.

"The master is expecting you," Blue hair said. "And we've been sent to escort you to him."

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Sasuke spat, all curiosity about the other seals evaporating instantly.

"Not tonight, sure; we had to cross the village perimeter to meet you, so there's only so much time before half of Konoha empties out on us. But tomorrow night, you can just walk yourself out the front gates all stealthy, and we'll pick you up further down the road."

"Why would I ever do that?" The tone of indifference was beginning to slip.

They laughed at him.

"Don't you want to kill that brother of yours?" The tall man looked him up and down. "When we heard Uchiha Itachi had made an unexpected visit to Konoha, the Master had to move his own plans up, too." He grinned. "He was worried he'd gone to kill you."

"When was this?" Sasuke's ears were ringing with the man's words.

"Oh?" The girl cackled. "So nobody even told you, huh? That's rough."

"Now, now, Tayuya." Blue hair's blue lips curled into a smile. "It's not his fault other people still need to protect him. But," his eyes turned back to Sasuke, "I hope this helps you understand exactly why you need us."

"I don't need anything from you. Or your 'Master Orochimaru.'"

The others tsked in disapproval, like he was a child acting out for attention.

"Without the master to teach you how to use his gift, it's worse than wasted," Four Arms warned him, crossing both pairs of arms. "In fact, it'll kill you."

"Think about it, Uchiha Sasuke." The girl Tayuya smiled in a way that wasn't quite friendly. "And if you decide you want to get stronger, we'll see you tomorrow."

"Until then, we'd better get going. You should go back to your nice warm bed for now, or else the perimeter guard might mistake you for an intruder." Blue Hair winked, and then they were gone.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Sakura needed to get stronger.

She had mastered the first of Gai's Eight Gates and was well on her way to mastering the second. She would have loved to stay and master all eight, but unfortunately, she was already late for her date with a certain serial kidnapper in Sound.

She was confident The Watcher would still be exactly where Kabuto said he was, despite how much time had passed. It was a trap laid for Sakura, and he wouldn't abandon it until it sprang.

So when Kakashi turned up at the end of another gruelling training session with Team Gai and declared himself fit to take back his students, Sakura knew it was time to go. Gai's house was large and afforded her an entire bedroom to herself - she wouldn't get a better chance to sneak out once she moved back to Kakashi's shoebox.

To say nothing of Kakashi himself; his eyes were still shadowed with the trauma of Itachi's torture, but Sakura could tell from one glance that he was still the same shrewd, vigilant pain in her butt that he had always been. She'd never be able to escape him without bloodshed; and while she certainly wouldn't lose that fight, it wouldn't be much of a victory either. Her time apart from Kakashi had made it clear that she thought about him almost as much as The Others, and that made him a blind spot.

That night, she sat on top of Gai's guest bed until she could hear the telltale snores from the next room. Then she waited another two hours for good measure.

When she finally snuck out, it was every bit as easy as she had expected. Part of her wished she could say goodbye to all of her Konoha friends one last time, even though she had always known that would be impossible. Her sentimentality had already gotten her hopelessly delayed by Kakashi's fight with Itachi, so there would be no more detours. Straight to the gates, then due north until someone tried to kill her.

What a sad thought…

Sakura shook her head. Her inner voice, which had been so loud when she was a child that it basically felt like a separate person, was mostly quiet these days. As such, it was always a surprise when it did speak up. Back Inside, she assumed it was a symptom of isolation madness; a sign that she should go looking for one of the Others to fight or fuck before she lost it completely. If Kakashi and everyone else were to be believed, the voice was actually the corrupted memory of Nohara Rin, nothing more than an echo of an echo. Either way, it was annoying.

"What am I supposed to do?" she whispered to herself. "Stay? Abandon my family when I'm the only one who can save them?" Impossible. She had to leave, and the longer she put it off, the more likely that she'd have to kill someone to do it.

Another chakra signature flared on the edges of her awareness, standing right at the very gates she needed to pass through.

She drew a kunai, masking her own signature in the hopes that, even if she couldn't avoid conflict with the gate guard, she could at least take them by surprise and make it quick.

But it wasn't a gate guard: it was Sasuke. Sakura holstered her blade immediately, but he wasn't even facing in her direction. He was looking out toward the forest path leading out of Konoha, and the emotions radiating off him were so jumbled that she was able to walk right up and tap him on the shoulder before he even realised she was there.

His reaction speed was impressive for a child. Sakura let him grab her wrist as he whirled around, giving him time to realise it was her and not whatever enemy he had expected to find.

"Hey."

"What are you doing here?" Sasuke dropped her wrist and backed up a step.

"I could ask you the same question. At first, I assumed you were here for me." She nodded at the backpack slung over one shoulder, not unlike her own. "Then I saw that."

"Don't try to stop me leaving." Sasuke took another step back, shifting into a fighting stance. His emotions were still all over the place, but Sakura could tell he was resolved to make good on the threat if he had to.

"I not even sure where you're leaving to." Sakura tried to make her body relax into something reassuring; an act that still didn't come easily to her. "Why don't we talk about it?"

"There isn't time." Sasuke glanced over his shoulder at the dark path. "They're waiting for me."

"Who is?" She spoke calmly despite the fact that her own time was running out just as fast. "Sasuke: you can tell me what's going on. I'm not going to get you in trouble."

"I don't care about 'trouble,'" he scoffed, but it wasn't with his usual attitude. Sakura realised that he wasn't just impatient; he was frantic. "I'm leaving Konoha, and you can't stop me."

"I'm not trying to. In fact, I'm also leaving." She sidestepped him carefully. "I just thought we could walk together for a bit, depending on what direction you were headed in."

"You are?" Sasuke frowned at her, but she was already passing him and heading down the road. "Wait."

He caught up quickly, and for a moment neither of them spoke. The night air was as still and quiet as it had been the last time she had left Konoha, falling through that ‘trapdoor’ in the dark.

"Are you leaving to kill the man who took you?" Sasuke finally broke the silence.

"I'm leaving to rescue my friends," she clarified. "But yes, killing The Watcher is probably going to be part of that plan."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"I'm going to go train with…someone who can help me get stronger."

"Oh yeah?" Sakura squinted at him in the dim light. "Kakashi can't help you with that?"

"Kakashi just holds me back." Sasuke sighed. "When he saw the curse seal Orochimaru gave me, he did something to cut it off from the rest of me. He said it was just so it wouldn't hurt me while I worked on getting better with the sharingan. But…" he scratched the base of his neck, and Sakura caught a glimpse of the bite mark from The Forest of Death. It was too dark and perfect to be a normal bruise. "I don't think Kakashi wants me using it at all."

"Is it dangerous?" Sakura was still trying her best to speak calmly despite the revelation that a) Sasuke had been given a curse seal from the terrorist who killed The Third, and b) Kakashi had known about it.

"Only if I ignore it. I have to learn how to use it properly, and Orochimaru is the only one who can teach me."

"Did he tell you that?"

He made a face. "Not directly. But he sent me a message, and I think he's telling the truth."

"This message: did it come from a man with grey hair and glasses, by any chance?" Clearly, Sasuke was walking into some sort of trap; but was it the same trap Sakura was walking into, or was Orochimaru of Sound actually interested in training him?

Sasuke shook his head. “One man had blue-grey hair, same as his lips: but no glasses. And there was a tall man with orange hair, a short girl with pinkish hair, and a man with four arms."

Definitely not The Others, unless The Watcher had snatched more genin since she'd left. And it definitely wasn't Uchiha Obito who had bitten Sasuke’s neck, so she was forced to conclude that his escape plans were unrelated to her own. Which complicated things.

"Listen, I don't think sneaking off to meet a terrorist is a good idea," she said (somewhat hypocritically). "Even if he's serious about training you, you could never go home again."

"That doesn't matter." Sasuke kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead. "I told you, when Kakashi first assembled Team Seven: my only goal is to kill a certain man."

"Your brother." Sakura sighed. "I actually met him recently."

His eyes flicked toward her. "I heard. Thought you were all keeping it a secret."

"We were, I guess." In truth, she just hadn't had much time to think about other peoples' problems. "He was tough. Kakashi almost died."

“But you’re okay.” Sasuke frowned, like this was somehow disappointing. "You're stronger than him."

"Not by much. I've been training to fight optical jutsu for years, and he still caught me." She stopped, forcing Sasuke to stop as well. "He'd kill you, if you faced him right now."

"That's why I have to go to Sound," Sasuke argued. "So that I can get stronger."

"Get stronger in Konoha."

"There isn't anyone left who can make me strong enough. Especially if you're leaving," he added, and she smiled.

"Flattery isn't going to cut it tonight, Sasuke." She nodded up the road: the dim light of the sleeping village was still visible, spilling out between the dark gates. "Head back, or I'll make you."

Sasuke's eyes flashed red, but she was ready for it. The butt of her sword struck his diaphragm and he keeled forward, stunned. She let his body land over her left shoulder, adding a basic sleep jutsu for good measure, and then turned back toward the village.

"I was so close," she muttered to the unconscious boy. "So damn close."

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

She thought about just letting herself into Kakashi's apartment (waiting around with an unconscious body on her back didn't seem like a great idea) but decided to knock instead. She had no right to treat his home like her home anymore.

The door opened within seconds. Kakashi was fully dressed and looked wide awake.

"Sakura." Despite her suspicious appearance, he looked genuinely relieved to see her.

"Can we come in?" She bobbed Sasuke gently. "He's going to wake up soon, and we need a plan."

Kakashi immediately opened the door wider. "What happened?"

Sakura laid Sasuke on the bed, which was neatly made. She had already removed his backpack, and placed it by the doorway along with her own. "Before we get into that, why are you up? Were you about to head out?"

He looked at her for a few seconds, as if deciding whether or not to lie. She stared him down, and eventually he capitulated.

"Yes.” He slipped his shoes off. “I had a feeling you'd try something…unwise, tonight."

Now it was her turn to decide whether or not she should lie. "Interesting guess." She smiled wryly. "But as you can see, all I actually managed to do was stop Sasuke from doing something equally…unwise."

"Sasuke? Why?" Kakashi bent to inspect the boy.

"I think it has something to do with the curse seal he apparently got from Orochimaru himself?" Sakura pursed her lips. "The one you've apparently known about the whole time?"

"Not the whole time," Kakashi defended, then shrugged sheepishly. "But for a while, yes. My own seal should have been containing it." He gently lowered the collar on Sasuke's shirt, revealing three black tomoe surrounded by a pointed ring. "Seal's intact…did something happen?"

Sakura briefly relayed what Sasuke had told her. "It was lucky I happened to be taking a late-night stroll in that direction, or he might have been halfway to Sound by now."

"Mhm. Lucky." Kakashi must have known her true intentions, but seemed to agree that for now at least, Sasuke's problems should take priority.

"So can you help him?" Sakura smoothed Sasuke’s dark fringe back from his forehead. He was already starting to stir, and she'd prefer to give him a solution rather than another sleep jutsu.

"I could reinforce the seal?" Kakashi turned glanced absent-mindedly in the direction of the kitchen. "I think I've got some candles under the sink."

“Aren’t you listening?” Sakura balled her hands into fists. "More seals won't cut it." She had done a few surreptitious checks on the way over, probing Sasuke's chakra with her own. The seal was powerful, but tainted with something that his body was simultaneously trying to reject and assimilate. "If he can't remove it, he needs to learn how to control it."

"It's too dangerous," Kakashi defended. "Seals like these, they eat away at you. You might be stronger for a while, but it comes at the cost of who you are."

Sakura thought back to the time Sasuke had all-but killed a Sound nin in the Forest of Death, seeing that moment in a new light. "Even more reason he needs someone to teach him. And if that's not you, then you just need to find someone else. Otherwise he'll end up running again." And I won't be there to stop him next time.

Kakashi closed his eyes, a line forming between his brows. "You're right. There is one person, but I'm not sure she can do much for him."

"Who?"

"Orochimaru's former student." He opened his eyes. "Mitarashi Anko. I believe you would have met her when she proctored the Chunin Exam."

“Where am I?” Sasuke stirred groggily, then awoke with a jolt when he saw Sakura and Kakashi looming over him from either side of the bed.

"You’re at my place." Kakashi straightened up to give him space.

Sasuke turned to glare at Sakura. "Seriously?"

She smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, but the village is the safest place for you right now." She may not have much experience of the world outside Konoha, but she knew it was no place for a twelve year-old boy.

"Plus, I know someone who can help you, right here in Konoha." Kakashi held out his hand. "We can go see her now, if you like?"

Sasuke swatted his hand away and shoved himself off the bed unassisted. "So she can put another seal on me 'for my own safety'? No thanks."

"Pretty sure she doesn't know the meaning of the word 'safety', actually." Kakashi shrugged. "Her first teacher was Orochimaru, so you'll probably be in just as much danger with her as you would with Orochimaru himself; but at least she's closer." He held Sasuke's gaze steadily, and it struck Sakura that he might have been a good teacher under normal circumstances. "What do you say?"

Sasuke glared at them both for what felt like ages. Finally, he looked at Sakura. "What do you think?"

"Me?" She was surprised that Sasuke held her opinion so highly, especially since she was the one who had derailed his original plans. "I think…" What did she think? Was this actually what was best for Sasuke, or was it just easier for everyone else? "I think that, if I could achieve my goals without having to leave Konoha, I would do that."

Sasuke walked to the door and grabbed his pack. "Fine. I'll meet this woman; but if she doesn't teach me anything useful, you won't be able to stop me from leaving eventually."

"Noted." Kakashi grabbed his house key and slipped his shoes back on. Sakura stood and grabbed her own pack, but before she could join them Kakashi blocked her. "What are you doing?"

She cocked her head to one side. "Coming with you?"

"No need." He smiled pleasantly under his mask.

"I…" Was this a test? "Aren't you worried I'll run again?"

Sasuke had already gotten to the end of the outer hallway, but she could sense him loitering at the stairs. It seemed he really was going to stay and see things through, at least for now. Perhaps he had been hoping for someone to stop him all along.

Meanwhile, Kakashi was still blocking the doorway. "Oh, Sakura…" He tugged his mask down so that she could see every inch of the sadness and regret written across his face. "I'm certain of it."

She stood, frozen, as he leaned in and pressed his lips to her cheek.

"Goodbye," he murmured, and then his mask was up and he was closing the door in her face as if the world hadn’t just tilted on its axis.

She stared at the solid wood, listening to the sound of Kakashi and Sasuke trotting down the metal stairs, on their way to wake up a dangerous woman in the middle of the night. It could take ages just to calm her down long enough to hear them out, let alone to convince her to train Sasuke.

He had known that she would be long gone by the time he got home.

Sakura's backpack slid off her shoulder and onto the floor. Kakashi's apartment was the only place she ever felt comfortable parting with it even that much. She turned to take in the tiny bed, two chairs, kitchen and bathroom for the last time. This had been as close to a safe space as she had ever known, and she knew that a major part of that was thanks to Kakashi. He kept her, even when he didn't understand her. She'd rebelled against his supervision and his rules the entire time, of course; but she understood that it was all his way of trying to keep her safe. And now he was setting her free, with a goodbye kiss that was at once too much and not enough. Nobody had ever touched her so gently, not even The Others when she was first learning how to be touched. Kakashi kissed her like she was already gone.

There was a knock at the door, and Sakura's heart leapt. He had come back to finish what he'd started, and not a moment too soon. She may be in a hurry to save her friends, but she could spare a little time if it meant they could share a proper goodbye.

She opened the door; but it wasn't Kakashi on the other side.

"Haruno Sakura." Danzo smiled down at her, flanked by more Root agents than she could possibly fight off without destroying the building and everyone who lived there. "I'm afraid that's strike three."

Chapter Text

It was just turning light when Kakashi returned to his apartment. As expected, both Sasuke and Anko had taken a lot of persuading: Sasuke was immediately sceptical that Anko could provide him any worthwhile training or advice, and so she had turned around and decided that an "ungrateful brat" like him wouldn't be worth training anyway.

Kakashi had tried to play peacekeeper at first, but it became increasingly clear that this was just the pair's strange way of scoping each other out. They were like cats: circling each other, showing their claws, neither lashing out nor backing down. It was only once some unspoken understanding had passed between them that Anko even revealed that she too, had a cursed seal from Orochimaru.

Sasuke's whole demeanour had changed instantly, guarded expression crumbling into relief at the knowledge that his future was not a choice between death and desertion after all. Kakashi only wished he'd thought to arrange the meeting sooner. It was definitely worth the hours of argument and posturing.

It was almost worth leaving Sakura to run off by herself.

If she was smart (which she was), she would be too far away to catch up to by now. Still, it killed him that he couldn't back her up when she finally faced the monster he had helped create. That same monster had first taught him the words he lived by: ninjas who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash. He still believed that, even if Obito didn't. But how to help Sakura without abandoning everyone else?

By letting her go, he thought to himself wearily. Which you did.

His apartment door was unlocked, and for a moment he allowed himself to hope that Sakura was still inside. Perhaps she had changed her mind, decided to wait a little longer until they could go after The Watcher in the right way. She would be volatile and vengeful and throw all his things, but she would be safe.

But no; there were traces of her scent, but no sign of the woman herself. He was just about to collapse, fully clothed, onto his bed and try to forget he had ever found her in the first place when his foot kicked against solid canvas. He clicked on the light to find her backpack lying, abandoned, in the middle of the room.

"Sakura?" he called softly. After a decade spent evading The Others, she was freakishly good at hiding.

The room remained as silent as ever. He slowly unzipped the backpack and found it was still full of hair, notebooks, scraps of fabric, and every other piece of detritus that its owner had collected. This was her whole life; her friends' lives, even, because the non-pink hairs were still tangled in amongst the rest, and he knew she would never have left them willingly.

Which meant she had left unwillingly.

He formed the seals for a summon so quickly that the blood on his hastily bitten thumb had barely welled up before he was forcing his chakra through it.

Pakkun arrived in his usual puff of smoke, looking up at his master in concern. "She missing again, boss?"

Despite his current panic, Kakashi raised his brows. "How'd you guess?"

"You look the same as you did that morning in the forest." He sniffed the air. "But don't worry, she's got a nice clear trail this time."

"That's good," Kakashi said tightly. He knew Sakura's trace extended out into the hall and down the building's stairs, but it may only be the older scent of her first arriving with Sasuke in tow. There wasn't a guarantee she had actually left via that same door, which meant there wasn't a guarantee she wasn't languishing in a pocket dimension right now. "Lead on."

The trail did branch, and they took the fresher path leading away from the village gates. Kakashi could hardly call it good luck though, because Sakura was heading to the very location he had been trying to keep her out of since he had first brought her home.

The main entrance to the building was neither covert nor fortified; that would have been too obvious. In fact, it looked just like a regular ground floor office, other than the fact that it was barely dawn and yet there were already signs of life inside.

"Welcome! How may I help you?" The lone woman at the front desk seemed committed to the pretence that this was a normal place of business whose operating hours just happened to be completely bizarre. She smiled expectantly. Kakashi didn't smile back.

"I'm here to collect Haruno Sakura."

The smile didn't waver. "I'm afraid I don't know who that is."

"Boss…" Pakkun squeezed in after him.

"What is it?" Kakashi spoke without breaking eye contact with the desk attendant.

"The trail stops suddenly. Right in the middle of the floor." There was a whuffling noise as the pug took another sniff. "And your girl was calm before, but then something got her spooked real bad. Fear, adrenaline…even a little blood. But I'm not sure that's all from her," he added hastily.

The woman’s expression was beginning to seem less like a perky facade and more like a discarded mask. "I'm afraid I have to ask you to leave."

"If you won't talk to me, then go and get someone who will." He didn't have time for this. Sakura was in distress, had possibly been in distress for hours, and if this woman continued to waste his time he'd be forced to do something drastic.

She must have pressed some sort of panic button (or else there were security cameras hidden somewhere) because the lone door at the far end of the room swung open and a Root agent in a stylised rooster mask emerged.

"Hatake Kakashi," he acknowledged.

"Where is Sakura?" Kakashi didn't bother with niceties.

"Safe, in her new home. Of course, this," The rooster spread his arms to take in the dingy office in all its splendour, "is all just a front for the ignorant. I know you know where we actually are, and," he lowered his voice slightly, "I believe you also know that we're the only ones with the resources to truly help Haruno Sakura."

"You're wrong." He shook his head. "She doesn't belong in Root."

"Where does she belong? Under your care, she's burned through all three of her strikes in a matter of weeks." He raised three fingers. "Strike one: fraternisation with an enemy ninja during the attack on Konoha." The first finger lowered.

"He wasn't an enemy, he was-"

"Strike two: fraternisation with another enemy ninja; a missing-nin and comrade-killer, no less."

"Itachi?" Kakashi knew the strikes would be exaggerated, but this was an insult to his intelligence. "She fought Itachi."

"Yes, by all accounts it was an impressive showing. Of course, none of those accounts could explain why the same genjutsu that almost killed the great Copy Nin barely slowed her down." Kakashi could feel the eyes beneath the mask boring into his own. "Perhaps you can explain?"

"She…" Sakura had implied that she and Itachi had come to blows, but he hadn't realised she had endured the exact same torture as him. Unless…she hadn't? "She's tough." It was true, but was anyone tough enough to endure a thousand mortal wounds, constantly at the point of death but never allowed to actually die?

"Hmm." It was clear the man wasn't convinced by that explanation, and Kakashi cursed himself for not pleading Sakura's case better. He'd never get the chance to ask her what really happened if he never saw her again. "And finally, last night's strike three: attempted desertion."

So they had been watching her. This one, at least, was legitimate, and he didn't have any way to refute it. Still, he shrugged like it was a minor infraction rather than high treason. "Can't have been a very good attempt if she didn't actually leave."

"In any case, now you understand why Root is the only organisation capable of successfully containing Haruno Sakura until we can determine where her true loyalty lies. If it is with Konoha, then we may yet rehabilitate her into a viable weapon for the village. If not…then why should you care what happens to an enemy?"

Kakashi ground his teeth. Anything he said would be twisted around on him, but he couldn't just walk away and let Sakura become a lost girl again. "My dog smells violence. I know Root's methods are…unconventional, but forcefully abducting civilians on village grounds can't possibly be a sanctioned activity."

"Abducting." The rooster sniffed. "So dramatic. Haruno Sakura wasn't dragged here in chains. The only 'violence' occurred when she was directed to Processing; and for record, it was she who attacked us."

Kakashi raised his eyebrows. "Oh?"

Instead of answering, the agent tapped something on his wrist.

The floor between them began to split open, revealing a set of metal stairs leading down a darkened tunnel. The smell of blood and adrenaline was sharper here; Kakashi suspected they hadn't bothered cleaning anything that wasn't visible to the public.

"When the door mechanism first activated, it…startled her. But regardless, her response was utterly unprovoked, and completely disproportionate. Several agents were injured before we could subdue her."

Kakashi took an automatic step toward the hole, but the rooster fiddled with his wrist until the floor halted, then slid back to a closed position before he could reach it.

"Am I not making myself clear? You are not permitted to see her, and she is certainly not permitted to leave. Why do you persist in ignoring these orders?"

"‘Why?’" Kakashi could have killed him. Hell, if it came to it he could probably mow through a decent number of Root agents before they eventually overwhelmed him. It wouldn't be enough to save Sakura, and as satisfying as it would feel in the moment, he knew the weight of killing his fellow villagers (even the awful ones) would eventually crush him; but right now the alternative was walking away, and that simply wasn't possible. "Your orders are wrong. She's not dangerous."

"Perhaps you should take this up with Lord Danzo?" The front desk attendant cut in, and he wondered if she had correctly intuited his thoughts and was trying to redirect him from a fight.

The agent was less perceptive. "She clearly is dangerous, and after witnessing her attack on this facility first-hand, Lord Danzo would say the same thing."

"She attacked you because you were trying to put her in a hole!" Kakashi rarely shouted but when he did, he could tell it scared people. "You wanted to lock her up in the darkness again; can you seriously blame her for resisting?"

He recalled one of the early pages of her notebook, where she had described her first glimpse of Inside:

I thought I'd fallen through a trapdoor and landed in a dark chamber.

More agents arrived from the rear door, lining up like they were facing off against an entire army instead of one man and his dog. Kakashi knew he would either have to fight them and (most likely) die in this ugly room, or else retreat and live to fight another day.

He raised his hands in surrender. "I'm leaving. But you haven't heard the last of me."

"Take care," the front desk attendant's fake smile had returned now that the numbers had turned in their favour.

The door clicked shut behind him, and after a few seconds he heard the softer click of a lock.

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Sakura stared up at the dark ceiling. She wanted nothing more than to scream, but that would have disturbed her new companions.

It had still been night when Danzo and the others had arrived to 'escort' her to Root HQ, so when they eventually dragged her to a door labelled "Blue Room", she wasn't too surprised to find that it was pitch black and silent except for the sounds of gentle breathing.

"Welcome to your new home," the man with a four-eyed mask had said, shoving her roughly inside with one hand. After trying to manhandle her through a hole in the floor when she first arrived, he was now nursing a dislocated shoulder and a grudge. "I'll see you in the morning, bitch."

"If you live that long," a female agent with a canine mask added, before sliding the door shut.

Sakura blinked rapidly, fighting the return of her earlier panic. She hadn't been in total darkness for years, and she wasn't familiar with the Blue Room or its inhabitants. It was Inside all over again, but she was back to not knowing the rules of engagement. And these people weren't prisoners, but hardened soldiers; even now, they were probably only pretending to sleep, lulling her into a false sense of security so that she wouldn't see the first attack coming. She resigned herself to a night spent standing with her back against the door.

Kakashi's apartment has made me spoiled.

He may have seen it as a paltry offering, but to her, his handful of chairs and a shelf of books had been the height of luxury. If she hadn't needed to save her friends, she would have been perfectly content to stay there as long as he would have let her; and for a moment, when he kissed her on the cheek, she wondered just how long that might have been.

"Are you okay?" A soft voice came from somewhere to her right. "Need help finding an empty bunk?"

Before she could react, the tiny glow of a pen-sized flashlight lit up a sliver of the darkness, revealing the speaker.

It was a boy, no older than her genin friends, with ink black hair and a solemn, pale face that looked almost white in the feeble light.

"The one next to me is free," he said, pointing the light carefully, "Big Brother is out on a mission."

"Thanks." Sakura wasn't sure what else to do, so she sat on the edge of the cot. It was in the row closest to the wall, so at least she wouldn't end up surrounded.

The boy with the light aimed its beam somewhere around her knee, clearly trying to get a decent look without blinding her. "You're an adult."

"So they tell me." She continued to whisper because he was. "Is that a problem?"

"The oldest one here is Big Brother, and he's nowhere near as old as you."

So that was their plan. She sighed grimly. "They probably put me in here to stop me escaping."

"We're supposed to stop you from escaping?" The boy asked carefully, and she could feel others in the room tense up slightly.

She shook her head. "You already are. I'm not fighting kids."

"We're pretty strong, you know." The boy shone the light in her face, and she grimaced. "We're Root ninjas."

"I don't doubt it." She didn't. The life of a ninja was never without some bloodshed, but she had a feeling Root's genin program was on a whole other level. "But I'm still not interested in fighting you, so hopefully you won't want to fight me."

He seemed to consider for a moment. "I guess not."

"Turn off the light!" Another voice hissed, and after a moment the light went out. Sakura could still see its afterimage behind her eyes.

"Talk more tomorrow," the boy promised, rustling his blankets briefly before going quiet.

After only a few minutes, Sakura felt the sounds of breathing return to the slow rhythm of sleep. These kids could probably sleep in a tree during a hurricane, if they were ordered to. She, on the other hand, had to content herself with her thoughts. Years of solitude mixed with strange and violent rituals meant those thoughts were poor company at the best of times, but that night they were especially jumbled.

Faces flashed before her eyes like the boy's penlight: Karin. Sensei. Teeth. Pinch. Siren. Manami. Chu-chan. Jun. Naomi. Her mother and father. Ino. Naruto. Sasuke. Itachi. Danzo. Kakashi. And, indistinct and shadowed, but larger and more terrifying than ever: The Watcher.