For All Those Left Behind

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/22950178.

Rating: Explicit
Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Haruno Sakura, Tsunade (Naruto), Uchiha Sasuke, Uchiha Itachi, Hatake
Kakashi, Yamanaka Ino, Uzumaki Naruto, Hyuuga Hinata, Uchiha Sai,
Yuuhi Kurenai, Aburame Shino, Hyuuga Neji, Rock Lee, Tenten, Maito
Gai, Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Chouji, Various Hyuuga, Various
Uchiha, Shizune (Naruto), Uchiha Shisui, Uchiha Obito, Orochimaru
(Naruto), Momochi Zabuza, Haku (Naruto)
Additional Tags: Time Travel, Akatsuki things also happen, Timelines what are timelines,
history has been revoked, Canon has been eviscerated for tasty morsels
and then roasted for added deliciousness, the moon Hyuugas are fucking
cancelled, Kishimoto can kiss my quantum butthole, Canon-Typical
Violence, also extra violence - as a treat, I would call this a fix-it fic, But
I ain't fixing shit, oh and there are ocs, for worldbuilding, Do not repost,
Don't copy to another site, BAMF Sakura, why not, The plot is so slow,
Glacial burn plot, I'm too busy with character interaction lmaooo, We
love character development in this house, Found Family, so much found
family, for a given value of "found" when the Hokage makes you take
genin lmao, Canon-Typical Body Horror, Self-Harm, Mention of Child
Abuse
Language: English
Series: Part 1 of With Past Ahead and Future Behind
Collections: my heart is here
Stats: Published: 2020-02-29 Updated: 2023-02-17 Words: 262,634 Chapters:
24/?
 For All Those Left Behind
by StarlightLion

Summary

Haruno Sakura has the chance to save the world.

All it costs her is everything she has.

---

Or: the Shinobi Allied Forces lose. In a last ditch effort to bring down Juubi, the Bijuu pass
on a forbidden jutsu to Team Seven. From the midst of a devastated battlefield, Sakura is sent
back in time, and has to figure out how to carry the weight of the future on her own.

All current chapters are currently being revised into present tense!!

Notes

Guess who's writing another WIP

It's me
The answer is me

Time travel! Things will get weird. The timeline is severely fucked from day one. Bear in
mind that the 'original' timeline as it pertains to this fic is ALSO different from canon in some
key ways. It'll eventually come out, don't worry about it.

Also violence. Lots of violence. Murderdeath. BLOOD. It's Naruto, y'all are prepared for
that.
Let's fucking GO lads.
 Prologue | Memories
Chapter Notes

Also, a note for future reference: I have adjusted ages as necessary. This is
simultaneously not actually a whole lot of adjustment and far too much adjustment.
Canon makes no fucking sense whatsoever. You have been warned.

Light green eyes studied the glowing ball unblinkingly; no small amount of fear glittered
within, but there was a hard edge that showed through in the sharp set of the brow above
them that declared fear would not stand in the way. After a few moments, the owner lifted her
eyes to meet a set of dizzying red-and-black ones.

"... Are you sure?"

Sharingan spinning furiously, the familiar triple tomoe slowly blurring into the shape of an
unfamiliar Mangekyō, he nodded.

Behind them wrought an abyss of pure destruction. Where once had been forests was only
spindly blackened husks and the echoing glimmer of pale flame; where once had been
mountains were smouldering pits that stank of burned chakra and organic rot; where once
were oceans on every horizon was only the ethereal mist, death-grey and hanging like
violated cloud. The creature that had cleft the whole world in two could be heard, still, in the
distance. Muted screams and howls, an unending thirst and the meagre offerings of a world
that could not sate it.

She shivered, and cast green eyes down once more. Two sets of hands, hovering on opposite
sides of the little orb of light. So small a thing to promise such power. Such hope. But below
that even further - streaked crimson and splintered white amidst what once had been the chest
of her friend. Nay: her brother.

Rasping, faint, almost inaudible breaths under the lingering cries of the creature - he was
dying in the aftermath, and none could save him. Eye sockets leaked dribbles of blood and
liquified gel. She could feel the faint current of his chakra in the air as it gushed out of open
bone and naked organs.

Not long left.

"It has to be you. I have to direct the chakra; Na--"

"I know," she cut him off, glancing along the ruptured body of-- their brother. She wondered,
quietly, in the back of her mind, if the sight caused him such pain as it did her. "... Okay. If
 this doesn't work, just… Just remember that I love you." Green eyes darted down, then met
red again. "Both of you."

There was a moment of silence - there was nothing to be said in response - and then she
nodded again. The gesture was returned.

Ready.

Now.

A single long second more of hesitation - she stared first at the fading breath in the body at
their feet, then at the hands that held across from hers, stabilising that last lingering light.
Scratched and torn, streaked in blood and filth and viscera. He was missing several
fingernails. Scars, so prominent beneath the grime, old wounds that she still didn't understand
and knew now she never would.

And then her own, narrow and long-fingered. Patchwork scar tissue along the knuckles where
she'd learned how to truly punch. Blood, again, but not her own - and the thundering ache
she'd all but forgotten in the gap where her left ring finger should have been. The searing
residue of chakra used to cauterise and seal, instead of mend the damage.

Once more into the red-black eyes as the spinning swelled into the pinwheel shape of
Mangekyō Sharingan - some parts familiar and some parts foreign - and then the burst of
crimson liquid and the deep grunt of pain as chakra overflowed and blood vessels ruptured
under the strain.

Whatever power they'd ever been capable of, this mad, desperate attempt at jutsu would be
their last. She could only hope that the psychic instructions passed on by the Bijuu before
their demise were accurate. She could only hope that it would work.

Teeth showed through cracked lips, and dribbles of blood quickly followed. Sharingan eyes
screwed shut. Hands shook.

No time. No time.

She didn't say goodbye.

For a moment, when her hands touched the ball of light, she thought they'd failed. Whiteness
slipped over her, like her skin sluicing off, and then there existed nothing. No substance, no
senses, no thought. There was thorough emptiness, a void that ran so deep it didn't even occur
to her to question it; there was nothing, and she was nothing, and maybe she'd never been
something in the first place.

It could have lasted a moment. It could have lasted an eternity. There was no difference
between the two. There was just white, the feeble interpretation of the infinite that was all her
fragile, hollow mind had to offer in the face of it. Endless and all-consuming and-- slowly
starting to drip, a white-grey-black that was none of those colours and all of them, bleeding
out into itself until it was bleeding into her as well.
 Molten skin. Flesh that boiled and evaporated and condensed again into acid, into the fluid
that erupted up through her lungs and drowned her.

She was nothing, and she was being made nothing, and not even if she'd had a voice to try
could she have ever screamed enough to express it. The pain went on forever.

And then - slowly, achingly - there finally came the beginning.

The first moment that Harunos Kizashi and Mebuki began to suspect that their daughter was
peculiar was - in the grand scheme - just a small thing. Sakura, too, was a small thing at the
time, barely a toddler, but as frightening as the prospect was, when they walked past the ninja
school and she reached both hands out - declaring, in the kind of stubborn voice that only
children can, that she "Wanna!" - they wouldn't dream of discouraging her.

So it came, when the girl turned five, that they accompanied her to the initial screening stage
for applicants. Unsettled, they sat the girl between them, where she kept her head down to
avoid scrutiny; shy, as ever, but the faint kick of her legs and the occasional hummed note
betrayed her excitement. If all they could do to support her attempt at becoming a ninja was
to shield her from the stares of the Clan parents around them, then that's what they would do.

It didn't make the experience any easier, as the children always destined to be ninjas muttered
between themselves and the parents shot them sour looks. Civilians were welcome -
encouraged, even - to try their hand at Konoha's primary export, of course, but it rarely
stopped the clans from looking down on their lack of heritage. On Sakura's other side,
Mebuki took her hand and squeezed gently. The girl remained oblivious to the concerned
look her parents shared over her head. Even if Sakura passed these initial screenings, the road
she was choosing would remain a constant trial.

Hope came in the form of four other sets of parent-and-child. One, Kizashi was certain was a
clan family; a small blonde girl and her father, wearing full shinobi kit. The girl's mother was
absent, but she was happily bouncing in her seat and looking around at all her prospective
classmates, clear excitement in her eyes. The father offered small smiles any time Kizashi or
Mebuki caught his gaze. A second pair - a small black-haired boy half asleep between a chair
and his father's lap - weren't quite so outwardly friendly, but they ignored the other clans and
seemed to hold the same uninterested expression for everyone.

This father was someone Kizashi recognised, if distantly. Nara. Beyond the name and their
association with two of the other smaller clan families - Yamanaka and Akimichi - Kizashi
didn't know much about them; but by the muted conversation the two fathers were holding,
the assumption of their identities was a safe one.

The other two families were lone children flanked by both parents, reflections of the nerves
and anxious excitement that filled the Harunos. One - a little boy with light brown hair and a
lip almost bloody from the constant worrying of his teeth - was holding the hands of his
mother and his father in his lap, eyes wide and trying to take in everyone at once. The
friendly blonde girl sitting with her father waved at him when they made eye contact.
Quietly, Kizashi hoped that Sakura would make friends with her. It would do their shut-in
daughter good to make friends, and if the girl could help Sakura learn how to be a ninja with
all the advantages that came with being born into a shinobi clan, then all the better.

The last child of note was an even smaller girl with bronze-black hair and unusual copper-
coloured eyes. She couldn't be older than four - too young to be here, surely - but she was
whispering brightly with her two fathers, head whipping back and forth so fast between them
that Kizashi worried for the girl's neck. Part of him wished that Sakura would make friends
with her too, if indeed such a young child somehow passed the entrance exam today, but if he
was honest it was more for the other girl's sake than for Sakura's.

But perhaps it would do her good as well, to feel as if she had a friend to protect.

For all his observations and all the exchanged glances - whether friendly or resentful - the
time went by in painful, crawling quiet. None of the families spoke a word to each other;
none of the children raised their voice above a whisper. Mebuki nudged him and shook her
head with a sharp frown the one time Kizashi seriously considered speaking up. If not for any
general interaction, or to try and offer at least some kind of basis for their kids to actually talk
to one another, then at least to alleviate some of the guilt of seeing the group of clan children
who had come without any parents at all.

Some, of course, he recognised easily enough despite his general detachment from the ninja
world. The black hair and eyes of the Uchiha clan were only too recognisable, as were the
equally dark hair and pearly white eyes of the Hyuugas. Some few others that he couldn’t
name. They were called in first, one at a time, and each walked back out with the same self-
assured stride they walked in with. Perhaps that only made sense; Kizashi could only wonder
what they really got out of this. Did they all want to become ninjas? Maybe they’d just never
known anything else.

When the Nara boy was nudged awake after the call of his name - Shikamaru - he yawned,
grumbled something, and padded into the examination room to the gruff encouragement of
his father. Well… perhaps encouragement was too kind a word for the chuckled threat of
Shikamaru’s mother, but he wandered in with a sleepy pace and lumbered back out five
minutes later yawning.

“Well?”

“Yeah yeah.”

His father grinned and stood to ruffle Shikamaru’s hair. With a goodbye over their shoulder
tossed at the blondes seated by them, the father scooped his son into the air with one arm and
wandered out. The little blonde girl - Ino - was called for next and bounced along into her
exam.

A slight tug at his sleeve, and Kizashi leaned down to let his daughter whisper into his ear.
What stubborn forthrightness Sakura ever showed with them alone was buried deep under her
anxieties here, in a room full of kids who’d been ninja since the day they’d been born. “Do I
have to go alone?” Sakura asked him quietly, tiny fingers curling tightly in his clothes.
Something in his chest went ping.
“I think so, flower, but it’ll be alright. Be brave for me?” Lying wouldn’t make it any easier
for either of them. Wide green eyes stared up with a film of terror glittering within, but
Sakura nodded and tucked her chin back into her chest, letting her hair shroud her face. The
ping turned to pride. Even if she wasn’t accepted, Kizashi was watching her do something
that frightened her because she wouldn’t let that fear stop her. He couldn’t hope for anything
better.

Ino came bounding back out a minute later, crowing. “I did it! Dad, I did it!!” And her father
caught her out of the air and spun her, laughing, before settling her against his side.

“I knew you would,” smiled back, and Ino giggled. The girl glanced back over her father’s
shoulder while they left, scanned the room with her eyes; almost no clan kids left.
Nervousness showed in every tight shoulder and pinched eye.

Small hands beat a soft staccato against her father’s back. “You’ll be great, you guys!”
Spoken with the absolute confidence of a child, but Sakura wasn’t the only one who glanced
over. Once more Kizashi met his daughter’s gaze, and something harder stirred within.

His own anxieties came to an abrupt silence. No doubt to be had - Sakura would be great. He
grinned and nudged her, and was treated to a tiny smile before a head popped out of the door
and called.

“Haruno Sakura!”

Dipping his head, Kizashi nudged Sakura to her feet while Mebuki watched on. “Knock ‘em
dead, flower.”

The door closed behind Sakura, and a minute went by. Two. Five.

Ten.

By the time it opened again, Kizashi felt about ready to chew his own arms off. He was
prepared to sweep Sakura off her feet and praise her if she came slinking out with the sly
little smile that was the only public sign of accomplishment she ever showed, and he was
ready to cradle her with reassurances if she darted out to hide from disappointment. At five
years old, Kizashi hadn’t yet been forced to try and figure out more complex moods and
reactions from her, as he had her mother. (The faintest sign of Mebuki biting her lip was the
only one she gave of how anxious she was about this too).

But Sakura walked out sedately, neither hurrying nor celebrating. Evenly measured steps; she
still stumbled a little over her own feet, like always, but her shoulders were held back, her
chin held up. When she spotted her parents, she smiled - happy and sad at the same time. The
glance that Kizashi exchanged with Mebuki was uneasy.

“Flower?” Kizashi asked quietly as he got up to meet her and another name was called out on
her heels.

But she reached up to take his hand and then stepped in to lean her head against his arm.
“Hey, Dad.” Soft. No indication of whether he should celebrate or mourn. At least she didn’t
resist when he picked her up.

Mebuki was stood at Kizashi’s flank in moments. “What happened, Sakura?” Same sharp
tone as always, but the faintest tremor that broke on their daughter’s name. Kizashi stepped
back and away from the waiting room, leading the way back out into the sunshine to escape
their remaining company.

Something like confusion passed over Sakura’s face when she looked at Mebuki, as if the
question didn’t quite make sense to her - and then she laughed quietly. “Oh. I got in. I’m a
ninja.”

Whatever else might have been exchanged was lost in the delighted squeal that Kizashi gave;
he spun around and tore a startled laugh out of Sakura, and as he immediately got started on
celebrating Sakura’s victory, the oddness slowly faded and bled into excitement, and there
was nothing more to speak of it.

But it didn’t stop Mebuki from worrying over it that night, when Sakura had fallen soundly
asleep, quiet whispers exchanged in the dark where they lay together. It didn’t stop her from
observing Sakura’s every move for a week following. Only Kizashi’s influence prevented a
visit to the civilian doctor’s office to make sure - a ninja entrance exam had to be stressful.
She’d probably just been in shock, he urged his wife. Sakura was fine now.

He caved to it, the second time. Peculiar was only one of several words that Mebuki had to
say about the strange mood that overtook Sakura for most of a day, at age six, fresh home
from the Academy with her first wound. From a kunai, she’d said, and her voice had been
oddly soft and her gaze oddly distant. Gone had been the usual slight hunch to her shoulders,
the way she kept her limbs close to her body, the way she made herself small.

Any improvement in her self-confidence was welcome, but such drastic moments where it all
seemed to fall away like a memory couldn’t be normal. She’d been silent the whole time,
while the doctor had checked over her vitals, and then offered concise answers to each
question asked of her, words that Kizashi had never taught her and a tone that he’d never
heard. There was no hesitation to it, no reluctance. A faint half-smile - bemused, almost - and
a subtle strength of character that Kizashi had always hoped she’d learn but knew wasn’t
hers.

Given the all-clear hadn’t relieved the unease of either parent, but they’d taken her for
anmitsu at her request and by the time evening had rolled around, she’d seemed perfectly
normal again.

Whatever they were teaching her at the Academy, maybe it was just having a positive effect.
Sakura wasn’t free of those moments - eerie calm and subdued self-assurance - but each time
she came through happy and unscathed, and eventually her parents merely accepted her
peculiarities.

So, for all that Sakura was so strange, her parents remained ever the same.
The first time Ino ever saw Sakura change was during their third year at the Academy. Fast
friends from the moment Ino had defended the shy girl from their annoying boy classmates,
she was utterly unprepared for it. Complaining under their breaths about ‘kunoichi class’ was
old hat, and at some point Ino had started to like it for real instead of just for pretend. There
was something great about the subtle ways to change her face, or the way to pick her clothes
that said whatever she wanted it to.

Weaving flowers into jewellery held much the same allure, even if there lay a shadow of
sadness over the activity; each flower was like a little gem, and every time Ino snapped their
stems to add to her own beauty, she was condemning them to die. Saying such a thing to
Sakura hadn’t been done to try and make her sad too - Ino expected to get a quiet agreement
and maybe a pout, but instead Sakura hummed quietly.

When Ino looked up at her, it almost didn’t seem like her anymore. Same pink hair, tied with
the ribbon that marked the start of their friendship, effectively narrowing her forehead, and
the same green eyes that pondered the flowers in her hands; clumsier than Ino’s, or at least
Ino had thought. Sakura almost looked like Rei-sensei, weaving each stem around the last
with precise motions.

Their gazes met for a moment, and Sakura’s hands stilled. A shrug. A soft smile. “A flower’s
life is fleeting anyway,” Sakura told her. There was something wrong with her voice. “They
don’t lose much when we pick them, and we can gain lots. A little bad for a lot of good. We
don’t need to be sad about that.”

And she’d gone back to weaving, and come out of the lesson top of the class.

The next time it happened, Ino took it in stride. Older, now, almost eight, and nigh on
inseparable. If Ino hadn’t known forever that she was going to graduate to a team with
Shikamaru and Chōji, she’d have thought that Sakura would be the best teammate. There
were lots of things about Sakura that Ino found weird - they were very different people, her
dad said - but all of them were her friend.

So when they were relaxing in the classroom one early winter morning, quietly working
away on their chakra theory tasks, and Sakura suddenly put down her pencil, Ino just
followed suit. “You okay, ‘kura?”

Distantly familiar, the way Sakura smiled at her, the way her eyes crinkled slightly at the
corners, but still Sakura. “Yeah. I’m okay.” Softer than usual. Shyness had slowly grown into
outspokenness under Ino’s tutelage, but this was… private.

Just for her.

Ino put her hands in her lap, and gave Sakura her full attention. “... I just wanted to tell you
how much you mean to me, Ino.” A blink. “You’re my best friend. You’re amazing.” A
waver, and Sakura’s gaze dipped for a moment. Was she trying not to cry? What had
happened? Ino’s hand went to Sakura’s wrist and squeezed, and the smile she got in return
was all the reassurance she needed. “Just remember that I’ll always be here if you need me.
Alright?”

“I know.” Ino poked her in the forehead, and Sakura laughed. “So ‘kura… I really need the
answer to number nine.”

Itachi had never met the girl before, but an Academy student marching into the Uchiha
Compound demanding to see him was outlandish enough without that student being civilian-
born to boot. Taking the time out to humour such ridiculousness made his skin crawl, even
with Shisui’s words ringing in his ears: “What harm could it do? Relax for a few moments.
And tell me everything afterwards.”

Well, he’d never been any good at telling Shisui no.

So here he stood, in the bright-weathered afternoon, secluded at the edge of the Uchiha’s little
lake, trying not to think about all the flickering chakra presences attempting to eavesdrop.
The girl couldn’t be more than seven years old, pastel pink hair tied up in a ruthless ponytail
to keep it out of the way, turning a shuriken (definitely stolen from the Academy) over and
over in her hands.

There was desperation in her eyes as she looked up at Itachi, and he tried not to see it. He
couldn’t worry about the civilians or the Academy students - couldn’t think about how many
of them might die if the threatening Uchiha coup came to pass. He couldn’t bear to wander
down that road right now, to follow those thoughts where they led to Danzō whispering in his
ear and the slowly building list of horrible potential alternatives that he was offering.
Couldn’t--

No. He couldn’t. Focus on the girl. Besides, he had a duty to report back to Shisui after this -
that was where his attention, in this moment, needed to be.

The girl glanced around herself uneasily, as if she too could sense the fluttering touch of not-
completely-masked chakra signatures. Then looked up at him directly again. “... Do you
know any jutsu to shield our speech?” An edge to her voice, frustration perhaps. Her fingers
twitched around her half-blunt shuriken, the potential of handsigns and the barely restrained
urge to use them.

Perhaps Itachi was right to be uneasy. For a moment - just a flash - as he put his hands
together and moulded his chakra into the wind element to help mute their conversation to
outsiders, he ignited his Sharingan. A chakra cloud under her skin, so pale blue it was almost
white, but small and billowy like all ninja children. There was nothing suspect about her
nature, no sign of henge or other manipulations.

It wasn’t a foolproof caution, but in the middle of a small townlet full of Uchihas who would
have studied her journey from entrance to lake, it would have to do. Her brow crinkled.

“Do I pass?”
Silence for a moment. She’d seen. Even Fugaku didn’t always catch the split-second flicker
of red in Itachi’s eyes. Sometimes he even fooled Shisui. “... You asked for me, I believe.”

In a moment, her expression turned from scrutiny to fear. Not of him, though; she took a step
closer to him, didn’t seem deterred when he leaned back slightly. Whatever she was afraid of,
it wasn’t him - it sparkled in green eyes as tension swept her tiny body (smaller than Sasuke)
and spilled out in the ever-present rotation of the shuriken in her hands. “You can’t do it,
Itachi.” Almost… familiarity in her voice, when she spoke. Who the fuck is this girl?
“Please.” Voice caught. Almost angrily, she scrubbed at her eyes to waylay what must be
tears. Then she shook herself, leaned back slightly, let Itachi relax minutely.

“What are you talking about?” Itachi held his voice carefully neutral - there was no way to
know what she meant, and perhaps she didn’t even know. Suspicion coiled in his throat.
Sasuke wasn’t one to organise pranks, but he wasn’t the only young Uchiha in the Academy,
and plenty of their cousins would stoop so low.

The girl made a torn sound. “The coup.” Itachi’s blood froze. “I know it’s bad, but whatever
Danzō tells you, please, you can’t do it. Stopping the coup won’t save Konoha.” It was hard
even to breathe while she kept talking, her voice oddly echoey in his ears.

The coup.

Danzō.

Things she couldn’t know - she couldn’t possibly know - and yet when he let the Sharingan
light his eyes again and studied her, longer this time, openly, he still could find no hint of
subterfuge about her. He could feel his heart crashing against his ribs.

The girl looked back into the Sharingan without even a sliver of fear. Not of him. “...
Whatever he tells you, it won’t save Sasuke.” Her voice caught on the name.

Itachi had reacted before he could even think to control it, a full body flicker and the silent
draw of a kunai. A faint gasp - just the smallest inhalation - as she registered that he was
standing behind her now, that the cold kiss of a blade at her throat was a very real threat. To
her credit, she didn’t flinch. Stock still, back stiff, the shuriken still moving point over point
in agitated fingers, but she kept her chin lifted and held her position at Itachi’s mercy.

“Who sent you?” Hissed. Stop. Get control. She wasn’t a threat to Sasuke, not here, not now.
Whatever game this was, whoever could be a threat to Sasuke, she would know.

Her voice was deceptively steady; he could feel the gentle tension of her pulse fluttering
against the edge of his blade. “No one. I can’t… explain. But you can’t do it, Itachi.
Whatever he says. You won’t fix anything - you’ll make it all worse.” A moment of silence,
as Itachi struggled to divorce himself from the seething panic. If she knew, if some unknown
civilian girl who’d never even been a blip on Itachi’s radar knew so much, then he couldn’t
hope to have hidden it from Fugaku. From the Clan.

There was no point in even denying it. She wasn’t guessing - she knew. “I will give you one
more chance to tell me who sent you.” There went her heart rate, spiking up, and she couldn’t
quell a whimper as the warmth of her blood seeped out onto Itachi’s kunai. The narrowest
cut, and the shuriken clattered to the ground barely a moment before she clenched her fists.
Sharingan alight, Itachi saw clearly the swell of chakra that gathered there; no definition to
the sight, no paths where her chakra flowed as he understood the Byakugan to show, but he
could see it condense.

A second later she breathed out and her chakra settled back into an inactive, amorphous
cloud. Her hands opened and went to her sides. Fingers twitched, and shoulders quivered, but
she still didn’t flinch away. Didn’t cry or attempt to escape. Despite himself, Itachi felt a
flicker of respect for the child. “I promise you, nobody else sent me. Nobody else knows.” A
protracted moment of silence, like a bubble within the lazily weaving jutsu still muting their
conversation to prying ears. “If there’s a way I can prove I’m telling the truth, I’ll do it.”

She couldn’t know what she was offering, of course, couldn’t possibly understand what Itachi
was capable of. What exactly am I capable of? Would he kill her, a child not older than
Sasuke himself, if it came to it? Just to excise the possibility of a threat to his brother?

The reality that he was considering it was nauseating.

“Don’t move.” An order, as he stepped around to face her again; his kunai slid from one grip
to another with the ease of an oiled ball through water, and the point licked the soft flesh
under her chin. She lifted it slightly, caught her breath, but she didn’t reach up to the shallow
cut weeping down her neck, and she didn’t look away from Itachi’s gaze.

Another moment of silence stretched out. The genjutsu hovering in Itachi’s grasp was
unimaginably cruel to subject a child to - and yet the girl stared back defiantly. Desperation
shone in the corners of her expression still, some drive that had brought her here that
overrode even her own sense of self-preservation. Maybe she didn’t believe that he would
hurt her - maybe she didn’t care.

Maybe it was a risk she’d knowingly chosen to take.

Her voice didn’t shake. “Do whatever you need to. I’ve been through worse.”

Something small and vital collapsed in Itachi’s chest. Perhaps she was just an extremely
talented liar, but such blanket confidence didn’t come without a grain of truth. She was just a
civilian, no older than Sasuke. Whatever had happened to her that had ended with her here,
standing almost calmly with Itachi’s kunai at her throat, could have happened to Sasuke.

He cast the genjutsu.

Shadows and colours blurred past them as senses nosedived into a false reality, flickering
memories that flashed by while Itachi forged the chakra connection to hold the girl’s mind in
the steadfast grip of his own. Narrow mental halls that he held back and private, keeping all
the parts of his mind that would hurt her separate from the genjutsu itself. Her mental form
coalesced, and a fraction of a second later they stood together on an endless plane of what
might be water, or what might be glass, with a black sky stretching out around them.
In her own mind, the girl was older than she appeared. Taller. Her hair was cut short and
swept up by a Konoha-nin hitai-ate; the crimson fabric that held it was a splash of colour
matched only by Itachi’s eyes. She held herself tall, shoulders back. A small diamond -
washed black - coloured the spot between her eyes. What it was for, in her self-perception,
was beyond Itachi’s intuition; his blazing Sharingan offered no insight to her chakra
movements or abilities here. They were nothing but mental constructs.

“Who are you?” Itachi settled on first, risking only brief glances into the mirrored surface
they stood upon. Below them, the girl’s mind stretched out like a labyrinth - completely black
sections marked off the walls she was protecting her own mind with. Unease crawled down
Itachi’s back. No mere child should be capable of shielding entire swaths of thought from
him, no matter how talented she might be.

She stretched, and when she spoke her voice was almost cheerful. Confident - more
comfortable in this surreal body than in her real one. “My name is Haruno Sakura.” She
looked around, and then studied the depths at their feet. “... Even knowing how powerful you
are, this is… an incredible genjutsu. It’s absolutely seamless.”

Eyes narrowed, and Itachi took a step closer. Sakura’s gaze was back on him instantly, but
after a moment she just smiled at him.

“I’m sorry. I guess… I can actually speak freely here. This isn’t the first time I’ve met you.”
Impossible. Before Itachi could voice a protest, she took a step sideways and tapped her foot;
one of the black sections of her mind flashed white, and then swelled up around them. the
water-glass ballooned and then shattered, and a moment later Itachi felt his insides clench up
as memories fell about them and shot through. The specifics were hard to gather, as
unprepared as he was for the assault, but the essence of them was clear.

Unfamiliar red-white-black attire, a cold and distant expression, certainly older than he was
now, but the face was his own. She’d met him… before? She… would meet him? Moments
pulsed around him like light seared into his vision; Sasuke as a genin pinned against the wall
with Itachi’s hand at his throat; heated combat with a blond that he didn’t recognise; sparks
flashing as kunai met kunai and he fought-- older, but that was definitely Kakashi.

He staggered.

A gentle hand on his shoulder steadied him, ephemeral and barely tangible, like tepid water.
Further visions winked out around them; himself, again, older and unnaturally pale, fine
cracks in his skin like flawed porcelain. Fighting enemies he didn’t recognise; fighting back
to back with an adult Sasuke who was so wrong - so angry--

Things began to puddle around them, memories bleeding into each other until Itachi couldn’t
keep up. When he pulled away from Sakura, he threw up mental shields against her mind,
quarantining her thoughts - memories? - until all that he could touch of her was the mental
projection standing quietly a few feet away, watching him with sad compassion.

“I… didn’t mean to show you all that. I’m sorry. That was cruel.”
The implications silenced him for a long minute, getting his footing back. Cruel. Exactly
what he’d thought he was being to her, and yet without even trying she had overwhelmed him
in his own jutsu. Granted, he hadn’t been prepared to defend against her - he’d been arrogant,
underestimated her because she was a child, and in a way this was fair consequence. Still, he
was cautious in meeting her eyes when he finally focused back on her. “Explain.”

She hesitated. Then, nodding to herself, she spread her arms and let the full construct of her
mind rise up around them, a complex maze of hallways and cracked glass towers. Images
flickered in every reflection, blurry and relentless. “There’s a lot,” she warned.

Itachi cast his eyes over the vast array - more than any seven year old should display. If she
was lying, or making this up, then she deserved the victory over him. It was dangerous to
lower his defences again, to let her guide him through her head, but at the very least the
danger was limited to himself. Letting the issue go, letting her simply walk away when he
didn’t know how she’d learned about the impending coup, was a risk to everyone.

To Sasuke.

“I am prepared.”

It was a lie. But at least, by the end of it, he understood.

He found Shisui exactly where he expected to; lounging under a tree by the cliff that held the
Hokage monument. Cloud-gazing.

“Hey, Itachi,” he greeted warmly, without looking away from the sky. Itachi had been silent
in his approach, he was sure, but then again it surely didn’t matter. Shisui was the most
powerful Uchiha in several generations.

Cold steel clamped down around Itachi’s heart.

He couldn’t find it within him to respond, but he didn’t try to hide the choking wetness in his
eyes as he came close and sat down in the grass at Shisui’s side. How long left…? At this,
Shisui looked around - and sat up as he took in the blank shock in Itachi’s face, the glistening
streaks running from black eyes to narrow jaw. “Itachi?” A gentle hand laid over his, and
without thinking Itachi curled his fingers and gripped as hard as he could. Shisui didn’t even
flinch. “What’s wrong?” Itachi shook his head. How could he tell Shisui any of it? He had no
right to ask such a burden of him - but Shisui merely squeezed back and offered him a rueful
smile. “You know I’ll get it out of you eventually.”

There was truth to that. Of everyone, Shisui was the only one Itachi never managed to hold a
secret from. Why else would he have come here in the first place? A slight nudge from
shoulder to shoulder almost rocked Itachi over, but Shisui’s grip kept him seated. Cajoling,
like he always was.

But where could he even start?

“I’m a failure.”

It came out jagged, almost a snarl that took Itachi so off guard he clenched his teeth together
again. I am a failure. Or he would be a failure. What difference did it make? And not just a
failure, but a monster - a beast of unimaginable malice.

His future was a cursed path, and he had cursed all who’d crossed it.

Shisui frowned, and shifted to sit more closely at Itachi’s side; laid an arm across Itachi’s
shoulders and looked back out over Konoha. Even as far as it sprawled, the village seemed so
small from up here. “Well, I know that’s not true, but tell me about it. What happened? Was it
Fugaku?” Only the faintest edge in Shisui’s voice there. If Itachi had known him any less
well, he’d not have noticed it.

“No.” It hurt to choke out the word. Gods. He deserved it to hurt; it couldn’t possibly hurt
any worse than the things he’d inflicted in Sakura’s memories.

Shisui hummed. “Well, there’s still plenty of daylight. You can tell me when you’re ready.”

And for a long time, they just sat and watched Konoha writhe about below, their collective
silence almost as warm as the sunlight. When, finally, Itachi found the courage to speak, his
tears were long dry and their shadows stretched out behind them like the looming future, but
even as everything began to spill out and Itachi felt himself lose control of it, like a flood
dam breaking, Shisui remained quiet.

Itachi was panting softly by the end of it, hands tight in his own sleeves, arms crossed
defensively over his knees where they pressed against his chest. Surely Shisui couldn’t ignore
the horrors he had - he would - wrought. If the elder Uchiha believed him at all, then surely
their friendship was finally over.

But all he did was hum quietly through a deep frown, and then sigh. His arm remained warm
around Itachi’s shoulders.

This new silence was more than Itachi could bear. Tremulous, but he kept his eyes fixed
blindly on Konoha. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop that,” came the response; soft. Not angry. Not even disappointed. It rattled against the
sick empty feeling in Itachi’s chest. “If this Sakura was telling you the truth - and if she’s
convinced you, then I believe you - you haven’t done any of those things. What she told you
was another person. Another lifetime. You haven’t made any of those decisions.”

Shock bled into what Itachi reluctantly identified as fear. Of everything… that was what
Shisui took away from it? Meeting Itachi’s stunned stare, Shisui just offered him another
painful smile. “But…”

But there was so much. And Shisui-- Oh gods, why had he told Shisui about--

“There’s something I can do for you, if you’d allow it.”

Do for… Shisui wanted to help him. Something sharp and painful tried to claw its way out of
Itachi’s throat.

“... I can’t make you forget, but I can lock away these memories from your conscious mind.”
The offer rang in Itachi’s ears like an echo. “This isn’t a burden you need to carry, Itachi.”
Even softer than before. Thin red filigree was weaving into Shisui’s eyes, faint curls that
blossomed into Sharingan like scarlet flowers.

“I… But I…”

Shisui smiled. “I won’t let you make those mistakes, but you can’t live your whole life in fear
of them. You’re an exceptional person. Do you trust me?”

It wasn’t even a question. “Of course.” But that doesn’t matter. There were some debts Itachi
could never pay back.

Red and black swirled together until Itachi couldn’t look away from the pinwheels they
became, like little shurikens in Shisui’s eyes. What is he…? The tendrils of chakra that
slipped through Itachi’s shattered defences and began sifting through his mind were so gentle
that they didn’t even feel invasive; chakra built a faint glow in Shisui’s left eye, and there was
a moment where everything seemed to stop.

Itachi took a sharp breath, lungs burning, and blinked. Something was very wrong. He felt
wrung out, more exhausted than he’d ever been; in the evening sun, Shisui was sitting by him
with blood dribbling down his face from one eye, but as Itachi tried to grab for what could be
going on, flaring out chakra as thinly as he could to try and detect anomalies around them,
Shisui let out a low chuckle.

“Chill, Itachi. You look like crap; how about we just… take a nap?”

Appealing. Too appealing, Itachi thought, but even a brief flash of his Sharingan made his
chakra levels sink like a stone in water; he couldn’t quite stifle a yawn. Shisui didn’t even try
- shifted ever so slightly away and lay down with his eyes closed, head cushioned
comfortably on his arms.

… Maybe it couldn’t hurt. Even asleep, no one would be able to sneak up on Shisui and
Itachi both. And they were in Konoha - as safe as they ever were. Nagging doubt lingered at
the back of his mind, something insistent and heavy; something… wrong.

The Uchiha coup, no doubt. It was like a storm cloud on the horizon, a persistent nightmare
that he couldn’t shake. A shinigami’s shadow. But it would wait. There was still time before
anyone made a move.

So Itachi stretched out, settled on his side, and followed Shisui’s example.
Formulating the genin teams and which jōnin would lead them was an annual task that
Tsunade found both delightful and utterly tedious. Currently, tedious was winning; there
would be an awful lot more delight if Shizune wasn’t leaning over her shoulder and critiquing
the more fun compositions. Thus far the most fun Shizune hadn’t immediately vetoed was
giving Ino-Shika-Chō to their brand new (and youngest) jōnin.

“Don’t put those two together; they won’t learn anything from each other.”

Tsunade twisted in her seat to fix Shizune in a baleful stare. “You do remember that I am the
Hokage?”

“Yes, Tsunade-sama.”

“And that I have the authority to have you thrown out on your arse?”

“Yes, Tsunade-sama.”

“And that you’re really getting on my last nerve?”

“Yes, Tsunade-sama.”

Tsunade rolled her eyes and turned back to her paperwork. “Why I ever put up with you…”
With the ease of long experience, Shizune hummed a completely non-descript note and
tapped the back of her pen on the paper.

“If I might make a suggestion…”

And the drudgery of it went on, but eventually they’d settled on something resembling a team
lineup. At least it would be fun watching the jōnin squirm when she gave these assignments
to them. Still, as Shizune wouldn’t allow her to forget, these were only the first drafts - there
would be hours more of dithering over the compatibility of the genin and the scope of their
prospective sensei’s abilities. If she was lucky, it would be hours of gleeful drinking while
watching Shizune do all that work only to - most likely - land back on the same compositions
they’d settled on here. All the same--

The door to her office opened, and a chūnin stuck their head in. “Uh-- Hokage? There’s a--
uh… Academy student here asking to see you.”

At her flank, Shizune frowned. “The Hokage is busy - tell them to--”

“Fuck no,” Tsunade interrupted; a gentle flick to the arm sent Shizune staggering. “Send the
kid in. Anything to forget about this crap for a minute.”

It earned her a deep frown from her assistant, but the chūnin nodded quickly and ducked back
out. A minute later, the door opened again and the student walked in; recognition told
Tsunade that she was twelve years old, about to graduate. Haruno Sakura. A difficult student
to place indeed - no clan background which meant that she had no pre-existing biases or
specialities, but too much of a high achiever to slot to a team at random.
Also far too shy of a girl to be walking into the Hokage’s office uninvited and on her own, if
Shizune’s profiles were accurate, and they always were.

Her eyes went wide as she walked in, stumbling slightly as she stared in shock. Perhaps taken
aback by her own brashness now that she was here? Well, nothing for it - she’d never find out
if she didn’t ask.

Not a moment after Tsunade had drawn the breath to speak, Sakura beat her to it. “Tsunade-
sensei?” Weak-voiced, stumbling forward another step; suspicion set Tsunade’s back stiff in
her seat. She’d never been anyone’s sensei.

“I’m told you’re a student at the Academy.” Colder than she’d intended, especially when just
a moment ago she’d believed the girl to be a welcome reprieve.

Sakura’s eyes went even wider, and she seemed to catch herself. Stood up straighter, put her
hands at her back at ease. Her form was exceptional for someone not yet even a genin. “I-
I’m sorry, Hokage.” An edge of panic there. Tsunade narrowed her eyes. “I know I shouldn’t
have intruded on your time, but… I wanted to make a request.” A pause, breathless hope, and
then an uncomfortable fidget as Tsunade only continued to study her in silence. Shizune took
her cue and remained silent, but Tsunade could feel her eyes glancing between the two of
them. “About… About my genin training.”

At this, Tsunade arched an eyebrow. “Genin training? You haven’t even graduated yet, girl.”

“I will.” There was absolute confidence in her tone. As suspicious as she’d made herself,
Tsunade couldn’t help the bark of laughter. At least she wasn’t lacking balls. Shizune really
had missed the mark on this kid.

“Alright, out with it. What do you want?” She might as well humour the girl while she was
here before having her thoroughly investigated.

Sakura licked her lips nervously, but she didn’t look away. “I want to be trained by K--
Hatake Kakashi.”

For a protracted moment, there was silence. It popped like a bubble in reverse as Tsunade
burst into laughter, heavy howling noises that bounced around them while she smacked the
table. Shizune bit her lip, but refrained from saying anything - Sakura took a step back, but
then she relaxed and a slight smile played about her mouth. “You have got the biggest balls
I’ve ever seen!” Tsunade managed through her mirth, shaking her head. “Fucking student
trying to pick their own sensei…” In her years as Hokage, she’d never had a kid walk in with
anything quite so outrageous. “You audacious little brat.” Grinned.

“Does that mean--”

“Out,” Tsunade ordered her. She was still showing her teeth, although it wasn’t quite clear
anymore whether it was amused or wolfish. “You’ll get whoever I damn well please for a
mentor. Get back to your lessons.”
Already stepping away to leave - good girl - but Sakura lifted a finger and seemed to weigh
her options. “Actually, I’ve already completed today’s syllabus.” And she slipped back out
the door to the sound of Tsunade’s renewed guffaws. It took quite some time for them to die
down.

When, eventually, they did, Shizune gave her a critical frown. “Tell me that you aren’t
thinking of humouring her,” she said with an edge of resignation in her voice. Tsunade
simply smiled back. “We’d have to restructure all the teams again!”

“Shizune. I’m sending you to investigate her. Make sure she’s all above board.” The forced
serious note in Tsunade’s voice had Shizune hesitating. “And then, when she passes your
check, she’s going into Kakashi’s team.” There was no question. Anyone who had the sheer
grit to stroll into Tsunade’s office and choose her own sensei before she was even a genin was
damn well going to get her way.

Shizune sighed, and in her arms Tonton oinked much the same sentiment.

“Yes, Tsunade-sama.”
 Come, Camaraderie, in All Your Colours
Chapter Summary

Sakura wakes, and learns that not all change is good.

Chapter Notes

Things that I forgot to mention in the first chapter:

|| When I say that Sakura's original timeline is already different from canon, I don't just
mean the timeline over the course of the anime or how events, character motivations,
and all that sort of thing went. I mean that I've also fundamentally changed the history of
the Naruto universe. It's very drastic. Kishimoto can kiss my arse.
|| There are many other things I've changed. Amongst them is the Rinnegan - both the
scope of the Rinnegan's power, how it functions, and where it comes from/how one
acquires Rinnegan. Yes, obviously, there are going to be people with Rinnegan. These
changes are... incredibly drastic, if I'm honest. I've basically rebuilt the thing from the
ground up using Kishi's version as inspiration.
|| On that note but not necessarily related: I've mucked about with the Byakugan some
too. That said, the Byakugan you're familiar with is still very much present.
|| Orochimaru actually has some sort of coherent character motivation and story arc. His
impact isn't going to be a) fuck up Sasuke as much as possible and b) die.
|| Yeah, I'm not kidding about the OCs. For the most part, they're there to fill out the
universe because like hell the whole of Konoha is run by like twelve genin and four
jōnin.
|| There's going to be a spot of wish fulfilment here and there. It's fanfic, what else am I
gonna do with it. I am just as weak as the rest of you LMAO

Other things that matter:

|| The upload schedule! I currently have absolutely zero backlog for this, so look forward
to that - but my current aim is to publish each chapter within two weeks of the previous
one. If my study gets to be a bit more than I can handle with that, it'll become one month
after the last one.
|| Also these are betaread by the amazing ClockworkSirius

Onto the show!!

The world that Sakura awoke to, when everything finally bled back together, was very
different to the one she’d left behind.

Before anything else came sensation; the muted hum of voices on all sides, the steady
warmth of a summer day only faintly eased by a breeze. It was dizzying, and once she
realised that she had eyes again, she kept them scrunched up against the flood of sensory
input. Right under her nose she could smell the faintly sweet scent of varnished wood, and
beyond that was the heavy miasma of a room full of bodies. That would account for the
voices she couldn’t quite pick apart yet, so Sakura tried to put down those things and narrow
her senses to what was immediately relevant.

The slight irritating rub against her skin told her she was wearing something light with short
sleeves, and tight leggings underneath that ended in a faint band of pressure above her knees.
Shoes that cut off at the ankle, snug and warm but not constricting; toes were uncovered and
free to be wiggled. Another deep breath and she felt the weight against her back that said her
hair was down today, just as long and pretty as she ever tried to kee----

Her eyes flew open. I haven’t had long hair since--

At the front of the room was a man that she hadn’t ever hoped to see again, reading through a
few sheafs of paper with a small frown. Dark hair swept into a scruffy ponytail, Iruka-sensei
was regarding whatever he was reading as if it was dissatisfactory.

Slowly, Sakura looked around the room. The voices sharpened into words, but she let them
pass over her meaninglessly, too absorbed in reading their faces. Young faces; still bright and
round and hopeful. For too long, she simply basked in the sight. Ino, Shikamaru, Chōji - all
sitting together on the far side of the room and talking in hushed, excited tones. Ino and Chōji
appeared to be arguing over Shikamaru’s dozing head. And further down, Hinata - oh gods,
Hinata - tugging anxiously on her hair in silence, twisting around and around her fingers.

Shino, sitting near the back by himself, reading a book.

More, kids that she remembered the faces of but not the names, students that had been largely
lost to her as her own life had progressed. A few kids that she didn’t recognise at all; two
students sat near - but not next to - Hinata, whom she studied for a moment. Dark hair and
light skin, the glimpse of white eyes as they joked to each other that confirmed them as
Hyuugas; branch family, presumably, but as here and present in the Academy as Hinata.
What…? What rule had been relaxed by the Clan Head to allow it, and why?

Her breath stopped when she caught sight of the knot of black heads gathered at the front of
the room on her side. Fully five of them, arrayed in a variety of high-collared shirts, spiky
black hair in five distinctly different messy styles. Black eyes flashed in and out of sight as
they argued, heads turning back and forth as they spoke over one another. On each of their
backs lay a Clan symbol with a line slashed through in a low semi-circle. Red on top and
white on the bottom - like an open fan.

Uchihas.
There are more Uchihas.

Amongst their bickering rose a voice that cut through the air like hurled kunai, agonisingly
familiar and yet somehow different. Sasuke twitched his gaze back to one of his fellows and
cut her off, shaking his head sharply.

Sasuke.

Sasuke’s here. He’s home. He’s safe.

She couldn’t even pick out his words, but relief collapsed in her chest like a cave-in and she
slumped back in her seat like she’d been suckerpunched, closing her eyes against the sting of
tears. They welled and spilled over her cheeks all the same. She was in their classroom. They
weren’t even genin yet.

Sasuke was safe.

She’d made it.

It worked.

Even as relief turned to thunder in her body, the tears she didn’t even try to stop streaking
down and staining the collar of her qipao dress, something ice cold and crushing rose up
underneath it. Sasuke was safe; but her Sasuke was gone. Her friends were gone. None of
these children knew her, or what she had to prevent. Her Sasuke was dead - her Ino was dead
- her Naruto was--

The whole table shook as she shot to her feet, eyes going wide again, and scanned the
classroom desperately. Naruto. She couldn’t hear the obnoxious snap of his voice, or spot the
shock of blond hair. Whatever was in her chest coiled and tightened.

“Sakura?” called a voice, familiar and concerned-- her gaze darted towards it, and found Ino
on her feet and coming over, concern shining over blue over a friendship that Sakura had
thought she’d lost years ago--

The whole room lurched, and she heard her name again in Iruka-sensei’s voice as pain
cracked up her thigh. Knee. Slammed it on the seat. Distant observation that ran through her
thoughts without prompt, a second nature that kept tabs on her surroundings. That same
detached part of her idly noted that Ino was holding her shoulders - keeping her from collapse
- and Iruka had body flickered up to the seat beside her. They were talking to her, trying to
get her to respond.

She should. The rest of her was lost to a vortex of spinning colour, stomach boiling as all
strength went out of her, but it nagged; she should respond to them. Breathing was almost
impossible, but she tried to suck one in - opened her mouth to force out some kind of words,
some kind of acknowledgement--

Ribcage convulsed and diaphragm contracted and all at once Sakura vomited; Ino shrieked
but didn’t let go, and Iruka’s hands were tight on her shoulders. Another distant voice
sounded up - “Sakura?!” - and it was so familiar that she reached for it. It would be okay.
She’d made it. He was safe.

Where was Naruto?

She’d done it. They’d done it.

Darkness came.

Her second awakening was entirely more gentle than her first. Her senses had the decency
not to spin away from her, and as her thoughts slowly solidified from scattered dreams into
something coherent, she was able to sift through them. The dreams were blurry and haunting,
and yet unlike normal dreams they weren’t fading away. More like distant memories that she
didn't recognise.

She’d been a child, tiny and uncoordinated, applying for entry to the Academy. Slightly older,
getting a check-up with a doctor. Amusement lingered around the edges of that one - how
familiar she was with the examination. Unconnected fragments around Ino, moments in time
that she had always wished had gone differently, that had become malleable in the dream and
folded for those wishes.

Itachi had been in one of them. Another wish that had lingered uselessly in her heart; to
somehow prevent the massacre of the Uchiha clan. To somehow save everyone she loved
from the destruction that had flowed in its wake.

More moments, luxuriating in the time when it was just her parents and the comfort of being
small enough for her father to cradle in his arms again. She missed his hugs more fiercely
than she’d ever thought she could. Hinata - bereft of the hard-won strength Sakura
recognised, small and scared and weak again; as many soft words as Sakura had been able to
spare, as much encouragement as she could shove into something so simple. Academy
moments - talking to Sasuke for real, instead of standing at a distance and fantasising about a
person who didn’t really exist and never would. Talking to Ino about boys and steering away
from competition. Choosing her friend over her infantile desires.

On and on and on.

Slowly, the dreams settled into place, and wove outwards like a map of stars, each pinpoint a
new dream, a new memory, something familiar and different at the same time. Some were
subtle - a different word here, a different lesson there, days later on spent with friends instead
of alone. Sparing small defiant Naruto a kind word instead of a sneer. Some were so vastly
different that she had trouble leaving them be. Laughing with Ino while helping her with the
flower shop. Chasing Sasuke across the shinobi training grounds as fast as she could, and
calling him names when he slowed down to accommodate her.

Itachi showing up at her house, one horrible night, smeared with blood and carrying a
terrified Sasuke while behind them the shouts turned to screaming and the sky lit up with
chakra.
Naruto vanishing from the Academy, and nobody ever saying a thing about it.

Strange dreams, spreading and encompassing her like thick honey, snaring each thought until
it was hard to distinguish them from her memories, all the stupid things they’d done as kids,
the quiet agony Sasuke had endured in solitude, the shrill terror Sakura had taken so many
years to shake, the endless abuse from adults who should have known better than to blame a
child for their problems.

Maybe those were the dreams, really… Naruto had never made it to advanced classes. He’d
never shown up after the Konoha Massacre, after--

All at once, Sakura sat up. Eyes wide, taking a shaking breath, chakra surging to crackle just
under her skin. Dreams. But they weren’t dreams. She’d made it, on her brothers’ final,
desperate gamble. She was back, before everything broke, before the world was set on its
course to destruction.

She’d woken up, finally - late - and they weren’t dreams, they were… moments. Fragments
of her mind, scattered back through her own lifetime like ashes. The leftovers peeking
through. Oh gods, they’re memories. And more, the clashing spiral of events that ran parallel
to the ones she knew.

“Sakura? Easy. You’ll hurt yourself.”

Familiar. Too familiar.

Standing nearby, as if he’d been leaning against the wall a minute before, black eyes focused
on her, hair swept back into the familiar spiky cloud, like tail feathers - a face she never
thought she’d see again, unmarred by hatred, unmarred by the betrayal of his brother’s final
secret.

Something in Sakura’s brain went click, and all her carefully honed self-control fled.
“Sasuke,” she choked out, and then her voice fled too in the eruption of an exhausted sob.

She had the chance to change the world. All it had cost her was everything she had.

Sakura wasn’t sure how long she cried for, but there was quickly an arm around her shoulders
for her to lean into, and the awkward sometimes-patting of her back trying to offer comfort.
They remained, a steady presence at her side, and slowly she managed to get control of
herself again, wails fading into sobs into whimpers into sniffles. To her surprise, when she
could see again, it was Hinata seated next to her on the Academy infirmary bed, an arm
around her shoulders and worried eyes on her face. Gratitude welled up in her chest,
something warm and slow and soothing in the aftermath of grief.

“Sorry, Hinata.” Pushed out softly, a whisper that betrayed a hoarseness she hadn’t
anticipated. However painful it felt to contort her cheeks into it, Sakura offered her a smile.
Even smaller, Hinata smiled back. The hand on her back patted awkwardly once more, and
green eyes went from white to black. “... Hi, Sasuke.” She almost wanted to ask what he was
doing here, but the hazy memories cartwheeled across her thoughts with the answer.
They’d met on the night of the--

The Konoha Massacre.

Acid threatened across her tongue as her stomach convulsed again, but she grit her teeth and
breathed it out and kept control. Sasuke took a step closer, frowning, but she scrunched her
eyes shut again. Things were different, just like she’d hoped - but she wasn’t sure if it was
better or worse. There was nobody she could ask, or confide in. She was… alone… And the
dreams wove their way back through her mind-- memories, not dreams, and suddenly
everything was a blur again and she had to fight down the tears, swiping roughly at the ones
already seeping past. The odd new childhood that lay over the one she already knew was hard
to pick apart, but if she focused then little pieces started to make sense.

The chaos that had almost overtaken Konoha and the way it had taken days for it to die down
- Tsunade and Jiraiya showing up and taking control. Who had gone to get them? Surely it
had been one of the jōnin, to have gotten it done so fast. Maybe the Anb---

For a moment, Sakura’s breath turned to ice. Hinata squeezed her shoulder gently, and - air
once more - she exhaled sharply.

The official pronouncement from the Uchiha clan had reached her first from word-of-mouth,
the trickle-down of information through the higher ranked ninja forces to the Academy to the
civilians. Later, Sasuke had murmured what extra details he had - in hindsight, she doubted
he'd told her everything because surely the clan wouldn't allow that.

Afterwards, the Sandaime Hokage’s funeral had been an almost barren affair.

“You feeling any better?” Sasuke asked from his awkward position at the side of the bed; his
arms were at his sides now, withdrawing the somewhat uncertain patting of her back, but
there was a very real concern in his eyes that made Sakura want to cry all over again. As
awful as her scattered, strange knowledge of what had happened in the stead of the Uchiha
Massacre was, part of her thrilled at the fact of it. The Uchihas weren’t dead. The how and
why of it could wait until later.

The smile she offered was small, but genuine. “Yeah. I…” She had no idea how to explain
herself. She couldn’t. “I don’t know what happened.”

Hinata made a small noise, finally withdrawing her arm and folding into herself, but she
stayed seated on the bed at Sakura’s side. “Uhm… Keita-san said to tell him when you woke
up, so…” Trailed off into nervous silence, and pale eyes shot between then like she was
asking permission. Before Sakura could open her mouth, Sasuke made an impatient noise.

“So go get him, then.”

It was… harsh, in a way, but even as Hinata nodded and scurried off to do so, there was
nothing unkind in Sasuke’s face. Annoyed by the inefficient way Hinata was going about
things, perhaps, but the hard glint of anger that Sakura had come to associate with him was
gone. He looked back up at her when Hinata was gone, and his mouth twitched like he
couldn’t decide between a smile and a scowl.
“Don’t pull this shit again, ‘kura.” And still not angry. If Sakura had been the child she
remembered herself to be, she wouldn’t have noticed it; but she had a losing war under her
belt, and she saw only too clearly the faint note of fear that ran underneath the scolding. “I
don’t want to have to hunt down a new teammate.”

Teammate.

A dream-- A memory flickered again, and Sakura had to choke back a snort as Tsunade-
sensei’s laughter rang in her ears. How audacious indeed, to ask for a specific jōnin-sensei -
but there was something comforting about how Tsunade-sensei had reacted to it. Familiar.
Even if everything was different and she didn’t understand it yet, some things never changed.

Maybe that would be true for other things too.

She didn’t mean to let out the excited little squeal, but it bypassed her entirely. A flood along
immature synapses and control that this body hadn’t yet learned; flexing her hands felt
wrong, the muscles still soft and the precision of a med-nin completely absent. I’m a child.
The realisation wasn’t as awful as it could be. She was a child, barely a genin, but even with
an untrained body she remembered how it all worked. “So we’re teammates?” came spilling
out of her mouth - high pitched - but she let it happen and only kept half an ear on the
conversation.

Her chakra felt billowy and loose under her skin, and even with all her experience it was hard
to weave out a thin enough layer to pulse out around the room. Sasuke’s chakra signature
came bouncing back, muddied by her own. It was the same as she remembered, the distinct
faint crackle of it. Recognising specific signatures wasn’t the easiest skill in the world, but
Sakura would never forget how her family felt.

Sasuke was smirking at her. A faint twitch of an eyebrow told her that he’d felt her chakra
pulse - or at least felt something when she’d done it - but he made no comment. Instead: “Of
course we’re teammates. You think the Hokage could put the best kunoichi in our class with
anyone else?”

Warmth flooded under her skin. Amusement made itself known in the little giggle that
escaped her - after all, once again, some things never changed and it seemed Sasuke was just
as cocky as ever - but there wasn’t the desperate edge to be the best. There wasn’t the ruthless
driving force behind every word.

It was the happiest that Sakura had ever seen him.

Whatever she’d been about to say in reply (and honestly, she wasn’t even certain what it
would have been) was interrupted as the door opened quietly and Keita-san strolled in, an
eyes-down finger-tapping Hinata on his heels. “How are you feeling, Sakura?” He came close
to the bed and held two fingers less than an inch from her temple; the faintest glow of chakra
flared from his skin, sparked against hers, and Sakura was momentarily blinded as her pupils
dilated. A moment later they shrank and she squinted in the false darkness.

“I feel much better, now.” It was the truth, after all - even if she couldn’t explain herself.
Keita-san hummed, and ran his fingers down her back. Before he could tell her to do so, she
took as deep a breath as she could manage, held it for five seconds, and then let it out slowly.
Lungs clear. Tidal volume normal for my age and size. “I think I just got a little overexcited,”
she offered as Keita-san moved his chakra-glowing fingers around to her front. “I was too
nervous to eat this morning.” Even as the words came out, she realised that the second part
was actually true. Had she really been so anxious a child the first time around?

A small hum of acknowledgement showed he’d heard her while he held position and counted
her heartbeats. Perhaps a little fast, but there’s no irregularities. Another slow breath, and
Sakura felt out her own chakra again, focusing on its flow and the knot of her chakra nexus
where it sat a little above her solar plexus. Thirty seconds later, apparently satisfied with her
heart, Keita-san shifted to an open palm and held over her nexus too. Feels good to me. No
resistance in chakra flow.

Training was going to be rough. As long as it had taken her to work up to it, she was used to a
larger reserve of chakra, and as advanced as her control of it already was for her age -
reminding herself again that she was twelve, a child, and not the hardened eighteen-year-old
shinobi she saw herself as - there was an unwelcome fluidity that had whole puddles slipping
through her fingers.

Keita-san pulled away, withdrew a notebook from one of his many pockets, and made a few
notes. “Well, everything seems to be in working order. You’re free to go, but make sure you
eat something soon, and don’t skip out on breakfast again, alright?”

Sakura nodded. Then, when the med-nin didn’t move, she fought down a small smile and
added, “Yes, Keita-san. I’ll remember.” Damn straight she’d remember. She’d outgrown the
juvenile desire to diet herself into looking ‘beautiful’ years ago. She was a ninja; civilian
conventions of beauty didn’t apply to her. Staying alive was infinitely more important, and if
she dropped in the middle of a mission from hunger then it wasn’t only her own life she’d put
in danger.

“So,” Sakura began once Keita-san had left, carefully setting her feet on the floor and
standing up. There was a weakness in her legs that she hated, but nothing spun when they
took her weight, and her first few tentative steps were steady. “I missed Iruka-sensei giving
us our teams, didn’t I?” It was an obvious assumption, if Sasuke was already assured of their
being placed together. Again.

She would do better, this time.

A familiar little tch was all he gave in response, and she couldn’t help the laughter that
bubbled up. Yeah. Some things never change.

From where she lingered by the doorway, Hinata tapped her index fingers together and
looked at the floor. “Sorry,” she whispered, and Sakura stared at her. Sorry? What was Hinata
on about now? She had to actively remind herself that this wasn’t the powerful woman she’d
become, the one who had fought tooth and nail against the Akatsuki and Juubi. This Hinata
still had no idea of her own strength. “I’ll do my best not to let you down.”

It clicked together. Whatever had happened to Naruto - and her hands clenched briefly at her
sides at the thought, a brief flutter of panic that she swallowed back and put to rest - his
absence left open his place on their team. Hinata must have been chosen to fill it.

“You won’t let us down,” she said instead, walking over to put a hand on Hinata’s shoulder.
“You’re gonna be great.” And even if Hinata didn’t believe her yet, maybe this time she’d
have all the time she needed.

White eyes widened and met Sakura’s for only a moment, before flicking to Sasuke and then
back to the floor. A faint noise, like she was trying to find something to say. Strands of shiny
black hair fell forward to obscure her face, the faintest hint of colour dusting her cheeks, but
she didn’t make another attempt. Sakura exchanged an uneasy glance with Sasuke.

The voice that came from the doorway was so familiar that Sakura felt her knees almost give
out. “Isn’t that nice.” Held carefully neutral, with an edge that could be mistaken for
contempt - but Sakura knew better than that, she knew him so much better… The last image
she had of him flashed before her, the way he’d met their eyes with his own mismatched ones
while one of Juubi’s beast balls lit up the world behind him like a halo. The way his body had
scorched and burst before any of them could say a word. The way she’d screamed her
defiance despite the fact he’d already been dead for the sake of their continued lives.

How, in the end, it hadn’t even mattered.

She was across the room before she could even think, arms encircling his waist as tight as she
could manage. It was surreal for him to be so much taller than her again. Under the assault of
her embrace, she felt the air rush out of his body, but the sound that accompanied it was so
soft and controlled that she doubted either of the others would hear it. “Kakashi-sensei,” she
murmured, unable to find any right words.

Alive. He was alive.

Kakashi hadn’t moved, although she knew damn well he could have evaded her if he’d
wanted to. There was no reciprocation, but his back was stiff and his arms held slightly raised
to avoid touching her back. His voice was dry when he spoke again, just a huff of
exasperation. “Is she always like this?”

As if the bastard hadn’t read their files five times over before coming to meet them. Sakura
let out a noise that was half a snort, and half a sob.

“... You sure you’re alright, ‘kura?” came Sasuke’s voice, uneasy.

Her good sense caught up, and Sakura forced herself to let go and step back. Kakashi slid his
hands into his pockets, his body language the picture of disinterest - but his one black eye
was watching them carefully. There were going to be questions.

Maybe she should just answer them. If she was going to change the future - if, indeed, she
already had - then maybe it would be best for her to confide in the leaders of the Leaf.
Another step ahead, and a quiet voice in her brain that sounded suspiciously like Shizune
offered an alternative.
What if she told them, and they didn’t believe her? Worse, what if they did believe her and
wouldn’t let her go? A prisoner with knowledge of the future and their potential enemies was
too valuable a tool to pass by. Sakura loved Konoha with every fibre of her being, but she
wasn’t a fool. It wasn’t above using such tactics, even if she was still a child, even if she was
forthright.

The risk was too great. As much as she burned to let it all spill out, she had to keep her truth
to herself. She had to ensure the safety of the future in every way she could, and she couldn’t
do that buried beneath the Anbu headquarters. It was her duty. She owed the versions of
Team Seven who had given their lives to get it done.

Licking her lips, Sakura tried to scuff her toes against the floor like the new childhood’s
presence in her mind said she should. “I-- Sorry, Kakashi-sensei. I… I got ahead of myself.”
It was a weak excuse. She resisted the urge to offer one from Kakashi’s own arsenal.

Kakashi waved one hand dismissively and set it back in his pocket. If she hadn’t known him,
she would have believed he’d already forgotten about it - but she did know better, and so did
Kakashi. He’d be watching her very closely.

Shit.

Sakura was no slouch in the espionage department, but she might as well have been a
lumbering blood ox next to Kakashi.

“All of you up on the roof in the next five minutes.” And with a whirl of chakra and leaves
that Sakura did her damndest to track (and failed), he was gone again.

Sighing, Sakura turned her head to her teammates. Much as she loved her sensei, they would
be waiting up on the roof for a while. “I guess we should go then.” Hinata darted over as she
led the way out, and while he was more sedate about it, Sasuke was soon by her side.

“You sure you’re okay?” He seemed… troubled, this time, rather than outright concerned for
Sakura’s safety. She couldn’t really blame him, but it still left a sour taste in her mouth to lie.

Lie she did. “Yeah, I’m sure. I’m just really glad we’re finally genin. Plus, I mean, that’s
Hatake Kakashi. Think about all he can teach us!”

Luckily, it seemed her reputation as a nerd was still intact this second time around. Sasuke
rolled his eyes, but offered a crooked little half-grin. “Of course that’s what you’re worried
about.” He nudged her with a shoulder as they turned onto the stairs; enough to make her
stumble, although the touch definitely hadn’t been that hard. She’d never seen Sasuke
casually touch anyone. In fact, in all the years they’d known each other, she wasn’t sure she’d
ever seen him touch someone outside of battle.

Instantly, memories clamoured in her mind to prove her wrong. The split between them and
what Sakura was thinking of as her ‘real’ memories was disconcerting - the new ones were
foreign and strange, as if they belonged to someone else, but at the same time they were hers.
A Sakura who was just as real even if she was probably gone now - a Sakura whose mind had
been invaded and overtaken by this current version of herself. The real Sakura, she wanted to
call herself, but that was hardly fair. The one she’d slithered through time to replace wasn’t
any less real just because she was a child, just because Sakura-- the real Sakura-- the future
Sakura had been woven into her.

She was already starting to hate time travel. She was herself, and yet somehow just what
exactly constituted herself had been made jumbled and confusing. Okay, all things Sakura is
me, she told herself brusquely. You can fiddle around with the difficult bits later.

As expected, Kakashi was nowhere to be found when they reached the roof of the Academy
infirmary building, but Sakura was content to let it be. He was no doubt nearby, watching
them as they interacted. Judging them already. The bell test would be coming up soon;
tomorrow, if nothing drastic had changed about that.

And, as she settled down on a step and resigned herself to waiting, if things aren’t too
different, he’ll know about Naruto. After all, the adults of Konoha had known all the things
about him that he himself hadn’t known the first time around. There was no small trace of
bitterness attached to that thought. All it would have taken is for someone to explain it to
him. He would have been all the better off for it.

There was always the possibility that the answer was somewhere lost in her ‘new’ memories,
but there wasn’t time for her to sit down and sort through them right now. That could wait
until tonight.

After five minutes, Sasuke let out a short huff of frustration and flopped onto his back. He
voiced no complaints, but the way his fingertips started tapping at the concrete above his
head gave away more agitation than she expected he would. Hinata - sitting a little away from
them with her hair hiding her face - was weaving her hands together nervously, silent. An
internal sigh had Sakura rolling her shoulders to relieve it. There was so much damage they’d
have to undo before Hinata could grow into her own.

It took another five minutes for Sasuke to sit up again and look around with narrowed eyes,
clearly searching. “Is he fucking serious?” muttered under his breath. With a faint hum,
Sakura shrugged away the irritation. Ten minutes was almost nothing when it came to
Kakashi being late. Besides, the time was giving her a much more ample opportunity to
examine her own chakra network, running little pulses from her nexus across each core series
of chakra vessels and expulsing tiny bursts from each fingertip. As she’d noted earlier, there
was a looseness to it that she couldn’t force into the quicksilver feeling she was accustomed
to. While it was easy to put that down to her current physical age and lack of training, the fact
it remained despite mentally knowing exactly what was wrong was infuriating. It seemed as
if she was going to have to train her body all over again; and there was no doubt that these
failings extended to everything else too.

All the knowledge in the world was no good to her if she couldn’t physically execute on it.

She sighed. “Maybe he’s just testing us,” she suggested to try and ease Sasuke’s annoyance.
It was odd to see it without the sharp edge - odd, but welcome. Even if he wasn’t quite the
Sasuke she knew, he was still Sasuke. He was still her teammate, her brother in arms. Seeing
him so unburdened was a gift that made the loss of her whole timeline almost worth it.
No. It was worth it. She would make sure that it was worth it.

However much longer Kakashi would make them wait, she couldn't spend it ruminating. It
would be just the cruel twist of fate if she somehow took Sasuke's place as the team brooder.
To distract herself, she figured she might as well get started on those chakra control
exercises; there was no time soon enough for her to get back to the strength she'd left behind.

Eyes faint puddles of white through her hair, Hinata was watching as Sakura caught a leaf out
of the air and waved it in lazy circles. One finger carried the contact of her chakra against it,
the thinnest sliver she could manage while still making it stick. Paper would have been
preferable - leaves were uneven, pitted surfaces, and her chakra stuck much less readily than
to the relative smoothness of paper - but it was better than nothing.

Sakura was rewarded, after another ten minutes of practicing with the leaf, with a readily
apparent improvement. Already, her chakra flowed slicker from finger to finger as she rotated
the leaf across them, a rolling movement across one hand while she held the other still at her
side. Feeling adventurous, Sakura settled the leaf between her index and middle finger and
called on her med-nin training; focusing her chakra up through her fingers, she tried a quick
diagnostic jutsu. While the results were too vague for her to have done it properly - a thick
membrane, and a hollow lack of chakra, but she couldn't feel a good distinguishing signal
between the leaf and how a corpse felt under the medical technique - they yielded enough
information that Sakura was reassured she could get it all working properly soon.

Properly encouraged, she sent the lingering chakra in her hand up through her fingertips in a
sharp burst, imitating a chakra scalpel. The leaf split neatly in two.

With a satisfied hum, Sakura let the leaf finally flutter to the ground. "I didn't know you could
do that," Sasuke intoned from where he was lying on the ground again; there was a faint note
of… pride? Was Sakura so daring as to hope that it was pride?

She offered him a sheepish smile in return, latching onto the first excuse that came to her.
"I… kinda started reading about medical ninjutsu." Said quietly, the shyness creeping into her
voice. A pause as she realised the fact, when she meant simply to offer an explanation.

Was this something she was going to have to look out for? Bits of her native personality
slipping through? She'd have to watch out for that. If it struck at the wrong moment, it could
get her killed.

Sasuke hn'd thoughtfully. "Could be useful. Don't you need decent chakra control to do that
stuff?"

"Yeah." Sakura silently gauged what she was now considering her native response. "Not all
of us can be raw jutsu powerhouses like you, Uchiha-senpai." As facetiously as she said it,
she gave him a grin in accompaniment, and he snickered back at her.

"Did you know I caught one of my cousins calling Itachi that the other day? Dead seriously.”
Sasuke shook his head.
So Itachi is still here. A thousand little memories tumbled over themselves like wayward
butterflies, clamouring for her attention, that all confirmed the same thing; there’d been there
already, but without the time or inclination to catalogue them, she just hadn’t noticed. There
was going to be a lot of cataloguing when she got home today. Good thing I remember all
that code.

“Uhm… Sakura-san?” came the tremulous voice, and Sakura blinked. She’d forgotten just
how much self-doubt Hinata had come out of the Academy with - or maybe it had changed,
just like the Uchihas had changed.

But Sakura quickly shook her head. “We’re teammates now, Hinata. Just Sakura is fine.”

Nervousness flickered in what was visible of Hinata’s face. “Oh… Okay. Uhm… Could you
show me what you were doing with the leaf?”

This time, Sakura gave her a big smile. “Of course! Let me just--” Snagging two more leaves,
she came over and sat down right by Hinata, offering her one. “You know the paper exercises
we did in the Academy? It’s basically just like that, except you want to use a teensy bit more
chakra while you move it around, because you’re creating resistance. Make sense?”

Let Kakashi-sensei watch this, instead of the three of them sitting around in their own little
worlds. She had no doubt that he was spying, that he wanted to see what his prospective team
would do when left to their own devices. Sakura would have done what she was doing even
without that, but knowing exactly what Kakashi was looking for in them did give her a
distinct advantage. Sorry, Sensei. It almost felt like cheating.

While she stuck her own leaf to her fingertip and waved it around again, she made use of the
newfound - if still very minor - improvement and gathered a thin sheet of chakra, letting it
spread evenly under her skin before throwing it out in as wide a pulse out around them as she
could manage. Even with the vast mental skill she was carrying, she didn’t expect to sense
Kakashi’s chakra if he was concealing it.

Sasuke and Hinata both paused as her exploratory pulse went over them and bounced back
their distinct signatures. Their probing looks were curious but not suspicious - they settled on
her for a moment, and then searched out around them too. Hinata shivered slightly.

Something like pride welled up in Sakura’s chest. Even with all their skill, they were too
inexperienced to properly pinpoint Sakura as the source of the chakra disturbance, but they’d
felt it. They were going to be fearsome one day - and Sakura knew that already, but she was
going to make sure they got there. For all that she needed to train up her body in her own
right, Sasuke and Hinata were truly genin. They hadn’t gone through a war, they hadn’t had
any real battle experience yet. Talented though they were, they couldn't be prepared for what
was out there.

An echo of chakra came back to her, enough to disrupt her concentration on the leaf and let it
go fluttering down to her lap. So familiar - a flash of white and the feeling of Kakashi's
chakra signature bursting against her senses before it vanished altogether - and she'd turned
her head before she could think to second-guess herself, searching the nearby trees for any
glimpse of jōnin black or silver hair.
She saw nothing incriminating, but she knew he was there. Something in her chest eased,
when she hadn't even noticed in the first place that it had been taut; only the faint sting in her
eyes warned her that she was close to crying again. Almost vibrating with it, realising how
desperately she just wanted to hug everyone until she could convince herself they were real
and alive, Sakura forced herself to look away. It could wait.

Perhaps forever.

"Sakura?" Hinata asked softly, the leaf still clinging to her fingers forgotten. There was a
barely-there slip in her voice, as if she'd only just managed to restrain the urge to add an
honorific to Sakura's name. "Are you alright?" At her back now, Sasuke hovered anxiously.

It wasn't an adverb Sakura had ever expected to apply to Sasuke, but the dark glint in darker
eyes was unmistakable. He stayed silent, but he was watching her every move. Clashing
against the knot in her chest, a puddle of warm affection slowly spread through her.

Her smile was almost as sad as it was soft. "Yeah, sorry. I'm fine." All her discipline went
towards making sure her voice didn't catch, but she managed it. Blinking rapidly, she
dispersed the threat of tears and looked at Hinata's leaf. As good a diversion as any. "You're
doing great with that, Hinata." White eyes went down, and with a squeak Hinata lost the
thread of chakra and her leaf spun lazily into her lap.

"Aren't you three just adorable." Sasuke's head whipped around to face the railing that - until
a moment ago - had been completely empty, and Hinata jumped half a foot in the air,
squeaking again. For her part, Sakura didn't jump or give herself whiplash, but she turned her
head and half-twisted her body, hands clenching up defensively on reflex despite the fact that
the voice made the thing in her chest even looser.

Real. It was real. He's fine. Everyone is fine.

Blond hair and blue eyes flashed in her mind.

But it could wait a moment. Blundering into everything blindly wasn't going to help her, and
wherever Naruto was, waiting a few minutes wouldn't be the deciding factor. Even as young
as he would be again, Naruto could take care of himself.

And, loathe as she was to picture it, if he couldn't, then Kurama would do it for him.

Watching them with that one onyx eye, Kakashi took in their reactions. He lingered on
Sakura for too long, but she just stared right back. Logic told her that this Kakashi didn't
know her yet, that he had no personal ties, but she studied his face as if he was her Kakashi
all the same.

The longer she looked, the more differences she saw. There was no malice in his face, the
little twitches of his mask that were almost invisible but that she'd learned to read so easily.
Kakashi-sensei might as well not have been wearing it. But the little eye-crinkle she'd come
to love was absent; he leaned against the railing, just as she remembered, but the deceptive
slouch was replaced with a straight back, and his folded arms were loose and ready to fly into
action. He did still have one foot against the railing, knee bent in a way that almost seemed
relaxed - but Sakura saw the tension held behind feigned disinterest, the readiness resting on
a kunai's edge.

He was still Kakashi, but he wasn't the person she knew. The way his eye narrowed slightly
as the realisation bled into sorrow told her that he'd seen it in her face.

He knew that the chakra pulse had been hers. He knew she'd picked up his presence. All at
once, her mouth went dry; she should have known better. No genin should be doing that, let
alone doing it well. Maybe, if she'd proven a prodigy in the Academy, it might have been
expected - but she hadn't.

Dreams-that-were-memories burned in the back of her mind. The fractions of herself that had
slipped through over the years. Desperation to change Itachi's path. A single-minded need to
ensure she got placed with Kakashi. It didn't surprise her much that out of all the things she'd
focused on for those brief windows, Kakashi was one of them. He was her sensei. In a way,
as ninja went, he was like a second father.

But the jōnin that studied her now… was not her sensei. Not yet. There was something cold
in the way his eye-smile was missing, in the way he stood. His general appearance, at least,
was almost the same; the jōnin standard outfit, with the Anbu gloves that carried the
protective backs; they extended past his wrists, this time, carrying a protective plate that
presumably ran all the way up his forearms underneath the jacket. Sakura couldn't stop
herself from wondering what they were protecting. Mask hiding his face, hitai-ite pulled
down low to cover his Sharingan eye. His hair was a little bit longer, a little bit messier, but
close enough.

He seemed… thinner.

Sakura sensed rather than heard Sasuke shift his stance, where he stood behind his kunoichi
teammates. Kakashi-sensei didn't move his gaze off Sakura, but she saw the faintest tension
in his arms as he waited for them to react, sensed the infinitesimal coiling of his chakra. It
was almost nothing - if he'd been masking his chakra in any way, Sakura wouldn't have
noticed.

His eye narrowed just the tiniest bit, and Sakura realised that she'd sat up straighter, that her
hands were clenched and her arms held loose at her sides. Chakra clouded in her fists like
thick fog, ready to amplify her attacks with vicious bursts of energy. Reacting automatically,
to a threat she shouldn't have even been able to notice - and reacting with restrained violence.
No assessment. Just the readiness to fight.

For all intents and purposes, she supposed, she'd died in wartime.

With visible effort, Sakura made herself relax. When she smiled, she actively tried to recreate
the soft expression of Kakashi's eye-smile. "Kakashi-sensei. Now you're here, maybe we
should introduce ourselves?" A twofold decision, if she was honest; part of her just
desperately wished to feel like she had before the war, before everything, when her
teammates were insufferable but loveable - when Kakashi being there made her feel so
completely safe.
The rest of her was, she daren't admit, trying to see what boundaries she could push. Would
he let her effectively take control? Would he be suspicious that she'd stolen his trick, or was it
a generic enough icebreaker to pass muster?

Kakashi finally eye-smiled at them, and Sakura swallowed back the sadness that threatened
her all over again. His eye crinkled at the corners, and if she hadn't known him at all then
she'd have believed it wholesale - but it didn't extend down to his mouth, behind the mask.
There was something… cold about it.

"That sounds like an excellent idea." And he waited for them.

After a moment, Sakura cleared her throat. "Okay. Well, my name is Haruno Sakura, and I'm
a civilian-born ninja. I wanted to become one because…" Her voice trailed off. Why had
she…? The first time, she remembered giving Sasuke a doe stare and not finishing the
sentence, but she was beyond that childishness now. And besides, he hadn't even existed to
her when she'd actually first tried to enter the Academy. There had always been another
reason - but she tried to reach through the parallel memories, and came up empty. A moment
later, she decided to just give an honest answer. "Because I am a ninja. I couldn't imagine
anything else."

Perhaps that was another risk she shouldn't have taken. Kakashi was staring at her still, and
the faked eye-smile was gone.

Sasuke cleared his throat, and the tension broke. "I'm Uchiha Sasuke. Obviously, I'm clan-
born." Glancing up, Sakura met his gaze briefly and offered him a grateful smile; Kakashi
hummed, evidently feeling the brief relaxation in the group.

When, after a few moments, there was nothing else forthcoming, Sakura gave Hinata a little
nudge. Relief was bubbling in her chest, that Sasuke had nothing to say on the matter of why
he’d become a ninja. Given his birthright, it was the only logical path - and the fact he had no
grand plan to take revenge on anyone was… more freeing than Sakura had expected. It was
like finally breaking out of a genjutsu.

Finally, it started to seem really real. She’d stopped the Uchiha Massacre from happening.
There was still bad shit that was happening in Konoha, there were countless future threats
that Sakura still had to try and work around, but Sasuke was okay. She had to look away
again, letting her long hair shroud her face - as unfamiliar and disorienting a sensation as that
was - to force back the urge to cry. Again.

Hinata made a nervous little sound. “I… uhm… I’m Hyuuga Hinata. I’m… clan-born too.”
That was good enough; small steps. If they pushed Hinata all at once, she’d break under the
strain. Forcing a little smile, Sakura briefly gripped Hinata’s elbow and gave her a slight nod.
It was all the praise she dared, under Kakashi’s watchful eye, but she knew that he wouldn’t
miss it.

For a long minute, the silence came down around them like enemy fire. Finally, Sakura
decided that Kakashi wasn’t going to break it, and put on her brightest voice. “What about
you, Sensei?”
Even knowing Kakashi would never hurt a Leaf genin, even as she still desperately wanted to
do nothing more than run over and hug him until she couldn’t feel her own arms anymore,
the look on his face pinned her to the ground and made her heart skip a beat. It wasn’t that
she was afraid - but where Sasuke was better off, whatever had changed had clearly affected
Kakashi for the worse.

That’s my fault too.

Her blood froze. “That seems fair,” Kakashi offered, and the cold eye-smile was back. “My
name is Hatake Kakashi.” He said nothing more, but Sakura couldn’t help but fill in the gaps.
His family have been a ninja clan for a long time, and had a hand in founding Konoha. He
became a ninja in wartime. A thousand other things. Her throat felt tight; Kakashi-sensei -
her Kakashi-sensei - had been born into wartime, and he’d died in wartime, just like her.

At least he doesn't remember that.

The iciness in her veins seemed to crack into something else, and she let out a slow breath.
Kakashi had been a broken man far before she’d met him, but this time something she’d
caused had pushed him past the edge. However more distant he seemed, however more on
edge he was, that was her responsibility.

I’ll fix it, Kakashi-sensei. I promise.

She hadn’t taken her eyes off him, and he was still watching her back, although his attention
occasionally wandered to her teammates now. At her flank, she felt Sasuke and Hinata
exchange glances again.

This time, when she took a breath to speak - and she had a thousand more questions to ask,
Naruto not least among them - he beat her to it. “Well. Now that’s cleared up, on to business.
I want the three of you at training ground nine tomorrow morning, six thirty. Got that?” There
was a round of nodding. “Oh. Also don’t eat breakfast. And don’t be late.”

Sasuke let out an annoyed little tch as Kakashi vanished in a whirl of leaves (if Sakura looked
really hard, she thought she could make out his trajectory, but she couldn’t be sure). “That’s
rich, coming from him.” As best she could, Sakura muffled a laugh into a noise of agreement.

Next to them, Hinata looked a little green. “What do you think he’s going to have us do that
would make eating a bad idea?”

Sakura bit her lip. For their sake, she wanted to open her mouth and tell them to eat anyway.
They’d need their energy to try and take the bells from Kakashi. Sakura had little hope of
actually succeeding at the task - even if she’d had the ability to properly use everything she
was capable of, she was still certain Kakashi could outpace her. Perhaps not with ease,
anymore, but Sakura didn’t really think that she could beat him. Still, actually succeeding
wasn’t the purpose of the bell test, and Sakura had no doubt they’d pass that.

But actually saying that they should go against the first direct order their sensei had given
them? Even if it was technically in their best interests, that wouldn’t look very good. As far
as following her ‘native’ self went, there wasn’t any way she should know what was in store
for them tomorrow.

“Well…” She couldn’t justify it. At the very least, she could play along and follow orders
too. Keita-san would be furious with her if he found out, she thought idly. “Whatever it is,
we’re a team now, right? We can do it together.”

And maybe, if she was lucky, Kakashi was still spying.

Tonight - as with most nights, as he understood it - the Cattery was quietly busy. Jōnin in all
states of official dress and drunk littered the slim bartop along the far wall and the various
booths that lined the others. Several brave (or shameless) souls were dancing in the vaguely
open floor between them.

The music was a welcome distraction, at least. Too quiet to get in the way of conversation,
but loud enough that even a room full of the most finely-tuned senses in Konoha could muse
away without listening to each other’s conversations.

Right now, that was what Uchiha Itachi was most grateful for. It helped mask the giggling
sitting across from him (four shots deep) while he morosely swirled his (first) drink in its
glass. He found no appeal in it - one sip had been enough to say definitively that it tasted like
the morning after a concussion - but there seemed to be some mandatory unspoken rule in
effect that said he had to have one in hand.

When the giggling began to quiet, he sighed and looked up again. “Is that all the advice you
have for me?”

Waving over the girl serving drinks (wrapped head to toe in thin stretchy material that Itachi
thought looked suspiciously like Anbu blacksuit, and sporting a meagre sash stitched with the
Cattery’s insignia in reflective gold thread), Yūhi Kurenai laughed again. “I’m honestly not
sure what to tell you. Every genin squad is different - you have to adjust to them just as much
as they have to adjust to you.”

Pink dusted Kurenai’s cheeks as she ordered another shot and a cocktail to chase it down
with, her pupils wide in red eyes, and Itachi frowned slightly. It wasn’t that he considered it
bad advice - it was that she was able to give it so succinctly while obviously intoxicated.
She’d barely even slurred. “Exactly how much practice do you have at this?” he asked, and
Kurenai cocked her head.

“At… genin? I’ve only had the one team before.” Not exactly what Itachi had meant, but it
could safely be let slide. For a moment, she hummed, and placed a finger against her jaw
thoughtfully. “I suppose that means you should take my advice with a grain of salt.” The
serving girl bounced over, and Kurenai flashed her a wide smile as she took her drinks.
“Hmm….” her voice trailed off into the shot, and then she shuddered. Her expression said it
tasted bad - which Itachi could easily believe. He really didn’t understand the appeal. “Why’d
you pick me to ask, anyway?”

Itachi hesitated a moment. “I’d already asked Kaede and Ryō, and I didn’t want to ask Gai.”
This time Kurenai’s laughter wasn’t contained to mere giggles. Some of the other jōnin shot
them looks, but otherwise there was no reaction. After a few moments, Kurenai took a quick
sip of her cocktail and let out a long, low sound. “Well, you know what Tsunade is like. This
is probably as much for your benefit as theirs. Who’d she saddle you with anyway?”

“Aoishi Ren and Aburame Shino.” Itachi swirled his drink. “... I’m slightly concerned for
their safety.”

Squinting at him, Kurenai hummed and took another sip. “Cause their sensei has a reputation
as wicked as yours? I mean, she saddled Kakashi with a team too.” Jerking her thumb over
her shoulder, she indicated the man where he was sat comfortably in the corner, an untouched
drink and both his feet on his table, nose buried in his orange book. Itachi pretended not to be
able to read the title.

“No. Because whatever I’ve been supposed to teach Neji over this past year, I’m worried
he’ll forget it and kill them the moment he gets frustrated with them.” Which would be
immediately. As if Neji’s continued self-righteous attitude wasn’t enough of a marker of
Itachi’s failure, his temper hadn’t improved any either.

Itachi sighed, and found himself taking another sip of the foul liquid that was supposed to be
beer. Only a lifetime of discipline kept him from spitting it back into the mug. This time,
when he put it down, he put it out of swirling distance. “Well… Tell ya what, Itachi.” A faint
slur coloured Kurenai’s voice now. She took another sip of her cocktail. “Since I didn’t get a
team this year… I could come by and help you out with yours. I mean, if you want.”

As much as it rankled to accept help in what he recognised as a vital mission for the future of
Konoha, it was better than allowing his pride to screw it up. “I would… greatly appreciate
that, Kurenai.” A pause. “If you’re up to it tomorrow, I’m meeting them in training ground
six. I expect we’ll be there all day.”

Movement behind Itachi distracted Kurenai’s gaze, and she offered only a vague hum and
nod in return; Itachi frowned slightly but didn’t turn. Kaede rarely bothered to hide her
chakra signature while they were in the village.

“Kurenai,” the taller kunoichi began, leaning down until she was right in Kurenai’s face. Her
voice was slurred - ruining the otherwise serious tone. “You and I… have to celebrate.”
Before either Kurenai or Itachi could ask what, she’d taken Kurenai’s hand and tugged. “I
love messing with the little bastards, but no genin this year means real missions!”

Without even knowing what the context was, most of the bar let out a concordant cheer. Even
Kakashi glanced up from his corner.

“Sorry, Itachi,” Kurenai laughed out, swiping her cocktail and downing the rest of it while
she resisted Kaede’s pull to the makeshift dancefloor. “Hey-- How about you take Mitskuni
home. Sound good?”

She was gone a moment later, spinning happily to the music with Kaede laughing and
copying her movements, and Itachi cast his gaze across the bar counter until he spotted a little
head of blond hair. After a moment, Itachi got to his feet; a pause, while he considered
Kakashi again. While this wasn’t the first set of genin that had been assigned to him, Kakashi
had never technically led a team.

Not since Anbu, anyway.

Black met black and Kakashi held Itachi’s gaze for a moment before nodding his head
towards the little ball of what possibly amounted to jōnin. Another moment, and Itachi broke
eye contact.

Mitskuni moaned when Itachi came to a stop next to him, evidently sensing his presence.
“Let me die,” he mumbled into the varnished wood. Critically, Itachi looked him up and
down.

“I’m fairly certain that would be treasonous. Better for you to go home.” A groan met the
pronouncement, but Mitskuni offered no resistance when Itachi took him delicately by one
arm and slid him off the barstool. As tiny as he was - barely up to Itachi’s chest - his balance
even while thoroughly drunk was testament to his deserved jōnin ranking. “Can you walk?”

For a moment, Mitskuni seemed to consider it. He raised one hand, index finger extended,
and opened his mouth to speak. Froze for a moment. Then he snapped his mouth shut again
and held a hand over it. Whimpered out a no, shaking his head slightly.

Itachi sighed. No wonder he’d been given the task of taking Mitskuni home; he was among
the few Konoha jōnin who wasn’t much for drinking, and of that limited pool only Kakashi
never got stuck with escort duty. What was he doing that Itachi wasn’t? It wasn’t as if Itachi
couldn’t be scary when he wanted to be.

Damn it.

Mitskuni was light, at least, as he hung deadweight in Itachi’s arms, head rolling off one of
his shoulders. The trip was quiet, once they made it out of the Cattery and Itachi could safely
walk at his full stride. The night air was still warm in late summer, but the breeze tugged
playful fingers at Itachi's hair. “You know,” slurred the little drunkard while Itachi rounded a
corner close to Mitskuni’s apartment block. “... I’m gonna die.” Itachi rolled his eyes. “I
haven’t even been a jōnin for six months yet. Tsunade’s trying to kill me.”

“Your genin aren’t that bad. You know for a fact that they’ll cooperate; their formation has
served well for generations.”

Mitskuni groaned again, letting his head roll until he could look at Itachi’s face. Dark green
eyes flickered up and down a little, having trouble focusing. “I can barely handle a group of
chūnin.” Slurred so badly that Itachi was having a little trouble picking out the words.
“Nobody told me that… that promotion came with leadership.”

“I know for a fact that they did,” Itachi countered, pausing to contemplate the building and
then deciding to walk up the civilian way; trying to balance his way up the side with only his
feet as stable connection points and a whole other person in his arms would be a disaster.

“Weren’t you just… complaining ‘bout your team?”

Sternly, Itachi frowned as they came upon Mitskuni’s door. “I wasn’t complaining. Merely
voicing concerns about my own competency. Neji is… difficult. I don’t believe I’ve made
much of an impression on him, even after a year.”

Mitskuni hiccupped. Tension shot through his abdomen and coiled in his chest, and for a
moment Itachi was convinced that he was about to get vomited on; then, Mitskuni hiccupped
again, and relaxed. “Sure. Key?” One hand fumbled through the flak jacket he was still
wearing, and produced a small key. “Key.”

“If you would prefer, I’d happily trade teams with you.” The offer wasn’t serious, as Itachi
set Mitskuni down on the couch. Tsunade had created the graduation teams as she had for
reasons - Itachi imagined very specific reasons - and there was no swapping them around.
After all, a mission was a mission; being a sensei was a very real order, just like everything
else.

Mitskuni squeaked as he sprawled out on his side. “No thanks.”

Once more, Itachi rolled his eyes. The key went on the kitchen table, and on his way out the
inside lock for the front door was flipped back up. A vague “Thanksss Itachi…!” drifted out
after him, and then the door clicked shut. Mitskuni was a jōnin, even drunk - he’d be fine. For
a moment, Itachi savoured the lazily moving wind - finally with a less pungent odour of
alcohol - and then he sprang off the open stairs and into the night.

All in all, the mission to seek advice from the other jōnin had been a roaring failure, and he
no more looked forward to trying to integrate two new graduates into the dynamic (such as it
was) that he had established with Neji over his year of solo training than he had before.
Somehow, all the same, Itachi felt better about it.

There was something to be said for the value of camaraderie.

 The Sound of Bells is a Cold One
Chapter Summary

Sakura is prepared for the Bell Test - and then, she is not.

Chapter Notes

I'm thinking that I'm going to have to break this up into separate books - Naruto is so
damn long and sprawling that tackling it in smaller chunks is best for my sanity LMAO
Are there any places y'all would prefer those breaks to go?

Next chapter due by: 22nd March 2020

Ignoring his mother and Itachi eating breakfast as he'd gone about his morning ablutions had
been harder than he cared to admit. When Mother had asked, he'd responded with a simple
"My sensei told me not to," and she'd laughed softly and accepted it. Itachi had seemed a tad
more upset with the idea, if the faint narrowing of his eyes was any indication, but he hadn't
spoken.

Now, he was regretting it more than ever; Hinata had already been waiting at the entrance to
ground nine when he'd shown up, the sun already cresting the horizon, but they had five
minutes left until six-thirty and Sakura was yet to show. He'd have spared more energy to
worrying about it, if his stomach wasn't quietly growling at him, angry with the lack of food.

He dreaded the hunger cramps he no doubt had to look forward to once they started actually
training.

"Good morning, Sasuke-san," Hinata had intoned at his approach, and he'd mumbled a vague
reply while going over to the fence and settling on one of the wider posts. He had nothing
against the girl, personally - he knew only too well that many of the older Uchihas still
disagreed bitterly with Tsunade-sama's decision to create as many Uchiha-Hyuuga teams as
logistically possible, but he neither understood nor shared the sentiment. The Hyuugas were a
strong clan. Worth respecting, even if a lot of his elders seemed to think that uniting was
impossible.

On that, Sasuke agreed with Itachi. They were all Konoha-nin. They shared common allies
and common goals. It shouldn't be so damn difficult to just get along. And besides, it had
been the alienating of the clans that had led to--
Well, Sasuke tried not to think about that.

“What time do you think Kakashi-sensei will get here?” he asked idly, leaning back with his
palms on the edge of the post, and glancing over at Hinata. She jumped, fixing startled eyes
on him; was she really so shocked merely being talked to?

Maybe it’s just someone actually asking her opinion, Sasuke thought darkly. Whilst most of
the Hyuugas were alright with him, there were a few that he had trouble reconciling with the
idea of unity - and the current Clan Head was firmly in the lead.

She shuffled her feet. Wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I… I’m not sure, Sasuke-san.”

Waving a hand towards her, Sasuke sat up straight and tried out a few stretches. “Just Sasuke.
You heard ‘kura yesterday.” A little noise of acknowledgement - or maybe it was just a
squeak - and Sasuke held back a little tch of irritation. Was this girl a kunoichi or not? The
hitai-ite hanging around her neck said she was, but Sasuke was starting to wonder if it was
earned. Would the Hyuuga patriarch stoop so low as to buy his daughter’s way into a career
that could only end in her death?

His thoughts came up short. The Uchiha clan leader - his very own mother - would never do
such a thing, but Sasuke had no such beliefs in Hiashi’s morality. For a moment, he just
stared at her.

What would Itachi do? The answer, when it presented itself, was deceptively simple. Find out
for himself.

In one fluid motion, Sasuke hopped back off the fence and walked right up to her. She was
only barely shorter than him, but somehow she seemed even smaller as she stared up with
wide, white eyes. He couldn’t help the little twitch of his mouth, but he suppressed the shiver;
being unable to see the Hyuugas’ pupils was never a comfortable sight. The silence stretched
out for another minute, while Sasuke sized her up and she waited for whatever she thought he
was going to do. Narrowly built, just like all the Hyuugas, but Sasuke couldn’t gauge how
much was lean muscle hidden by the loose hoodie, and how much was self-neglect. She
wouldn’t be the first kunoichi to be stupid enough to try it - although somehow, he thought
that Hinata might be above such behaviour.

He hoped.

Done trying to glean what information he could by sight, he turned away and began to walk.
“Come on. We have to wait for Sakura and Kakashi-sensei to show up; let’s get some
sparring practice in.” His stomach rumbled its disagreement with this plan, but Sasuke
pushed it away. Ninja went without food all the time - not by choice, of course, but hunger
was something he was going to have to get used to. If he couldn’t spar through one missed
meal, then a real battle would probably see him dead.

The noise Hinata let out was more strangled than squeak, but he heard her hurry after him
anyway. “Are… Are you sure? I’m not much of an opponent…” Sasuke spared her a glance -
a ripple of shock made him miss a step. With how quiet her voice had been, he’d assumed she
was still catching up with him, but she was right on his flank, tapping her fingertips together,
staring at the ground as she walked.

She was fast. And she was quiet. A point against her position being bought, then, and a
damning mark against whoever had convinced her she wasn’t any good. Too early to be
certain of either, of course, but Sasuke was close to confirming it. He’d never been any good
at patience.

Without being told, she took up a position on the near side of a very scuffed sparring circle,
and watched Sasuke walk to the other. One hand darted up to tuck her bangs behind her ears.
“You cool with skipping warmups?” he called across the circle, briefly stretching again and
then settling into a resting stance. Decidedly not Academy standard, held a bit higher, a bit
further back than the generic taijutsu taught through the Academy, ready to dance back and
fire off elemental techniques.

She'd already slipped into her own pose, held lower and lighter on her feet, a steadying
presence without permanent grounding to get in the way of spinning at a moment's notice. "...
Yes," she called back - softer, but it carried far enough. "Are we using dōjutsu?"

Sasuke bit back the chagrined growl; it was born out of shame, and it wasn't Hinata's fault.
What would Itachi do. A silent reminder to himself, as he took a sharp breath and tried not to
blink too obviously. "I don't have my Sharingan yet." Bitten out as evenly and calmly as he
could manage - but forced through his teeth all the same.

"Oh!" Red bloomed out across Hinata's face. "I'm sorry."

Letting a soft breath hiss out was better than getting upset. Sasuke couldn't expect a Hyuuga
to understand how the Sharingan worked; after all, it was a secretive topic, and Sasuke didn't
know anything more than the basics of Byakugan. "It's fine. Shall we start?"

After a moment of hesitation, Hinata lifted her hands into uneven positions in front of herself.
"Okay."

Maybe it was unfair - whatever her skill level might turn out to be, his self-confidence was
infinitely better than hers, and he knew it. But the moment she spoke, Sasuke leapt at her,
aiming for a low jab to the stomach. He'd try to avoid her face; it was only a spar, after all.
Her eyes went wide as he shot towards her, and for a moment Sasuke thought he'd
overestimated her, that it was about to be over. Throughout their Academy tenure, he'd seen
Hinata spar many times - he'd had to spar her himself - but she'd only ever given a token
resistance, and given in soon afterwards.

Catching his attack, Hinata swept down with one hand; knocked Sasuke's out and away from
her, redirecting his momentum to go beside her instead of at her. She spun with the
movement, and Sasuke saw the counter coming clearly. If she struck him in the back, he'd go
to ground.

At least she wasn't actually using Jūken on him, if the continued ability to use his hand was
any indication. Unresisting, Sasuke let Hinata's block redirect his motion into a spin, picked
up one foot, and twisted with it. All his momentum shifted as he controlled the would-be
stumble, and just as Hinata came around to strike him, his foot made contact with her chest.

She was thrown back a few metres, lost her footing, and landed flat on her arse. Her breath
puffed out, wincing as Sasuke caught his own balance and gently set his foot back on the
ground.

Point to him.

"You alright?" he asked from where he stood. Even if he'd rather have had a more competent
teammate - one of his Uchiha classmates, or the quietly skilled Aburame, or even one of the
other Hyuugas - he wasn't as disappointed as he could be. She at least had a good reaction
time, had defended herself with some vague sort of attack plan. There'd been a steadiness in
her block that he hadn't expected.

Taking a deep breath, Hinata pulled herself to her feet. "I'm fine, thank you." Soft, but even
though the kick to her chest had to hurt (and Sasuke felt a little bad, even though it had been
nearly impossible to properly pull his strike and maintain his balance in such a precarious
position), she rubbed at it once and then dropped back into her combat stance.

Part of Sasuke wondered if it was because she was waiting until he called the end of it, or if
she was just used to going until she couldn't anymore. There was almost something… warm
about the idea. It was a feeling Sasuke was well familiar with; it was nice to have something
in common with her. They'd be stuck with each other for a long time.

"Okay." She didn't attempt to engage him, and this time Sasuke took a pause to circle her
slowly, watching her turn to keep him in front of her. Some invisible line was crossed, and
Sasuke jumped at her again - this time, he aimed low and caught himself just as he reached
her. Swept his foot out to knock her off her own. Fast as she was to try and dance back, he
made contact. With her Jūken style already keeping her light on her feet, even a hit less solid
than Sasuke's was would have toppled her. She went down almost instantly, but even as
Sasuke reset himself and jumped after her, she was tucking her chin to her chest and turning
her fall into a tumble. Out of his reach - she probably wouldn't initiate an attack, which meant
he had no choice but to close the distance himself.

Her gaze tracked him as he rotated around the sparring circle again, and when he did finally
dart in again, he settled for a flurry of short jabs. She blocked all of them, her expression
hardened in concentration, but she made no attempt to counterattack. One opening slipped by
- a moment when Sasuke's hands had both been knocked aside in quick succession, but her
stomach was unguarded and he had the balance to slam a knee into it.

Ignoring that opportunity, he drove her further back, one step at a time while she continued to
simply defend. There was no need to land attacks that could actually hurt her; Sasuke had a
feeling that Kakashi-sensei would do more than enough of that, today. He'd seemed nice
enough, when he'd spoken with them yesterday, if somewhat withdrawn, but he’d been that
way the first time they’d met, and Sasuke knew his reputation. Itachi spoke very highly of
Hatake Kakashi. There was no doubt that their training would be brutal.
Hinata seemed confused when Sasuke suddenly stepped back, ceasing his attack. For all her
reluctance to actually fight him, she had an excellent defence.

It only made the thought that someone else had trained her to doubt herself so much even
bitterer on Sasuke's tongue.

"Are you okay?" she asked nervously, the hint of steel that had been in her eyes totally gone.
Instead of speaking, Sasuke allowed himself a small smirk and looked down. Hinata's gaze
followed. In between them was the curve of the sparring circle border - Sasuke safely inside
it, and Hinata pushed out. "Oh." And she forced a little smile that fooled neither of them.
"Sorry, Sasuke. I wasn't paying attention."

The smirk morphed into a scowl. Leaving the circle was as valid a loss as anything else - he
could recall countless times when it had been the chosen method of elimination back in the
Academy. Despite Sakura's lacklustre taijutsu, it was the chief cause of the victories she did
have.

And Hinata shouldn't be apologising for Sasuke's use of it. What was she even apologising
for? Not being an exciting fight?

"Come on," he said instead, moving back towards the other side of the ring. "Let's go again."

He won twice more before his irritation finally got the better of him. Offering Hinata a hand
up from her place on the ground, he laid the trap - and she took the bait. As soon as her
fingers curled into his, he yanked. Hard. Jolted up, Hinata stumbled and gave no resistance,
pulled flat against Sasuke’s chest for a moment before he kicked her feet out again and took
her to the ground. Completely under Sasuke’s control, she was spun around onto her front as
she went down, the hand still locked in Sasuke’s pulled taut behind her back. One of Sasuke’s
knees went straight into the small of her back, applying pressure to prevent her from
struggling; the other went a little further until his shin lay across the backs of her legs, just
above her knees. She still had one hand free, but so did Sasuke.

Wisely, she didn’t struggle, but she let out a sharp squeak of surprise, and then went
motionless underneath him. For a moment, the silence stretched out, broken only by the
faintest of panted breaths. Whether it was exertion or fear, Sasuke wasn’t sure - but he let
them billow in the dust under her nose all the same.

“... S-Sasuke…?” she finally quavered, and - being careful not to actually pull and risk
injuring her - Sasuke tightened his grip on her wrist.

The increased pressure on her back would hurt, as he leaned down slightly, but it wouldn’t do
her any lingering harm. She bit back a noise of pain. “You don’t fight; not really. You just try
to make sure I don’t hit you, and that can’t last forever. You’re a kunoichi, not some pacifist
monk. Start acting like one.”

A minute went by in silence, and while Hinata didn’t relax, she didn’t try to escape Sasuke’s
hold either. When it became apparent that she wasn’t going to, he leaned a little harder on her
back. She moaned softly. “... Are you going to… to let me up…?” There was an edge of fear
in her voice that told Sasuke she was worried that he wasn’t.
She was right. “Are you a genin or not?” Maybe there was more of a note of irritation in his
voice than he meant. “If you refuse to fight, you won’t survive. And now we’re supposed to
be a team.” Everything Itachi had ever tried to teach him echoed in his head. “You’ll get us
killed, too. If you want to get up, make me let go.” For a moment, she didn’t move; maybe
he’d come across too harsh. As dire as his warning sounded - and it was true - he wasn’t
aiming to become yet another source of discouragement. Just the opposite; to judge from her
defensive skill, she had the potential to be as good as he’d expect his teammates to be. She
just had to want to use it.

Pinned as she was, he felt the ripple of tension go through her as she tested his grip for weak
points. The smirk that played on his face was almost feral. There was hesitation in the way
she twisted slightly, putting the motion into her hips to avoid aggravating his hold on her as
much as possible, but she didn't stop when it dug his knee deeper into her back. Tendons
flexed tangibly under his shin as she kicked her feet up - and the moment he took notice of it,
she finally attacked.

It was more subtle than he'd expected.

Initially, he thought she was still just testing him, twisting her wrist slightly, getting her free
hand under her to brace and keep it out of Sasuke's reach. Only when she suddenly tugged
her wrist out of his grasp did he feel it; barely-there, like a tangible echo. Numbly, his fingers
failed to tighten and when she threw her whole body into a roll and bucked him, he didn’t
stop her. Instead, Sasuke let go of her entirely and reached to catch himself, blindsided by
how easily she'd dislodged him; understanding set in as his body ignored the intention of his
brain and he crashed sideways into the ground. He could feel his chakra go into flux within
his skin, so clearly she hadn't fully deactivated his tenketsu, but whatever imprecise
disruption she'd made was enough to take him off guard.

He'd been right, earlier.

She was fast.

In moments, she'd set upon him and pinned him down, straddling his chest to hold him with
her bodyweight, knees pressed down on his upper arms just above the elbows. His legs were
free to attempt resistance, but so too were both her hands to fight it. For just a moment, there
was a victorious glint in her eyes.

Then she turned crimson, and the weight on his arms eased a little. "Uhm… Sorry. I'm s-
sorry." Her voice was small, while she looked away and let her bangs fall forward to obscure
her face.

Sasuke felt the shock go through her as he started laughing. "Way fucking better." Eyes wide,
she looked back at him; still chuckling quietly. "I’ll admit it. You caught me off guard."

Crimson filled her face, and then she loosed her pin, easing back and then getting off him,
awkwardly standing back up. Her right arm went across her front, gripping her left elbow a
little too hard. "I-- Thank you…?" As if she was unsure what to even do with herself. At least
she wasn't apologising again.
Gingerly, Sasuke sat up and stretched out, shaking full control back into his hands and
expelling small bursts of chakra to ensure that his tenketsu were properly opening up again.
"So are you actually gonna spar me this time?" he asked, getting properly to his feet and
jumping slightly in place. Still the faintest sense of numbness in his fingertips, but otherwise
everything seemed to be in working order. Perhaps she'd just disrupted his chakra flow, rather
than blocked it entirely.

Hinata bit her lip, but she met his gaze briefly. Nodded.

This time, when Sasuke won their spar, he had a quietly throbbing bruise on his left upper
arm that he knew would be a nasty hue of purple by the afternoon, and a borderline feral grin.
Hinata was panting softly from where Sasuke had knocked her to the ground, but she smiled
more fully and once again accepted his hand; this time, Sasuke pulled her up to her feet and
then let go.

“Is your arm okay?” she asked, flexing her own hands out. The question pulled Sasuke’s
thoughts - already planning a new mode of attack - into a brief tailspin. Glancing down, he
tried to curl his fingers into a fist briefly, and felt the odd numbness of inactive chakra coils.

He blinked. “You locked my tenketsu again.” There was no anger in his voice. If anything, he
was impressed - she wasn’t using her Byakugan, and they hadn’t agreed on any rules against
moulding chakra. Sasuke himself had been using brief spurts to move faster throughout their
spars. The fact that she’d used what had to amount to guesswork and observation to hit him
accurately just said even more that her capabilities already far exceeded her beliefs.

Quietly, Sasuke wondered to himself where she’d be if she’d had someone like Itachi at her
back.

“Sorry. I was--”

“Don’t apologise for getting hits in during a spar.” Sasuke’s voice was sharp, and Hinata’s
blush turned white almost instantly; but she didn’t drop her gaze, and Sasuke felt the smirk in
his own face. “Though I’d really like the use of my arm back.”

A squeak later - markedly smaller than her others - and Hinata made a brief, one-handed sign
to focus her chakra. “Byaku…” trailed off, and lines formed around the corners of her eyes,
chakra veins lifting against her skin, the outline of her pupils just barely becoming visible.
With the fingertips of each hand, she tapped against his arm in several places, paused to
watch, and then nodded to herself. Stepped back. Released her Kekkei Genkai. “It should be
fine now.”

Stretching his arm out, Sasuke pushed little trickles of chakra out through his hand and
humming. “Didn’t even feel you do it.” And perhaps that would come with experience on his
part, but he was already miles ahead of most of his peers in terms of chakra sensory skill, and
Hinata’s touch had been so light - both times - that he didn’t even realise she’d used Jūken on
him until it had been too late.

“Sasuke!” called out a familiar voice, and he turned in tandem with Hinata to face their third
member, jogging towards them. Tilting his head, Sasuke glanced at the sky and tried to gauge
how late Sakura was. She was smiling brightly as she came over, running in place. “Have you
guys been sparring?”

Hinata just nodded, the shyness back again, but Sasuke discounted it. There was always more
to learn; she’d have to get over it sometime. “You’re late.” Quirked an eyebrow at her.

While Sakura laughed, Sasuke narrowed his eyes and looked her over more carefully. Was
she better today? Yesterday - as much as she’d tried to hide it - she’d slipped into one of her
weird not-her moods. He hadn’t seen it very many times over the years he’d been her friend,
but it was something that Ino had assured him was normal. For a given value of normal, he
supposed, but then shinobi in general were notoriously fucked up. It only made sense that
Sakura would be too; there had to be some reason a civilian would be drawn to the life of a
ninja. But, as she quieted the laughter into an amused smile, unease slithered under Sasuke’s
skin. The eerie moods that afflicted her had never lasted more than a day before.

Today, despite how normal she seemed to be trying to act, it hadn’t faded. It was there in her
eyes, the odd distance that made the real Sakura seem so far away whenever it happened.
Even as she smiled at them, and laughed when Hinata sheepishly admitted that Sasuke had
kicked her butt, as she offered some sweet encouraging platitude, there was something…
wrong about her expression.

She looks like Itachi, Sasuke realised suddenly as he studied her face. Not literally, not with
the heart-shaped facial structure or the bright green eyes or even the similarly long hair
(swept up in a tight ponytail with her red ribbon); but it was the same careful analysis that lay
underneath. Something calculative, something altogether disconnected. In Itachi, Sasuke was
so used to it that he barely noticed. His brother’s constant evaluation had nothing to do with
anyone else, and it didn’t detract from whatever immediate activity he was participating in.

In Sakura, it set Sasuke on edge, like a faint itch in his teeth. She’d never been like that. To
see it now was… unnerving.

“We should do a couple of laps to warm down and then settle in to wait,” Sakura was
suggesting. Still smiling brightly, but that guarded edge didn’t waver. “There’s no telling how
long Kakashi-sensei will make us wait.”

Hinata was already nodding, so Sasuke held his tongue and fell in line as they ran down a
circuit of the training ground; even if it was lasting longer this time, Sakura would probably
be back to her normal self soon. These moments were just part of being friends with her, and
there was nothing medically wrong with her. Still, it didn’t help the disquiet in his chest as
they slowly eased from running to jogging to walking. He remained slightly behind them as
they came even with the sparring circle again, and when Sakura went and flopped onto the
packed earth by the training posts, breathing harshly but grinning, he sat down a short
distance away.

Panting through her words, Sakura rolled onto her side and half saf up, giving Sasuke her
most winning smile. Part of him wanted to just let it go, but the odd change to the way she
held herself was still present. No matter what he wanted to believe, she wasn’t the same
friend he knew. “Huh… Better than… the first time… but I need to train a lot.”
The first time…?

She seemed to realise she’d said something wrong, because for the briefest second,
something like panic flashed through her face. “I meant-- Remember? The first time you let
me come running with you?”

Indeed, he did remember, and she was right; she’d been far more unfit then. Too busy
focusing on being ‘pretty’, she’d admitted under duress. The merciless mocking she’d
received from Sasuke as a result had only hardened her to get better, and while she wasn’t
anywhere near the skill of a clan kid, she’d never stopped gunning for him. One day, with
luck and training, Sakura would catch up with him.

But this was not about that.

“I see you got to training without me,” came the sudden voice, and all three of them just
about leapt out of their skin. Sasuke kept it to a sharp hiss of shock, and Sakura was on her
feet in an instant and half a foot back, ready to fight. Hinata shrieked. After a moment,
Kakashi-sensei tilted his head in her direction, reached up to rub his ear with one hand, and
said - as dryly as a man could manage - “Ow.”

Relaxing her stance, Sakura tipped her head; almost immediately, she deepened that into a
bow. “We figured that we should make good use of our time while we waited,” she offered in
response. Sasuke exchanged a glance with Hinata. Not that he would out her to their sensei,
but Sakura hadn’t even shown up until thirty minutes ago. She was almost as late as Kakashi.

Hinata bit her lip, squeaked again when Kakashi-sensei fixed her in a blank stare, and finally
shook her head to deny the silent question. She broke a moment later and looked away,
letting her bangs fall in front of her face.

An odd note was in Sakura’s voice as she spoke over whatever Kakashi-sensei had been
about to say. “You should cut your hair, Hinata.” White eyes went wide. “You’d look great
with short hair. And it won’t get in your way.”

“Says the girl with hair down to her ass,” Sasuke drawled back automatically. It didn’t stop
the way his hand had gone tight at his side. Something about all this was wrong. She was
wrong. Even then, Sasuke didn’t actually mean anything by it. Sakura had worn her hair long
for as long as he’d known her; even the ponytail today was a bold choice. Everyone had
insecurities, and Sakura’s physical appearance was one of hers. She’d always worn her hair
as a way to distract from the parts she was ashamed of.

Today, Sakura burst into laughter. Getting to her feet - still laughing away to herself - her
hand dipped into her kunai holster and came out with a knife in reverse grip. Something like
fear twinged in Sasuke’s stomach, complete uncertainty as to what she’d do with it. His
friend wouldn’t hurt him - but right now, in one of her peculier moods, was she his friend?
With a big grin, Sakura reached back and tugged the ribbon out of her hair. Pink strands came
loose before she gathered them all in her free hand and held them back. Intuition struck a
split second too late.
With a grand sweeping gesture, Sakura reached back, swept the kunai through her hair, and
then dropped the cut lengths at her feet. Shorter than her jaw, messy and jagged, her new
haircut ruffled in the slight breeze. “Easy. Shall we get to it?”

For a long, long minute, nobody did anything. Kakashi-sensei stared at her, unblinking;
Sasuke couldn’t read a damn thing about his expression through the mask and his hitai-ite.
Hinata just looked on, absolutely speechless. Finally, Sakura fidgeted. As if it was some kind
of cue, Kakashi took his gaze off her and smiled at them; or, Sasuke presumed he did by the
way his one visible eye crinkled up at the corners.

Sasuke’s attention was diverted, even as Kakashi reached into one of his many pockets to pull
out a pair of bells; they looked suspiciously similar to the kind of bells civilians attached to
their cats. He knew, of course, just what lay underneath that slanted hitai-ite Kakashi-sensei
wore. He’d always known, in a way - the murmurs had always been quiet but present in the
Uchiha compound, when he’d been very young. Kakashi of the Sharingan. Copy Ninja
Kakashi. He was almost more famed for the Uchiha Kekkei Genkai than the Uchiha were.
When Sasuke had been little, he’d liked the idea that the Sharingan he’d get one day were so
fearsomely known; when he’d gotten a little older, in the Academy, he’d resented it. Kakashi-
sensei was not an Uchiha. He’d not only usurped their reputation, but he’d stolen a power
rightfully theirs.

Now, he held more of a cautious respect for the man. Not an Uchiha, but welcome among
them. Now, Sasuke understood that he’d received his Sharingan eye as a gift, and hadn’t
stolen it from a murdered clanmate. Now, Sasuke had seen him gain the blessing of the Clan
Head, after the---

After the night he’d met Sakura. The rest of it didn’t bear thinking of.

Given all that, Sasuke had been… well, excited to learn that he’d gotten Kakashi as his
sensei. The whole Sharingan thing aside, Kakashi was so formidable a jōnin as to be
infamous throughout Fire Country - and other countries, too. By rights, he should have been
the most excited member of their team.

And there had gone Sakura, being weird.

“... until noon to try and take the bells from me,” Kakashi was saying. Mentally, Sasuke
slapped himself. Pay attention. “I advise that you each come at me with the intent to kill.”
Kakashi-sensei’s voice darkened. “Against someone of my calibre, you will be hopelessly
outclassed with anything less. Understood?”

All three of them nodded - Sasuke tried not to think about how alien Sakura looked with her
hair in an uneven halo around her head - and Kakashi tilted his head. Turned on his heel to
walk away; turned his back on them.

“One more thing.” Everyone paused. “Only the two of you who succeed in taking the bells
will pass this test and become my genin. Whoever fails will go back to the Academy.”
In the resounding silence that followed, Kakashi tugged out a neon orange book, stuck his
nose in the pages, and began calmly walking towards the large rock that marked the far side
of the sparring circle. Slowly, so slowly, Sasuke and Hinata met each other’s gaze.

I can’t go back to the Academy.

He almost felt guilty. Not an hour ago, he’d been training with Hinata so that they’d be viable
teammates - and now, he was going to send her home. She had the potential for sure, but
there was no way he was going to lose, and… well, Sakura was just smarter. Even if she
was… wrong… right now.

Between them, she let out a deep sigh. “Listen. We can sort out who gets the bells later - or
I’ll take the hit, I don’t mind.” There was a little twitch in Sakura’s nose. Liar. “But you two
are from clans. You can’t go back to the Academy.” Chills chased sincere warmth, and
Sasuke stayed silent. He had no idea what to feel about that, let alone say. She was right - and
he did believe that she’d do whatever she could to spare him the humiliation of being failed
by Hatake Kakashi - but… she’d always worked so hard. Surely she wouldn’t just throw it
away for Hinata. They barely knew her.

Hinata was ashen. “I…” she managed, breathless. A bruise was starting to show faint blue on
her jaw where Sasuke had hit her during sparring.

“Hey,” Sakura broke her thoughts sharply, putting her hands on Hinata’s shoulders and giving
her a little shake. “You can do this. You are good enough. I won’t let you be sent back,
okay?” Steel in her voice, an absolute confidence that was utterly foreign - but something…
familiar, there, after all. A compassion that Sasuke had never quite understood, but had
learned to appreciate. And then, much softer; “I won’t do that to you, Hinata. Hiashi will
never have to know.”

Cold lead dropped in Sasuke’s stomach. However suspicious he’d been earlier of the true
cause of Hinata’s self-doubt, it was different hearing someone else say it out loud. The
terrified paleness in Hinata’s face took on a tinge of sick colour.

But… all the same. “Are you sure?” he asked, voice low. No doubt Kakashi was
eavesdropping on them, no matter that he seemed to be perfectly content lounging on top the
rock in the morning sunlight, reading.

Sakura shook her head impatiently. “Of course. I’m clever, and I know a lot, but my physical
skills are still very lacking in comparison to yours.” A flick of her fingers indicated that she
meant both her clanborn teammates. “I don’t bring anyone shame for being sent back, and I
can actually get some benefit out of it. Unlike you two. It’s only logical.”

He didn’t buy it. Oh, she sounded genuine, and her reasoning was sound; Sasuke didn’t think
her incapable of such a deed by any margin. But the way she spoke was… almost dismissive.
She wasn’t even worried about it.

If she noticed his reticence, she ignored it. “But Kakashi-sensei is right. He’s way out of our
league. We don’t stand a chance unless we team up t--”
“Are you going to stand around all morning?” came the sharp voice. Bored, mostly, but… an
edge there, like he was disappointed. They almost got whiplash from turning to look at him.
His eye was just visible over the top of his open book. “You know that more than one of you
can fail?”

Only a tight grip on Sasuke’s arm kept him from leaping into action. Sakura was right - he
didn’t stand a chance against Kakashi. But he had to try.

“Let go,” he hissed, tugging - her fingers tightened, and pain lanced down to his elbow. The
wince was incidental to the shocked glance. When the hell had Sakura gotten so… strong?
She’d just admitted it was her physical prowess that was lacking.

At least she had the decency to look guilty as she did as asked. “We have to fight him
together. Trying to overwhelm him with numbers is our only shot. I have a few ideas, if you
guys are interested.” Hinata just nodded. She had nothing to lose, and she didn’t seem to be
breathing at all properly. If there was anything except a panicked mess inside that head,
Sasuke would eat his hitai-ite.

But he didn’t have anything to lose either. Sakura was smart. “... Okay. What’s your plan?”

Sakura was careful to keep her language simple while she laid out her idea for attack. There
was absolutely no doubt that Kakashi was listening to it, judging them, but that was part of
the real plan. She wasn’t afraid of being sent back to the Academy - either they’d pass
together, or none of them would. It really was cheating to know ahead of time what Kakashi
was really testing them for, but the shinobi world was a duplicitous place.

Besides… she’d learned that lesson from him good and well, all those years ago.

Still, Kakashi pretended to lounge on the rock as they broke huddle and separated out.
Stepping back quietly, Hinata activated her Byakugan to watch, and Sasuke and Sakura
started creeping around opposite sides of him. There was no point trying to move without
him seeing them - they were fully in the open, he’d had eyes on them already, and besides
none of them could yet move anywhere near fast enough to outpace him.

It was nostalgic, as she quietly moved into her position. Thinking about the first time she’d
taken this test was… strange. She’d never had cause to fully analyse that day before - not like
this. Every other time she’d done it, it had been only a small part of the litany of things she
had done wrong. All the way she’d failed her brothers. All the ways she’d failed Sasuke. But
not this Sasuke. And not this time.

If she was honest, Kakashi shouldn’t have passed them, that first time. They’d shown only
the barest shred of working together - and even then, what part of it Sakura had had was due
purely to naive idol-worship. If Sasuke hadn’t chosen to share his food with Naruto, Sakura
would have left him tied to the training post to rot. They’d had no business being passed on
teamwork.

Whatever Kakashi had seen in them, whether it had been a dark reflection of himself in the
last Uchiha heir, or if it had been the lost vestiges of his own sensei in the Yondaime
Hokage’s son, Sakura had been a lucky bystander to be caught up in it. This time, she
wouldn’t let them down. This time, she wouldn’t be the weak link. And this time, even if she
didn’t know where Naruto was and Hinata had taken his place at her side, she wouldn’t let
her team get hurt.

Kakashi got to his feet as they circled him, but he didn’t move from the rock. Instead, he
made a show of yawning so widely that they could see it through his mask. “Working
together, eh? You do know that you can’t all share the bells.”

Something cold settled under Sakura’s ribcage. It sounded like Kakashi, and he didn’t
seem… angry. If anything, he sounded curious. She couldn’t even quite name what it was
that made her hair stand up on end (not the welcome feeling of the faint breeze at her neck,
the sudden familiar freedom of having it short again), but there was just… something.
Experienced ninja lost or saved lives based on gut feeling; she didn’t dare dismiss it. But
without something to point at, all she could do was move cautiously, and remain vigilant.
Chakra hummed under her skin.

Across from her, Sasuke made his first handsign. Fingers tightened on the kunai in each hand,
a glance back to make sure Hinata was focused. One of the new memories flickered forward
as she questioned herself; Sasuke was fast enough. Compared to what she was used to,
compared to Kakashi, he was slow as dirt - but he was fast enough.

He worked through the handsigns, and Sakura hurled the kunai outwards, covering the two
open points of the diamond they were trying to put around their sensei. His book didn’t dip
even a little bit, but Sakura saw the faint narrowing of his expression.

He’d be proud of their teamwork, afterwards.

Surely.

As Sasuke finished muttering the activation phrase to himself - too quiet for Sakura to hear,
perhaps even too quiet for Kakashi to hear, although she knew he’d recognise the seals just as
easily as she did - Sakura drew back her fist and let her chakra flush into it. Humming
silently, she built it up, drew more than she wanted to, tightened her control of its flow. She
had less to work with than she was used to. She’d have to compromise unless she wanted to
blow the possibility of another strike.

Then she forced more chakra into her fist. They wouldn’t get another strike, but hopefully,
they wouldn’t need one.

“Now!”

Hinata’s voice was weak, but it carried far enough. At the exact moment Sasuke finished and
cupped his hands to direct his ninjutsu, Hinata made a single activation sign and Sakura
brought her fist down into the earth as hard as she possibly could.

Lots of things happened at once.

On either side, the two kunai Sakura had thrown gave a single pathetic curl of grey smoke
each and then the boomtags attached to their hilts erupted as Hinata set them off. In front of
Kakashi, Sasuke breathed his chakra into fire and the signature Uchiha fireball bloomed out
in a barely controlled spin.

Behind him, Sakura sent all her coiled chakra through her fist and into the ground in as short
and wide a band as she could manage. Pain blew open in her hand and shot up her arm, and
despite herself she let out a noise of protest. I’d forgotten how bad it hurt at first. This body
wasn’t trained for this kind of combat. These hands had never spent hours and hours
punching at training posts and - later - boulders to build up the resilience to perform these
attacks without crippling herself.

Too late, she remembered her own new limits. Once again, too late, she saw how vastly she
was overestimating herself.

The explosive tags sent smoke in all directions, and while Sasuke’s fireball burnt it away, it
spun out of control as he ran out of air and then flashboiled into acrid black smoke to replace
it. The ground cracked like thunder under Sakura’s assault and shards of jagged rock
exploded outwards, followed by a cloud of dust that choked the air. In the midst of that,
Sakura saw Hinata rock on her feet and then shoot into the mess as fast as she could.

Brave. Well done, Hinata. I’m proud of you.

Even if it didn’t work, she’d upheld her part of the plan. She’d gone in despite being terrified.
If Sakura had been their sensei, she’d have passed Hinata on that fact alone.

She didn’t see Kakashi jump. She didn’t see how the mess they’d made resolved as she fell
back and cradled her hand to her chest. When, squinting, she finally saw through the smoke
and the dust and the mayhem-- Kakashi was standing on the far side of the river that wound
through the training ground and its neighbouring ones, glittering peacefully beyond the rock
he’d lounged on. Held in one arm was Hinata - her hands held by the wrists by one of
Kakashi’s. Sakura could see her trembling from here.

For a moment, Sakura felt relief. They hadn’t succeeded, but she hadn’t expected to; what
mattered was the execution of their teamwork, and their combined efforts had forced Kakashi
to put his Icha Icha book away and take Hinata with him.

Then there was guilt. They’d endangered Hinata. Yes, she’d been brave - but they’d been
stupid. I was stupid. Too much power put into a technique she’d never performed in this
body, that she wasn’t prepared to control. Too much trust put into Sasuke’s ability to perform
a clean fire release when Sakura knew damn well his chakra held a lightning affinity, when
he hadn’t had years of practice and brutal training, when he didn’t even have his Sharingan --
He wasn’t the creature of immense power she recognised him as. Hinata wasn’t the battle-
hardened warrior who knew exactly what was worth giving her life for.

I’m not as strong as I think I am.

But they were only genin. Perfect analysis and execution of a battle wasn’t expected of them.
They’d fucked it up - I fucked it up, it was me - but they’d tried their best. They’d worked
together. If Kakashi had passed the first, disastrous Team Seven, he’d pass this one.

That certainty bled into sick confusion as Kakashi set Hinata on her feet, leaned down to
murmur in her ear, and let her sink slowly to her knees. There was no smile in his face,
walking with eerie calm across the surface of the river towards Sakura where she was sitting
on the ground, towards Sasuke leaning forward with hands on his knees and trying to lick off
the scorch marks kissing his lips. There was no amused exasperation that they’d fucked up a
team plan that badly.

He approached Sasuke. Instead of leaning down he folded his arms, considered for a
moment, and spoke. Just barely, Sakura picked it up. “A desperation play doesn’t suit you.
Letting your teammates take the majority of the risk? How very sporting, for a proud
Uchiha.”

Confusion became a numbing cold.

She could barely feel the pain in her hand as Kakashi came to stand before her; tilted her
head up obediently, to look him in the face, but everything was blurred and distant. Her
hearing felt wrong - if she’d not just heard him speak to Sasuke, she’d have thought the
boomtags had sent it skittering away. Each breath felt like frost in her lungs.

This wasn’t right. This wasn’t how he was supposed to… Why did he sound so… angry?
Kakashi had held a wounded spirit far before she’d first met him, but he was… kind, at heart.
He could be ruthless and cunning and merciless when needed, but whenever he could… he
chose to be kind. She’d thought he’d value their teamwork, no matter how badly they did.
She’d thought he’d sigh and tease them and quietly protect them like he was supposed to.
Like he had before.

He wasn’t supposed to react like this.

The silence stretched out, and slowly, Sakura managed to focus on his face. His eye was
glittering and cold; a scowl hid behind his mask.

“I…” She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even know what to do. She’d made a mistake,
obviously, but… but it wasn’t this bad. Why was Kakashi staring at her like she was an
enemy? “I’m… sorry…” Was that it? Did he want her to acknowledge she’d fucked up? It
slipped out of its own accord as she clamped down on the thought and held it with
suffocating desperation. “I’m sorry. I screwed up. I didn’t mean to… I didn’t want to put
Hinata in danger. I screwed it up.”

Why couldn’t she think? Was the anxious aura that hung around every one of her strange new
memories really that strong?

“You could have killed her.” There was a distant, chilling boredom to Kakashi’s voice. As if
he didn’t care that a genin could have died. I could have killed her? No, I… Feeling sick,
Sakura looked properly at the settling ground. Where she’d struck there was a narrow
depression, barely wider than her fist and no deeper than two or three fingers.
Beyond that, in razed points like a Bijuu’s teeth, were perfectly sharp rows of rock that fully
eclipsed the centre of their diamond, and tore the original big rock apart. Even further, the
smallest of them stuck out of the ground barely two metres short of where Sasuke still stood,
hands clenched, and trembling with anger.

She’d felt where to stop pouring chakra into her attack, and she’d kept going.

Stinging made itself known in Sakura’s eyes.

“All of you!” Kakashi barked suddenly, lifting his head and giving a sweeping look across
the mess they’d made. “Over to the training posts. Now.” He didn’t yell, but his voice cleared
the air between them with ease. Nobody dared disobey; still trembling, Sasuke stomped past
without looking up from the ground. Hinata swam the river, and came out shivering into the
late morning sun, hugging herself while she slunk towards the three posts. Still cradling her
hand, unblinking, Sakura hauled herself to her feet and quietly stumbled after them.

What a pathetic sight we make, she thought distantly.

Only now, as she sat down beside her team, did she realise that the conspicuous bag she’d
expected to carry the taunting lunch was nowhere to be found.

Without a word of further criticism, Kakashi half-knelt by Sasuke and pulled out a small,
round container. “Smear this on your lips and hands. It will ease the burning.” Then he got up
and turned to Sakura. Despite herself, as things started to become real again and the pain
came roaring back, she flinched when he knelt by her next. Escaped tears streaked down her
face like traitors fleeing capture. She still couldn’t pick up a proper expression through the
mask - couldn’t find the faint crinkly smile no matter how hard she looked. “Show me.” It
was an order. Despite herself, she held out her hand.

It wasn’t as bad as it felt, the calm med-nin part of herself observed. Kakashi’s hands were
gentle on hers, slowly flexing out her fingers and feeling along her metacarpal bones. Blood
stained most of her hand, and she’d ripped the skin right off her cracked knuckles. If she was
unlucky, she might have broken one finger. But even without being prepared to handle as
much sheer force as she’d put through her punch, she knew how to throw one. Her wrist
ached, and the whole of her forearm was throbbing, but Kakashi passed probing fingers over
the carpal bones and then pressed against her radius and ulna and she didn’t feel any telltale
movement. She’d bruise something fierce, but they weren’t broken. Once Kakashi was
assured of this, he pulled out a field dressing from-- somewhere. Even now Sakura wasn’t
certain just how many useful things he had tucked away in his flak jacket. The bandage went
around her wrist and then her hand in semi-pressured loops, and finally one more up around
her neck and back down to secure it. “Don’t move it around.” She felt the briefest touch of
his chakra to stick it down and prevent it from unravelling before he was already moving
away and turning to Hinata.

Good form. It won’t last more than an hour or two, but it’s a good temporary fix.

“Eat this.” Sakura caught the flash of foil, and then Kakashi had broken something off with a
snap and handed it to Hinata. A moment later, Sakura smelled chocolate. “When you get
home, get dry and warm before you do anything else. That is an order.”
And he stood up again.

Slowly, the cold began to ease. Different. But somewhere underneath, he was still there.
Something recognisable, a conflict between the kind man she’d always seen Kakashi try to be
and the cruel iciness she’d been told he’d embraced as a child. Different, but not gone. He
can’t be gone.

“Obviously, this was an unmitigated failure. Not only did you not take the bells from me, but
you put yourselves in danger to do it. One of you is no longer capable of fighting for them.”
Sakura felt very small. Surely, he wouldn’t carry out his threat. Surely he wouldn’t fail them.
Maybe her forfeit meant they passed by default; she swallowed the urge to defend herself.
She could absolutely fight if she had to - but she didn’t. This wasn’t real. It was just a test,
and they were just supposed to be genin. She’d already decided how to explain how she even
knew the technique, but…

Next to them, Hinata sniffled as she nibbled on the chocolate.

Another long minute passed as Kakashi just studied them. “But…” A heartbeat like a
fluttering bird. “... You worked together.” Hope bloomed like fire in her chest. “As ill-advised
and dangerous as your plan was, you executed it.” And just like the first time, even though
Sakura had been so sure she’d been prepared for it, the relief when he spoke made her dizzy.
“You pass.”

Sasuke stayed silent, scowling, processing that. Hinata squeaked, and then let out a shaking
breath as tears started tumbling down her cheeks. They could have been shock or relief or
both. Maybe she was just overwhelmed by how quickly the day had imploded around them.
Numbly, Sakura stared at nothing. How close, really, did I come to screwing this up? She
couldn’t even guess.

“You two. Get home, we’re done for the day. I expect you back here at eight tomorrow
morning.” The hostility in his tone had dampened back down to neutrality, but Sasuke and
Hinata didn’t need telling twice. She scampered to her feet and took off immediately; he was
slower, but he glanced back only once before taking his leave, still dabbing whatever
ointment was in the little round case onto the burns on his hands. For a long minute, until
they were gone, Kakashi and Sakura just stared at each other. “You’re going to need to come
to see the med-nins to have that properly looked at.” Still painfully even.

So she just nodded.

“Get up.” She tried not to rush, keeping her damaged hand held close to her chest where the
field bandage was loosely holding it, but she didn’t dally about it. The flares of pain where it
moved were nothing compared to everything else.

Things were different. Things had changed. She still hadn’t managed to get it all straightened
out in her head, and that was only the things she knew personally from whatever new
childhood she’d had. There was so much more that she didn’t know, so much more she hadn’t
even thought about yet. Things were different, but she’d assumed that it was still her home,
that Sasuke was still her brother, that Kakashi would still be there for her.
But things were different. This whole world would never be the one she’d abandoned to try
and save. It wasn’t hers.

The wave of loneliness that swept through her tore its way through every mental defence
she’d ever constructed, and without warning she found herself - once again - sobbing. Years
of discipline were all that kept her on her feet, and - lacking them - her body swayed. Her free
hand went to her face and rubbed at her eyes, but it was a fruitless endeavour.

Sakura would have given anything - everything - for Naruto to put his arms too tight around
her and squeeze.

In silence, Kakashi stood a few paces away and let her cry it out. Eventually, it slowed.
Strangled sobbing eased to whimpered hiccups eased to quiet sniffling. When finally, she was
left standing in equal silence and feeling as if she’d had the soul stripped out of her, one
narrow hand entered her field of vision. A tissue fluttered from between two fingers.

“... Thanks,” she managed, a hoarse little whisper, reaching to take it. Sakura kept her head
down while she cleaned off her face. She didn’t want to see what Kakashi thought of her - if,
indeed, she even would. Another sniff.

She felt the air change, as Kakashi reined in his chakra. It had been a steady pressure, just
barely there at the edge of her senses, something she was so used to sensing that she took no
notice until it changed. Finally, as it tightened and coiled into itself, becoming almost
undetectable, she looked up. One black eye and one red eye met her gaze. Almost instantly,
she was paralysed.

Despite everything, panic flooded her body. She was as skilled as any jōnin at breaking
genjutsu, but Sharingan was different. Motionless in her own skin, she struggled against the
red as it became the only sharp point of focus. Kakashi wouldn’t hurt me-- but the frantic
thought vapourised under the cold, crimson stare.

And for a long minute, there was nothing.

Kakashi blinked first, and as the connection broke Sakura’s knees gave out from under her
and she crumpled to the ground, squeezing her eyes shut. The inside of her eyelids lit up neon
with the afterimage of Kakashi’s Sharingan. She was shaking, she was sure, but she barely
felt it. “... Why?” Her voice cracked.

The sigh was deep and slow. “... I apologise.” With an immense effort of will, she made
herself look at him. His hitai-ite was pulled down again, covering his inherited eye; the frown
on his face was just as heavy as his sigh had been. “I had to be sure. You… are not the person
your file said you are.”

It felt like a crack in an iceberg, so far down that it could only be felt and not seen, but
understanding split through every other emotion. “You thought I was an imposter,” she
murmured quietly. Then - a sharp noise, too painful to be a laugh. How ironic. Sakura was
starting to suspect that she might very well be just that.
Kakashi hummed an affirmation. There was still no warmth in his eye. “You owe me an
explanation. Graduating does not award instant improvement. And you don’t behave like a
fresh genin.” Or at least, Sakura silently amended, not one from my generation. She’d grown
up in peace. Until the end, she’d never known war. Not like Kakashi had - not like the
generation before her had. Not like the one after her.

But there was no explanation she could give. The truth…. Itachi flashed before her eyes. The
truth was not an option. Kakashi would never believe her - and even if he did, all she had to
look forward to was the Anbu and endless interrogation. She’d already made this decision.
All that had stopped her from hunting down Itachi the night before was that despite the
lingering memory-dream she had of him, of marching right into the Uchiha compound when
it had still been all but annexed, was that in every other memory he appeared in, he’d
seemed… normal. He’d never attempted to speak with her about it.

She still needed to find out what had happened there, but it could wait. And she certainly
couldn’t do it while she was this clumsy, while Kakashi was so suspicious of her. My fault.
It’s my own fault.

“Where did you learn that technique?” with an indication to the broken earth behind her.
Sakura didn’t look back at it.

Frantically trying to drag together her own will, Sakura braced herself to lie. “I… I read
about it. It’s one of Tsunade-sama’s… right? I thought… I thought I’d be able to do it. My
chakra control scores were always my best. I… want to be like her someday.” It wasn’t an
unreasonable statement. Tsunade was the Hokage (almost a year before her time-- longer, if
Sakura sifted through her memories. She’d been Hokage for little more than five years). Lots
of shinobi aimed to be like her.

Naruto… where are you?

Kakashi studied her intently. Finally, he sighed and scrubbed his face with his hand. “...
Alright. And I suppose you learned about how to search for chakra signatures in a book, too.”
Flatly, but he held out a hand and - when she took it tremulously - hauled her to her feet. She
wasn’t steady, but she stayed up.

“Yes, Kakashi-sensei.” Small. It wasn’t entirely an act - but if she acted as awful as she felt,
then maybe he would believe her. “I… I don’t really know how to… pick apart what I’m
sensing, yet.”

She shouldn’t embellish, but it was closer to what she should be capable of while just picking
up the idea of it. She remembered the first time she’d learned it, under Kakashi’s quiet
coaxing. Then, thinking of how quickly she'd looked for him yesterday, she wondered if she
ought to have just said nothing.

“... Can you walk?” A nod, and Sakura took a step forward - and promptly toppled right into
Kakashi’s arms. “First official lesson,” he said darkly, picking her up. There was tension in
his arms, more than just her meagre weight: discomfort. “Don’t ever lie to me.”
He’d already leapt away towards the small shinobi walk-in center by the time she could draw
breath. “Yes, Sensei.” Once again, she reminded herself; she wasn’t the person she
remembered being. Not anymore. Maybe it would never sink in. But, finally, she had a
moment to spare - and Kakashi couldn’t avoid the question while he was carrying her.
“Sensei?” It got her a faint grunt.

It would have to do.

“... Where… Where’s Uzumaki Naruto?”

 A Day in the Life of a Konoha Jōnin
Chapter Summary

Every team starts somewhere.

Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

I’m getting soft, Itachi thought to himself as he dragged himself out of bed and threw on a
loose shirt and the first pair of pants he could get his hands on. Early mornings - even this
early, a little before dawn - were not an unfamiliar feeling to him, but it had been a long time
since Anbu and ROOT, and he’d let himself get used to slightly later wake ups. Itachi sighed
to himself as he padded downstairs as quietly as he could, careful not to wake any of his still-
sleeping family. The little flicker of envy as he slipped on his most casual pair of shoes and
left the house only further cemented the sentiment. He needed to push himself harder.

Not that sneaking out posed a problem to him, as he broke into a swift jog and then threw
chakra into body flickering once out of the central Uchiha grounds, but the fact he had to
convince himself to get out of his (nice, warm, comfy) bed at all went to show how much of
his prior training he’d lost. His mother would say that it was a good thing, he mused, but he
wasn’t so convinced. Sasuke would probably just laugh at him. Unbidden, a little smile
played about his face as he made his way towards the artisans’ district of Konoha. Maybe it
wasn’t so bad, if he let himself get a little used to comfort.

It was for a worthy cause anyway, flashing across the buildings and finally dropping back
down to street level. Most of the businesses here were only just starting to open up now, and
not yet to the public. Konoha held weird hours at the best of times, of course - it was hard to
cater to a ninja village and keep what Itachi understood to be ‘normal’ civilian hours - but
even so, it was yet too early for anything but custom orders.

Lucky for him, as Itachi approached the most trusted forgemaster in the village and paused at
the door. The family who ran the forge only offered their services to shinobi - and that made
sense, given that almost every order for specialised weapons or chakra metal Konoha had to
make went through them. Not only did that keep them busy, it kept them wealthy.

Besides, as he lifted a hand and knocked on the specially-built doorbell at the side of the
entrance, sending a little pulse of chakra through it. Civilian orders must be exceedingly
uninteresting compared to shinobi ones. The faint chiming of a bell reached Itachi’s ears, and
not a minute later the family’s elder daughter was opening the door. Still in her bedclothes,
she was rubbing her eyes but offered Itachi a big smile when she saw him.
“Uchiha-san,” she greeted him, stifling a yawn and stepping back to let him in. “Is this about
those shuriken?” A note of mischief in her voice; she thought the early hour of his visit
amusing. Or perhaps she just wondered if he had another outstandingly specific order to
place.

“Indeed,” he confirmed instead, stepping in and casting a glance around the relatively small
shop. Several examples of expertly forged steel hung on the walls and sat displayed on
stands, though even Itachi could recognise the subpar quality of the metal. It didn’t worry
him; that the display pieces showed their mastery without providing the temptation of theft to
any less-than-scrupulous Konoha-nin was only a logical precaution. Not that any ninja with
half a brain would steal from the Niikura hearth.

She made her way back around to the counter and pulled out a heavy book from underneath
it, flipping through with the ease of long familiarity. When she reached the relevant page, she
ran a finger down the list until she came to Itachi’s name. “Mmmm okay, you’re all settled
up.” Good thing too, because he had zero desire to waste time on sorting out payment this
early in the morning. Closing the book, she inclined her head. “Just a moment.”

It was indeed only a few moments later that she came back out carrying a medium-sized
package wrapped in nondescript brown paper and tied shut with deceptively narrow twine.
Flashing him that same smile, she handed it over. “There. Six of them, all completely
unattuned. Please don’t hesitate to return should there be anything you’re not satisfied with.”
Itachi nodded, and tucked the package under his arm. It was soft and squishy underneath the
paper; properly wrapped and protected, by the feel. “Have a good day, Uchiha-san,” she
called after him as he made to leave, and he glanced back over his shoulder.

Politeness dictated that he return the platitude, but it caught on his tongue in the same strange
way they always did, so he simply nodded again and walked out. She snickered at his back,
followed him to lock the door, and disappeared into the inner workings of the house. Sighing,
Itachi shook himself off and body flickered back up to the rooftops, flitting back across
Konoha towards home.

It would have been far more convenient to just take it when it had first been completed and
keep it hidden at home, but the risk had been too great that inquisitive little Sasuke would
poke his nose around and find it. Even the thought brought another lingering smile, as Itachi
touched down into the Uchiha grounds and let himself simply walk home. No matter what
small inconveniences it brought, the result would be worth it all; even the sizeable chunk it
had carved out of his wallet. For all that he’d found he truly didn’t miss the rigorous,
cutthroat life of the Anbu, Itachi had very much learned to appreciate the paychecks that went
with it.

Opening the door and getting back inside was harder than sneaking out; as it went, even as
stealthy as he was, Itachi walked right into his mother’s gaze as he passed back through the
living room and froze. Mikoto raised an eyebrow at him, but amusement played at the edges
of her expression.

“Good morning, ‘tachi,” she chuckled, setting down what breakfast preparation she’d already
done and approaching him. “A little early for a stroll.” A critical eye was cast over his far-
too-casual clothes.
Damn. He should have bothered with something more presentable.

Shrugging, Itachi indicated the package under his arm. “I had an errand to run. Did you sleep
well, Mother?” The faintest brush of Itachi’s chakra swelled through the house, searching for
Sasuke’s signature; he found it, still calm and steady upstairs, asleep. Mikoto’s other eyebrow
went up.

“Yes, thank you. I assume that wasn’t my chakra you were hunting for?” Of course she’d felt
it, even as gentle as the touch had been. Itachi couldn’t help the warmth in his chest; next to it
curdled the echo of cold that he hadn’t been able to shake, even after all this time. If I had
fought her, would I have won? He swallowed the question.

Gaze darting to the stairwell briefly, he shook his head. “It’s… a celebration gift. For
Sasuke.” Kept his voice low, even assured that his brother still slept and in fact wasn’t
eavesdropping. Again.

Mikoto broke into a dazzling smile. “That’s an excellent idea.” One arm went around Itachi’s
shoulders and he leaned into the hug; it was always easier not to fight it, even if he
sometimes wanted to.

Always wanted to, though it still felt nice, the proximity. The evident love in it.

“So what is it?” she asked, poking the package with one finger. Frowning at her, Itachi
transferred it to his other arm. There was no harm in telling her, of course - but paranoia
frayed at the edge of every thought, and Itachi didn’t want to say anything more aloud.
Sasuke was asleep, in his room, but there was always the chance that Itachi was wrong, and
he was loathe to spoil the surprise.

So he shook his head again. “You’ll see soon enough, Mother.”

Mikoto laughed and ruffled his hair. Quickly, Itachi ducked away from the ministrations.
“Alright, ‘tachi. Keep your secrets. See you for breakfast in half an hour, alright?” She went
back to her previous work; Itachi recognised the components to Sasuke’s favourite breakfast
as his gaze followed her. It seemed he wasn’t the only one giving Sasuke a celebration.

With a small smile, he made his way back up into his own room. Setting the package down
on his bed, Itachi went over to his desk and pulled out a brush, an inkwell, and a blank scroll.
It had been a while since he’d done more than simply repair or update his own storage
scrolls, but the technique was simple enough; so basic that it was amongst those taught to
Academy students.

Itachi paused. Maybe it could be beneficial to have Sasuke create the storage scroll for
himself…?

A moment later, Itachi discarded the thought. Time and effort better spent elsewhere - and in
any case, it wasn’t as if Sasuke could spare the time to do so this morning. He had a team to
meet, just the same as Itachi did.
(He tried very hard not to think about that for now).

If he’d done this yesterday afternoon as he’d initially planned, they would have had the time,
but Sasuke had been in a foul mood when he’d arrived home. Even with the news that he’d
passed Kakashi-senpai’s test and was officially on his team, he’d been so dour that Itachi had
thought it best to wait. Tiny threads of chakra spiralled down the special brush and into the
ink, reacting as he mapped out the circles and lines for the Seal. Sasuke hadn’t been
forthcoming as to why he’d been so curt with them, even when Itachi had asked and Mikoto
had needled him about it. The end result had been Sasuke skipping dinner altogether and
hiding in his room - even after skipping breakfast on Kakashi’s order and presumably having
missed lunch.

Maybe that was why Itachi had gone out of his way to do this in the morning, then. He didn’t
know if Sasuke would be cheerier today or not, but surely he would brighten now. A smaller
brush came out to mark the kanji around the edges of the Seal, even thinner chakra strands
woven into the strokes. It didn’t need much to properly react and set, and Itachi had better
control than most.

By the time he was done, and he’d risen to quickly wash the ink out of his brushes, Sasuke
was awake. He hadn’t emerged yet, but Itachi could hear his tread in his bedroom, and the
quiet little tch as he presumably tried to pick out clothes for the day. He still wasn’t out when
Itachi crossed back from their bathroom to put his brushes away; stifling a chuckle, Itachi put
his things away and held a hand over the freshly inked Seal. Moulding his chakra into heat
was the work of a moment. Already carrying a fire affinity, it bloomed into real heat without
the need to apply any force, and he slowly waved his palm back and forth across the scroll,
drying and setting the ink.

That would be a good idea, actually, when he met his team at the training ground today. It
would be worth running through what things the Academy taught that they were individually
capable of. Even if he only needed to do this with the two newcomers, it would be a fairly
straightforward way of getting them familiar with each other. Even this jutsu was, technically,
an Academy-taught one, though—

Itachi grimaced. Usually even such a simple technique as this required a handsign; he hadn’t
had to use one for it since it first cropped up in a lesson. He’d been five, at the time. Not for
the first time, Itachi cursed his own innate talent. Life would have been so much… easier, if
he’d merely been good instead of… whatever he was. That in mind, he made a note to get a
comprehensive list of the Academy curriculum before heading over to meet his students. He
wasn’t even certain what was Academy standard. Suddenly, his own memories on the matter
seemed unreliable. Knowing what his students were supposed to know was a step towards
figuring out what - and how - to teach them. Even if he had no clue how to explain the steps
of casting a jutsu through its seals when he himself didn’t need them.

Why did Tsunade give me genin?

He was going to ruin these children.

Putting all that aside for now, Itachi gave one more sweep of heat to the scroll, relaxed his
chakra, and picked up the package from his bed. A moment of hesitation, and then he
shrugged and stowed the whole thing. Might as well let Sasuke have the fun of unwrapping
it. Itachi rolled up the scroll, quickly dug around to put together a proper attire for the day,
and then finally made his way back downstairs.

Sasuke was already waiting impatiently for him, while Mikoto finished setting up breakfast.
“About time,” Sasuke griped to him, as he came and sat down, and Itachi had to fight down a
soft laugh. “I’m never up before you. What happened?” There was just the faintest hint of
concern in his brother’s voice; Itachi let the smile show.

“You weren’t. I had something to do this morning.” Itachi waved the scroll. As sharp as ever,
Sasuke’s gaze fixed onto it curiously.

Further questions were aborted as Mikoto came and sat with them. A short congratulations
followed - Itachi murmured his own, but left it at that - and relief washed through him as
Sasuke grinned in response. Whatever had upset him yesterday was apparently forgotten; or
if not, suitably pushed aside for now. “I never knew Kakashi-sensei was such an asshole,”
Sasuke complained halfway through eating, causing Mikoto to choke on a mixture of
laughter and food. He smirked. “Seriously. He’s always seemed so… I don’t know, relaxed
when he’s here.”

Through her continued snickering, Mikoto waved her chopsticks at him. “How was he ‘an
asshole’?” Thank the gods that she was amused by the mild curse and not angry.

Sasuke’s smirk turned into a scowl in an instant, and he stabbed at his food. “... He…
basically told me I was a coward.” Through gritted teeth. Internally, Itachi sighed - he kept
eating steadily, unsurprised by the harsh treatment Sasuke must have received during his
genin test. He should have expected it, really - he should have guessed that was why Sasuke
had been so upset. Kakashi-senpai’s methods for breaking in new team members had been
nasty - if well-intended - back when he’d been Itachi’s captain in the Anbu. In all the years
and with all the suffering that had happened since, it was hard to imagine that they’d gotten
softer.

Fumbling for the right words, Itachi kept his eyes down and picked through his breakfast.
“Try not to take it personally. He… It was a test for a reason. You passed - which is what
matters.” A quick glance up, to try and gauge if he’d actually helped. Sasuke was studying
him intently, but the moment their eyes met he gave a huff and looked away.

“I guess.” Mumbled. Still, the rest of breakfast went by smoothly enough, while Sasuke
recounted the bell test in disjointed fragments. Itachi wasn’t sure if Sasuke noticed when he
and Mikoto shared a startled look, as he explained the way Sakura had punched the ground,
and the ground had erupted. If he did, he didn’t mention it; but his tone soured a little more
after that. “... Sakura was in one of her weird moods, yesterday,” he finally volunteered,
dropping his chopsticks into his bowl with a clatter and leaning back slightly.

Breakfast was done, then. “That’s unfortunate,” Mikoto soothed easily, setting down her own
utensils. “But it must be nice to have her on your team.” Sasuke just grunted. “Mm. Well,
what do you think of Hinata?”
Itachi couldn’t really identify the exact emotion that flashed through him at that, but it was…
nice, he supposed. It was almost impossible to mention any member of the Hyuuga clan -
even the children, who’d not done anything to offend the Uchihas in their life - without
starting a row of some sort. No public or official action was ever taken against them (out of
fear for what Mikoto would do to the offenders), but there was no love lost between their
clans. Mikoto held no such prejudice in her tone when she brought up Sasuke’s second
teammate. It was… refreshing.

With any luck, Sasuke could avoid the bitterness that would break out amongst their peers
when word got around that he had been teamed with the current Hyuuga heir. There was
doubtless going to be an abundance of it.

Sasuke just shrugged. “She’s… fine. Too shy. If she doesn’t figure it out soon, she’s going to
get herself killed.” But there was no accompanying anger in his voice. Whatever that meant,
Itachi hoped that it would foster cooperation between them. With any luck, Sasuke would
learn how critical his team was much faster than Itachi had.

“Before you go,” he intoned quickly as Sasuke made to stand. When he hesitated - one
eyebrow arched in perfect imitation of their mother’s that morning - Itachi fought the urge to
snicker at him. He hadn’t sat back down, just paused in what had to be a supremely
uncomfortable position. “I have something for you.” Now Sasuke sat back down, eyes
widening as Itachi offered him the scroll. “For passing your graduation exam, and Kakashi-
senpai’s bell test.”

Quite eagerly, Sasuke moved back and opened the scroll, flexing his hand before applying
chakra to the Seal and making the brown package appear in a puff of smoke. He rolled his
eyes as the smoke cleared. “So what is it?” But he was already ripping open the paper, so
Itachi didn’t bother answering. Underneath were sheets of newspaper scrunched up into loose
balls to provide some cushioning, and slowly Sasuke picked out six small hexagonal
pouches. There were little notches fastened to the back of each one, and when he opened the
first, the faint glint of metal lined the inside.

He let out an excited noise as he lifted out the shuriken; slightly larger than standard issue,
with five points instead of four. The edge, running the full length of the star, was a faintly
paler metal than the rest of it, fused to the core with expert precision.

“That’s chakra metal,” Mikoto observed, surprise in her voice. When Itachi looked, she was
watching him with slightly widened eyes. “How long ago did you commission these, Itachi?”

A faint coil of embarrassment rose in his chest, although he wasn’t entirely sure what he had
to be embarrassed about. “... Six months,” he admitted, sheepish. “I knew Sasuke would
pass.”

Whatever lingering gloom had been about Sasuke vanished, and he held the shuriken up to
inspect closer, big grin in place. “This is really chakra metal?” he asked in delight. Itachi
merely nodded, smiling quietly to himself. The possibility of Sasuke rejecting the gift had
been a heavy weight, he realised now as it lifted. “So… it’s not attuned?”
“Of course not,” Itachi intoned, pushing back against the almost fragile note of hope in
Sasuke’s voice. “They’re yours. You should attune them.” A pause. “Besides which, I
couldn’t do it for you. My affinity is fire.” And that had been a surprise in its own right, when
Sasuke had come home after passing his graduation exam and been so nervous that Mikoto
had bribed it out of him: his chakra affinity wasn’t the typical Uchiha fire, but rather
lightning. Needless to say, he’d been quickly disillusioned of the idea that he’d face
repercussions for such a thing. Even if it had been in his control, the idea of Uchiha ‘purity’
was ridiculous and redundant to begin with.

Sasuke refocused on the shuriken in his hand and grinned before pushing a bit of chakra into
it. The edge flashed and then crackled. Lightning flickered along it, snapping with a sound
like diluted thunder, and then the shuriken returned to normal. Sasuke laughed. “Thank you,
Itachi!” he crowed, slipping the shuriken back into its pouch and starting to pull out all the
others so he could attune them to lightning. “These are great.”

That was enough. The early morning was definitely worth it. Smiling back, Itachi stretched
and then got to his feet. “Keep the scroll. I’d recommend only carrying one or two on your
holster; your enemy is never more vulnerable than when they think they’ve defeated you.”
Bright-eyed, Sasuke glanced up and gave him a crooked grin.

“Yeah, yeah. Thanks, ‘tachi.”

As much as he wanted to stick around and watch Sasuke adjust to carrying the shuriken, or
even help him learn how to handle the different weight and balance of them, Itachi did have a
team of his own to meet. He was starting to push the time as it was - he still needed to go and
collect a copy of Academy curricula. “I’ll see you tonight. Thank you for breakfast, Mother,”
he added to Mikoto as he made his way to the door.

She snorted. “Go on, get to it.” But there was affection in her eyes, and she briefly patted his
shoulder as he passed her.

Dawn had come and gone while they’d eaten, and the morning rays were warm through
Itachi’s jōnin kit as he made his way towards Konoha proper. It was still strange - five years
after the walls had been torn down - to walk through the now-blurry border between Konoha
and the Uchiha compound, and see that there was no physical barrier to mark them. Though
he’d held back from participating, Itachi had watched while Tsunade and as many of the
Uchiha who’d wanted to had demolished every last inch of the walls that had annexed the
clan away from the rest of the village. Even now, the memory was a warm knot in his chest.

Even with all it had cost them - both Konoha as a whole and each of its shinobi personally -
Itachi knew it was worth it. Both the Uchiha and Konoha had been spared a far worse fate.
Now, the Uchiha land was no more restrictive than any of the other clans who held specific
property in and around Konoha.

Taking a deep breath, Itachi enjoyed the warmth of the sun for a moment more as he
approached the commercial sector. While he could have rushed over to the Konoha central
library, it was relaxing to simply take it at a walk. There was some merit in how Mikoto
always told him to slow down. The thought was interrupted as a familiar signature flickered
against his senses, and after a moment’s sigh, Itachi looked towards it and body flickered up
to the top of the building.

Lounging against the protruding parts of the roof, arms folded, Kakashi-senpai watched him
resolve. Speak of the devil, Itachi supposed; just why would Kakashi be after his presence?

He waited for Kakashi to speak first, and instead gave him a thorough onceover. Kakashi’s
stance betrayed very little, but what it did set off alarms in Itachi’s head. A faint dark smudge
under his one visible eye, the way he leant slightly unevenly, favouring his left leg. There was
a tension in his shoulders that wasn’t usual, and when he pushed off the brick he let out the
faintest little sigh of exertion. Frowning, Itachi let him approach.

“How busy are you today?”

Not the question he’d been expecting. The faintest limp marred Kakashi’s otherwise even
stride. Wounded. His face spoke of a sleepless night - all too familiar, and something Itachi
remembered vividly from his days as Kakashi’s shadow. Eyes narrowed, and Kakashi’s jaw
clenched in return, a barely perceptible shift in how his mask sat across his face. The
interrogation could wait, then. “Quite. I have an errand to run before meeting my team.” This
time, Kakashi made no attempt to hide the grimace that crossed his face. Itachi glanced up at
the sky, gauged the time, and sighed. “But it appears I’m going to be late regardless. What do
you need?” Turning away slightly, Itachi pooled chakra into his hands and burned through a
short series of handsigns. Seconds later, blackness coalesced from his palms and flowed
together as Itachi fed the jutsu power. When a small crow had formed, he cut the flow and let
it shake itself out.

It flew into the air when Itachi threw it, circled once, and then took off towards the training
ground that he’d slated for his team’s use (for the next four months). With any shred of luck
whatsoever, Neji would be reasonable about his de facto position as second-in-command.

They’re doomed.

Kakashi studied him silently, and Itachi suddenly realised that he was… ashamed. It showed
in the way he couldn’t quite bring himself to meet Itachi’s gaze, in the way he unfolded his
arms and slid his hands into his pockets and curled them into hidden fists. In the faintest
sparks of fizzing, upset chakra that slipped through his masking. In a moment, Itachi
abandoned the sentiment that being so talented a ninja wasn’t worth it; without that, he’d not
have been able to detect any of the damning chakra flutters Kakashi couldn’t fully control.

“One of my genin. I had a look myself, but I’ve only got the one and I’m not especially
skilled with it.” Sharingan, it had to be, though Itachi resisted the instinct to scoff. ‘Not
especially skilled’ indeed; Kakashi was more skilled than most natural-born Sharingan
wielders, even without its twin. “... I’d appreciate you or Mikoto-san taking a look at her.”

Itachi’s eyes narrowed slightly. “... Are you concerned about her safety? What about her
necessitates this?”

On cue, Kakashi slouched - barely suppressed a wince, though Itachi saw the minute twitch
that betrayed it - and sighed. “If you don’t want to, that’s fine.” So, he wasn’t going to get an
explanation then. Rationality warred with personal loyalty, while Itachi considered it. On the
grand scale of sins, what Kakashi was asking was fairly minor. It needn’t even be intrusive;
Itachi could do it from afar, without frightening the girl. Even if a scan-by-Sharingan was
truly suspicious, there was no real harm in it.

And Itachi could rarely bring himself to deny Kakashi’s requests, even when they were
outlandish.

“Must it be this morning?”

Kakashi shrugged. “Preferably.”

Once more, Itachi sighed. He was going to be so late. Why was it that, whenever Kakashi-
senpai got involved, he was always late? “Alright. Let’s go; I’m in a hurry.”

Kakashi-sensei was late. Hinata was starting to suspect that this would prove to be a running
theme for their sensei, but it didn't stop the knot of anxiety in her chest. The same as
yesterday, Sakura was also late. It was starting to concern her - Sakura had seemed… okay, if
a little strange, the day before, but she'd never been late to anything in the Academy. Maybe
there was something wrong with her. It almost made sense, too, with the way she'd gotten
sick and fainted in class, on their last day.

There could be something really wrong with her. The added worry didn’t help the trembly
feeling in Hinata's limbs, while she sat against the gate to the training ground and waited.
Sasuke sat on the fence above her, slightly to the right, but he hadn't suggested sparring yet;
Hinata was grateful. Curious, too, while he turned over a strange shuriken in his hands and
smiled to himself, but grateful.

After yesterday, she had no will to fight him again. Even if he'd seemed weirdly… pleased
with her feeble attempts. Still, she watched him out of the corner of her eye, interest catching
when she saw chakra spark along the shuriken. He caught her spying, but instead of scolding
her, Sasuke offered her a smile. "Cool, right?" he asked, holding it out to show her properly.
"Itachi got them for me. It's chakra metal." No small amount of pride in his voice at that,
sending another crackle of chakra through it.

Something small and molten made itself known in Hinata's chest. Sasuke was lucky to have
family who celebrated his success - she was happy for him, for getting to celebrate such a big
occasion in a shinobi's life. It wasn’t his fault that Hinata had been scolded for nearly getting
seriously wounded in a friendly little test; it wasn't Sasuke's fault that Hinata wasn't good
enough.

Jealousy. It was jealousy, smouldering away under her ribcage.

Hinata did her best to shake it off. "That's really cool, Sasuke." The habitual honourific died
on her tongue, but only barely. "... They look heavier than our normal ones."

Nodding, Sasuke flipped the shuriken between his fingers. "They are. Different balance, too.
I'm going to have to learn how to throw them before actually applying my chakra." There was
glee in his voice; despite herself, Hinata smiled. Sasuke had been far from the quietest
member of their class - that honour went to Shino-san, if only barely. Shikamaru-san was
more talkative, even though it was by virtue of his complaints - but it was nice to get to talk
to him more personally. He wasn't as gloomy as she'd expected of the Uchiha head family.

As she had been every minute for the last thirty, Hinata glanced up and studied the path
leading to Training Ground Nine, searching for any hint of their teammate or sensei. "So the
shuriken are fire attuned?" she asked vaguely. It wasn't really more than an attempt to
contribute to conversation, to keep it going instead of letting it degrade on her account. She
wasn't expecting the muffled little noise Sasuke gave in response. Turned her gaze to him
questioningly. It wasn't so unusual an assumption, was it? Uchihas typically carried fire
affinities, just as Hyuugas typically carried water.

Thank the gods that she did too. Father would have been beside himself if she'd failed him
yet again.

"Hn… No." Hinata blinked at him, and Sasuke grimaced. "Lightning. I have a lightning
affinity." For a moment, Hinata just stared at him. It was a standard part of the graduation
exam, checking a student's chakra nature. It was important information for every shinobi and
their prospective allies - not to mention their sensei - to know. Then guilt crashed down on
her, and she dropped her gaze.

She shouldn't have assumed just because he was an Uchiha. Certainly, she knew there were
Hyuugas who didn't carry their water affinity. Neji, for one. Whether the Uchihas considered
it a mark of shame or not didn’t really matter; the assumption itself was the problem. “I’m
sorry,” she murmured, hunching her shoulders in. It was so early for her to make her
teammate hate her.

Sasuke made a vague noise and hopped off the fence, finally stashing away his new shuriken
in the pouch attached to the belt around his leg that held his kunai holster. “Come on. We
might as well spar again; Sakura’s late, and we’ve got nothing else to do.”

It was shock more than anything that made her stare after him. A few moments later, he
looked over his shoulder and frowned at her. Scrambling, Hinata bolted to her feet and darted
after him, keeping her head down. Her hair obscured her face, but quick little peeks up
through the strands kept her from tripping or hitting anything as she fell into Sasuke’s wake.

The grounds themselves looked as good as new, as they traipsed towards the sparring circle.
The big rock was back in one piece, the jagged shards Sakura had created yesterday
smoothed back out into semi-hard dirt. The river that meandered through all the eastern
training grounds babbled quietly, undisturbed. Whoever was in charge of repairs whenever
the grounds got wrecked was apparently very good. Hinata wasn't sure who even did a job
like that; surely it had to be shinobi, with mastery of at least earth elemental ninjutsu. Maybe
that was something she could do, return the training grounds to their original shapes. Quiet
work, no need to leave the village or throw her life away in combat.

Don't be ridiculous, she scolded herself quietly. That would require you to be good at
elemental releases. Her eyes went to her feet as she thought, a painful twist making itself
known in her chest. She'd never be able to manage even that. She'd never manage anyth—
The only warning was the faint grind of a shoe on loose dirt, but Sasuke was already
colliding with her as she looked up at the noise. He was scowling, black eyes narrowed, and
there was almost no proper technique to the way he body checked her. Pain bloomed where
his shoulder slammed into her chest - an aching reminder of the unfamiliar breasts she was
still growing into - and then more where his arm went around her waist and they crashed into
the ground. They skidded, Sasuke letting out a low grunt of effort, and then they rolled and
hit a sudden stop. Hinata's stomach lurched, and she squeezed her eyes shut and let her head
fall back. Pinning her down (awkwardly, his own limbs misplaced, only his actual
bodyweight holding her in place), Sasuke hissed and swore.

"Pay attention to your surroundings," he huffed out, straightening up where he sat on her and
rolling his shoulders. Hinata couldn't see it, but the motion was a familiar one, and it made
his whole body sway slightly. "You could have easily overturned me." A pause, and then he
muttered to himself, "Worst executed tackle of my life."

Hinata couldn't help it. A little giggle slipped out, and even though she slapped a hand over
her mouth and her eyes shot open, it did nothing to dissuade the smirk Sasuke shot at her in
return. "Sorry," she squeaked anyway. "I'll—" do better? Was she supposed to fight him
properly, even though he was clearly stronger than her and it was an inevitable defeat? Even
though she risked offending his clan pride?

Yes. I am. It was obvious in the hard light in his eyes, despite the way he snickered at her
again. He'd told her as much yesterday, forcing her to fight back - he was telling her so right
now, with how loosely he was keeping her down. Punishing her for drifting off into her own
mental world. Again.

Alright. At least he wasn't making her struggle and guess what he wanted; even if she didn't
understand why he was bothering. It couldn't be for his own benefit. She was hardly a good
opponent.

Blinking away the reflex to activate her Byakugan - I can't imagine how much pressure he
must be under to awaken his Sharingan - she focused on how he was sitting on her, what
points of contact they had and where they were the weakest. A moment later, the attack plan
formed in her mind and she bucked and rolled, and threw him off. He must have been
unprepared, because the quiet laughter morphed into a sound of alarm and then he hit the
ground next to her, managing to salvage the landing into a decent roll; she was after him in a
moment, tapping her fingers against his ribs and arms. There was no chakra application - she
didn't want to actually disable him, and guilt from using Jūken on him yesterday lingered still
in her sternum - but she tapped all the same. Guessing where his tenketsu were from how he
moved, from how she'd seen his chakra flow the day before while casting a fireball jutsu at
Kakashi-sensei. Letting him know that she could, maybe.

When he came right side up, she was already there to meet him, and as he swept her feet out
she grabbed his wrist and took the sideways momentum and dragged Sasuke into it. He went
over her shoulder, his own weight working against him, and Hinata went with it. Half-spun
half-rolled it out and sprang to her feet.

From the ground, on his back, Sasuke let out sharp breath, blinked, looked up at her, and then
burst into laughter. Hinata felt heat spread across her face as she realised she'd put him there;
why was he laughing? She'd humiliated him - an Uchiha - by besting him. Floored by a
pathetic little excuse of a Hyuuga.

But he sat up, grinning, and held out a fist to her. "That's better, Hinata." Approving. As if she
was doing something right.

Well… it was what he wanted. Wasn't it?

Tentatively, she booped the knuckles of her fist against his. A moment later his grin turned
wicked, he grabbed her wrist, and yanked as hard as he could - Hinata stumbled, tripped, and
went facedown in the dirt.

Still laughing, Sasuke sprang to his feet. "Never trust your opponent," he told her, holding out
a hand to help her up. Hinata eyed it suspiciously, and slowly got to her feet without it. He
nodded approvingly. "Let's go again. Also," thrown over his shoulder as he headed back to
his half of the sparring circle, "thanks for not actually using Jūken on me."

Blushing darkly, Hinata tried to resist the urge to look away. Pay attention, he'd said. She
lost, dropped her gaze, only for a moment, barely a second. Sasuke was on her in an instant -
he was so fast. Faster than Hanabi by whole orders of magnitude, as fast as Neji on the rare
occasion they sparred. There's a reason he was top of the class in taijutsu, Hinata thought.
There was no time to actually formulate a counter - she let her instincts react for her, and one
hand came up to catch the thrown punch, while the other hit flat against his chest and she
spun on one foot. He went sailing past her, carried by his own attack, and it took no more
effort than to turn it aside and let him keep going.

Something flashed in his eyes, and Hinata had only a moment to realise that he'd expected the
deflection, before his hand turned in hers, curled fingers around her wrist, and the other hand
caught hold of her arm, just above the elbow. She had no chance of retracting beyond his
reach, with his motion carried through by the support of her splayed fingers on his chest.

His feet caught on the ground and anchored him, and suddenly his velocity was hers.
Twisting, he rotated all the way around and then let go. Reflex kicked in as the world blurred
and Hinata gathered her chakra in her eyes. Let out a gasp to focus it, and saw her
surroundings burst into sharp clarity on all sides; her own path through the air became all too
obvious to her, like watching from the inside and the outside at the same time.

Small expulsions of chakra helped her rotate midair, angling her feet towards the rock and
facing Sasuke again. Active tenketsu lit up white-blue along every line of his body, like the
glitter of a thousand stars. Underneath the smooth flow of chakra she could pick out the
delicate curve of bone, just hinted outlines of his skeleton that slightly distorted his overall
shape.

They gave away his intentions, as her feet touched stone toes-first, and his chakra gathered
tighter in his trapezius and calf muscles. Bone lifted minutely and tenketsu flared along his
shoulder line. As Sasuke shoved chakra through the soles of his feet and pushed off to jump
after her, she let gravity talk hold and drag her to ground. Spinning with more little chakra
expulsions along the length of her body, Hinata faced up as she dove under Sasuke's attack
and struck him flat-handed in the chest, just above his solar plexus. Chakra convulsed
through his chakra nexus, and she saw it as a bright flare of blueish light.

Only a frantic pull of her own chakra stopped Hinata from carrying through the Jūken strike;
she was sucking in a sharp breath as she finally hit the ground, pushing herself up and
frantically scanning Sasuke’s chakra network. Direct Jūken hits to the nexus always came
with the risk of network death, and without immediate aid, it was usually fatal.

Sasuke was winded, as he dragged himself up, but he was smiling through the gasps of air.
"Where… did that… come from?" Nothing unusual about the circulation of his chakra.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Hinata met his wince with one of her own, and shook her head.

"Sorry," she managed, as he caught sight of the strained chakra veins at her temples and the
warping of the lenses in her eyes, revealing the faint outline of her pupils. Chakra thinned in
his limbs, tenketsu sparked up his neck and the two under his jaw flared bright. With a blink,
Hinata pushed away the warm hum of her own chakra, and let the Byakugan fade. "I couldn't
help it when you threw me."

Sasuke pulled himself cross-legged and slumped, leaning his elbows on his knees, still trying
to catch his breath. Shook his head. "Why are you… apologising?" She didn't know how to
answer. Wasn't she supposed to? "You just… kicked my ass. That was great." Something that
reminded Hinata of the feral gleam Hanabi got in her eyes when she trained showed through
in his expression.

It registered, far too slowly, that she'd been given a compliment, and she felt her face flush
with heat again. "I—" She had no idea what to say. Ducking her head, Hinata let her hair
cover her face again. "Thank you."

A pale hand snuck into her line of vision (dull and one-dimensional after the flood of
information she could see with the Byakugan), and tugged sharply on her hair. "'kura was
right about this," Sasuke told her, little gruff, but recovering from being winded. "It's a
liability." Something uneasy in his voice - Hinata wasn't quite sure, exactly, what emotion it
was, but she did wonder if it was the same sudden sense of uneasiness that swelled under her
skin.

Sakura had always been polite enough in the Academy, but she'd rarely strayed from her
friends. Little enough interaction and plenty of observation had given the impression of a
somewhat shy girl, clever and quick-witted, but not someone to step out of the status quo.
When the Academy fashion had shifted from short hair to long hair, Sakura had grown hers
out just like the rest of the girls (and several of the boys). Gentle even when she corrected her
classmates, and steadily capable with their taijutsu and shurikenjutsu training, but not
particularly noteworthy.

Her behaviour yesterday - bold, laying out a plan without hesitation and expecting not just
obedience but critique, slashing off her hair as if how she looked was nothing more than a
footnote to her identity as a kunoichi - was unsettling at best. Paired with the obscene display
of strength in shattering the very ground, she was suddenly… intimidating, if Hinata was
honest with herself. There was no telling what other surprises Sakura had up her sleeves. And
whatever judgements of her character that Hinata had held meant nothing in the face of her
disproving all of them.

She bit her lip, getting back to her feet and deciding to go through some katas. Given they
still had a whole day of training with their new sensei to get through, and they’d neglected
their warmup (again), there was a very real risk of cramping up if she didn’t ease down from
the surprise spar.

After a moment, smiling to himself, Sasuke got to his feet too and followed suit.

For a while, they didn’t speak, but quietly watched each other work through their katas. Like
she normally did, Hinata forsook the Academy standards and worked through the Hyuuga
clan ones, supplementing each movement with the push and pull of her chakra, weaving
through from stance to stance in long, fluid motions. Sasuke was observing her, while he
worked through his own, curiosity in his eyes. It made sense, she supposed; the Hyuuga clan
had been secretive about its every aspect for generations, and the specific katas designed to
support their unique combat style was yet another secret.

Damn the secrets, she thought to herself, biting her lip again. A sentiment she could never
share aloud - a sentiment that would earn her far worse than scalding retorts and days of
repetitive practice - but there was nothing her father or the clan elders could do to stop her
here, right now. Let Sasuke observe the Hyuuga katas. What harm could it really do?

And in return, she realised slowly, he made no attempt to conceal his form. As unfamiliar as
they were, it still took her a few minutes to understand that he must be working through
Uchiha katas himself. Quicker movements, sharper and shorter. There was an aggression to
the forms as he danced through them that was utterly foreign, a sense of urgency that
remained even as Sasuke went slowly to ease his muscles and keep his body loose. A flame -
tamed and quiet, a source of warmth on a cool night - but always one stray spark away from
igniting against the entire forest.

“I see you got started without us,” came the call, an eerie echo of the morning before, and
they both jolted out of form, spinning to face the approaching voice, tensing. It was
gratifying, somehow, to see that Sasuke had also been so focused on their routines that he
hadn’t noticed the rest of their team coming. Kakashi-sensei was in the lead, an abashed
Sakura following in his wake. Her hair had been trimmed down and neatened up since
yesterday’s fiasco, cut to a pleasing array of spiky locks held back by her hitai-ite, knotted
like a headband. At some point in the last day, she’d gotten hold of some red fabric and
swapped the standard navy of her hitai-ite.

Her clothes were different too. She’d abandoned her customary red dress, and instead she
was wearing a short-sleeved red shirt that closed close to her throat, and a pair of snug, black
gloves. Peeking out from her right glove were narrow white bandages that marked the injury
she’d earned herself yesterday. The knee-length thermal tights were the same - if almost
embarrassingly clingy without the dress skirt to cover them - as were her shoes, but she was
carrying a narrow white belt around her hips that held no additional pouches yet, but was
clearly notched in preparation to. As quiet as she was, her head tilted in deep thought, there
was a confidence in her step that Hinata had never noticed before.
Maybe it had never been there.

Kakashi-sensei waved a hand at them as Sasuke and Hinata stepped from their katas into a
quiet at-attention position, and then dipped quick little half-bows. “Good morning, Kakashi-
sensei,” Hinata intoned, glancing sideways at Sasuke when he remained silent. He wasn’t
looking at her; instead, his gaze was fixed on Sakura, and his eyes were hard.

“Hm. Well, don’t stop on my account. You’ve got a lot to do today.” It took a second of
silence before it registered that he meant it, and - awkwardly - Hinata slid back into her katas.
Moments later, eyes still locked on their errant teammate, Sasuke did the same. That it was
apparently just them who had a lot to do didn’t escape her notice. “Once you’re properly
warmed up, you’re going to run sixty laps of the central area.” A gesture indicated the grassy
field between forest and river, backed up against the border of ground nine. “Anyone who
walks instead is getting a shuriken to the achilles.”

Maybe it was a joke. There was a faint crinkle to his visible face that made Hinata want to
believe he was smiling, but there was an airy note of detachment in his voice that sent
shudders down her spine. Either way, it wasn’t a risk she was willing to take. Sixty laps.
Already dreading it, Hinata started focusing on her breathing, pushing it out as deep and even
as she comfortably could. It was going to be a long morning.

The snap of Kakashi-sensei’s fingers broke her thoughts as Sakura moved forward to join in
with their katas. Everyone paused. “No, no, Sakura. You clearly don’t need to warm up, if
you were happy to arrive so late.” Hinata got right back to her kata, the back of her neck
prickling.

Despite how cowed she’d seemed only a moment ago, Sakura gave him back a beatific smile.
“Sorry, Sensei,” she replied, settling into a resting stand. “You see, a horde of old ladies
stopped me on my way and demanded I help them with their shopping…”

As far as excuses went, Mitskuni had heard better. Chōji had been the first to show up, and
he’d offered a sheepish “Overslept,” at the judgemental stare Mitskuni had tried to level at
him. Being hungover was not conducive to proper sensei-ing, he’d decided, but beyond the
mission-grade painkillers he’d popped on his way here, Mitskuni just had to grin and bear it.
It was, to be fair, his own fault.

Ino had been next, and while she’d had the decency to actually apologise, it had been
accompanied by a flustered, “I could not get my hair to cooperate this morning,” and while
Mitskuni was tempted to offer her some solidarity, the net result was still that she was almost
forty minutes late. Shikamaru had only shown up a minute ago, fully an hour and a half past
the given time, and when asked he hadn’t even bothered with as weak an excuse as that.

“Eh. It was too early,” was all he’d defended himself with, one shoulder lifting barely a
fraction of an inch. “Hey, Chō,” he’d added, giving his teammate a vague up-nod of greeting.
Chōji mumbled something back through a mouthful of potato chips, and kept his gaze down.

For a full five minutes, Mitskuni let them stand around uncomfortably and just studied them,
forcing his thoughts to get up from the sluggish crawl they wanted to move at. I really should
have known better last night, he scolded himself. There was a vague memory of black eyes
and the Uchiha clan emblem in the mess of last night; on top of all this, he owed Itachi an
apology. Finally, he sighed.

While none of his genin looked less bored, it didn’t escape notice that they all focused on
him. Exactly how nice did he need to be? How mean did he need to be? Gods be damned.
Tsunade was playing a cruel joke on him by making him a sensei. The last time he’d been
given command of a mission, it had been with two well-trained, well-behaved chūnin, and
he’d still botched it.

“... I’m Okita Mitskuni,” he settled on, shifting his weight. He was really starting to wish he
was much taller than them than he was. Shikamaru would probably catch up by the end of the
year, with how tall most of the Naras were. “You don’t need to introduce yourselves,” he
interrupted Ino’s quick inhale. “You all know each other, and I’ve read your files.” Oops.
Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. Shikamaru raised an eyebrow, while Ino looked
scandalised. Chōji munched down on another chip. Was it an anxiety reaction? Mitskuni
knew the basics of the Akimichi clan jutsu, but not enough. He’d have to look into it; maybe
a covert conversation with the Clan Head would be prudent. “I haven’t seen you in action,
though. How about you give me a quick run-down of what you can each do? Shikamaru, you
first.”

Mitskuni anticipated the most resistance from him. The returned grades throughout his
Academy tenure had been horrible, barely scraping passing grades at the back of every single
area. The reality was - as noted by his Academy sensei, Iruka, so many damn times that
Mitskuni had lost count after one hundred and six - that Shikamaru was the brightest student
in the whole class, more than capable of all basic shinobi skills and equally as capable in his
clan-specific jutsu. Shikamaru’s skill and general aptitude wasn’t what made him a
prospective nightmare. It was his attitude that gave Mitskuni a deep sense of dread.

The other two gave him an equal measure, for completely different reasons.

Gods, I’m so fucked. And not in the fun way.

Sighing, as if Mitskuni had asked him to move one of Konoha’s walls by hand, Shikamaru
tugged out a kunai and spun it lazily in hand. “Everything?” he asked. The whole question
conveyed in one word; suddenly, right next to the mounting anxiety and the lingering
migraine, Mitskuni felt a burning desire to throttle him.

It took a couple seconds too long to discard the thought of saying yes, just to spite him. “I’m
assured of your ability in all Academy standard skills. Show me the rest.” That earned him
another sigh, and Shikamaru glanced between his teammates.

“... Ino, you mind?” Despite himself, Mitskuni tilted his head. Odd, that he would choose Ino
when his file said that Chōji was his closest friend. Or perhaps that was why.

Tossing her ponytail over her shoulder, Ino gave him a long-suffering look. “Fiiine. Don’t
make me do anything stupid, alright?” Shikamaru gave her a little smirk, putting his hands
together.
“No promises.”

Her shriek of protest was cut off as Shikamaru’s shadow shot across the ground and
connected to hers; Mitskuni held in the faint flicker of surprise. Even with as simple a set of
seals - or perhaps especially with as simple a set of seals as the technique apparently required
- it was impressive to pull it off without an activation phrase. And the kid was only a genin.
Fuck.

For a few seconds, they stood still. Then, smirking, Shikamaru reached up, took hold of his
ponytail, and pulled the tie out. Next to him, eyes widening, Ino mirrored his movement
exactly. “Shikamaru, you asshole!” she yelped, but she couldn’t resist the control. Hands
went into their hair and messed it up as much as possible with only a few moments of
vigorous ruffling. With her hair both longer and finer, Ino suffered much worse tangling. “I’m
gonna get you for this, Shika,” she warned him - but there was a gleam of laughter in her
eyes, even as the jutsu was released and she got to fussing her hair back into something
resembling a neat ponytail.

Chōji, when asked, demonstrated his inherited technique with no small amount of
encouragement required from both teammates; the words were muttered to himself, and there
was no finesse to the way his whole body expanded to twice his original bulk, but Mitskuni
just nodded - “Great, Chōji.” - and let it be. The point wasn’t, as he understood it, meant to be
finesse. Weight and brute strength went a long way when you had a lot of it to throw around.

The wicked grin that Ino gave when it was her turn was quietly filed away into Mitskuni’s
memory as a do not fuck with. She spoke her activation phrase loud and clear when she lined
up the unique Yamanaka seal against Shikamaru’s head, and he just sighed without any
attempt to evade. “Someone gonna catch—?”

Ino crumpled as her jutsu went off, body deadweight. Without thinking, Mitskuni shot
forward to catch her, chakra surging in a body flicker that made his whole head throb. Why
the hell didn’t I just do this introductory shit yesterday? Yesterday-Mitskuni was a fucking
idiot. Also an asshole, for leaving this problem for today-Mitskuni.

Completely limp, Mitskuni tentatively lowered Ino to the ground and turned his head to
observe Shikamaru. He was standing up straighter, though that was the only real change
outside of his expression. He blinked a few times. “Jeez, Shikamaru. Did you just forget to
eat this morning or are you perpetually this hungry?”

Shikamaru’s voice, already low for such a young kid, but with Ino’s inflection and an
accompanying flick of one hand. This was going to be… challenging, to train. So much
power, more so than he suspected Ino really understood yet - and yet she was made so
vulnerable in her own right that her faith in her team would have to be complete. And they’d
have to really be able to protect her.

“Oh, and before I forget.” A pen came out of one of Shikamaru’s pockets, and quite promptly
Ino made his hands draw a blind squiggle on his own face. “Alright!”

She made a seal with Shikamaru’s hands, and then he stumbled as the jutsu broke. On the
ground, Ino stirred, sat up, and shook herself back into her own body. Grimacing, Shikamaru
rubbed lamely at his face. Sighed harshly. “Thanks, Ino.” She stuck her tongue out at him.

“What about you, Sensei?” came the quiet inquiry, and all eyes went to Chōji. He shrank
slightly under the scrutiny, and hurriedly munched on a chip.

Mitskuni tilted his head, despite being pretty sure what he meant; they’d probably never
heard of him. He didn’t have the prestige of a lot of the other jōnin, and he’d not held the
rank long enough to become well-known in the village at large. Not to mention that if any of
these kids had bothered to do any reading up on him in the public records, it was Shikamaru -
and that seemed a lot of effort for what little was in the public records. There was no way.

So he was almost certain it was an invitation to show them what he could do, but damned if
he was going to make that conclusion for them. If they wanted it, let them ask.

“Oh yeah! Come on Sensei, show us something cool! There’s got to be a reason you’re a
jōnin.” Regret tasted an awful lot like tequila, for some reason. Mitskuni sighed. I was right.
I’m going to die.

Running through his mental arsenal, Mitskuni picked out the lowest effort jutsu he had that
still showcased the specialty. “Fine.” Four seals later - he didn’t bother slowing down to let
the kids read them - he muttered the activation under his breath and aimed. From his right
index finger, the chakra snapped out in the thinnest line of rainbow light, so fast that it
seemed to happen in the same instant. A moment later, there was a brief shimmer in the air,
like a distorted afterimage, and as it faded he indicated the branch above their head. A neat,
round hole gave off a weak wisp of smoke, scorched black around the outside, bored
shallowly into the wood.

Ino and Chōji blinked, gazing at the hole. “Was that… What was that?” Ino asked, impressed
but confused. Chōji merely tilted his head up to try and study it closer.

Instead of watching Mitskuni’s quick jutsu, Shikamaru was staring at his left hand, eyes
narrow. “A laser,” Mitskuni offered, meeting Shikamaru’s gaze when it rose. Ask me, he
silently dared the genin. “It’s a special technique that was passed down in my family. Much
like all of yours.”

Ah, fuck. Maybe that was why Tsunade had given them to him.

Shikamaru stayed silent, but his gaze went back to the gap in Mitskuni’s left hand where his
middle finger should have been. He couldn’t help the urge to flex the remaining fingers, but
then the hand went back in one of his pockets and Shikamaru couldn’t do anything more than
frown at him.

At least the little bugger had the sense not to bring it up now. They barely knew each other.

“Any of you got anything else special to show off?” he asked them, hoping against hope that
someone had something to say. Mitskuni still wasn’t even sure what to do next; the pile of
books on teaching he’d borrowed from the Konoha library had proven next to useless, and he
wasn’t any closer to formulating a coherent plan to train their abilities than he had been
yesterday. How the fuck did Sensei do it? He’d never smacktalk Ryō-sensei ever again.
 After a general round of denials, he sighed and rubbed his face. Barely restrained the urge to
tug on the ring through his lower lip with his teeth. Fuck it. He’d just have to wing it.

“Alright. To help me get a better sense of you as shinobi… I’m going to test your
resourcefulness.” Struck by inspiration, Mitskuni pulled out a small notepad and a pen of his
own. He really fucking loved the jōnin flak jacket. Not that it was significantly different from
the version offered to chūnin, but… It was the principle of the matter, damn it. “I’m going to
give you a list of items.” As obscure and weirdly specific as he could think of. “You have the
day to collect them all, and bring them back.”

Mitskuni paused in his writing, glancing up at them to gauge their response. Shikamaru:
bored. Not exactly unexpected. Chōji looked as nervous as he had before, and Mitskuni gave
his lip piercing a little nibble despite himself. That self-confidence was going to need a
serious boost if the kid wanted to be successful as a ninja. Ino was… surprisingly intrigued, if
her expression could be trusted. Maybe it was a task just oddball enough to pique her interest.

From Iruka’s reports on her, the girl had a talent for mischief and a wicked streak a mile
wide. If Mitskuni was very, very lucky, then maybe the key to training her would be as
simple as keeping her interested. She couldn’t put that mind to work against him if she was
too busy trying to figure out what the fuck he was even doing.

Shame that logic went for him, too.

“I’ll let you work together today. As a treat.” He ripped the page out of his notebook and
handed it over. Fourteen completely out of the way items should be enough to occupy them
for some time. “If you’re not done by four this afternoon, come back with what you’ve got.”
And with luck, he’d have a few hours to himself to sulk in the shade and feel sorry for
himself. I’m never drinking again. “Well? Go on. You’re wasting daylight.”

With perplexed glances, they hurried off. Well — Ino snatched the list and hurried off, urging
Chōji along by prodding his back and shoulders, and shouting at Shikamaru to keep up and
not sneak off to nap. The possibility was cold in Mitskuni’s gut. I’ll have to figure out a
punishment if he doesn’t participate.

Oh yeah. Tsunade was definitely trying to kill him.

Chapter End Notes

Beta-read by ClockworkSirius - she's the best.

More Things of Import

|| I actually quit reading/watching Naruto somewhere in the last fight with Obito and
Juubi and whatnot, because the internal logic of the universe went to hell and there were
like aliens and shit and I couldn't be bothered. So I know very little about the canonical
ending and even less about Boruto; any similarities are purely coincedence (or me
hijacking names and concepts to further my own agenda). LMAO
|| A little note, but Anbu squads are five-man; one captain and four shadows (of equal
ranking). Yes, I called them shadows. It's the Narutoverse. Konoha would absolutely do
that shit.
|| This chapter took ages! I apologise for that. The reasons are twofold - one, because I
had to completely scrap the first attempt and start again, and two, I've been writing up a
goddamn Ninja Handbook to keep track of everyone (CC and OC alike) and their
abilities and stats. Yeeaaaah. Don't @ me. (Also I can't show you any of it, because
spoilers).
|| How much do you guys want to explore the other teams and the more general
population of Konoha? There are obviously more than like six genin and two jōnin
running the damn village. Team Seven is the core, of course, but they aren't the isolated
important characters.
|| I'm probably going to be a little vague when it comes to some specifics of Japanese
culture or cuisine. I'm a Kiwi, and I've never been to Japan - I'd rather be vague than
cock it up, sorry.
|| Also, finally, don't worry about Asuma. I haven't forgotten him.

Next Chapter due: 4th April, 2020

Comments are love.

 If You Can't Find Your Own Introspection, Storebought is Fine
Chapter Summary

Even if there's too much to do, training ever continues.

Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

She’d made it forty-eight laps before she’d had to stop and puke.

Sasuke laughed at her as he finally lapped her, while Hinata danced to an anxious stop - still
jogging in place - and asked her if she was okay. Whatever reply Sakura had wanted to give
was consumed by the ragged panting and the searing ache in her lungs, and then Hinata
yelped and took off again. Lounging on that gods-thrice-damned rock, Kakashi lowered his
hand from where he’d sent a shuriken at them. It buried itself in the ground where Hinata’s
feet had been a moment before.

Groaning, trying to swallow the taste of acid out of her mouth, Sakura dragged her body back
into gear and started running again. She was slow. Cramp had clenched its fingers around
every leg muscle she had, and then crept up her back too, and no amount of missed warmups
could account for the way her side pulsed with pain, as if she’d been stabbed, or how her
breath was so sharp in the back of her throat it tasted like blood. More than just slow, as
Sasuke kept the brisk pace he’d had all morning and threatened to lap her again, she was
weak.

I’m gonna kill Ino, Sakura thought through gritted teeth, and forced her body to pick up the
pace. It was unfair to blame her friend, of course - just as it had been unfair to blame her the
first time around, just like Sakura had needed her whole world to implode before she fucking
figured out what really mattered. It had been so long since she’d cared about how she looked,
since it had meant a damn thing whether anyone liked what they saw when they saw her.

Sakura was a goddamn shinobi. When people looked at her, they should see strength.

But it didn’t make running her sixty laps any easier, when for the past twelve years she’d
been too young and naive to understand that. Thinking of the little girl who owned this body
she had now - the version of Sakura that was a distorted, twisted reflection of the person she
thought of herself as, whose life had been thrown out of whack by flickers of a future self she
couldn’t ever know - was uncomfortable at best, and even more so every time she failed to
think of themselves as the same. It was… wrong, to feel guilty for landing in her own body,
even if she was six years too young, but it was worse when she considered the gentle mind
she had swarmed with memories and intent and knowledge not to be her own.
It felt like she’d… murdered herself, somehow. The innocent Sakura who wanted to be a
ninja without knowing why, who’d worried about her hair and her face and whether she
would be pretty if she let herself build up the muscles that Ino flashed so proudly. Powerful
arms and a hard stomach weren’t ladylike; they weren’t elegant. And - bless their souls - her
parents had found her worries and obsessions normal, reassured her as they would have any
civilian child. Had tried their best to encourage her and boost her self-confidence.

Never knowing the damage they were doing to Sakura’s chances of survival, because in the
end she wasn’t a civilian child. She was a genin - she was a kunoichi - and how she looked
didn’t matter. Staying alive was what mattered. Winning real battles. Protecting her
teammates, pulling her own weight, saving the people she loved.

Saving the world.

The task was too daunting to think about, now. There was just… so much. So many things
that were still waiting to go wrong, the Akatsuki and Pein and the Jinchūriki and… And, and,
and. The list was endless. She’d drown in it if she let herself.

And right now… there wasn’t anything she could do. Just as she had the first time, and no
matter Sasuke’s mocking of her civilian thoughts or the way she’d tried more because of it,
Sakura hadn’t behaved like a shinobi. She hadn’t trained hard enough, or long enough, and
she just wasn’t capable. She couldn’t even run sixty laps of a small training ground without
pushing her body so hard she vomited.

It took a lot of willpower not to think about the processes happening beneath her skin right
now. The lactic acid in her muscles was ridiculous, all from running some simple laps. If she
was the sweet tween girl whose mind she’d stolen for her own, then she’d have thought she
was dying. As it stood, even though Sakura knew better and refused to stop running, she still
couldn’t think about the potential damage without her ragged breath catching or her heartbeat
skipping.

Utterly absurd, because in reality there was no undue harm that would come to her from
pushing so hard, but something flickering in her mind reacted primally to the pain overtaking
her body and kept the fear alive all the same. Fucking ridiculous.

“Come on, Sakura!” Sasuke huffed out as he passed her again - motherfucker - and turned his
head just enough to flash a wicked grin at her. He flicked out a quick two-fingered salute and
took off faster, and Sakura let out a grumble even as she braced and picked up the pace. She
was better than this, damn it, she was a fucking elite—

Twelve years old. Fresh genin. Had never trained a hard day in her life, had done all the
Academy mandated stuff and run around a bit with Sasuke, but she’d never taken up the
opportunities to train with him and Itachi.

Itachi spends time training him, teaching him; got him a gift for graduating.

The thought made her stomach clench and twist (or maybe it was just the running), and once
again she had to stumble to a stop, abdomen convulsing, and lean over to throw up. Even
knowing that, after it all, Itachi had been fundamentally loyal to Konoha, it was too strange to
hear Sasuke talk about him, to remember the soft affection in his face whenever he’d picked
Sasuke up from school.

Moving back into a run pulled another deep groan from her throat, but she did so anyway.
Kakashi hadn’t been kidding about the shuriken - and Hinata passed her again too, head
down, flashing an apologetic glance. Just like Sasuke, she was barely out of breath. If Sakura
had to hazard a comparison, she’d have said Hinata was even less so.

Trying to blot out the endless complaints of her body, she thought about the prior afternoon;
ignoring the tutting of the med-nins - Kakashi hovering like an angry wraith in the
background - and then dismissing the concerned coddling of her parents when she’d finally
made it home. For a long while, she’d not been able to think about anything except Kakashi’s
response. She still didn’t know what to do with it.

“Where’s Uzumaki Naruto?” she’d asked, and Kakashi had doggedly kept his gaze fixed
ahead.

“I don’t know,” he’d replied, and when that hadn’t been good enough, he’d given her a stern
glare. “Nobody knows. Don’t ask me again.”

When given a direct order, even as wrong and cold as Kakashi was, she didn’t disobey. He
deserved better than that from her. But it had buzzed in her head for hours, worried away at
all rationality. Nobody knows. Where the hell could he be? What could have happened, what
could have been so fucking awful about averting the wholesale slaughter of the entire fucking
Uchiha clan that Naruto was just gone? Even when she’d gotten her wits back and spent
another night quietly wracking the new memories (the vestiges of the girl she’d all but killed
to replace), there had been nothing she could find to explain it. The Uchihas were alive - and
they wouldn’t have killed Naruto, or driven him away - and Tsunade was Hokage, but from
everything she could piece together that had only improved Konoha’s treatment of its
orphans.

Her family had attended the Third’s funeral, she remembered. A quiet and scarce affair; the
old man had been laid on his funeral pyre and set alight, and slowly the small gathering of
civilians had scattered back to their lives under the afternoon sun and left only the ring of…
Anbu? They’d seemed like Anbu, in her fuzzy childhood eyes. Tight black and hidden faces.
Definitely shinobi.

But now, when she scrutinised the memory as closely as she could, they no longer seemed
like Anbu. They hadn’t seemed normal, either; something about them marked them as wrong,
even to Sakura’s more experienced eyes. Something had been so wrong.

No matter how hard she’d searched through her own head, Sakura hadn’t been able to fit
together a good reason as to why Hiruzen had died in the first place. Some part of her wanted
to blame Orochimaru, wanted to throw all her bitterness and confusion at the monster who
had first taken Sasuke away from her - from them - all those years ago; but she knew that it
was misplaced. Even if she wasn’t sure exactly what the back-stabbing traitorous Sannin was
up to right now, at this moment, or what he’d been up to five years ago, the timing was too
suspicious for anything else. For the week that had passed between what she now understood
to be called the Konoha Massacre and the Sandaime’s funeral, they’d been too close together
to be unrelated.

Even running still, even with her body screaming at her and her focus frayed at best, thinking
of the Konoha Massacre sent shivers through her. She didn’t know nearly enough about what
it had entailed, about why it was called that, about what had gone so wrong in saving the
Uchihas that the whole village apparently suffered for it. What had happened that had led to
Hiruzen’s death? What had caused Kakashi to change as he had, subtle and drastic all at the
same time? Were they even related? Was it something after that had fucked everything else
up?

Too many questions, and not nearly enough time to try and answer them. Sakura hadn’t even
been… awake? Was that the right word for what she was now, for the awareness and
recollection and experience that marked her as who she was - a kunoichi of the highest order,
Tsunade’s personal apprentice, a med-nin who had ultimately failed to save anyone that
mattered when it had mattered most— Was she awake now, in a child’s fragile body,
frantically drowning in all the things that hadn’t happened yet?

That… might never happen now. The thought should have been a cheerful one.

And awake or not, it had only been two days. She hadn’t had the chance to stop reeling.
Logically, in the quiet disconnected part of her mind, the cold med-nin calm that felt no
emotion and offered only judgement, Sakura knew she hadn’t had the time to grieve. Whether
it had happened or not, whether it even counted as real anymore, she’d witnessed the end of a
war. She’d watched as the Allied Shinobi Forces had bled out and died, as even their enemies
had turned to their side to try and stop the monster that was Juubi from consuming their
whole world. She’d watched Naruto struggle for breath as his fellow Jinchūriki had perished
around him. She’d watched Sasuke scream feral rage as every motivation he’d ever had
crumbled inside him. She’d watched Kakashi find relief in death even as he gave everything
just to extend their lives a little longer.

She’d watched the world burn.

Her own expectations were… excessive. She shouldn’t be okay after that. Being twelve
again, seeing Sasuke alive and well - even happy - seeing Kakashi flick shuriken at them as
they faltered, reading an old issue of Icha Icha, those things didn’t make the rest disappear.
She was being cruel to herself, and it would only make it worse when she stopped.
Objectively, she needed to just stop for a moment and let it hurt.

But she couldn’t. Kakashi wouldn’t understand; and he wouldn’t let her, regardless. Nobody
knew. How could she tell anyone?

Itachi’s face flashed in her mind. Finally, every muscle aflame, she came to a stop. She
couldn’t help it. Bending over, gasping for air, Sakura squeezed her eyes shut and willed the
throbbing inside her skull to chase away her thoughts. She needed to talk to the elder Uchiha,
find out what the fuck was going on, but she didn’t know what had happened to him, didn’t
know what cards he held or where she needed to step carefully. She needed to try and
reconcile this new reality with the horrors he’d committed (he hadn’t committed them) or the
gut-wrenching tragedy of his motivations (they didn’t exist).
There was a brief tug at her ankle, and then a razor thin line of pain. Her eyes flashing open,
Sakura reacted before she could think better of it, leaping sideways with a burst of chakra
through her feet, ignoring the screaming complaints of her body. There were shuriken in her
hands even as she moved, and she spun and landed, hurling them towards the perceived
threat.

Eyes wide, panting harshly, she remained coiled and sent chakra rushing down her arms,
gathering in her hands, ready for action. Across the grounds, Hinata stumbled mid-stride, and
nearby Sasuke skidded to a halt. On the rock, his book still in hand but closed, Kakashi stared
at her from where he was balanced in a precarious one-armed handstand. Three of the five
shuriken she’d hurled at him were buried in the stone itself from the force of her throw; the
other two were just pinging away and settling in the grass. One must have missed completely.
The last had been deliberately deflected with the hand holding his book, knocked aside by the
protective metal plating on the backs of his gloves.

A new ache made itself known in her arms, the whiplash of throwing, along with the tingling
ache of chakra surges that she wasn’t yet reaccustomed to. Ever so slowly, Kakashi lowered
himself back to his feet with perfect control, stepping down the rock to the ground, and then
flipping open his book again.

Envy curled hot and furious in Sakura’s gut, and she felt her hands clench despite herself. Not
a week ago, she’d had that same exacting control of herself. Maybe it was never ago. It hasn’t
happened. All the same, logic reasserted itself, and she broke eye contact to look down at her
ankle. The back of her sandal had been slashed, and there was the absolute slightest scratch
through her skin where the tip of Kakashi’s shuriken had touched.

Anyone who walks gets a shuriken to the achilles.

Not an attack. She’d stopped running; it had been motivation.

All at once, heat filled her face and she knew she was turning brilliant red; it didn’t stop the
choking feeling that rose up after it, as she struggled to take an even breath and force it back
down. “... Sorry, Kakashi-sensei,” she managed. It wasn’t good enough - of course it wasn’t
good enough. If Kakashi had been any less skilled of a shinobi, she probably would have hit
him with her frantic, blind counterattack. There’d been no reason for it.

Sakura’s heart thundered in her chest like it wanted to break free of her ribcage, every breath
a desperate draw against spasming muscles and a raw, dry throat. She could still taste bile. It
didn’t seem to matter that she knew she wasn’t under attack, that she was… safe, here in
Konoha, here with her team and her sensei. Her mind struggled to believe it, and her reflexes
refused to try.

The worst part was that she knew exactly what was happening. She’d been in a war. She’d
trained and fought and killed and even though her body could no longer keep up, she couldn’t
let it go. Everything that could be an attack was, until proven otherwise. Despite telling
herself it wasn’t true, the belief remained that if she failed to react, she would die.

Kakashi was still staring at her over his book, even as Hinata slowly began running again and
Sasuke frowned at them. His gaze was cold - but moreover, there was something in his face
that spoke of calculation. Weighing her responses. Recognition.

And of course. He’d been born into the Third Shinobi War. He’d been raised in violence. He
knew what wartime trauma reflexes looked like.

Just to break their staring, Sakura turned and started to run. She didn’t even know how many
laps she’d managed anymore - her thoughts had strayed too far and too long, and she had to
have done more than one or two since first stopping to vomit and losing count, but she could
no better guess how many than she could what Kakashi was thinking. There was nothing she
could do. Sakura just had to keep going. She had to adjust before she could even begin to fix
things. To save people.

I have the time, she reminded herself. Even the first time, aside from the Massacre, nothing
had really gone sideways until the Chūnin Exams and Orochimaru’s Curse Mark. Damned if I
let that happen again. But she had time. Even after that, even after Sasuke had left - he won’t
this time, he has no reason to - it had taken years for everything to really hit the fan. She had
time.

But clearly, she needed to try another approach. Too soon, too little time to consider and
adjust, but she was a shinobi. Adapting was expected of her. So far, all she’d managed to do
was make Kakashi suspicious of her; so suspicious that he’d used his Sharingan to test her.
So suspicious that she was almost certain he’d been observing her on her way here this
morning. Not just observing his team as she’d known he would - but her personally. She
didn’t match her file.

And she was making it worse, trying to behave like the trained veteran she felt like she was.
She couldn’t throw around Tsunade’s strength technique like she was used to - she absolutely
couldn’t reveal she knew medical ninjutsu. Learning such complicated techniques took years
of training and far more skill than she should have as a fresh genin. Frankly, she suspected it
took more skill than she actually had. Her chakra reserves were still small. Her control wasn’t
as refined as she was used to, despite being leagues ahead of her peers. She needed to put
more effort into faking incompetence, rather than behaving like a battle-hardened kunoichi.

Okay.

If she needed to not be herself, then… she’d be incompetent. Flukes and nerves and
overconfidence; she would pin her behaviour for the last couple of days on anything and
everything she could to explain it away. Nerves from graduating. Overindulgent self-
confidence that had thoroughly shattered with their disastrous attempt at the bell test.
Overreactions. Childish eagerness broken into undisciplined caution.

The idea of letting herself be the same worthless genin she’d been at the start curdled in her
chest, but it wasn’t forever. She didn’t need to learn how to be valuable this time - she just
needed to slow down and pace out the suspicion until she could look natural in her
progression. She just needed to settle. Adapt. She didn’t need to let her friends get hurt.

“Alright, pack it in,” Kakashi’s voice broke into her thoughts, and she stumbled. Caught
herself, barely, and then thought better of it. Let herself collapse. Ow. Should she have landed
on her hands rather than her arms? She wasn’t sure, as she hauled herself back to her feet and
dramatically staggered back towards her sensei. Trying to think of when she’d learned not to
catch her whole weight with her hands - and subsequently risk breaking her wrists - was
nothing more than a fuzzy certainty in her head.

Maybe that little a thing didn’t matter.

When they’d made it back to Kakashi-sensei, she made a show of flopping to the ground and
groaning. It was easier than she’d like to admit. Sasuke didn’t sit, hair slicked back with
sweat but breathing deep and even, and instead started working into gentle stretches, trying to
avoid the cramps already wracking Sakura’s whole body. On her other side, Hinata did the
same; she was gleaming with sweat too, and had taken off her fluffy hooded jacket to reveal
the loose short-sleeve she wore underneath it, but she was even less out of breath than Sasuke
was. Her stretches were measured and controlled.

“Well, that was enlightening,” Kakashi began, snapping the Icha Icha book shut and stashing
it back in whichever pocket it went into. Not an old issue, Sakura realised belatedly. The
current one. Jiraiya hadn’t written the sequels yet. “You’ll be doing individual training for the
rest of the day. Hinata,” and she squeaked, stopping her stretches. “Your stamina is, frankly,
excellent.” The Hyuuga turned vivid pink, eyes widening, but she didn’t dare refute the
observation. Good. Maybe Kakashi would be good for her, even as detached and
contemptuous as he seemed to be. “But you lack conviction.” He walked right up to her, and
as fast as she’d flushed, she went pale instead.

It wasn’t fast. He telegraphed the motion so clearly that all three genin knew what would
happen before it did - and still, Hinata stood still with pale cheeks and wide eyes and did
nothing to stop him. Kakashi reached out with one hand, put his palm against her shoulder,
and then shoved her over with casual ease. Sakura felt the flicker of his chakra signature, just
faintly, and there was scorn in his face as Hinata toppled with more force than her own
meagre weight could have offered on its own. A whimper as she did, staggering and
slamming into the ground. Her eyes squeezed shut, and the thud of impact made Sakura
flinch away where she lay.

Or maybe Kakashi would just bully her like everyone else.

For a moment, incandescent rage flashboiled in her chest, and Sakura pushed herself up on
shaking arms. Kakashi was already crouching by Hinata, elbows on his knees and hands
loose between them. “Your skill is worthless if you won’t use it.” And silently, an echo of his
voice in her head despite the fact he didn’t say it: and so are you. Straightening up, he turned
his gaze on Sakura - and the anger stuttered into something altogether heavier and harder to
hold. “... Do push-ups. Keep doing them until you can’t.” Voice cold, but Sakura met his gaze
steadily and held her tongue. He was right. Sakura couldn’t hope to match another shinobi in
battle if she couldn’t even run around for a bit without puking. “And then do sit-ups instead.”

She expected him to move on to Sasuke immediately, but he stared at her instead. Licking her
lips, trying to work up some saliva to ease the scratchy dryness in her mouth, Sakura dragged
her hands into position, set her weight on her toes, and started doing push-ups. They were
slow, but she kept at it. A small metal canteen dropped onto the ground in front of her, and by
the time she looked up Kakashi had left her to it. He didn’t react when she stopped to take a
drink; despite how badly she wanted to gulp it all down, she stopped herself after two
mouthfuls, and went back at it. Trying to show incompetency didn’t have to mean doing
stupid shit that would only make her throw up more. That wasn’t necessary. Was it? Nope.
She didn’t want to do it either way.

“... You’re arrogant, Sasuke.” Black eyes blinked back, but a glance wasn’t enough for
Sakura to properly read his reaction. Her arms shook as she lowered her body towards the
ground. Nearly gave out. Tensed abdominals and taut shoulders, and she managed to push
herself back up. Locked her elbows for a moment. Slowly went down again. “You’re going to
sit on this rock. You’re going to do nothing.”

Sasuke sputtered a protest, and Sakura didn’t blame him. What in the hell was Kakashi doing
this time? His teaching methods had always been unconventional, and normally she’d trust he
knew what he was doing… but this wasn’t her Kakashi. This wasn’t the same man. “Kakashi-
sensei, that’s—”

“Quiet.” Spoken with as harsh a tone as he could, and chills raced across Sakura’s skin. It had
been so long… she’d forgotten how scary Kakashi could be when he tried. “If you ever
backtalk me again, I’ll throw your ass back to the Academy myself.” There wasn’t even
anger when he made the threat. Perfectly even and ice cold. “Sit on the rock, and shut up.”

Trembling, Sasuke climbed up the rock and sat down, plucking Sakura’s shuriken from it as
he went. Silent. He sat, set the little metal stars down beside him, and went still. Bitter and
useless fury shone feverishly in his eyes, even as he refused to meet anyone’s gaze.

Sakura held herself just barely off the ground, and slowly, achingly, pushed herself back up.

Once more, Kakashi was by Hinata. “Get up.” She did so, scrambling, wincing from the
bruise of landing, already beginning to show on her exposed forearm. Kakashi formed a
handsign, and a moment later there was a puff of congealing chakra and an exact copy of him
popped into existence. Something that ached far deeper made itself known in Sakura’s chest.
“This is a shadow clone. You can’t hurt me by destroying it, no matter what you hit it with.
That’s your job today.” Kakashi gestured to his clone, who took half a step back, sized Hinata
up, and smirked through the mask. “Hit me.”

The real Kakashi wandered back over to the rock, ignored Sasuke’s smouldering glare
entirely, and settled down to read some more. Next to them, Hinata watched the clone in
trepidation, but it didn’t move. Eventually, she took a step forward; the clone moved back,
and then suddenly it was dancing back towards the river, avoiding the jabbed attempt at an
attack. Hinata bit her lip and hunched her shoulders.

From behind his book, sounding bored, Kakashi drawled. “If you don’t hit me, Hinata, you’re
joining Sasuke back at the Academy.” It got him a squeak. And then Hinata was off, chasing
the clone back and forth across the training grounds, dipping in and out of the forest and
Sakura’s line of sight.

The first time she finally collapsed, her whole body shaking with the effort, she let herself
just lay there pathetically for a minute and she wasn’t scolded. Everything hurt, but Sakura
eventually replaced her hands underneath her and lowered her chest almost to the ground.
Tensed up and forced her arms to take her weight, fought gravity and crept her way back up
until she could lock her elbows again, just for a moment. Sasuke was turning a large shuriken
over in his hands - still silent - as if it was the only thing in the world left to care about.
Sparks occasionally skated across its unusual edge, and without knowing how to properly
mask it, the flutters in his chakra signature could be felt loud and clear.

Hinata was struggling, by the time Sakura collapsed a second time. Ragged breathing, sweat
slicking her hair into matte ribbons, constantly sticking to her face and getting in the way.
She impatiently brushed them aside, eyes fixed on Kakashi’s clone - chakra veins rose
sharply in her temples, Byakugan hunting for any way past the clone’s defence. Kakashi was
just too fast. There was no counterattack, but Hinata just couldn’t get close enough.

Letting herself pause, Sakura had another drink of water. Her injured hand was starting to
become unbearable, forced to hold her weight up and down for so long. Technically, if she
had to, Sakura knew she could keep going. Her limits were different now, much narrower
than she liked, and trying to account for that accurately was proving to be almost impossible -
but she could keep going. She couldn’t stop shaking, but she hadn’t hit the point of no return
yet. Still, she was supposed to be a genin. Weak. Incompetent. Calling upon her memories of
her first timeline, Sakura decided it was time to quit. She turned along her own length,
glancing up at Sasuke - obviously in a foul mood, spinning the special shuriken on one
fingertip, watching it crackle with chakra - and lay down on her back. Picked her knees up,
took a breath, and laced her fingers together at the back of her neck.

Kakashi didn’t look up either, but a moment later he’d shifted slightly and placed one foot
over the top of Sakura’s toes. An anchor point for her to do sit-ups properly.

Wondering whether the stinging in her eyes was gratitude or just exhaustion, Sakura braced
herself and sat up. Let her muscles release and fall back again. Rinse, repeat. Over and over.
She slowed down, paused to drink, kept going.

It was late afternoon when Kakashi finally stirred. Sakura had been lying still for about half
an hour, eyes closed, just focused on trying to breathe properly. After she’d finally given up
on sit-ups, Kakashi had had her stand and do lunges. Then starjumps. Then warmdown. Even
with that, she felt like a living bruise. Tomorrow was going to suck.

Hinata was lunging wildly, in between long breathers. Clone Kakashi sidestepped easily,
watching her. With every attack, she let out a shout of effort, and it made exactly no
difference at all. Sullen as ever, Sasuke was taking a nap. There was quite literally nothing
else for him to do.

The snap of Kakashi closing his book took all attention. “We’re done for the day. Meet back
here tomorrow, at—”

“Hyah!”

Kakashi blinked. Off by the river, Hinata had struck a borderline feral attack at Kakashi’s
clone - whose attention had been on his progenitor. The faintest pop of a clone dispelling
reached their ears. Panting, Hinata sat down heavily. “I… hit you… Sensei.”
Finally, the crinkle of his eye as he smiled was genuine. Relief washed through Sakura, and
she closed her eyes. Different but there. It was a mantra she’d sung internally at every new
instance of odd cruelty, but seeing proof of it made it infinitely easier to believe. “Yes, you
did. Well done, Hinata.” Faint pink dusted Hinata’s face. “... Tomorrow morning at six. You
should all get home.” And with a burst of chakra, he was gone.

Sasuke didn’t move from where he was curled up on the rock. His eyes were open, now,
gleaming darkly, but he didn’t say a damn thing.

Finally, Hinata got back to her feet. “I’ll… see you tomorrow,” she mumbled, before
grabbing her jacket and heading out. It took another five minutes for either Sakura or Sasuke
to move. When they did, it was Sakura who sat up.

“... Are you okay?” Sasuke’s gaze fixed on her, dark and angry, but he finally pushed himself
up into a sitting position. Said nothing. “... He’s trying to teach you something. Right? You
just… have to figure out what it is.” And she believed it, she really did - but even trying to
think through the hovering exhaustion, Sakura couldn’t come up with a good answer.
Kakashi-sensei never did anything for no reason, but… what was he hoping to teach Sasuke
by sidelining him?

Expression dark, Sasuke got to his feet, dropped to the ground beside her, and stomped away
without a word. Sighing, Sakura forced herself to follow suit; gathered up her shuriken, put
them away, and began the long trip home. She was sore everywhere, and she’d only be more
so tomorrow. Raw strength and endurance were what she needed right now, just to catch up
with where her teammates were, just to even survive more intense or specific training, but it
was going to be rough and she knew it.

Her father fussed, when she got home. It was almost dark by then, and quite aside from the
fretting she’d expected, there was a frantic edge as he took in the ragged state of her, the
bruises slowly forming on her arms where she’d collapsed, the faint whiff of bile on her
breath as he got too close and Sakura didn’t have the heart to push him away. “I’m fine,” she
insisted, over and over and over again, but her mother just watched with worried eyes while
her father brushed her hair back and promised she could talk to them if it got too hard, or if
her sensei was mean.

That sat funny in her chest, that one. Mean. Yeah, Kakashi-sensei was mean. Cruel, even -
nastier than he’d ever been before, just as blunt. But that was what they needed, or at least the
lessons he was teaching them were necessary. The real world was mean. Enemies would want
them dead.

Finally, as her father brushed her hair back again and offered to run her a bubble bath, what
little patience she had left snapped. “Stop it,” she growled, pushing him away; he stumbled,
and she ignored the flash of guilt as her chakra surged. “I’m not your baby girl anymore,
Dad. I’m a genin. If I don’t train like this, I’ll get myself - and my team - killed. I can’t ‘take
it easy.’ People’s lives are going to depend on me.” There was something she didn’t want to
see, in their expression, but she didn’t stay to find out; storming past them, she went to have a
quick shower - she ran it scalding hot, and she didn’t know if it was to spite them or herself -
and then she slammed her bedroom door behind her.
It was petty, and immature, and it felt good.

And even so, as the noise reverberated, she sighed and rubbed her face with both hands. The
red shine to her skin would be gone in the morning, but for now it still tingled hot and
sensitive. A groan slipped out from her lips. “Damn it, Sakura.” Muttered to herself, rubbing
her face again. More vigorous, this time. As if trying to wipe something away. Loathe as she
was to do it after throwing a fucking tantrum, she knew she needed to go back downstairs. If
not to talk it out with her parents, then at least to eat. She’d skipped lunch today - the whole
team had - and she couldn’t afford to miss meals.

They were talking, when she walked into the kitchen. Abrupt silence, when they noticed her,
and she sighed, but there was no point in pursuing it. “... Are you alright, flower?” her father
asked tentatively as she wandered over to the fridge.

Sakura put down the urge to brush him off. “I need to eat. Training is hard.” Not a complaint.
There was too much to do, too much resting on her. If it was easy, then she wasn’t trying hard
enough. She pretended not to see the glance they exchanged, helped herself to a whole stick
of salami, and then went about getting herself a bowl of rice. “... I know you’re just worried
about me.” It was as close to an apology as they were going to get; Sakura wouldn’t
apologise for telling them the truth. “But this is… what I have to do. I’m a shinobi.”

When she finally turned around to face them, they were watching her. Kizashi still had that
bubbling fear in his eyes, concern for her; he had always tried to protect her, and never
realised how weak that made her. It was done out of love, however misguided. But Mebuki,
when Sakura looked at her, had a fierce expression, and a glint of pride in her eyes.
Something hot and unwelcome swelled in Sakura’s chest.

“Remember to take lunch tomorrow,” her mother told her, voice as stern as ever, and Sakura
chose not to notice the kick she gave Kizashi under the table as her father drew breath to
speak. Instead, he just smiled.

So Sakura smiled back. It felt… wrong, somehow, deliberately showing a positive response.
This was the kind of behaviour she wanted from her parents. Getting it all in the open now -
making sure that they understood she wouldn’t be swayed from her path, and reassuring them
that she could really do it - would put a stop to the fallout they’d had in her… future? Past?
Whichever. (Maybe it was both).

But it still felt like she was… manipulating them. Training them. It wasn’t their fault she
wasn’t their young, naive daughter anymore.

“I’m going back to my room. I need to sleep.” And she did, the faintest muscle tremble in her
legs as she took her food upstairs and dropped onto her bed to finish eating. She’d take her
dishes down in the morning. Dinner disappeared quickly, and Sakura ignored the faint
discomfort of it as she dropped herself into bed proper. She was out in moments.

The next day was more of the same.

She was only ten minutes late, this time, but Sasuke and Hinata were already sparring.
Concealing her chakra signature was almost second nature, as she approached, but she
thought better of it the closer she got. Sasuke and Hinata were genin; they were not the
people she remembered. They didn’t have those skills. In all likelihood, they wouldn’t even
sense her signature - but Kakashi would, if he was watching them (and she had no doubt that
he was), and he’d know if she was concealing it.

Too early for that skill, too young to be capable of concealing it from someone like Kakashi.
Weariness pulsed through her as she thought about it, chasing the aching stiffness of her
whole body. She was never going to be able to let her guard down. There was always going
to be another consideration she had to make, another judgement to juggle, another decision
about what she risked letting Kakashi-sensei see. He was too clever, his senses too keen. He
wouldn’t miss any mistake she made.

How the hell was she supposed to hide the truth from him long term?

Maybe I shouldn’t.

Sakura discarded the thought, and called out a hello just as Hinata and Sasuke clashed;
Hinata stumbled, and Sasuke had her on the ground in moments. Oops. “Sorry,” she added,
wincing while she watched Sasuke let Hinata up. It was only the third day of their official
training, but that they were already consistently sparring was a good sign. Sakura made a
note to encourage it, at some point.

“Thought you’d be later,” Sasuke said instead of greeting her back, a low grunt as he brushed
off his shirt and headed back to his half of the sparring circle.

Heart sinking, Sakura looked away. She recognised that tone; the same begrudging tone he’d
always used when he’d been forced to admit Naruto had done something right. She’d upset
him.

It wasn’t hard to figure out why. All the new memories she had of him showed that they were
good friends. They’d actively done Academy tasks together. She’d been a bridge between
him and Ino - they hadn’t exactly been friends in their own right, both too meanly
competitive, but she’d managed them somehow. She’d told him all her secret insecurities.
He’d complained about Itachi, and his father - and then, later, he’d tried to show her the
things Itachi was teaching him. Told her when he’d caught Itachi acting too strange for
comfort, or when his brother had vanished for days at a time following the Konoha Massacre
and scared the hell out of him. Quietly admitted when he missed his father.

Silently, Sakura cursed the fake (real?) version of herself who hadn’t bothered to put the
effort into learning what Sasuke had offered to her, rather than just the theory. All the
knowledge in the world does not a ninja make.

But she didn’t know how to make up for the vast gap she’d suddenly put between them.
Showing up late, refusing to talk about it. Her… ‘moods’, the little flashes of her real ( fake )
self had been called. Only this time, the change was permanent, and she couldn’t expect
Sasuke to understand it any more than she could expect him not to notice. Maybe this team
wasn’t all he had left, not this time, but the idea that she could push him away, that she could
be the reason he went vengeful chilled her.

It was ridiculous, considering her friendship that important, that he might react so drastically
just because she’d changed - but it didn’t stop the fear from circulating all the same. I’ll make
it up to him, she told herself, and then tried to stow all those thoughts away. They weren’t
useful right now.

“... I wanted to get through my warmups,” she offered lamely; tried not to see the brief glance
Sasuke sent her. There was more she should say - an apology, maybe, anything - but she
couldn’t figure out how to say it in a way that wouldn’t just make everything worse, and
before she could try Sasuke and Hinata had leapt back into their spar.

Maybe it was better that way, as Sakura set her bag down by the rock (it was a welcome
nostalgia and far too familiar at the same time) and began going through her stretches to
warm up before Kakashi showed his face. It was only when Hinata put Sasuke face-down in
the dust that she realised he was eyeing her while she did; belatedly, it occurred to her that
she wasn’t doing the Academy-taught warmups. These were the ones Tsunade-sensei had
taught her, the slow and heavy movements, the motion of chakra designed to expand her
distal capacity and control.

Katas that they didn’t recognise. Shit. But it would be even more suspicious to switch to
Academy-standard now, when it had already been noticed. Somehow even worse to react as
if she’d been caught. Fuck, fuck.

Too late. Too stupid - she hadn’t even considered it. You can’t do this.

The thought took her breath away, and she came to a slow standstill. She hadn’t even
considered it. Everything had been so… so… There hadn’t been time to consider it. There
hadn’t been any other options.

Only Naruto could have given them the sheer power needed to pull off the technique he’d
been given by the Bijuu. Only Sasuke - Sharingan ablaze, eyes burning with the Mangekyō
he’d inherited from Itachi - had been able to perform it. Sakura didn’t have the faintest clue
what the technique looked like; if she fucked up this one chance, she couldn’t repeat it.
Kakashi-sensei had been… dead. There’d been no choice. No time to think. They’d cast the
jutsu, and she’d dove into it headfirst like Team Seven always had, and there’d been no other
path to take.

But maybe she couldn’t do this. Maybe she couldn’t do it alone.

Maybe she couldn’t do it at all.

“...akura?” came Hinata’s shy voice, and Sakura jolted as her train of thought broke. Eyes
were wide, as she stared dumbly and tried to feel her expression from the inside out. “Are…
are you okay?” Sasuke stood a little further back, arms folded, eyes shadowed - but he was
watching intently as Hinata put a hesitant hand on Sakura’s shoulder.
It felt like being touched by fire, and Sakura had jerked away before she could consciously
decide, taken a step back and pulled her own hands up defensively, as if she was under attack.
Her heart was beating painfully hard. “Sorry,” came out automatically, harsh and rushed.
“I’m— Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry.”

Sasuke scowled at her. Read the lie all too easily. “Come on,” he muttered, turning away.
“We might as well get some laps in before Kakashi-sensei shows up.” Bitter.

But Sakura couldn’t think of anything to say to refute it, to explain herself, to make it better.
Instead, she ducked her head and fell into line as they sorted themselves into a silent order -
Sasuke at the front, Sakura at the back - and began jogging laps around the training ground.

There was so much she needed to do. Talk to Itachi. Find out more about the Konoha
Massacre. Convince Kakashi she was who she seemed to be (or… didn’t seem to be). Make
sure Sasuke stayed home and happy. Help Hinata. Find Naruto. Train. She didn’t have the
faintest clue how to do any of it. Her friends were all gone; these children she was trying to
save were just… pale imitations, even if she knew how unfair that was of her. She had so
much to figure out, and she had to do it alone. She wasn’t sure if she could.

But… she had to try.

So Sakura focused on keeping her breathing even, put one foot in front of the other, and ran
her laps in silence.

It was still early, although Itachi had sent a crow ahead of himself to warn of his impending
tardiness again. Normally he wouldn’t have dreamt of it - but to his shock, when he had
arrived the day before, his team had been… working. Neji had been scowling at them,
obviously aggravated, but he’d taken charge with an ease Itachi hadn’t expected of him.

Perhaps a strategy he would have to test a few more times. So, despite the prickling
uneasiness of it, Itachi waited on the trail out to the training grounds without guilt.

He saw Kakashi before he sensed him. Chakra concealed - almost but not quite completely -
as he picked his way across Konoha’s border wall. Border was a strong word for it,
technically; the training grounds were set up outside of Konoha proper, to take advantage of
the carefully cultivated landscape, but there was still a wall built to section them off. He was
earlier than Itachi had anticipated.

He’s anxious, Itachi thought as he pulsed his own chakra signature, quietly walking across the
wall himself to drop down on the far side. It only made sense, given yesterday’s activity. The
anxiety was one that they shared. Of Kakashi’s students, it hadn’t been Sakura that Itachi had
expected to be the target of a Sharingan scan. Sakura had been Sasuke’s friend for years -
Itachi had interacted with her personally plenty of times before. There was always an
uneasiness between them, but it was entirely Itachi’s fault. It was hard to forget a girl who’d
fearlessly walked into the Uchiha compound at seven years old and demanded his presence.

But nothing had ever come of it. Outrageously bold or not, plenty of young Academy
students idolised older shinobi, idealised their experiences and actions, chased after their
feats. It wasn’t her fault the reality never lived up to the rumours.

And even then, he’d still taken his time with it, watching as she arrived late with chakra
warm in his eyes. (Amusing, that she’d taken after her sensei, even if worryingly out of
character). Even having already offered assurances, he’d agreed to stop by her house that
night, to observe her for unusual actions - to observe her parents for the same. If he felt guilty
about spying on Sasuke’s friend, then at the very least it had been a harmless action.

Kakashi stopped at his side a moment later, and the dull shine to his visible eye spoke of yet
another sleepless night. At least he didn’t seem to be favouring any fresh injuries. “I saw
nothing out of place,” Itachi offered before Kakashi could ask, and he was rewarded with the
faint shift of his mask that betrayed a scowl.

“... Thanks.” Quiet, almost reluctant - but Itachi tilted his head in acknowledgement. As
strange as the request was, and as much as Itachi disliked going behind Sasuke’s back in this
manner with his friend, there was nothing to be done for it. All Kakashi had to do was ask,
and Itachi would comply.

“What is it about her that warrants such suspicion?” he heard himself asking anyway. Itachi
found it hard to imagine Sakura doing anything to cause Kakashi such distress as he was in,
and yet here they were. Even now, Itachi would have been tempted to put it down to sheer
paranoia were it not for Sasuke’s report back the previous evening. He, too, had complained
of Sakura’s behaviour. ‘One of her moods’, he’d said - but it apparently hadn’t abated, and
that the peculiar condition she had only exhibited on occasion was lasting longer than a day
was… concerning. Not merely for what it might mean for those around her, what it was
causing that had Kakashi-senpai reacting this way, what obvious emotional pain it was
inflicting on Sasuke, but for the girl herself.

Sighing, Kakashi ran a hand through his hair. “... That girl is not a genin,” he finally said.

Itachi considered that. “High skill at a young age is hardly unheard of.” The two of them set
rather extreme precedents, in fact, but from the narrowing of Kakashi’s eye, it wasn’t a
reminder that he appreciated. Not that it mattered overmuch; it was the truth. Prodigies of
various skill and power weren’t exactly uncommon amongst Konoha - even if the fact she
was civilian-born made it more unusual, there was no reason to assume she simply wasn’t a
genius. Even her graduation at a normal age wasn’t a marker against the possibility. Tsunade-
sama had stopped practicing advanced graduation of students except in the most extreme
cases almost as soon as she had taken her office.

That, amongst many other reforms of Konoha law. As tumultuous as that time had been, as
awful as the circumstances that had led to her instalment were, Itachi was grateful for it.
Tsunade was a Hokage who shared a lot of Itachi’s reticence for combat, who valued the
wellbeing of her village over its reputation.

And if that had been all of it, Itachi would have pushed harder at the idea that perhaps,
Sakura was simply another genius in the making. She was certainly clever enough to earn the
title.
But Itachi had watched her train. He had seen her capabilities himself, as she aged from a
young student to the genin she was now.

And he knew better.

“Don’t bullshit me, Itachi.” The warning was implicit. I’m not in the mood. Itachi sighed and
shifted his weight, ever so slightly.

He was regretting the decision to get up before dawn, now. “I’m… uncertain what you want
me to say, senpai. I’ve not experienced anything suspicious or devious in my years of
Sakura’s acquaintance. I’ve found nothing in my - admittedly brief - observations of her
parents.”

“She should not be able to pull out Tsunade’s signature technique without warning.” Itachi
was silent; he couldn’t refute that. What Tsunade did to enhance her strikes was more
complicated than simply washing them with chakra. While it was possible to inflict extra
damage by blowing chakra when one hit something - something that most shinobi did or had
done in the past - Tsunade’s efforts went far deeper and far more complex than that. They
required godlike chakra control, and no small amount of effort. It had taken the Sannin years
to develop. “Even if I bought the idea she picked it up out of a book, her library records don’t
include anything that even might contain that information.”

And, Kakashi didn’t say, anything that did wouldn’t be freely available in the civilian part of
Konoha library. Beyond even those reasons, Itachi would have noticed if Sasuke’s best friend
had been practicing such a technique. There really was no good explanation - but neither he
nor Kakashi had seen anything amiss with the Sharingan, and any deeper inspection of her
chakra would require med-nins or a Hyuuga.

No matter how strange the situation or stressed Kakashi seemed, Itachi was unwilling to
involve Hiashi if they could avoid it. The general animosity between the Hyuuga clan and the
Uchiha was uncalled for and damaging - but Hiashi was… dangerous. Fanatical. Not
everybody could be reasoned with. Sometimes, it didn’t matter how logical or right one was.

For a moment, they just looked at each other. “What are you willing to do about it?” Itachi
asked quietly. He wouldn’t stop Kakashi from whatever decision he made, but he wanted to
know what it would be. So he was prepared for whatever happened to Sakura. So he knew
what to try and tell Sasuke.

Another hand went through Kakashi’s hair. The movement was… uncontrolled. Not obvious,
but it tugged his hair the wrong way for just a moment, and his other hand was once more
balled into a fist in his pocket. “I don’t know,” Kakashi admitted quietly. “Maybe she is
innocent.”

And taking action against her would only put a Konoha genin through unnecessary hell. But
if Itachi had really been blind all these years, if there was something about her that posed a
threat, then doing nothing put Hinata and (more importantly) Sasuke in danger. It was a
difficult thought to swallow. For as childish as she usually was, Itachi had grown quite fond
of her. Even so, he wouldn’t hesitate to act if she turned out to be a risk to Sasuke.
“... Then you simply have to observe her.” Perhaps Itachi could assist in that. It would hardly
be unusual for Sasuke to invite her over; it probably wouldn’t take much nudging. “My
experience with her says that she wouldn’t willingly put your team in danger.”

Kakashi nodded. “I should let you get to your own team,” he murmured, slipping his second
hand into his pocket and attempting to breathe out the tension in his shoulders.

A promise hastily made prodded at the back of Itachi’s mind, and he hid a grimace.
“Actually, I have a question.” Kakashi paused. “Sasuke complained that you had him do
nothing yesterday.” It wasn’t that Itachi doubted Kakashi’s methods - he knew only too well
that the man had never done a thing without purpose. But Itachi had promised Sasuke he
would ask.

“I did.”

Itachi considered his question. In the end, he settled on simplicity: “Why?”

Something dark and haunted burned through Kakashi’s face, erasing for a moment the hollow
tiredness he was almost-but-not-quite hiding. Meeting Itachi’s gaze squarely, Kakashi
wrinkled his nose under the mask. “You know as well as I do how important it is that he
doesn’t ever follow orders blindly.”

Itachi’s blood ran cold; a perfect match to Kakashi’s quiet voice.

There was darkness both within and without, but he didn’t need the light to see through it.
The darkness without was unconcerning, even with the sharp scent of blood in the air, or the
distant currents of chakra expulsion as the source tried to flee. He didn’t need to rush - there
was no point. Escaping the dark down here was impossible. And besides, they wouldn’t have
been sent to him if they were intended to return.

The darkness within was… brighter, in a way. Thinner, easier to see through - but the drip
drip of water echoed through it, and it suffocated him with an unending, silent mockery. All
the same, he sat down and sank into it, walked the phantom halls with the water that didn’t
really exist swirling around his ankles.

It took some time in the darkness within to find what he sought. It always did. Frustration
wound under his skin anyway, sparking into irritation as the minutes ticked by. The parasite
was getting better at evading him.

Finally, as was inevitable, he found the end of the chain as it slithered through the water in
the parasite’s wake, and with a feral grin he stomped down on it. There was a moment as it
went taut when nothing happened, and then the ripples came back to him through the water
they waded through, the clatter and sudden slack as the parasite reached the end of its tether
and bounced back. A second later, a snarl rumbled past him, raising ethereal goosebumps on
his arms despite the fact that nothing here was entirely real.

Reaching down, he wound the chain around his wrist, up his forearm to his elbow, and then
gave a vicious yank. The snarl was laced with pain this time, the ripples bigger and more
violent. “Don’t make me drag you,” he called out. He might have even sounded cheerful.

They met in the middle, his easy stride slower than the reluctant slink of the parasite, and he
offered it a pleased smile. Blue eyes glinted darkly. The chain he held was only one of many
that cascaded off the parasite’s body - such as it was - in all directions. Some were too short
to reach the ground, and some only wove around to connect to other chains, a crosshatch of
black metal and deep stakes driven into joints and core chakra points. Small, circular Seals
lined the parasite’s portable cage, tiny and precise notches tagged to it in coagulated chakra
that resembled green wax.

“You made me chase you,” he told it, almost admonishingly. Red eyes lowered to stare at
him, and he drank in the fathomless hatred that shone within them. “I thought you were
smarter than that.”

The growl that followed made everything around them shake, but he simply laughed at its
attempt at intimidation. Long ears lay across its skull, the pinna nailed down with jagged
lengths of the black metal. The tips reached all the way back to the parasite’s shoulders, and
remained there beneath the massive spikes of cold steel that punched into the joints. At every
wound along its body, thick red fluid seeped out in viscous dribbles.

It let out another sound as he approached, winding the chain tighter around his arm until he
could reach one that dangled from its muzzle. Dragging that one down drew forth a deep,
rumbled whimper. It wound around the parasite’s snout in tight coils, sharp points digging in
along every point of contact, until the chain broke into smaller lengths that ran up just shy of
its eyes. Deeper pins were sunk in just below each side of its jaw, buried close to its throat.

Razor thin pupils met his gaze as he reached up to bop it on the nose. Another whimper, as
the motion knocked in further the lone metal spoke sank into the wet black of its nose, set
perfectly between its nostrils. He laughed. “Aw, you’re cute. If you didn’t resist me every
time, this would be a lot easier on you.” There was no sympathy in his voice as he pulled on
the chains, and very slowly the parasite sank to its knees. Further. Water splashed up the
walls and left dry marks on his clothes as it washed up to his knees in the wake of the
parasite’s bulk, brought all the way down to its belly.

Paws tipped with black claws bigger than his whole body lay still as he released the chains
and walked closer. Low rumbles, held deep in its chest, chased him as he got close enough to
put in his hand in the red that bled from every Sealed wound. “Yes, yes, I know,” he teased,
even as he turned his palm up and the chakra-blood sank into his skin. “You’ll kill me one
day.” He patted its deep orange fur. “Good boy.”

The snarl was only in his head, as he returned to the darkness without. Blue eyes swirled
crimson as he opened them, and his senses expanded until he had no doubt where he’d been
dropped into the dungeon - and in moments, he’d marked a path through his mental map that
would lead straight to the prey. Sharp fangs came bare in a wicked grin. He didn’t try to be
silent as he took off in pursuit, nails curved into ragged claws on both hands and feet, letting
the scrape of them give away his approach, letting it fill the air with the smell of abject fear.

The hunt went on.

Chapter End Notes

Please Note
Sakura is not, nor has she ever been, useless. I love the girl to death, but she is far from a
reliable narrator, and she's always far too hard on herself. The more things change, the
more things stay the same.

Next chapter due: 6th April 2020.

(Don't @ me about how fast this got written lmaooo)

 As Time and Training Both Wear On
Chapter Summary

Lessons are there to be learned - even if you don't realise they're being taught.

Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Most of the time, Sasuke considered himself to be a fairly reasonable person. It was easier,
these days; as much as he tried not to think about the empty place in his home where his
father used to be, it was a lot more relaxed than it ever had been before. Itachi was calmer,
now - whatever had been… happening, prior to that night, it hadn’t hurt any of them in a long
time. The frustration that he’d thought he would just have to live with when he was younger
was a distant memory, almost forgotten as his requests for Itachi to train with him were
granted now, instead of brushed aside in favour of whatever stress he’d always been under.

So, most of the time, Sasuke thought his life to be a fairly happy one, and on the occasion
that Itachi refused him he’d found that the clawing nameless emotions the rejection had once
produced no longer surfaced. Itachi having a genin to train had been annoying, sure, but it
wasn’t as if he didn’t make time for Sasuke as well. And besides, now Sasuke was a genin
too - even if Itachi hadn’t been given a full team to train this year, Sasuke was supposed to be
too busy and worn out to nag him about it anyway.

He was supposed to be.

For the fourth day in a row, as he gathered by the fucking rock with his kunoichi teammates,
Kakashi-sensei produced a clone for Hinata to chase around and set out a series of strength-
building exercises for Sakura to exhaust herself trying to complete. There was little hope in
Sasuke’s chest as that one black eye turned on him, but there was a little. Surely, today, he’d
have something actually worthwhile to do.

Itachi must have asked Kakashi what the fuck he was doing, as promised, because when he’d
been questioned he’d just given Sasuke that meaningless little smile. A moment later, he’d
tapped two fingers gently to Sasuke’s forehead and gotten to his feet.

“Sorry, little brother.”

And even then, even after all that, Sasuke had shown up, sparred Hinata until Sakura had
shown too, and then ran laps with them until Kakashi bothered to arrive. It was getting later
and later every day.

At least Sakura was already improving; not that Sasuke knew what to even say to her about
it. It had been a week, and her weird mood hadn’t cleared up. She wouldn’t tell him about it,
or participate in all the silent mini rituals they’d developed over the years, or even just… talk
to him like a fucking human being. She was being weird and distant and wrong and Sasuke
was starting to think she’d never go back to normal.

So, Sasuke liked to think he was a reasonable person, and he knew very well that doing as he
was told by those who outranked him was very important. They would have information that
he didn’t, or they’d be making split-second decisions in the field, and hesitation -
insubordination - would get both him and his allies killed. He was reasonable, damn it, and
he would bear whatever insane training that his sensei assigned him.

But once again, crushing the little hope he hadn’t meant to be carrying, damn it, damn it —
Kakashi-sensei offered him an eye-smile that Sasuke was starting to hate and said: “Sit down,
Sasuke. You can watch Hinata try to hit me.”

Four days.

Four days of this, of nothing, while Hinata had cut down the time it took her to catch and
dispel Kakashi’s clone by half and Sakura had managed not to throw up at all yesterday.

He didn’t sit down.

Instead, his hands clenched tight at his sides and something snapped in the gaps beneath his
ribcage, like a rubber band stretched past its limit. Blinding heat rose in his chest, in his eyes,
under every inch of skin, along every single nerve. “You can watch.” This wasn’t training.
This was a fucking joke.

“Fuck you, Sensei,” he spat, barely even hearing himself speak. Backtalk, backtalk. He was
going to get sent back to the Academy. He was going to fail, and it was his own fault,
because he couldn’t just shut up and do as his sensei ordered him to - and the whiplash of
whatever had broken was an ache, underneath the white-hot rage, and he felt like he had the
day he’d thought too highly of himself and cracked a rib, the day Itachi had carried him home
and pretended not to notice the loose tears of pain that had leaked out. “Fuck you.” It still
wasn’t shouted, but Sakura was staring at him. Further away, fully ignoring the clone, Hinata
was staring too, eyes wide and mouth wider.

Kakashi stared down at him. The one eye narrowed. Sasuke didn’t even see him move, but
suddenly he was close, in Sasuke’s face, a kunai held in a casual grip. I should be afraid,
some part of Sasuke’s brain insisted, but he could barely understand it, let alone express it.
There was no fear in how Sasuke stepped into the glare, and levelled back as fierce a glare of
his own as he could manage.

“Do you want to repeat that, Uchiha?” Kakashi’s voice was very soft; like a slip of fur,
freshly cut from a still-writhing animal.

Sasuke bared his teeth. “Fuck. You.” And there was no backing out now, so Sasuke let chakra
spill out of his hands and shoved Kakashi as hard as he could. Tried to. Kakashi-sensei was
gone in an instant, and Sasuke stumbled as he shoved thin air. There was a casual tap to the
middle of his back as he tried to correct himself, and instead he sprawled face-first in the dirt.
Twisting, he glared over his shoulder at where Kakashi now stood, spinning his kunai idly on
one finger.

There was cold disappointment in his gaze, and Sasuke saw red. The next thing he knew, he
was pinned down painfully. One of Kakashi’s feet was planted in the small of his back,
enough pressure that trying to wriggle out hurt like hell and made his spine creak. His torso
was rotated slightly - painfully - as his right wrist was held tight in Kakashi’s hand, his whole
arm pulled up and back in a line so straight that his elbow ached. Kakashi was pulling hard. If
Sasuke struggled, he risked wrenching his shoulder out of its socket. The kunai was held
disturbingly close to Sasuke’s wrist.

Panting, each breath distorted with snarls of impotent rage, Sasuke stayed where he was.

“Do you have anything more eloquent to say than fuck me?” Kakashi asked, and the eerie,
dangerous softness was gone. Instead, he sounded… bored. As if Sasuke had outlived his
own interest. As if it didn’t matter. As if Sasuke didn’t matter.

He still resisted the urge to struggle free, but it was a near thing. Shattering thunder was
pounding in his head, accompanied by the quaking of his whole body, a tremble that ran in
time with his raging heartbeat. Fingers curled, nails digging into his palm where Kakashi still
held his wrist too tight, just a little too far away. He could taste dusty soil on every inhale.
“Fuck… your training…” An edge of pain slipped into his voice despite himself, and it only
made him feel hotter, angrier. Maybe it would be worth popping his shoulder, just to get the
jump on Kakashi, just to hit him. “I’d rather go… back than just… sit on my ass all day.” It
would hurt, it would hurt a lot. Fingers flexed again. The faintest little tug, a taste of rotation
and the zing of pain as his shoulder protested. “I don’t know… why you won’t train me. But
fuck you.” Kakashi’s grip was tight. A good chunk of his weight was on Sasuke’s back. If he
did it, he’d unbalance the man.

Maybe worth it, just to spite him. Just to see his fucking face - or whatever there was of it.

Sasuke gathered his chakra, tensed his muscles, and spun against Kakashi’s grip. His jaw was
clenched, ready for the pain, swiping out with his other arm to try and catch the jōnin
mocking him. Surprise him. Knock him over. Anything.

There was no pain. In the same instant, Kakashi-sensei let go and stepped back, and Sasuke
must have looked stupid as hell lashing out at thin air, his suddenly free hand jolting flat into
his own chest protectively, but that didn’t matter. It registered before he’d finished that he’d
been released - the fury was primal, almost nauseating. A hand dipped to his kunai holster
and there was no conscious decision made, but his fingers came back out gripping one of his
chakra metal-edged shuriken.

Sasuke didn’t think. There was no room inside his skull for anything but the searing static
anger. Chakra flared and clung to the shuriken as he hurled it blindly towards Kakashi.
Sensei, indeed — what a fucking lie. Worthless and cruel as a teacher.

Lightning crackled under his skin briefly, chakra boiling and rising to his call, and then a
sharp burst of noise shot through the air, like the snap of a hundred tiny whips. Immediately
afterwards, there was eerie silence. As Sasuke forced his vision to work properly, he saw
Kakashi standing calmly with one hand lifted; lodged in his palm was Sasuke’s shuriken. His
head tilted slightly, and there was another burst of crackling as Kakashi allowed the lightning
to dissipate from his skin.

Plucking the shuriken from his hand earned the faintest wince and a smearing of blood.

All at once, the rage vapourised into fear, and Sasuke could only bring himself to stare as
Kakashi came close again and crouched in front of him. He hadn't merely disobeyed, or
mouthed off. He'd attacked. His jōnin-sensei; his direct superior. Kakashi was going to send
him back to the Academy and suddenly, Sasuke wasn't entirely sure he didn't deserve it. I've
been doing nothing for almost a week. As much shame as it would bring… maybe he'd still
be better off. Kakashi obviously didn't want them. Giving him an excuse to finally get rid of
Sasuke was probably inevitable anyway.

It didn't stop the breathless shiver in his chest, the sudden dryness in his mouth. He didn't
want to go back to the Academy. He didn't want to fail. He didn't want… He didn't… I
don't…

So quiet that, at first, Sasuke wasn't even sure he was hearing anything at all, Kakashi-sensei
started to laugh.

Sasuke could feel the other two still staring, but he couldn’t move his gaze from Kakashi’s
face, even as the laughter picked up in volume and his eye crinkled shut. What? Was he…
laughing at Sasuke? Surely he’d expected this reaction at some point, surely he’d been
pushing for it, for Sasuke’s shame to be his own fault. What was…?

Electricity surged and the shuriken in Kakashi’s hand lit up brilliant white, snapping and
fizzing. He flicked his fingers - lightning, Kakashi-sensei has a lightning affinity - and the
shuriken buried itself in the ground between them. Energy dissipated into it, a sharp crack as
it flowed out and then went silent again. “Good.” Spoken softly again, but there was…
affection? Maybe? Something, a note in his voice that was almost friendly. As he stood again,
he offered Sasuke his uninjured hand. Numbly, Sasuke took it.

“... What?” Dragged easily to his feet, and released.

Kakashi quirked his visible eyebrow. “That took you longer than I thought it would.” The
words washed through the lingering fear, shifting it back through anger and then into nothing.
He stared. Shaking his head, Kakashi leant down slightly, until Sasuke found he couldn’t look
away from his one black eye. There was a dark smudge beneath it that Sasuke hadn’t noticed
before. Kakashi was… tired? “I said, that took you longer than I thought it would.”

It took too many moments for Sasuke to process that. “You… wanted me to attack you?”

Again, Kakashi laughed. Soft. Quiet. “Why did you waste your time - and mine - doing
nothing?” There was no attack in his tone; cajoling, almost. It was such a startling difference
that Sasuke couldn’t even think to question it, like somebody else had suddenly taken his
sensei’s place.

“I… Because you told me to.” What else was he supposed to do?
The look between them was overwhelming, something deep and intense that Sasuke just
couldn’t quite place. Something… personal. “Yes, I did.” Voice gentle. What the fuck is
happening? “Do you think I should have?”

It clicked together.

When Sasuke finally responded, there was a newfound confidence in his voice. “No.”

“No.” Confirmation. His eye crinkled, and Kakashi’s mask shifted into the shadow of a smile.
“Do you know what I’ve been trying to teach you?”

He shouldn’t have given me those orders. A moment went by, a hollow sensation of isolation,
like nothing else existed outside of Sasuke and Kakashi’s unblinking stare. I shouldn’t have
followed those orders. “I…” Everything stretched out. “Don’t follow stupid orders.”

This time, when Kakashi laughed, it was sharp and sparkling, stepping back from Sasuke so
they weren’t in each other’s faces. It was like a genjutsu had been broken; Sasuke glanced
around at their teammates. Sakura was still just staring, motionless, but there was a shadow in
her eyes that was almost… unnatural. She wasn’t looking at Sasuke. Her gaze was fixed on
Kakashi.

The crawling emotions under his skin were familiar and unnamable, and Sasuke looked away
from her. Further on, standing by Kakashi’s clone (also smiling), was Hinata. She had her
hands up at her chest, fingers laced, white eyes on Sasuke - and she was grinning at him,
unrestrained. When he made eye contact with her, she clapped her hands. Bounced on her
heels a moment. Totally silent, but celebratory - and for him.

"Good." Kakashi broke the suspension, and everything seemed to settle. Well, almost. Sakura
still didn't move, but there was the sudden pop of a shadow clone, and Kakashi blinked.
Looked towards Hinata, who had dimmed down into a pleased little smile. “... Very good,
Hinata.” A moment passed, and then Kakashi created another shadow clone. “This one will
fight back.”

The clone considered Hinata for a moment and then jumped at her. A second later, they were
dancing around each other, fighting for the upper hand. Hinata was instantly on the losing
end again - but there was a determination in her face that was unfamiliar, and welcome.

“Alright, Sasuke,” Kakashi called his attention back again. “Let’s get these shuriken sorted
out. Your throw was sloppy.” He tugged off his glove as he spoke, inspecting the wound to
his palm, before bringing out a short length of bandage wrap and a small, soft dressing.
“Once you can throw them properly, then we can work on applying your chakra.” Amused,
almost.

But Sasuke didn’t care if Kakashi had flipped some sort of personality switch or something.
He’d take whatever it took to actually get some proper training from the man; no matter how
much of an asshole he was, Kakashi was also the strongest jōnin in Konoha. If managing his
crazy was what it took, Sasuke wouldn’t complain. Leaning down, he tugged his shuriken out
of the dirt - tried not to be impressed by how deep it had sunk with such a short throw - and
used his shirt to rub the debris off it.
Glanced up, squinting slightly, trying to make sure Kakashi really meant it. “So… you’ll
show me?” He offered the shuriken to his sensei, reaching down with his other hand to
unsheathe the second one attached to his thigh.

Kakashi’s mask twitched - a smirk - and he took it.

Two weeks after officially becoming Kakashi-sensei’s genin, they took their first D-rank
mission.

Kakashi showed up early - and by 'early', Hinata meant 'only three hours late' - with three
copies of a small mission scroll. Waving it around, he’d tossed one to each of them;
unravelling it had revealed a neat but cramped hand explaining the details.

It wasn’t a particularly complicated mission, but Hinata had felt the thrill under her skin all
the same as they’d fallen into line at Kakashi’s heel and followed him. Hard manual labour -
moving about construction materials - wasn’t exactly challenging, but even as genin they
were shinobi, and they were faster than almost any civilian Hinata cared to name. It was why
so many simple tasks got turned into D-ranks in the first place, that shinobi labour was so
goddamn efficient. Civilians might look at them and see children, but the fact remained: they
were qualified shinobi.

So, even as quickly as they started sweating under the fading summer sun, while Kakashi
watched with disinterest from between the pages of his book, leaning against a shady wall,
Hinata and her teammates felt pride in doing the work. Sakura took the lead when they had to
maneuvre lengths of timber or other materials that were too heavy or bulky to manage alone,
directing them without hesitation or even apparently the fear she might be ignored.

Eventually, close to noon, Hinata was the first to break. She needed to sit down for a few
minutes, drink some water, maybe eat something. It wasn’t that she couldn’t have kept going
if she tried, but it was something Kakashi-sensei had called her on several times over the last
week. The first few had simply been orders to take a break, and she hadn’t even contemplated
arguing with him. He was a jōnin and held rank on her in any case, but first and foremost he
was her sensei. She owed him complete obedience.

But she bit her lip and glanced over at him as she told Sasuke and Sakura that she was going
to sit down for a few minutes, and they followed her gaze. Sakura nodded, Sasuke muttered
that he’d join her, and nothing more was said.

They were both thinking about the last incident, Hinata knew it. She couldn’t bring herself to
look Sasuke in the face as they sat down near Kakashi-sensei and dug around in their team
snack bag. It hadn’t exactly been meant to humiliate her, she was sure; Kakashi’s clone had
kept his voice low, kept his back to where Sasuke and the real Kakashi were working with
Sasuke’s special shuriken, ignored the way Sakura had stumbled in her laps. All the same,
they’d noticed.

It shouldn't have even been a big thing. Not really. He’d ordered a break as she’d barely
caught herself on the ground, clumsy, trying to avoid a counterattack that she should have
anticipated but hadn’t. She’d expected it to be just the same, and she’d gotten to her feet to
wander back to the little raised dias upon which stood three training posts that none of them
used for actual training. The spot that they’d silently agreed to use as their central gathering
in the training grounds. It was a little bit out of the way - if Hinata was honest, the big rock
by the sparring circle was probably a better location, but neither she nor Sakura had even
mentioned the possibility to Sasuke. Hinata was pretty sure Sasuke would have bitten their
heads off if they’d tried.

Kakashi’s clone had followed her. Crouched down as she’d settled, taken a drink of water and
eyed the snack bag. Even if he was a clone and not technically real, he was infused with
Kakashi-sensei’s thoughts and memories, so it was basically the same as talking to the real
one. Hinata had avoided his eye.

“Do you know why I make you take breaks, Hinata?” he’d asked. Quietly, but not quietly
enough. Something dark and… angry, in his voice. She’d only managed to shake her head. It
was a question that she’d barely allowed herself to ponder, why she was the only one who
had to take several breaks every day. Sakura was working far harder than Hinata was, and
suffering far worse for the effort. Sasuke went home every day looking worn out but pleased.
Kakashi’s clone was teaching her technique, observation of an opponent and calculation of
their weaknesses and tendencies - she was being taught how to analyse and triumph, and
while she understood the importance of such a skill, it wasn’t half as tiring as what her
teammates were doing.

In the silence that had stretched out, she’d contemplated it. Why was she made to stop every
couple of hours while Sakura and Sasuke pushed on? She wasn’t tired. She wasn’t even sore.
So why?

The answer had come to her quiet and quick. “Because I’m weak.” Because there was a
reason Kakashi-sensei was trying to teach her psychological warfare instead of bothering
trying to strengthen her actual combat abilities. The morning spars with Sasuke were helping,
admittedly, but Sasuke was unbelievably patient with her lacklustre skills. Too encouraging,
too kind. Complimenting her any time she got something even half-right. He still won most
of them.

It only made sense that Kakashi would have to coddle her.

But his clone had narrowed its eye and snatched her wrist out of the air, yanking her into a
half-bent position where she sat. “Is that right?” he’d asked. Icy. “If you’re weak, then why
am I bothering with you at all?”

Not a protest. His tone had been contemptuous - Sasuke had taken a step closer before the
real Kakashi-sensei had nearly taken his ear off with a shuriken, crackling with white
lightning. Sakura had stopped running; watching, silent, and making no move to come closer.
Even if Hinata had tried to read her expression instead of submitting to the scorn in
Kakashi’s, she was sure she wouldn’t have been able to. Sakura was inscrutable.

“I don’t know.”

Kakashi’s clone had let her go and stood up. Let her crumble to the ground. “If you can’t do
this, you should quit now. Go home. If you’re weak, then persisting will only get you killed.
Maybe, if you’re lucky, you won’t take Sasuke and Sakura with you.”

Quiet, but not quiet enough. As unreadable as ever, Sakura’s face had darkened before she’d
turned away to continue her laps. Sasuke had bared his teeth and hurled the shuriken back at
their real sensei, pale blue sparks flying from it. There hadn’t been any reason in Hinata's
own reaction - she should have shut up and borne it, because Kakashi-sensei was correct and
she had no right to be upset about it. She was too weak to do the moral thing and quit, leave
before she cost her teammates their lives, but she was too weak to support them like she
should either.

Hinata should have kept quiet, but instead she’d felt a surge of tumultuous emotion that she
could only identify as humiliated frustration in hindsight, and she’d lashed out. Struck
Kakashi’s clone in the shin, shot chakra through her hand. Watched his eye widen a split
second before he vanished in a burst of smoke and vapourised chakra.

Across the grounds, the real Kakashi had stiffened before stepping back from Sasuke. Even at
this distance, Hinata had been able to pick out the sudden displeasure on what little they
could see of his face, the sharp downwards slope of his shoulders.

They’d gotten sent home, despite the fact it hadn’t even been noon yet. The next day -
yesterday - nobody had said a thing about it, and they’d gone on as normal.

Dropping the snack bag, empty-handed, Hinata kept her head down and tried to avoid
Sasuke’s scrutiny. She’d made a huge mess, she just knew it, but she was too much of a
coward to confront it head-on and risk Kakashi-sensei dismissing her on the spot. Even if he
had been wrong, and she wasn’t a danger to her team, she’d hit him in response. It was
different to the first day, when she’d been ordered to hit him and taken advantage of the
general distraction. This had been a personal attack, something she’d done out of emotion
and a loss of control.

Perhaps she’d had it coming. It wasn’t as if both Sakura and Sasuke hadn’t also attacked
Kakashi-sensei. Even if Sakura had looked like she’d done it out of reflex and fear, while
Hinata and Sasuke had done it deliberately. Maliciously. The worst part was that she didn’t
expect to actually face any consequences for it. Sakura hadn’t. Sasuke had been rewarded -
and what the hell kind of insane teaching strategy was that? Kakashi didn’t make any sense.

But he was right, and she’d get them killed, and she couldn’t even bring herself to do
anything about it. She needed to work harder, push further. Do anything she could to be
better, get stronger. She was the weak link in her team, and she knew that.

So why? Why did Kakashi-sensei take special care to make sure she took more breaks than
were necessary, to put extra obstacles in her way? He was creating more risk for Sakura and
Sasuke. He was making it worse. Was he just… mocking her? Mocking her weakness, her
inability to keep up. Maybe he was trying to force her to quit. If he sent her back to the
Academy, she’d only end up on another team; maybe with a more sympathetic sensei, one
who would allow her shortcomings. Maybe it was better for her to quit entirely, to face the
shame it would bring her father, the inevitable disavowment.

Maybe it would be better.

“Hey, Hinata,” Sasuke broke into her thoughts, and she startled. Looked up with wide eyes in
spite of herself. He didn’t look upset. He looked… concerned. Stupid. Worry about yourself.
“You really should eat something.”

Sighing, Hinata eyed the snack bag again. It was Sakura’s doing. Since the day Sasuke had
figured out what Kakashi-sensei had been trying to teach him (and it still made no sense to
Hinata, but she didn’t question it), she’d started showing up with it. A variety of snacks for
them to eat over the course of the day. How she’d managed to guess Hinata’s favourite foods
was beyond her, but it made sense that she’d known Sasuke’s. They were old friends, after
all.

Though… they hadn’t been acting like it. They’d always hung out together in the Academy;
sparring and helping each other with the schoolwork. Sasuke was accomplished in every
physical aspect of their teaching, but Sakura had always grasped the theory before anyone
else. Except perhaps Shikamaru. Hinata had never been able to quite tell, but Shikamaru had
never failed to (reluctantly) give the correct answer whenever Iruka-sensei had called on him
personally.

But over the last two weeks… Well, maybe they were hanging out after training. Hinata
swore she’d seen more of Sasuke since graduation than Sakura had, but there was no way to
validate that claim. It wasn’t their fault that Kakashi-sensei still had Sakura doing non-stop
strength and endurance training.

While she reached over to pick out something to nibble on, Sasuke watched Sakura carry
something that was almost as big as she was from one end of the construction site to the
other. Hinata would have needed at least one of them to help carry it. The training was paying
off - Sakura was already getting stronger than them, in terms of raw physicality. Then
again… The ground after Sakura had punched it during the bell test flashed in Hinata’s
thoughts, and she sighed. Set down the snack bag.

What was up with her? Sakura was… well, weird seemed too tame a word to describe it.
Hinata just couldn’t figure it out.

“Hey, um… Sasuke?” Black eyes settled calmly on her. “... Well… Was Sakura always like
this? She’s just… She seems… different than she was in the Academy.” Insensitive. Stupid,
Hinata. You should have stayed silent. Quickly, Hinata took a bite to muffle any further
attempts at saying anything, but the damage was already done.

Sasuke frowned, and glanced out after Sakura again. “... No. She wasn’t like this in the
Academy.” Something… almost wounded, in his voice.

She should just stay quiet, and yet she apparently couldn’t help herself. Swallowing her
mouthful, Hinata lowered her hands. “Are you alright?” Quiet. “I mean… I know you’re
friends. It’s just seemed… I mean, it’s been a little strained… I mean— Sorry.” Looking
away. I can’t even make sure he’s okay right.

There was a deep sigh. “I don’t know.” Sasuke wasn’t looking at either of them anymore. He
fiddled with the paper wrapping of his own snack. “Sometimes she goes a bit weird, but it’s
never lasted for very long. Do you remember when we first met Kakashi-sensei?” Hinata
nodded - and then realised Sasuke wouldn’t see, eyes fixed on his own hands, and let out a
little sound of affirmation. “I thought it was just a weird mood. Bad day for it to happen on,
but… she should have been fine the day after.” Finally, a glance up. His eyes were troubled.
“I don’t think she’s going to go back to normal.”

Oh.

Hinata bit her lip, trying to think of something to say. These past two weeks had given her
some insight into Sasuke as a person - what little she was smart enough to put together from
their daily spars. He wasn’t nearly as unapproachable or intimidating as the Uchiha name he
carried around, but he was far from a pushover. Strong, willful. She knew him better now,
and he seemed to like her well enough - His mistake - but she understood that he and Sakura
should have been getting along far better than they were.

It made sense, though, if Sakura was acting like a different person. Sasuke must think he’d
lost her, somehow. He probably felt abandoned.

“I’m sorry,” she finally managed. Weak. Utterly insufficient. Gods, what a terrible teammate
she was. Selfish, to stay on when she knew she wasn’t good enough. “Maybe… we could talk
to her about it?” If all she could offer was her presence to try and help mend their friendship,
then it was the least she was obligated to do. And besides… she didn’t like the dark, unhappy
shine in his eyes.

Sasuke waved a hand. “Maybe. It’s not your fault.”

Silence settled over them; not a comfortable silence, tight and heavy and suffocating. What
was he thinking about? Hinata couldn’t help but throw him narrow glances, trying to decipher
his thoughts from his face. It could be anything. The silence lasted for another ten minutes,
while they munched away on their snacks, before it was finally broken by Kakashi-sensei.

“We’re just about done here,” he intoned lightly, wandering over from where he’d been
leaning against the wall. “Go help Sakura with the last of it, and then we’ll head back to the
training grounds.”

They didn’t need to be told twice. Hinata wanted to try and reassure him, somehow, but she
couldn’t think of anything she could say that would even begin to help, so she held her
tongue and followed Sasuke with her head down to do as they’d been told. A glance back
revealed Kakashi-sensei with the snack bag slung over one shoulder, nibbling on something
himself. He’d been more reticent than his genin to take advantage of Sakura’s snacks, but
she’d insisted. Actually, he’d been surprisingly quick to roll over to it, despite his initial
refusals. Whatever that meant.

Sakura smiled at them as they approached. “I’ve got the last of the steel pipes,” she told them
between panted breaths. “Could you get that pile of timber and put it back there?” One hand
went out to indicate a gap in where they’d been stacking things all morning. Hinata nodded
without a word - wherever it was coming from, she had no problem with Sakura’s self-
assumed leadership. Even in the bell test, when it hadn’t worked, Hinata couldn’t find real
fault with the theory of it.
Sasuke was less pleased by it, eyes narrowing and glancing between them. In the end, he just
spat out an irritated “Fine,” and went about it with Hinata trailing behind him. If she didn’t
think about it too hard, she thought she saw hurt flash in Sakura’s face - but the other
kunoichi smiled quietly to herself as she went about carrying the lengths of metal at their
side. It was… a sad smile.

Okay, Hinata thought to herself, helping Sasuke wedge a wooden beam into place next to the
others. I’ll talk to her later. If she was going to risk all their lives by sticking around, then the
least she could do was get to know them better. She couldn’t just spend every morning
sparring Sasuke and not make an effort with Sakura.

And maybe, if she tried harder, she’d be able to fix whatever it was about the girl that had
broken.

For the fifth friday in a row, Ino found herself diving out of the way of an almost invisible
shimmer of light that shot out in a line of barely-there rainbow and then burst apart in a
fraying chakra detonation. The undergrowth smouldered where she’d been a moment before,
even as Shikamaru shot up the tree beside her and Chōji caught a hail of shuriken on the back
of one forearm, expanded to easily twice Ino’s size.

He shook off the shuriken before letting go of the jutsu, his arm shrinking back down to
normal, and while the pinpricks must be annoying, Ino knew that he wasn’t badly hurt. The
important thing about size, after all, was comparison. When he caught attacks at that size,
even deadly shuriken were about as dangerous as a mosquito bite. Ino caught his glance up
from the corner of her eye, noting where Shikamaru must be above their heads, but she didn’t
take her eyes off the mark.

“Chōji, you have to force him towards Shika,” she hissed, spinning away from a kunai and
darting behind her larger teammate. “There’s shitloads of shadows in here, just force him into
range. We only need him to stand still for a moment, okay?”

A sharp cry from over their heads caught their attention, and they both took their eyes off
their enemy. Shikamaru’s face caught in a pained expression, teeth gritted; he had one hand
clamped against his thigh, fingers digging in tightly. “Shikamaru! Are you alright?” Anxiety
rang in Chōji’s voice, but even as Ino reminded herself that he’d be alright there was a rustle
of movement to their left.

Reflex kicked in, and Ino threw herself in the opposite direction, sprinting between the
nearest trees before jumping and catching herself with one hand. She swung up onto the tree
branch, yanked a kunai out of her holster, and twisted to face the way she’d come.

On the ground, Chōji was pinned down, a kunai held a centimetre away from his skin. The
point hovered right above his left kidney. Settled on his back, Mitskuni-sensei looked up at
them with narrowed, green eyes. “Don’t even think about it,” he warned them softly, and the
kunai kissed Chōji’s shirt.

Ino hissed, baring her teeth, but two trees over Shikamaru sighed, dropped to his ass and
leaned back against the trunk. Chōji let out a little whimper, followed by “I yield, Sensei.”
“Goddamn it,” she muttered, but Ino too holstered her kunai and sat on her tree branch. One
ankle dangled freely while she reached up to undo the bun she’d knotted her hair into. “How
are we supposed to catch you, Mitskuni-sensei? You’re too damn fast for Chōji to corner, so
Shikamaru can’t nail you.” And she needed direct line-of-sight to pull off her own jutsu, she
needed Mitskuni to stand still. Even just for a moment.

The problem was, of course, that he knew that and he refused to give her the opportunity
until he was forced to. No enemy would willingly let her steal their body out from under
them either, but this was… different. Valuable - she understood why this was what they did
every friday, and that they needed to get better at exactly this tactic before trying to tackle
out-of-village missions - but no less frustrating for it.

Mitskuni-sensei sheathed his own kunai and hopped off Chōji’s back, before offering him a
hand to his feet. With his other hand, while helping Chōji up, he beckoned down his other
two genin. Shikamaru was down before Ino, but it only took them a few moments.

Gritting his teeth against what must be curses, Shikamaru lifted his hand to inspect the
damage done to his pants, and the flesh underneath them. Peering over his shoulder, Ino
could see the dark red weal through the hole burnt through the fabric, but it hadn’t broken the
skin. Mitskuni-sensei wasn’t shy about hitting them with his laser jutsu, but it was never
enough to do them real harm. It just took a few days to heal, and stung like a motherfucker.

Shikamaru had taken only a week to realise that when Mitskuni told him to do something, it
wasn’t worth the welts he got for slacking off to ignore it. Even Iruka-sensei hadn’t been able
to get Shikamaru to do anything before the last minute, so despite the fantastically crude
nature of motivation, Ino was impressed.

Fixing them in his gaze, Mitskuni-sensei put his hands on his hips. “You three are unique
amongst the genin teams, and I’m sure you already know that. Unlike everyone else, you’re a
tried and tested formation; you can expect to be sent on missions together regularly for your
entire tenure as shinobi.” He was frowning slightly, nibbling on the slim metal ring that went
through his lip. “You have a distinct advantage, because your teamwork is going to be
leagues ahead of anyone less experienced than Anbu teams.” A glance sideways at
Shikamaru revealed that that assertion was probably exaggeration for effect, rather than
strictly accurate reality, but his frown didn’t mean that Mitskuni was wrong. “But that also
gives you a distinct vulnerability. You have to assume that your enemies are going to know
how you’ll fight them, and plan their own strategy accordingly. Even with three-on-one odds,
and an environment to your advantage,” Mitskuni-sensei gestured to the forest around them
with the hand missing a finger, “you can’t beat me because you can’t surprise me. You can’t
corner me. So what do you have to do?”

Green eyes went to Shikamaru, who sighed and rubbed his face. Muttered something about
‘trouble’ into his palm before shifting his weight to one foot and dropping his hands into his
pockets. “We need to create new strategies. Doing the same old things over and over -
especially when they’re tactics our dads thought up years ago - won’t net us any gain.”

Mitskuni nodded. “Exactly.” He turned his gaze on Chōji. There was the faintest little frown
as he did, just the slightest quirk of the corner of his mouth. An expression Ino was truly
coming to loathe; an expression he only wore when he addressed Chōji. “Using your jutsu
defensively is smart - you can take hits that your teammates simply can’t - but you’ll never
force me into Shikamaru’s shadows if you’re only reacting to me. Your task is to catch me,
not fend me off. You’re a shinobi, Chōji.” Oh no. Don’t say it. “If you can’t muster the
confidence to make a move, you’ll never beat me.”

Fuck me. It wasn’t that Ino disagreed - she’d spent years already on trying to subtly improve
Chōji’s self-confidence - and there was a gentleness to Mitskuni-sensei’s voice as he said it,
like there always was. But Chōji still shrank a little in response, gaze dropping like a stone.
As kind as he tried to be, Mitskuni didn’t hesitate to point out their flaws.

“Alright. Let’s break for lunch. Shikamaru, it’s your turn to choose where we go.” Ino tuned
out whatever answer Shika gave and settled into place at Chōji’s side as they started walking
back to Konoha proper to get lunch.

He wouldn’t look at her, even when she gave him a nudge. “Buck up, Chō. We got closer this
time. And besides, the forest is only good terrain for Shikamaru; it fucks up my sightlines on
Mitskuni-sensei more than it helps, and confined spaces are hardly great for your
techniques.” Tossing her hair, as if it was somehow the forest’s fault for being less than ideal
for them. Chōji huffed out half a laugh.

“Good point,” Mitskuni called back over his shoulder. “So if I keep insisting we do it in the
forest, where Shikamaru has the advantage, what are you going to do about it?”

The question stuck with her, even as they arrived at Shikamaru’s favourite nondescript café
and discussion turned social. Mitskuni-sensei was much quieter while they talked about
normal friend things, rather than strategy and combat and shinobi stuff. Work-life balance,
her dad called it. Ino was pretty sure that the majority of shinobi - and especially the bloody
jōnin - had never fucking heard of it in their lives. Mitskuni always seemed somewhat
uncomfortable when they included him, although they kept doing it.

Well, she and Shikamaru kept doing it. She was pretty sure Shika was only doing it to try and
build up a proper knowledge base about their sensei, to compile strengths and weaknesses
and extrapolated patterns based on what answers Mitskuni gave, and how he gave them. Ino
left him to it. She was far more interested in figuring out why he was so uncomfortable with
it - and then absolutely fucking nailing him with a mini-lecture of her own. If he was going to
call them on their bullshit at every opportunity, she was damn well going to return the favour.

This time, halfway through eating, it was Shikamaru to cross the barrier first. “So, Sensei,”
he began, eyeing his own chopsticks for a moment. Mitskuni focused on him, humming an
acknowledgement and chewing on his lip ring once more. Ino was absolutely certain that it
was an anxiety behaviour. “We’re fairly closely acquainted by now. Right?” Five weeks of
spending almost every day together had Ino silently agreeing.

“I suppose so.”

Shikamaru pointed at Mitskuni’s left hand. “How do you work seals missing a finger?” Ino
and Chōji choked on their food. What the hell kind of insensitive question…? Are you
fucking serious, Shikamaru? If he copped them all extra work this afternoon, Ino was going
to kill him.
Frowning distantly, Mitskuni-sensei studied his hands. Then he hummed again, and shrugged.
“I dunno.” Ino was pretty sure she could hear the startled thunk of Shikamaru’s thoughts. “I
lost it when I was a kid, before I came here. Never done them any other way.”

For a long minute, Shikamaru just stared at their sensei. Mitskuni stared right back. Finally,
all at once, Shikamaru cracked a grin and started laughing. Thank the gods. Ino relaxed, and
then felt the tension in her chest morph into curiosity, even as Chōji breathed out a relieved
sigh at her side.

“So you’re not from Konoha?” Ino asked, leaning her elbow on their table. Mitskuni-sensei
had been fairly forthcoming in his responses before now, but they were short and he wasn’t
afraid of simply telling them no.

Mitskuni considered her, before humming and setting down his plate to fold his hands in his
lap. “No, I’m not. Not originally, anyway. You’ll note a distinct lack of an Okita bloodline or
any previous exposure to my laser techniques.” There was almost a laugh in his voice as he
said it, but Ino exchanged a disturbed glance with Shikamaru all the same. Their sensei’s eyes
had never looked so dark. “I was brought here when I was… very young.” Which was saying
something; Mitskuni-sensei was one of the youngest jōnin in Konoha.

Considering whether or not to push the matter when it was clearly one of seriousness despite
the way Mitskuni smiled at them as he spoke, Ino held her tongue and shoved a too-big bite
into her mouth. Shikamaru held a similar silence, the gears in his head visibly spinning.

“What happened?”

Ino groaned internally. She loved Chōji, really she did, but the big idiot had absolutely zero
social grace.

It took long enough for Mitskuni to respond that she figured he was going to tell them to fuck
off - in more polite terms, probably - but finally he sat back in his seat and sighed. Despite
herself, Ino was instantly focused on him. She wouldn’t have asked, but she was just as
curious to know the answer.

“The Third Shinobi War happened.” Still soft. Still with that almost-not-quite smile at the
corner of his mouth. But there was a shadow in his eyes that was utterly disturbing. It was a
shadow that Ino had seen many times in the adult shinobi, one she didn’t understand - and
every time she saw it, she became more certain that she never wanted to. “I was the only
survivor.” Even softer. Then, suddenly, Mitskuni flashed a proper smile and shook his head.
“It was lucky that Yunosuke-san found me. Been a Konoha-nin ever since.”

The subject blatantly closed, even Chōji had the wherewithal to look sheepish as he dropped
his gaze back to his food. “I’m sorry, Sensei,” he murmured, before focusing on eating. Ino
sighed quietly, but leaned off to the side and towards Shikamaru. He mirrored her, observed
closely by their sensei, but not commented on.

“Do you know who Yunosuke is?” she whispered, although it was less a real question and
more a tacit request for information. Shikamaru was a lazy bastard and probably hadn’t ever
taken seriously the limited files available on Konoha’s official record of active shinobi, but
there was only so much kosher information Ino could absorb before she got bored. Inoichi’s
classified stuff made for far more interesting reading anyway, on the occasion she managed
to get hold of it.

But it was worth a shot. Sometimes Shikamaru surprised her.

He gave a half shrug. “Retired? Sounds vaguely familiar. What do I care? Find out yourself;
information is your specialty, not mine.” The swat only missed him by a hair’s breadth as he
jerked back upright into his seat. Scowling at him, Ino settled back into her own properly.
Chōji was glancing between them curiously, but he didn’t say anything. They’d tell him later
anyway. There were other bonuses to growing up with her teammates practically as brothers,
and a certain level of silent communication was one of them.

Several minutes of awkward silence went by before Mitskuni-sensei finally broke it.
“Alright, finish up. We’re heading back soon.” Chōji started eating faster. “I’ll give you guys
half an hour to try and sort out an actual plan of attack, and then you can try to catch me
again.”

Frustration sparked against a rising competitiveness in Ino’s chest, and she quickly finished
off her meal too. Friday mornings had proven to be a continuous clusterfuck - thrown straight
into chasing Mitskuni-sensei down without the chance to properly plan, always in a new
location, and he took every chance to ruin any real attempt at communication between them
while they worked. It wasn’t a surprise that he could manage them so easily - they were fresh
genin, and he was a jōnin - but it was really fucking annoying.

Afternoons were easier. He gave them time to plan, and let Ino and Shikamaru duke it out for
the right to command their efforts. Ino’s ears burned at the thought; they’d nearly managed it
last week, right before she and Shikamaru had confused Chōji with conflicting orders and
fucked it up at the last second. Maybe today, she’d just let Shikamaru have it. As long as he
didn’t fight her on it next week, of course.

This week, they were going to fucking catch Mitskuni-sensei if it killed her. It was probably
going to kill her pride, at least. But afternoons were easier, even if she knew that she
wouldn’t always get the chance to plan a damn thing in the real world. That was why the
mornings were important, even if she hated the constant failure.

“Alright,” Shikamaru rumbled, and Ino swallowed the noise of premature triumph. She knew
the look as he set down his chopsticks and pushed his plate away slightly.

He already had a plan.

“Not like that.”

Itachi-sensei’s voice cut clean through the whole training session, and Neji swallowed the
grunt of irritation as they all came to a standstill. Shino went almost perfectly motionless, his
swarm of kikaichū going silent with him, while Ren simply relaxed their stance and stood at
ease. Neji let his chakra settle back into normal circulation.
Stepping in, Itachi-sensei walked right up to Ren and then lifted his own hands. “You’re too
indecisive. Show me.” With a nervous glance towards Neji (and what the hell was that all
about, that they kept looking to Neji for some sort of ridiculous reassurance), Ren moved
back into their combat stance. Almost immediately, Itachi-sensei gave them a slight push, and
they scrambled to regain their balance. “If you stand stiffly, but you’re still trying to dodge,
you’ll break the moment you’re pressured.” Turning, Itachi-sensei gestured for Neji to come
over. He withheld the grimace and obeyed; whatever else he might think about his sensei,
Neji couldn’t deny his sheer skill. Even if he was only five years Neji’s senior. “Watch
carefully how Neji moves, particularly his footwork. You too, Shino.”

Which was largely unnecessary - unlike Ren, Shino had the benefit of a proper clan
upbringing and something that actually resembled an understanding of ninja abilities - but as
an Aburame, Shino’s weakest skill was taijutsu. Without further prompting, Neji lifted his
hands and lunged at Itachi-sensei.

In one fluid motion, Itachi-sensei turned out of the way of Neji’s strike and then, as Neji went
past him, already spinning on his heel, put a hand against his back and pushed. If Neji locked
up to resist the motion, he’d stick and then stumble against the ground. The earth was an
unyielding creature, and to fight it was hopeless self-destruction. Instead, Neji let one knee
buckle and rolled into the momentum, trying to put distance between himself and Itachi-
sensei even as he sprung back to his feet.

It was, as it always was, a futile endeavour but even as formidable as a Hyuuga was in close
combat, Neji knew better than to play with Itachi-sensei. A year of one-on-one training had
turned out to be the best thing that he could have hoped for, even if he’d initially been stupid
enough to see it as some sort of punishment.

This, right here, having to give up opportunities for his own advancement to demonstrate
fucking basics to the two new genin, was the real punishment.

Itachi-sensei was on him in half a second, feinting a strike to his shoulder while moving to
sweep Neji’s feet out from under him. All thought split between conflicting reflexes. Neji
knew from experience that when Itachi-sensei feinted, it wasn’t always a bluff, and he found
himself trying to twist out of the way even as he forced chakra through his feet to jump back.
The result let him dodge, at least, but then he had to spin sideways midair; completely
vulnerable to attack. He could move with chakra expulsions, of course - and much swifter
and more accurately than any non-Hyuuga, Itachi-sensei included - but it wouldn’t be enough
to save him from attack.

“Ren! Wall, now.” A rough command, spat through his teeth even as Neji gathered chakra in
his eyes and activated his Byakugan. Pale blue grew to a thick bubble in each of Itachi-
sensei’s eyes as soon as he did, overlaid by the real visual of black irises turning crimson,
signalling the ignition of Sharingan in response.

Ren stumbled through the short set of seals and slammed their hands into the ground. “Earth
Release: Rock Shield,” they blurted out, the activation phrase locking the necessary chakra
pattern and releasing the jutsu. So simple a jutsu to still need the activation phrase spoken
aloud. Neji had serious reservations about the efficacy of civilian-born shinobi; but that was a
thought for another time. Perhaps he should be more impressed that after only three months
with a real sensei, Ren had already gotten fairly reliable at the new jutsu.

It was a real boon right now, anyway, as Neji’s feet touched the impromptu wall and stuck, a
thin layer of chakra held at his feet. He didn’t get another moment to think, instead widening
his stance and grabbing a kunai out of his holster. The sharp clang of a kunai-on-kunai
impact rang out and Neji let his knees bend to absorb it, meeting Itachi-sensei’s gaze for a
brief moment.

Then he shoved back, throwing Itachi-sensei much further away than if he’d simply let
gravity do its work on its own. For good measure, he threw the kunai after his sensei, but it
was carelessly deflected before Itachi-sensei settled and sheathed his own.

Disappointment stung sharp and fast, and Neji grit his teeth before dropping back to the
ground himself. Ren let out a relieved sigh as he did and let the jutsu drop, rolling their
shoulders. Going to collect his kunai, Neji nevertheless tilted his head to listen to the rest of
their conversation.

“Did you see how Neji moved?” Itachi-sensei asked Ren, and Ren offered a noise of hesitant
affirmation. “That is how I want you to move too.”

Ren took a breath, paused, and then shot Neji a helpless look. Oh, for fuck’s— Since when
was he the official Itachi-sensei translator? But it would only take longer if he refused, so he
walked over and folded his arms, glaring at them. Itachi-sensei was frowning to himself.
“You have to pick a response and stick to it. You’re either going to dodge a hit, or weather it.
Commit, or you’ll fail in both of them.”

Goddamn it. Neji had only had to tolerate his teammates for three months so far (and gods, it
was going to be a fucking eternity before they were all chūnin), but he was already sick of
rephrasing the most basic of Itachi-sensei’s lessons into something Ren could understand. Oh,
he had to do it for Shino as well, but far less often - and Shino didn’t need every little thing
explained to him like Ren did.

The biggest flaw Itachi-sensei had as a teacher, as far as Neji was concerned, was that he was
just so damn fucking talented. Everything about being a shinobi came to Itachi-sensei as
easily as breathing; almost everything he’d ever learned he had picked up after one
demonstration or explanation, or just damn well figured it out himself. The problem with
being such a prodigious student was that he had absolutely no fucking idea how to actually
explain anything as a teacher. It all just came naturally to him. Not to mention all the little
things that he’d probably never even thought about.

It hadn’t really posed that much of an obstacle, though, when it had just been the two of
them. Neji was already good at learning from observation, and while Itachi-sensei sucked at
explaining the nuances of anything - ever - he was a master of it all, so he could just show
Neji how to do it and get on with the lesson.

Well, even I’ll admit that the Byakugan is almost cheating, Neji thought quietly, letting the
dōjutsu go as he did.
But now that they had these two fresh idiots to deal with, it was quickly becoming apparent
just how glaring a flaw it really was. Shino was good at observation himself, but he couldn’t
see the details without having them pointed out, and he didn’t have the ability to observe
Itachi-sensei’s chakra flow to better understand. And Ren was absolutely fucking hopeless at
it; they needed everything explained in excruciating detail before they got it. Their only
saving grace was that once they did understand something, they didn’t forget it.

And watching them struggle with it wouldn’t get anyone anywhere, and Neji would only lose
out on even more time getting proper training himself, so as much as he resented it he took
his place at Itachi-sensei’s side and translated.

Ren frowned. “I’m… not sure I understand.”

This time, Neji let the irritated sound be vocalised. “Watch me again, and pay attention this
time.” He turned to Itachi-sensei and pretended not to see the proud glint in once-again black
eyes. “Would you please try to strike me, Itachi-sensei?”

No matter his sensei’s flaws, Neji knew far, far better than to disrespect him. There was a
reason that Itachi-sensei was a jōnin with genin of his own at only five years Neji’s elder,
after all.

After a moment, Itachi-sensei obliged him and lashed out with a whip-quick open handed hit.
Loose on his feet, Neji spun sideways to avoid it and simultaneously stepped forward
slightly, returning with a strike of his own. A few centimetres away from landing it, Neji held
his hand in the air to show Ren where he would have hit. Or, at least where he would have hit
if Itachi-sensei had let him. He had absolutely no doubts that the Uchiha could have dodged
or countered with ease if he’d wanted to.

“Did you see how I dodged?” Ren bit their lip, and Neji grumbled and relaxed his stance.
“How was I standing beforehand? How was I standing afterwards? You need to pay attention
to how I’m holding myself, where my centre of gravity is. Not just for yourself - if you know
what to look for, you’ll be able to tell how an opponent is going to react to attack.”

For a few moments, Ren just studied him with a deep frown. Then, they tilted their head. “I
think I get it.” Thank the gods. “So you were dodging. Can you show me tanking the hit?”

Well, Neji had to give them this, at least: Ren wasn’t shy about asking for what they thought
would help. With a nod, Neji turned back to Itachi-sensei and set his stance wider again.
After a moment and shaking himself out, Neji squared his shoulders and indicated he was
ready.

This time, Itachi-sensei threw a proper punch. One hand braced against the back of the other,
Neji caught the fist flat in his palm. He swayed slightly, let his knees bend again to absorb the
movement, and stayed planted right where he was. Half a second of motionlessness, and then
Itachi-sensei stepped back and settled.

Understanding lit in Ren’s sapphire eyes. “Okay, okay. I think I get it. Can we try, Neji-
senpai?”
 Seriously?

But there was nothing for it, Itachi-sensei flashing him a quiet smile before turning away to
Shino. Sighing, Neji set his stance and resigned himself to teaching Ren literally the most
basic thing about taijutsu. What the hell had the Academy been for if they hadn’t already
learnt something this straightforward? I didn’t sign up to be a secondary sensei, grumbled
silently while he eyed Ren’s new stance and scowled.

Fuck it. Maybe he’d get extra credit or something. How would that even work? Whatever. He
never thought he’d miss the terrifying intensity of having Itachi-sensei scrutinise and pick
apart his every move - and damn it, but the man didn’t miss a single thing - and yet here he
was, quietly wishing that Shino and Ren would just go the fuck away.

It wouldn’t happen. Itachi-sensei wouldn’t have sent them back to the Academy even if it had
been warranted (and for all that Neji hated how far behind him they were, doing so wasn’t
warranted). Whilst it was standard practice for any graduating genin leftover from forming
the three-man teams to be assigned to a jōnin in solo or duo groups until the empty slots
could be filled by the following year’s graduates, leaving him in solo tutelage was so far
outside standard that Neji hadn’t even considered it a viable possibility. He’d been destined to
end up with weak teammates.

In the end, it was probably part of fate’s cruel joke that he’d ended up helping to teach them.
Some sort of karmic balance that dictated he pay for the intensive personal training from one
of the most gifted jōnin ever to grace Konoha by being forced, in turn, to teach what he’d
learned.

“Start by hitting me. Get a feel for how it looks and feels like to take the hit. Then we’ll see if
you can stop me from knocking you over.” Petty, perhaps, but a strictly necessary part of
training, as Ren squared their shoulders and threw a punch with all the strength they could
muster. It was no small amount of force - Ren was going to be a defensive powerhouse when
they got older and more skilled ( if they ever got more skilled), and while they lacked speed
and agility, they had raw strength in spades - but Neji absorbed it and didn’t move. “Again.”

By the time Ren indicated they thought they understood and asked Neji to hit them, it was
almost enjoyable. Watching them stagger or stumble. A juvenile revenge, but satisfying all
the same.

Inexplicably, when they managed to properly block and throw back Neji’s strike, it was
somehow even better.

Chapter End Notes

The Important Bits:

| HAHHAA so I am in lockdown like everyone else, but guess what? My place of study
- despite the fact I study applied science and we need a fucking lab to do all the very
heavily practical work - is continuing on with online teaching so I have precisely no
less work to do than I did before. Rip my writing spree.
| Also, I may or may not be working on a mini side project. WHOOPS.
| The Uchihas are basically walking MacGuffins, so we will allow them to talk like this
when they're angry. Don't even worry about it. >_>
| Hinata - bless her soul - is also a terribly unreliable narrator. We're gonna give these
kunoichi a fucking confidence-boost, damn it.
| Also, the only-nine-students-become-genin thing. I never actually realised that was
something Kishimoto canonically put in place - mostly because it makes no fucking
sense. So yeah, we’re not doing that. Stupid artificial shinobi scarcity when they’re at
fucking war half the time stupid bullshit… [continued muttering]
| Neji is a son of a bitch to write. Mainly because he insists on attaching Itachi’s
honourific in every single fucking instance of his name, unlike all the other more
reasonable people. Even Hinata isn’t that stiff. Damn it, Neji.
| Yes, Ren's pronouns are they/them.
| Are y’all ready to actually start some real plot in the next chapter? Hell yeah. Five and
a half chapters of setup is totally fine at ten thousand words a chapter. [shifty eyes]

Next chapter due: 16th April 2020

Bonus Content Alert:

Kakashi-sensei had them wait outside, when they went to hand in their completed D-
rank. It didn't take as long as Hinata had expected. Just long enough for Sakura to
frown and glance over at them. "I thought that the Hokage was supposed to give us our
first mission? Traditionally, I mean."
Sasuke exchanged a confused look with Hinata before settling his gaze on Sakura. "It's
just a D-rank. She'll give us our first out-of-village mission." As if it should be obvious -
but... well, it should have been. Everyone knew that Tsunade-sama took the time to
personally assign a genin's first mission outside of Konoha. It was nice, that tradition.
Kind, a reassurance that they all mattered to her, in some small way. Why would Sakura
want that wasted on a D-rank?
A breath to add something, but Kakashi-sensei was back outside before she could. Three
envelopes were distributed between them.
Payment.
Something light raced out along Hinata's skin, like sparks. Like she was standing too
close to a fire, but not quite close enough to catch alight. Payment. Maybe Sakura
wasn't so far off by thinking about their first D-rank as something special. Hinata had
never gotten paid for anything, before. She'd never earned it. There was something...
exhilarating about it.
"1,700 ryo?" came Sasuke's voice at her side. Hinata jolted out of her own thoughts and
blinked at him; he had his envelope open, and had evidently already counted the bills.
"That's a three-way split. There's four of us."
Sakura tilted her head.
Quirking his eyebrow, Kakashi let out a soft snort. "I didn't do a damn thing to help you
with your mission. Why should I get paid for it?"
 Leaving the Village, After All, is a Right of Passage
Chapter Summary

Time advances, the puzzle starts to fit together, and Sakura meets her first enemy for the
second time.

Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

The caves were just as quiet as always, but their familiarity didn’t stop him from pausing by
the clusters of glowing lichen and breathing in the soft, damp smell of them. Roots wound
through the black rock like winding ivy, weaving amongst the bioluminescent plants and
water dripping down the walls. The network was so vast that at this point, Asuma was
completely convinced that the cave system would simply collapse without them.

Trailing his fingers through the wet lines, Asuma sighed to himself and got moving again. It
was peaceful down here, serene and beautiful and secluded. He’d lost count of how many
times he’d wandered through the roots of the Greatree, lost and alone. So many times. Too
many times.

But it wasn’t a purposeless trip that brought him there this morning, heading deeper and
deeper while the crashing thunder of the waterfall faded to silence behind him. Technically
speaking, Asuma still had several days left in which to complete his mission, but it had only
been a B-rank. Even if he only held a chūnin ranking himself, he had the skills and
experience of a jōnin behind him - and he wasn’t about to hold back just because he wasn’t
fully trusted yet.

It was… just too fucking hard to blame the village leaders for holding his jōnin application
hostage, or even to be angry about it. After everything that had happened - after what had
even brought him here in the first place - there was nothing to be done about it.

If their positions had been reversed, Asuma wouldn’t have trusted himself either.

The climb became harder as the caves began sloping upwards, taking Asuma’s focus and then
his hands as the slippery surface turned jagged and dangerous. By the time it was almost
vertical, Asuma had chakra coating both his hands and his feet despite the array of massive
roots available to manually climb. He’d tried it before, and nearly cracked his skull open
when he’d lost his grip and fallen. The supposedly easy hand- and footholds offered by the
Greatree’s roots were a blatant deception.

Patches of daylight shone through as the first indication he was close, followed immediately
by the thickening of the plantlife and a gradual change from lichen and fungi to leafier
varieties and vines. Eventually, Asuma broke through into an island crawling with centuries-
old roots and moss, completely overtaken by a single tree: the Greatree. A centrepiece for the
village, the Greatree was bigger around than most buildings and twice as tall besides, boughs
and evergreen leaves spreading in a vast canopy that let through dappled sunlight and the
constant chiming drip of water puddles collected every rainfall.

Climbing out of the half-hidden gap in the writhing roots, Asuma looked out across the lake
and let himself pause to simply admire it. The entirety of the lake and quite a significant
margin of the village itself - built in a huge ring around the Greatlake - was covered by the
Greatree, but the further out one went from the middle of the village, the more trees began to
spring up. None were even close to as big as the Greatree, but their branches reached high
enough that no patches of open sky were visible through the emerald ceiling.

Built on the ground, densely at first and then getting more and more scattered between the
trees out to the village walls, were bustling commerce districts and civilian housing, all the
way back to the cliff and waterfall that served as the southern border until they met with the
huge building that served as the central shinobi headquarters, built around several of the
biggest non-Great trees. Above their heads, connected by woven vines and narrow bridges
without safety rails and built into the tops of the trees themselves, were a sprawling series of
treehouses that offered shinobi housing and training areas.

For a moment, Asuma stood utterly motionless and observed.

Takigakure was beautiful, after all.

Then, adjusting the heavy sack slung over his shoulder, he stepped out onto the Greatlake and
began walking across the water, sighing to himself. With any luck, school would still be in
session and he wouldn’t run the risk of meeting anyone on his way to give his mission report.
The sooner he handed this in and got to bathe, the better. Unbidden, Asuma rubbed his hands
down the lightweight grey pants that made up Taki-nin uniform. Dried blood still lined his
fingernails.

Luck, it turned out, was not on his side today. Making his way through the commercial
district revealed several pairs consisting of Taki jōnin - clearly marked by the jōnin sashes
draped from shoulder to hip - and pre-genin students.

Fuck.

It just had to be a demonstration day today of all days. He definitely should have taken the
extra time to relax on his way home. With this luck, he was pretty much guaranteed to get
caught by—

“Uncle!” came the call, only a second before a ball of brown hair and blue scarf barrelled into
him. Arms went tight around Asuma’s waist, delighted laughter rising up with the pressure.
“You’re back!”

Asuma sighed, but there was a faint smile when he looked down and patted his nephew’s
head. “Hey, kiddo. You been good?”

“Of course.” Pouted, but he’d have said that no matter what the truth was.
Looking up, Asuma met the warm gaze of the jōnin who’d been assigned as escort. “Has he
really behaved himself, Luxanna-san?” She laughed, blue eyes sparkling, and waved off the
question.

“No worse than usual, anyway.” Spoken over the boy’s protest, before reaching out to grasp
his shoulder and pull him back. “Come on, Kota. You’ll have all evening to catch up with
Asuma-kun.” A sassy bitch, as always, but Asuma smirked at her all the same. He was rather
fond of Luxanna, despite the fact he knew she had standing orders to keep an eye on him
whenever possible. Kota was very young to already have his jōnin-sensei lined up - he
wouldn’t graduate to genin status for another three years - but sometimes that was just how it
went in Takigakure.

Even after five years, Asuma wasn’t fully adjusted to the way things were done here, but he
found it… refreshing. It was so enormously different to how things were run in Konoha, and
that…

That was good.

Jōnin here were given far more choice in who they taught, were far more involved in the
general life of their genin. The village’s overall small size combined with the relative
abundance of jōnin level shinobi meant that, most of the time, genin training happened on a
one-on-one basis. Though Kota was still quite young, it wasn’t actually unusual for a pre-
genin to know who would teach them before they graduated, and for that jōnin to become
involved with their learning and wellbeing before they even achieved genin ranking.

It ‘helped’, Asuma supposed, that Kota was essentially Taki’s hostage to ensure his own
loyalty. Hard to see fault with the logic - it was incredibly rare for a shinobi to fully defect
from one village to another - but it had taken him quite some time to adjust to Luxanna’s
presence. These days, though… Well, she hadn’t been ordered to stake a claim on Kota as her
future genin. Despite their rocky introduction, Asuma was quite fond of the woman.

The flick to her shoulder got a stuck-out tongue in return. “I’ll see you both for dinner, then?”
Asuma asked, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah!” Kota exclaimed before Luxanna could say anything. “It’ll be something good,
right?” Bright eyes, the exact same shade of grey as his mother’s; Asuma shook his head and
flicked him too.

“Depends on if you behave yourself. Now go on, I know you’re supposed to be doing
something productive rather than bugging me.” It got a pout, but Kota was off again in
moments, Luxanna trailing after him with a lazy goodbye over her shoulder.

Once they were out of sight, Asuma finally took a deep breath, running a hand through his
hair. His other hand was tight on the strap of his bag. How in the hell did Kota always find
him, every single dang time he returned to Taki? He wanted to blame Luxanna, if he was
honest. He never bothered to conceal his chakra signature on return to the village - the
waterfall guards were infinitely easier to deal with if they knew who was coming right off the
bat - and he wouldn’t put it past her to deliberately track him down whenever she sensed him
coming.
The only problem was figuring out how she always knew to be on the lookout for him. If he
hadn’t known any better, he’d have said she’d been tracking him for the last five years, but—
Well… actually, he wasn’t sure he did know better. Her initial assignment had been to ensure
Asuma wasn’t a spy, after all.

A deep sigh, and he started walking again. Maybe it didn’t actually matter. He wasn’t a spy,
and even if he was still proving it, Luxanna knew that by now.

He’d never go back to Konoha. It deserved to burn.

The rest of the walk back to the shinobi headquarters was taken slowly, quietly ruminating.
No need to hurry when he’d already been caught. The anger was an old feeling, a simmering
familiarity that he’d borne for so long it was almost a friend; it tasted like acid and blood at
the back of his throat, a sharp reassurance that he was still alive. The hand not clutching the
rope keeping the (too-heavy) sack on his shoulder dipped. Fingertips brushed the sash he still
wore underneath the soft grey shirt.

Fire, inscribed on the red fabric in jet black thread. Asuma clenched his hand around the
kanji. It probably didn’t help him any, that he kept wearing the damn thing despite
abandoning the Land of Fire and everything in it.

“Nice work, Asuma.” Muttered to himself, running a hand back through his hair. Even if just
for Kota’s sake, he needed to get rid of the damn thing. He’d known since arriving that he
needed to get rid of the visible bond to his homeland. Even if arriving was too strong a word
for what had really happened.

Ambushed, with a four year old crying in his arms. He’d been fleeing, as fast as he could,
with blood and death chasing his every step.

How ironic, that Takigakure was the safest place Kota had ever been.

His wandering thoughts saw him through the rest of his walk, but he paused when he found
himself outside central shinobi operations. Tipped his head up and let out a sigh of defeat,
before shifting the sack so it was at his side instead of his back, leaned against the outer wall,
and reached into his kunai holster to bring out a pack of cigarettes. One more sigh before
flashing a single handsign and lighting a narrow blue flame at the end of his index finger.

Misani was going to kill him, but it was worth it. Heat and tension filled his chest as he
breathed in the smoke, and after a moment relaxation followed. Goddamn it. At least it was a
peaceful day in terms of official work; not a single other ninja came or went while Asuma
slowly smoked his way through the one cigarette he'd allow himself (Misani's scolding voice
rang in his head).

Eventually, even his escapism had to end, of course. Once the cigarette had burned down to a
stub, Asuma relit the simple fire release and turned it to ash. Another sigh, and then he hefted
the sack and walked in.

“I was wondering how long you were going to lurk out there,” came the smiled greeting, and
Asuma looked up into inky eyes. “Welcome back, Asuma.” The genuine warmth in Shibuki’s
face was almost forceful, the tension in Asuma’s shoulders easing against his will. “I take it
your mission was successful?”

The sack made a muted thud as Asuma dropped it on Shibuki’s table. The other two chūnin
quietly relaxing at the mission desks looked over, and then narrowed their eyes. Asuma tried
to ignore them. “Of course.” A glance out of the corner of his eye, catching Lika’s gaze. He
dropped it. “The road out of Estaria should be safe.” He paused, and then looked down at the
sack. The outer layer had drooped down at gravity’s behest, and a faint outline of what lay
within was now visible.

Asuma’s stomach turned over. Not that he felt guilty, or even remotely disgusted, at what the
mission had called for - but that he didn’t.

Humming, Shibuki eyed the sack and then looked away, wrinkling his nose slightly. “... I’m
sorry you had to do that.”

“Don’t.” Gruff. Asuma didn’t want any sympathy from the village’s leader, and nor did he
deserve any. “I chose this. Quicker and easier to kill ‘em. Besides, they were beyond reason.”
Shibuki bit his lip, looking back at Asuma while he considered that. Fingers wound uneasily
in long brown hair; it was an expected reaction. Shibuki wasn’t fond of murder when it was
necessary. If Asuma had tried harder - stuck around longer - there was undoubtedly a less
violent solution he could have come to. Even if it had involved threats.

Well. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t made his threats initially. Asuma hadn’t made empty ones in a
long time.

Shibuki sighed softly. “Well… at least you completed it.” Maybe the safety of Estaria’s main
export route was worth the blood on his hands. “I’ll need a proper mission report by
tomorrow, Asuma.” A visible swallow, before getting to his feet and reluctantly taking the
strap of the sack. “... Who was this?”

“Leader of a small bandit raid.” A moment of silence. “They won’t bother anyone else.”

Whether Asuma had killed them or simply frightened them off seemed to be something that
Shibuki didn’t want to know; he grimaced, picked up the sack, and slung it over his own
shoulder. A hesitation, and Asuma responded in kind, pausing as he was about to turn on his
heel and go home. “... Shibuki-sama?” he tried when no words were immediately
forthcoming. A strange shadow passed through the Taki leader’s eyes.

“Asuma… I’ve been reviewing your application for jōnin.” Ice shivered out under Asuma’s
skin like hoarfrost. Shibuki tacitly kept quiet about that, about how Asuma was still proving
himself to Takigakure’s shinobi forces. If he was bringing it up…

“And?”

Shibuki offered a pained smile. “I don’t believe you have any ill intent towards us, Asuma.
What happened was…” He stopped. Snapped his teeth together and shook his head, fingers
tightening on the strap over his shoulder. “Anyway, Taki is your home now. If you’d been
born here, you would have been a jōnin years ago.” Hope surged out in the wake of the cold,
and Asuma tried to stamp down on it. If he was straight up going to be promoted, Shibuki
would have outright said that.

“It’s fine,” Asuma said instead. A half-shrug, more for his own benefit than Shibuki’s. “My
circumstance is hardly… traditional.”

At that, Shibuki shook his head, and a far more genuine smile spread across his face. “I trust
you. My advisors… just need a little demonstration.” Guilt, for a split second. Asuma
narrowed his eyes. “I am sorry. I tried to talk them out of it, but they insisted on a… test, I
suppose, before they’ll sign off on your promotion.”

Folding his arms, Asuma considered the young leader. To be honest, it was wise of him to
listen to his advisors, instead of railroading Taki with his own agenda. “What kind of test?”
Whatever it was, Asuma had no doubt he could do it. Worth the trial, for the freedom of S-
rank missions.

Maybe he’d go and pick out a genin for himself from Kota’s class. It could be… good.

“As I’m sure you know, Konoha is hosting a Chūnin Exams later this year.” Very soft. Asuma
felt himself go stiff, even as his thoughts raced ahead into a jumbled mass of austere panic.
“Taki is intending to send a team of genin and their senseis to compete.” Intuition struck first,
and Asuma’s hands clenched tight at his sides, nails digging into his palms. No. “We would
like to formally offer you an A-rank mission as an escort for the Chūnin Exam party.”

Silence, for a moment. Lika and Rinnea - at the other two desks, completely unoccupied -
were staring at their own hands, carefully avoiding Asuma’s glance. He didn’t really blame
them. They want to send me back to Konoha. They wanted to test his loyalty. To see if he had
it within him to resist whatever few friends he might have left in his homeland.

If, indeed, he had any at all.

To force him to cut those ties if he found them.

Shibuki was watching, carefully, as if expecting rebuttal. Outrage, anxiety, sorrow, anything.
He wouldn’t find it. Asuma could feel his fingernails in his palms, feel the slow thunder of
his heartbeat as the prospect registered and settled in his mind. Go back to Konoha. Face it
again - not as a man at home, an ally, but as a Taki-nin. As an outsider.

Heartbeat, heavy and slow, like breathing in boiling air. For a moment, Asuma’s whole body
rumbled with it, like the force of his own pulse would be enough to send him tumbling from
his feet, like flinching from his own existence.

Konoha.

“Okay.”

He heard it as if from someone else, and thought dissipated into an echo. Okay. Back to
Konoha - but not back home.
So… okay. He could do that. To prove to Shibuki’s advisors what their leader already
believed - that Asuma was truly theirs, was truly now a shinobi of Takigakure, and no longer
Konohagakure.

“Okay?”

Yes.

“Okay.”

So he’d go to Konoha, and then afterwards he’d come back home.

Fourteen weeks of training under Kakashi-sensei, and Sasuke was starting to feel like their
new normal wasn’t so bad.

Hinata was surprisingly nervous - about… pretty much everything - for a ninja born to a clan
of such prestige and power as the Hyuugas. Especially for one born to the clan Head. While
it made no sense to Sasuke, he’d come to respect her abilities in spite of her dismal opinion
of them. Their morning spars had become so engaging that Sakura usually showed up early
enough to witness them, now, and Sasuke’s winning streak was short-lived at best. Hinata
gave as good as she got, and had learned his patterns so surely that he was no longer using
them, and instead trying to make it all up as he went. It had worked, for a while; Hinata was
quick, and though she hadn’t used Jūken on him since that first fight, he knew only too well
that if she ever did their fight would be over in seconds, and not in his favour.

For her part, Sakura was… closer to normal, these days. She hadn’t gone back to how she
was before, but the jagged, awkward distance that had overtaken her was finally easing. The
snack bag that she brought with her to training every day helped with that, though the
admission was somewhat reluctant. Not in the least because once they’d started doing regular
D-ranks and earning their own income, the quality of said snacks had gone up drastically. In
the last couple of weeks, she’d started to participate in their morning spars; Kakashi’s non-
stop strength training was paying dividends. Sakura had thrown Sasuke clean across the
sparring ring the last time they’d stepped in together. Even as much as she’d changed all of a
sudden… Sasuke was starting to think that he could be friends with this different Sakura, too.

He’d stopped expecting Kakashi-sensei to be less of an asshole after the fifth week, when
Sasuke had gotten good with his shuriken. Instead of praise, Kakashi had laughed at him and
told him to hit an absurd fucking target on the other side of the training field. He hadn’t been
able to, of course, no matter how much raw chakra he poured into each shuriken or how
strongly they cracked with lightning when he threw them. When, after two days of
exhausting himself trying, he’d given in and just asked Kakashi what the point was. His
sensei had laughed at him. A contemptuous laugh; a cold one. “Utilise the resources you
have to figure it out, or you’ll just keep failing.” And Sasuke wasn’t sure why his sensei
didn’t apparently count as a resource, but he’d taken the hint. Sakura had been able to tell
him, the very next day, when he’d asked.

“Raw power won’t make them fly farther. Chakra control, being careful about your
application and release through the metal, will give you far more control over them.”
Resources, and figuring out their lessons on their own. Kakashi-sensei was an asshole,
without mitigation, but the longer Sasuke spent with him the more he appreciated it. It was
infuriating and frustrating at every turn, but he was never going to forget those lessons once
he got them. Whether Kakashi just didn’t know what he was doing, or he took some sort of
pleasure from watching them squirm, Sasuke was coming to quite like his capricious, spiteful
nature.

Whenever Kakashi-sensei did offer praise, it was utterly sincere. It was earned.

So today, while Hinata bade them a smiling goodbye and Sasuke waited for Sakura to finish,
he felt fantastic. They’d completed the day’s D-rank so quickly that Kakashi had breaked for
lunch earlier than usual and then filled their afternoon with a three-man hunt that had led
them all the way across Konoha and across the border wall, out into the immediately
surrounding forest, and then back across to the top of the Hokage monument. When they’d
caught him - cornered him - it had almost been nightfall, and he’d mocked them for being so
slow.

It had made the congratulations that followed all the sweeter.

And now, Sakura was borrowing one of Kakashi’s reluctantly summoned dogs to take a
message to her parents. Only fair, to inform them that she wouldn’t be home for dinner,
Sasuke supposed. Almost strange, to be taking her back to the Uchiha compound for a meal
again, as if nothing had changed now they were genin.

More and more, Sasuke was starting to think that maybe, in the grand scheme, nothing really
had. For all the strange distance in her eyes, for all that she sometimes went still and cold and
absent, thinking about whatever it was that made her face go pale and her hands clench, she
was still… mostly herself. Dedicated to becoming a shinobi in a way that she’d never been
before.

Maybe it was just… more real, now. Maybe she really meant it, when she said she chose to
become a ninja because she couldn’t imagine anything else. People changed, when they grew.

Besides, Itachi and their mother had started asking about her prolonged absence. It was
getting annoying.

The walk back went surprisingly smoothly. They’d always had a degree of ease about their
conversation, but now there was something simple about it. That Sakura seemed to actually
understand when Sasuke talked about the finer points of technique, or discussing the things
Itachi had said during their last (and increasingly rare) training session together. When she
talked about theory in return, Sasuke found himself actually understanding what she was
saying, or having enough background knowledge to ask the right questions so he would.

It was nice, walking home with Sakura at his side, talking like they used to. The glances were
still there, the sad distance in her eyes that he couldn’t figure out and that Sakura brushed off
every time he asked, but even then she smiled and laughed and it felt like they were just
being friends again.
And Mikoto was delighted, when they got home and Sasuke called out from the front door.
“Home, Mum! It’s cool if Sakura’s here for dinner, right?” Sakura had paused at the
threshold, but when Mikoto came through to greet her, green eyes went wide and shining, and
then she broke into a blinding smile.

“Hi, Uchiha-san.” Shy, almost. Like herself.

Mikoto came over, ruffling Sasuke’s hair as she passed - earning a swat and a grumble,
although Sasuke knew better than to actually argue about it. “Sakura-chan! Of course, you
know you’re welcome here.” Sakura looked… shocked, when Mikoto hugged her, but Sasuke
just snickered and wandered through into the main living room. Even if it should concern him
that Sakura had apparently forgotten how friendly Mikoto was, it was funny to watch her try
and figure out how to respond.

Already home and sitting quietly, writing something out, Itachi glanced up as Sasuke came
in, and offered a faint smile. “Evening, Sasuke.” Sasuke waved back, went over, and flopped
down at Itachi’s side. Leant against him, forcing Itachi to put down his pen. “Is this
necessary?” An irritated growl in his voice, but that smile was still in place when Sasuke
glanced up at his face, so instead of getting up, Sasuke twisted in place and dropped back into
Itachi’s lap.

“Yup. Kakashi-sensei kicked our asses today.” Itachi quirked an eyebrow at him. Waving a
hand, Sasuke watched Sakura walk in, freeze for half a second, and then slink over to sit
nearby. She kept peeking glances sideways at them; something twisted in Sasuke’s chest, a
thick, heavy sensation like swallowing treacle. She wasn’t looking at him; she was looking at
Itachi. “... He had us try to corner him. It took us all day - I swear he can teleport or
something. He always knew when we were coming.” Infuriating, how he’d seemed to simply
vanish from all the traps Sasuke had sworn were foolproof.

Even more so, that Sakura kept smiling to herself about it, or the way she’d traced out silent
thoughts in the air with her hands while considering her own strategies. Of course, it was one
of hers that had finally netted them the win. Being outperformed by Sakura, even though he
knew she was unthinkably clever, was… embarrassing. He was a clan-nin - an Uchiha. He
should be… better. If not better than her, then better than he was.

Maybe that was unfair of him. The thought sounded suspiciously like his father’s voice.

Itachi chuckled, setting aside whatever he was writing, and tapped Sasuke right between the
eyes, smiling down at him. “Even I would be hard pressed to catch Kakashi-senpai if he tried
to evade me.” Warmth in Itachi’s voice, and Sasuke felt himself relax. “He was tracking your
chakra signature. I can teach you to conceal it on your day off, if you would like.”

Excitement spiked at the offer, and Sasuke sat back up again, feeling the hope on his face
from the inside out. “Really?” He didn’t know if it had been coincidence, or if Itachi had
engineered it on purpose, but Team Seven’s days off always seemed to line up with Team
Six’s. Itachi laughed again, and nodded.

“Really.”
“Um— Could I join in?” came Sakura’s tentative voice, and Itachi glanced at her. There was
a moment of tense hesitation in his face - just the briefest flicker - before he smiled at her too.

“Of course, Sakura-chan.”

She didn’t smile back. Instead, she glanced away, bit her lip, and tried not to meet Sasuke’s
gaze. “Actually… Itachi-san, I was hoping I could… talk to you. In private.” The brightness
in Sasuke’s chest went cold and heavy. Was this the whole reason Sakura had agreed to join
them for dinner in the first place? Was she, like so many others, just using him as a stepping
stone to get to his brother?

Shaking himself, Sasuke moved out of the way as Itachi nodded and rose to his feet, and tried
to dismiss the notion. He was being paranoid. Sakura had been his friend for a long time, and
she’d never used him for Itachi’s prowess. Whatever this was… Whatever it was, it was
something else.

He tried not to dwell too deeply on what it might be. On what she was so unwilling to tell
him. With everything else that was different now, it was just another thing. That she’d have
secrets from him.

“Sasuke, can you come help me with this please?” Cheerful but sharp, from the kitchen, and
Sasuke got to his feet with another glance between his brother and his teammate, before
padding off to do as Mikoto asked. Chopping vegetables wasn’t especially stimulating, and
Sasuke’s focus wandered. Recent lessons echoed through his head as he strained his senses,
trying to hear what Sakura might be saying to Itachi. They hadn’t gone far - if he
concentrated hard enough, he could just barely pick out the murmur of their voices, but he
couldn’t make out anything intelligent.

Maybe he should just leave it be. He surely shouldn’t be actively eavesdropping on his
brother and his best friend. But…

What in the hell could they be talking about?

Even as guilty as it made him feel, Sasuke tilted his head and caught hold of his chakra,
teasing it out into thin threads. Kakashi-sensei’s voice ran through his mind, and he followed
the shape of it. Wove his chakra threads into his senses until his hearing became a delicate
weave.

Voices, faintly muted, reached his ears.

“... sure what you mean, Sakura-chan.” Itachi’s voice. Low. Confused.

Sakura’s voice was fainter, even quieter, but Sasuke closed his eyes to focus and made out the
words. “When we first met. You must remember.” Ice crept down Sasuke’s spine. Why was
she asking about the Konoha Massacre? She already knew everything Sasuke did.

“You never did tell me why you sought me out, that day.” What? “I admit that I’ve…
wondered.”
Sasuke’s heartbeat was like someone else’s hands in his chest. What the hell did that even
mean? They’d met the same night Sasuke had met her, when Sakura’s family had sheltered
them from the— the fighting, as it had spilled out from their home and across all of Konoha.
When he and Sakura had stood, terrified, in front of Sakura’s civilian parents, and Itachi had
stood in front of them all. Guarding. Waiting.

What else could they be talking about? When else could they have met?

There was a suspicious silence, for too many moments, before Sakura responded. “... It
doesn’t matter. I got… everything I needed out of it.” Hands clenched, and Sasuke could feel
the faint tremble in them. “So… You know me quite well, then?”

Itachi hummed. “I hope so.” Very soft. “But in case I do not, and Kakashi-senpai is right,
then be assured, I will do anything to protect—”

“Sasuke.” There was something… wrong, about the way she said his name. She sounded
more like Itachi himself than the friend Sasuke knew. Thought he knew. “You don’t need to
worry about that, Itachi.” Steel, this time. Sasuke couldn’t help the shiver or the sudden
anxiety that made his teeth grind together. “I won’t let anything happen to Sasuke.”

Akamaru was a warm weight on Kiba’s head, hind paws brushing the back of his neck, tail
fur tickling almost between his shoulder blades. The cloud was thick this low down the
mountain, a damp hovering presence that Kiba could never shake. The civilian parts of
Kumogakure were further down, nestled in the little valleys that lined the Thunderous Range,
but the central shinobi operational buildings were further up, above the cloud layer.

It made the living quarters of the shinobi clans a constantly wet, hazy strip that snaked
through the cloud layer of Kumo’s expanse; despite the part that had been alloted to the
Inuzuka clan being slightly lower than the rest, they hadn’t escaped it.

Kiba was at least used to it, after five years.

“It’s not fair,” he complained, picking up another of the new puppies while nearby, his sister
made notes on them. “I haven’t done anything to them, but Sen-sensei kicks my ass every
time I tell Lea to fuck off.” Gentle fingertips parted fur, and then ran down the pup’s spine,
soothing the little whimpers. “Female.” Kiba pressed his nose to the pup’s grey head fur and
then set her back down; she whined, peering blearily through half-open eyes, and wriggled
back closer to her mother.

The nursing bitch watched Kiba and Hana with narrow, yellow eyes, the faintest twitch of her
tail the only sign of her displeasure, but Kiba knew what warning signs to look for, knew that
she understood they were just taking record of her litter. Behind him, as he reached for a
small pup the same brown as his own eyes, Hana sighed. "You can't blame Kumo for not
trusting us yet. We have a hundred and forty years of loyalty to Konoha behind us, and it's…
pretty much unprecedented for an entire clan to shift allegiance like we did."

Kiba grumbled something incoherent, startled as Akamaru yipped a sorry agreement from his
head, and rubbed a thumb back between the brown puppy's ears. "I miss Konoha." Very quiet.
He'd never have dared voice such a sentiment outside of the Inuzuka houses, or even to most
of their clanmates. "Female." He put the brown pup down.

"...I'm sorry, Kiba." Just as quiet, and before Kiba could stop her, Hana had set down her
record book and crouched at Kiba's side, slung an arm around his shoulders. "I know you've
been told the same thing as all the other kids. I know 'Konoha betrayed its pack' doesn't really
mean anything to you - but trust me. Alright? We're better off here."

The same answer as always, when Kiba or any of the other young Inuzuka kids dared
question their new home. Konoha betrayed itself. Konoha turned on its pack. As if that alone
was enough to explain their clan-wide exodus. Kiba was old enough to remember the night
that had led to it - blood and chakra on all sides, the snarl of the Inuzuka ninken as the elder
shinobi waded out into the fighting, the lifeless piles of fur they’d had to say goodbye to. He
remembered only too clearly how Hana had sobbed while they’d buried Kuraimaru.

But what had really happened, what had led to the outbreak of madness and violence, Kiba
still didn’t know. It was too late to nag anyone about it, but he wasn’t one of the young
Inuzuka kids, wasn’t too young to remember. He hadn’t been born in the Hidden Cloud.

Sometimes, he wished he had been.

“Yeah, sure.” Muttered. Kiba reached for the last puppy, soft white with tawny streaks over
its back. Slightly bigger than the others, eyes more open - watching Kiba and snapping
toothless jaws as it was picked up. “Male.” He’d make for a good ninken one day, if his
partner could properly tame his aggression.

Hana squeezed for a moment, a silent reassurance, before getting up and going to note down
the colour and sex of the puppy. “What time are you due to meet your team?” she asked,
voice carefully neutral. The record book went down onto a small table and out came a small
set of pins and clamps, alongside a rectangular container of ink.

Grumbling, Kiba started back at the first of the pups and ignored the warning lip-lick
Aoimaru gave them. Handing the puppy to Hana, Kiba headed towards the back to pick up
the record book and pen.

Pins were turned and selected, ink applied, and then the tiny clamp went around the pup’s ear.
A pulse of chakra, and the pins bit down for a moment, and the puppy squealed. A growl
rippled out from Aoimaru as her pup was returned, but Hana murmured something soothing,
and the bitch went quiet again. “What’s the ID?” A needless question, but Kiba could feel
Akamaru nuzzling into his hair, and the silence was almost suffocating after the puppy’s cry
of pain.

Hana set down the small clamp, kissed the pup’s head, and flipped its ear to read the
identification number now tattooed there. “Six, seven, C, V, F, eight.” Writing it down by the
relevant sex and colour, Kiba sighed.

“I’m supposed to be out there by noon.” Reluctantly admitted. It wasn’t a good excuse to
avoid his sensei, but he fucking hated being with his so-called team. Not trusting him was…
expected, if still unbearably annoying, but the way Lea eyed him constantly went beyond
that. The way Sen-sensei watched him like he was a dog on the verge of biting. At least Iona
just seemed uncertain of him.

Picking up the clamps to advance the number by one, Hana glanced back at him
disapprovingly. “You’re going to be late if you stay to help much longer.” Selected the next
pup and held the pins over its ear. Chakra pulsed, clamps bit, pup squeaked. “Six, seven, C,
V, F, nine.”

Kiba kept his eyes on the record book as he wrote it down. “They hate me. There’s no point
in even going.”

Frowning, Hana got to her feet and came over. Set her hands on Kiba’s shoulders. “I know
it’s rough, but you can’t just disobey your sensei. We’re… outsiders, still. All you have to do
is prove yourself to them.” Ruffling Akamaru’s ears as she turned away, she took the book
and pen from his hands and went back to finish marking the puppies. “Which you can’t do if
you’re hiding away here all the time. So go on. Get going.”

Kiba groaned. “Fine.” Maybe Hana was right - she usually was. Not that he’d ever say it
where he could be heard, but Kiba was pretty sure Hana was even smarter than their mother.
“Come on, Akamaru.” His ninken yipped from the top of his head. Easy for some; their
teammates loved Akamaru with an abandon that Kiba would have killed to have for himself.

“Good luck, bro,” Hana called after him, and he gave a vague hum in response.

The autumn air was frigid and biting as they went outside, and Kiba took a moment to
breathe it in, bracing himself. Akamaru whined and huddled deeper into his hair, and Kiba
reached up to pull his hood up around his ninken. “There you go, buddy.” Rubbing his hands
together and breathing onto his fingers, Kiba considered the winding path before sighing and
setting off. He wasn’t very good at the whole using-chakra-to-climb-things yet, but he was
serviceable.

Part of him couldn’t help but wonder, as he made his way across the precarious bridges and
up the side of the mountain to the training ground where Team SILK usually met. The ability
to use chakra as an adhesive to climb wasn’t something he’d ever heard of in the Konoha
Academy - Kumo had required a performance of it as part of the graduation exam. Would
Konoha have done the same? Had he simply been pulled out too early to know?

Where would he be, right now, if the clan had stayed?

Lea and Sen-sensei were already waiting, when Kiba clambered up to the artificially built flat
area of their training ground, though Iona was nowhere to be seen. Sen-sensei nodded tightly
at him, and he couldn’t bring himself to return it but Akamaru yipped happily from in his
hood, so that would just have to do. Scowling, Lea looked him up and down scathingly and
then turned away.

His jaw hurt from how hard he grit his teeth, but he held his tongue. Speaking out would only
get him running laps while they waited for Iona; it had taken a month for him to figure out
that defending himself wasn’t worth it. Not a lesson he was eager to forget.
Standing still for more than a few seconds at a time let the cold seep through Kiba’s jacket
and into his skin, so after a minute he decided he’d be better off doing warmups. It was still
only autumn, and winter up here in the mountains was relentlessly icy. He wasn’t looking
forward to finding out just how much worse it was up here, doing missions instead of hiding
away in the Academy building between reluctant ventures outside.

Iona showed up soon after, shivering faintly. Her breath came in puffs of cloud in front of her
face. Sen-sensei nodded to her too, ignored Akamaru’s little bark of greeting, and gestured
for them all to gather. “We’ve got a D-rank this afternoon,” they began, and Kiba perked up a
bit. D-ranks were mundane and annoying, but they were missions and they were paid. Plus, it
was a welcome relief to be doing an official mission; not only did Lea and Iona have to suck
up their personal biases and work with him, there was something intensely validating about
performing actual jobs as a Kumo-nin. Even if he still hadn’t earned their trust, he was one of
them. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be allowed to do even D-ranks.

Hana’s right, he thought as Sen-sensei outlined their D-rank and what they’d be doing
afterwards, if time permitted. All I have to do is be Kiba, not just Inuzuka.

It was sort of cheating, that Sasuke and Hinata were still trying to sort out their chakra control
so they could walk up the trees, while Sakura ducked into a backwards roll to dodge a swipe
from Kakashi-sensei and threw a single shuriken in response. Kunai in hand, Sakura spun up
into a lunge, and while she hadn’t taken the time to actually sight-check him, if Kakashi had
dodged the shuriken as she expected, he’d be in the way.

Her kunai pinged sideways off the metal guard that ran the length of Kakashi’s forearm -
half-hidden behind the looser jōnin jacket sleeve - and her pulse spiked as Kakashi twisted in
the opposite direction of her motion. Contact, and his arm went across her shoulders and then
slid around her neck.

Maybe she should have feigned incompetence for longer, while they’d been learning to
chakra-walk. She’d let herself take all day to nail the tree, when they’d first started at it on
monday. Longer than it had taken her the first time, when she’d been learning it for real. And
then two more, while Kakashi had ‘taught’ her to chakra-walk on water. As funny as it had
been to watch him despair over how close she constantly got before letting herself fall into
the river, after two days she’d been so bored that this morning, she’d walked out with ease
and then proceeded to spar him back and forth across the surface of it. After so long of faking
her ineptitude at it, perhaps she was pushing a little too far - but there was a fierce joy in
dancing across the water, indulging in a simple taijutsu spar with him.

Even though he was different, even if he was colder and more damaged than before, he was
still Kakashi-sensei. Still her family. She still loved him. Sparring him, to the exclusion of all
else, was a euphoria she sometimes couldn’t quite believe she’d managed to get back. Maybe
she shouldn’t let herself enjoy it so much, but there was a carnality in the way Kakashi-sensei
let her throw herself into their fight without any hesitation.

Something primal, and raw. When everything was still so surreal, after five months of trying
to adjust to the quiet peacetime of Konoha this early, of being small and twelve again, of
Kakashi-sensei being so much taller than her, of trying to retrain her muscles to accept a
static chakra weave and accommodate the technique that Tsunade-sensei had taken so much
time to teach her in the first place - after so long of trying to convince herself it was real and
figure out how she was supposed to handle the immensity of the task before her, when she
couldn’t tell anyone else what lay ahead, when she still had to actually train and become
strong enough to do anything at all, letting it all go and just sparring was… It was…
intoxicating.

So she plunged headfirst into the shuddering adrenaline and twisted in Kakashi’s grip as his
arm went around her throat. Flashed him a wicked smile - nixed the fluttery layer of chakra at
her feet and dropped like a stone into the water.

Kakashi danced back as she did, weaving handsigns, but Sakura knew that letting him
complete a ninjutsu would likely just end her on the spot. She simply didn’t have the
constitution to withstand a direct hit yet, nor did she have the speed to dodge. Instead, she let
out a sharp chakra expulsion and broke the surface of the river, clambering out with a similar
shimmer of chakra on her hands, lunging after Kakashi again as she did.

A few steps back kept him out of her range, and still flipping through handsigns as he went.
He was going through them slowly, letting her count them and see what they were. ...Monkey,
Rat, Dog, Bird, Dog… Did she recognise that series of seals? Snake, Dog, Dragon. Probably
a water release, based on the frequency of Dog sea—

Oh, fuck.

Hurling her kunai at him, she tugged out a second one and leapt for him, intent on disrupting
the jutsu rather than actually hitting him. Chakra flexed along the filigree weaves she’d been
building in every muscle, a burst from her feet to throw her further, faster. There was a
fraction of a second where their gazes met, Kakashi’s eye widening slightly.

He wasn’t expecting the speed of her reaction, wasn’t expecting her to recognise the jutsu he
was casting. (A water dragon, here? Maybe he’s just trying to scare me. There’s more of that
tactic, this time around). A flashburn of his chakra signature, somewhere between sight and
scent and touch against her senses, and he vanished in a blur of motion. His slipstream went
past her, whipping her hair up into a ragged halo; she spun with it, sheeting chakra out across
one hand to catch her fall against the river surface. Using her hand instead of her forearm to
catch her weight, and only averting the risk to her wrist bones by fortifying them with her
own chakra before impact, felt wrong and dangerous, but she had no choice.

All skill aside, she was no Hyuuga, and despite all her practice she hadn’t yet learned to expel
chakra from the tenketsu in her forearms. It would take a long time of practice before she
ever got that far, and without the Hyuuga’s Kekkei Genkai, she’d never get any further.

Sometimes she really hated being a civilian-born shinobi.

“Fuck!” Chirped, sharply, as Kakashi’s shin connected hard with her free arm, sending her
skidding back across the water. He was still weaving. “Oh, come on!” Already scrambling to
her feet, throwing her second kunai at him and drawing a third with her other hand. Throwing
that straight afterwards - watching the weapon arc too far sideways and dip before ever
getting near her target. Oh goddamn it. A throw made with her off-hand. Sakura had
forgotten how difficult it was, at the start, to train herself how to make decent throws with her
non-dominant hand.

Kakashi simply rotated and dipped to dodge her one good shot, and when he came upright
again, she spotted the Dog seal holding and felt the flare of searing white chakra. Game over,
and Sakura let herself slump back into the water, even as she felt it whirl and bubble beneath
her. Of course, she hadn’t expected to win - even back (ahead?) when she’d been at her peak,
Sakura was sure she couldn’t have beaten Kakashi in a real fight.

Even expecting it, when the water dragon surged up out of the river and hit her, glistening
teeth gripping her shoulder and flipping her into the air, the sudden lurch of movement and
spinning gravity yanked out a cry from her throat. She flailed for a second, fought down the
panic reflex of her untrained body, and stretched her limbs in every direction, trying to
stabilise herself in the air so she could figure out a safe landing.

Another flicker of chakra against her senses - warm and familiar - and then Kakashi-sensei’s
arm was around her waist, her side pressed gently against his own. He landed with an easy
flex of chakra and muscle, and held for a moment. He’d caught her. Then he released her, and
she tumbled to the ground at his feet; soft grass where he’d jumped to, just beyond the
riverbank.

Sakura blinked, dazed, while everything slotted together, and then all at once she burst into
laughter. I just got my ass kicked. But it was Kakashi-sensei, and she was completely safe.
Even attacking her, he wouldn’t let anything harm her. She was sore from the fight, and her
shoulder would bruise where Kakashi’s water dragon had bitten her, but there was no lasting
damage. Nothing that would impede her tomorrow.

“I yield, Sensei,” she managed between gasping, laughed breaths. “Mercy.”

Crouching by her, Kakashi let her dissolve into giggles. His gaze went away from her,
studied Sasuke and Hinata across the clearing where they were still working on chakra-
walking up their trees. They could do it now, three days in, but they weren’t consistent. Right
now, Hinata was taking a break, and looked to be encouraging Sasuke while he took a
running start and booked it most of the way up.

Amused delight settled into something warm and soothing under Sakura’s skin, and she
smiled softly to herself, sitting up. It had been five months, and she still had no idea where
Naruto was - if he was safe, what had happened, why nobody else knew where he was either
- but he was strong. He’d be okay until she could find him; and until then, all she could do
was try and focus on what she had right in front of her. Dwelling on all the things she
couldn’t change or fight or fix right now had led to so many sleepless nights and too many
hours spent running around Konoha. Losing track of time and ending up late to training.

Sometimes, she wondered just how much she was taking after her sensei. Maybe she was
simply trying to be closer to him. There weren’t words enough to explain the rending grief in
her chest when she’d watched him die, the way it had felt like her ribcage was cracking apart.

This, now, was warm and precious, and she wouldn’t take it for granted again.
“I can’t figure you out, Sakura.” Quiet, where Kakashi was crouched by her, still watching
his other two genin. She looked at him, holding onto the happy moment as if it would flee the
second she loosened her grip. “But I’ve been thinking that, perhaps, I was too quick to judge
you.”

She blinked, picking that apart in her head. What was an appropriate response? Giving a
genuine one was an impulse she’d gotten better at restraining, over the last few months. She
was meant to be twelve - and her parents had stared at her too strangely too many times when
she’d forgotten to act like it. So the immediate response that came to mind was dismissed, but
then wh—

“I’m sorry…?” she heard herself say. Felt her expression flicker as she forced down the
irritation at the anxious waver in her voice. Seriously? It was a side-effect she hadn’t been
anticipating, when she’d started to reign in her conscious self; the self-conscious and
uncertain threads in her mind, woven in by her native self, were coming through more and
more. After a moment, Sakura took a quick breath to try and gloss it over. “I don’t know what
you mean, Sensei.”

Kakashi hummed, and then turned his head to look at her. “I was suspicious of you because
you react like a kunoichi who’s seen real combat, not a fresh Academy graduate.” A dark
note in his voice, but also something else; an edge of… concern?

Panic burned through Sakura’s warm fuzzy feelings. Oh. But if he was thinking different
now, then—

Then what…?

“Do you remember your first lesson?”

Yes, barely swallowed down, a swirl of thoughts that went back too far, Sasuke and Naruto at
her sides, the elation of passing the bell test, the odd prickling sensation of realising for the
first time - truly - that they were a team and not just three genin. The way Kakashi-sensei had
somehow impressed upon her without words the acute realness of the situation.

But that’s not what he was talking about. Kakashi - this Kakashi - didn’t remember that. It
had never happened to him. So she licked her lips to buy time and ran through her more
recent memories, and then finally let herself nod. A tumble into Kakashi’s arms, ignoring the
uncomfortable tension that gave away how much he didn’t want to be carrying her while her
hand bled and throbbed with pain.

“Yes,” she let herself finally say. “Don’t lie to you.”

A nod. It wasn’t approval, not really; Kakashi’s mouth was a hard line, almost invisible under
his mask, and there was the faintest crinkle at the corner of his eye that told her he was…
worried? The urge to hug him was almost overwhelming - but as far as he was concerned,
they’d only been acquainted for five months. It had taken years for him to accept any form of
comfort from her, let alone physical comfort. He’d reject it, if she tried.
“Good. Keeping that in mind…” said quietly - gently. Something almost like fear flashed in
her chest. “Did something happen, Sakura? When you graduated, or around that time?” His
voice was low and serious. The cold edge was… gone.

Oh. Oh, Sensei. She didn’t know what to say. Multiple times, she’d already noted the
recognition in his face, when she slipped and reacted like she was in battle. It happened too
often, mistakes and reflexes she just couldn’t get under control; she’d nearly popped Sasuke
in the face during one lesson, and only Kakashi’s quick grip around her wrist had saved him a
broken nose. She just couldn’t help it. Half the time, all thought vanished into a black
screaming static and she was barely even aware of her reactions until after it was too late.

Knowing what was happening should have made it easier, but it didn’t. Studying the mental
effects of trauma had gone alongside studying the physical ones, and she understood why she
panicked sometimes, when an attack caught her off-guard - even when it was just sparring,
even when nobody actually meant to hurt her. With everything that had happened to her, with
the way the war had broken out and the role she’d played in it, with the way it had fallen
apart afterwards…

Even if she hadn’t known already the way trauma affected the mind and the reflexes, the
nightmares that still plagued her would have clued her in.

Sakura looked away, knowing damn well that it would only make him more suspicious that
something had… happened to her. Technically speaking, wasn’t he right? Her body was
twelve years old - her brain was twelve years old. Being flooded with memory and
experience that belonged to the eighteen year old version of her, the version of her that had at
least enjoyed almost another year of ignorant blissful idealisation before the cold reality of
being a shinobi had started to seep in.

Yeah. Something had happened to her. But she couldn’t say it - couldn’t admit it. Explaining
it was too dangerous, and not just for her. She risked being locked in the Anbu cells for the
rest of her life, but if Kakashi-sensei knew, if she told him, and he said nothing… he’d be
culpable for it too. He’d either turn her over and ruin any chance she had of saving the world
from the carnage that had destroyed it, or he’d keep her secret and put himself at risk in the
process.

It was better that he didn’t know.

“I… I’m alright, Sensei.” She should lie. She should say, outright, that nothing had happened
- but the attempt tasted like ash and bile, and she just couldn’t get the words out.

Kakashi cuffed her around the head, and the same jolt that she was trying to suppress went
through her whole body, like touching a live wire, a sharp sideways jerk away and the
sensation of muscles tensing and flexing and lashing out while a ripple of hollow nothing
went through her mind. Fuck, even as Kakashi caught her hand in a gentle grip, and Sakura
swallowed back the mixture of panic and anger. Neither had any place here.

Knowingly, he met her gaze with his own. He knows a trauma response when he sees one. A
thought she’d had before, but it rang loud and clear this time. “I told you not to lie to me.”
Sharper - scolding - but still more quiet than he usually was. Softer.
His fingers stayed locked around her wrist, but they were so light that it would have taken
even just a feeble attempt to break free. Sakura didn’t make one.

“I…”

Don’t lie to me.

Sakura looked away. Carefully, Kakashi released her wrist and settled back. “What happened,
Sakura?”

You died. I died. Everyone died. I fucking time travelled and everything I know is gone. I’m
alone.

“I… I don’t want to talk about it.” Forced out, and Sakura hated that her voice was shaking -
she hated how much she wanted to just tell him the truth. Don’t lie to me - and yet even this
was a fucking falsehood. She did want to talk about it. She wanted to tell him everything.
More than just wanting his opinion, more than knowing he’d know what to do when she had
no idea. Sakura wanted to spill her guts and let Kakashi-sensei make everything okay again.
She wanted to give up the responsibility for it. She wanted to let Kakashi-sensei look after
her.

But with the way he was now, she wasn’t even sure that would happen. And if it did, it would
be monumentally unfair, when Kakashi’s whole life had already been so unfair. She would be
better than that.

He hummed. “Whatever happened to you, does it affect your ability to do your job?” That got
her eyes back on him, a nervous blink in response. “Are you a liability to this team?”

If it had been colder, Sakura would have been stung. If she hadn’t known better, it would
sound like disinterested concern that she would let them down, that she couldn’t do it.
Instead, she took a sharp breath and held it, shifting just enough to set her forefinger and
thumb either side of the webbed flesh between her opposing thumb and forefinger, and dig
them in as hard as she could. The sharp pain twinged up through her arm, and the sudden
sting of tears subsided.

Whatever she’d changed that had hurt him, the Kakashi she knew was still in there. Worried
that she would do something stupid and get herself hurt. Worried that she would have to carry
the guilt of her teammate’s death when maybe, if she’d responded better, she could have
saved them.

He couldn’t possibly know that she did so already.

“No, Kakashi-sensei,” she whispered back.

A nod, and Kakashi turned his eye back on Sasuke and Hinata. Sasuke was at the top of his
tree, and even as they watched he gestured encouragement to Hinata as she backed up to run
up her own. “Okay. When you’re ready, tell me about it. That’s an order.”
Something in Sakura’s chest withered, even as something else went all warm. She could
never tell him - but she desperately wanted to, and now she knew he would listen.

I can’t. “Yes, Kakashi-sensei.” I won’t. “Thank you.”

I’m sorry.

It was, perhaps, a little soon to be taking a fresh genin squad on a C-rank mission, but
Kakashi was… well, if not convinced, then willing to gamble that Team Seven was ready.
Sakura was more skilled than she let on - even if she kept investing more energy into faking
incompetence than into actually training. Sasuke was an incredibly talented kid, despite the
massive inferiority complex that plagued his every step; hard to blame him, when he walked
in Itachi’s shadow. Even Hinata was skilled enough to handle herself - it was convincing her
of that fact that posed a problem.

And besides, Kakashi was more than capable of soloing a C-rank with both eyes closed.

Under Tsunade’s quirked eyebrow, Hinata had her eyes on the floor like she wanted to melt
through it, while Sasuke stared at Sakura with equal incredulity. The girl had both hands
clapped over her mouth, and even as she got stared down, she glanced sideways to Kakashi
for help.

She did that a lot. The glances. Looking to Kakashi for reassurance, for direction. No matter
how harsh he was, or how often he put the three of them on their asses, Sakura would always
look to him first for direction.

Worse, even when he didn’t offer any direct response, she always seemed to find it. Always
read something in what little of his expression he showed. The kids didn’t know him nearly
well enough to read through his mask, and yet Sakura never looked at him the same way
Hinata or Sasuke did. It was… closer to how his Anbu team had looked to him, back when
he’d been their captain. The same way his shadows had looked to him the night of—

Enough. How his thoughts always somehow circled back wasn’t their fault, and they didn’t
deserve his inevitable ire if he dwelled on it.

“Sorry, Hokage-sama,” Sakura squeaked out through her hands. She sounded afraid; tension
lined every muscle in her body. “I’m— just surprised. Sorry.” Hands lowered hesitantly, held
at her sides. Her fingers twitched faintly, chin held just a little too high. Another glance to
Kakashi - a clenched jaw as she focused back on Tsunade and held it rigidly.

Kakashi sighed. “I thought you three wanted to do something more exciting than a D-rank?”

“Hell yes.” Sasuke, instantaneously. He shot Sakura a frown, before nudging Hinata. She
squeaked out something that might have been an agreement. “You said it was an escort
mission, right Hokage-sama?”

For just a moment, Tsunade met Kakashi’s gaze. He gave her the smallest nod. So fast that
the kids wouldn’t notice - or at least, so fast that none of them should. Kakashi was barely
even surprised when green eyes flashed between them; of course Sakura had seen.

Whatever terrible thing had been done to her - something that, at least six months after the
fact, Sakura had yet to utter even a single word about - she was far more skilled than she’d let
on in the Academy and she was still trying to hide it behind badly feigned incompetence and
deliberate mistakes. Kakashi was starting to suspect that it went back further than that;
whereas Sasuke was naturally talented, Sakura’s prowess was skill. Learned ability. Learned
strength. Maybe she’d been hiding it for years.

Tsunade waved a hand. “There’s no significant risk; your client hasn’t reported any reason for
personal attack.” Their client could have lied, of course, but it wasn’t something many
civilians had the guts to do. The Great Shinobi Villages were notoriously vengeful when it
came to clients lying about contracts. “You’ll be escorting him along the route between
Konoha and the Land of Waves. It’s not uncommon for bandits to find opportunity there;
more than likely, your presence alone will be enough to dissuade them. No need to get
excited.”

While Sasuke scowled in disappointment, Hinata breathed a silent sigh of relief. Fixing the
crushing self-esteem problems the girl had was proving to be far more theoretical than
practical. If the actual improvement she’d shown month by month - week by week - wasn’t
enough to prove her to herself, and the inevitable success of this mission didn’t do it (even if
Kakashi ended up fulfilling it himself in the unlikely event it became too dangerous for his
genin), he was going to have to take drastic measures. It wasn’t an activity he was
particularly enthusiastic about pursuing.

“You’ll meet the client tomorrow, at the southern gate. Kakashi has the rest of your mission
details.” Given to him yesterday, when he consulted Tsunade about taking the team on an out-
of-village mission. He sighed internally, bracing himself for the slew of questions he was sure
to get once Tsunade dismissed them. “If you screw this up, you make all of Konoha look bad.
You got that?”

Another interesting array of reactions, from the three kids. Hinata seemed terrified, hugging
herself anxiously and managing a faint nod of acknowledgement. Sasuke offered a much
more convincing nod, accompanied by a firm “Yes, Hokage-sama.”

Quieter - and seeming uncertain - Sakura echoed him. “Yes, Hokage-sama.”

“Alright. Now get going, I’m busy.” Tsunade waved a dismissal.

Giving them just long enough to execute quick bows, Kakashi led the genin back out of
Tsunade’s office and down through the building. Sasuke was practically vibrating with
anticipation - it was only noon, as Kakashi hadn’t organised a D-rank for today, but there was
no point in trying to work with them now. “You’re all dismissed for the day,” he told them
instead. “Get yourselves packed and ready for this escort. We could be gone for as long as
three weeks.”

Estimating three entire weeks for a simple escort mission to the Land of Waves and back was
demonstrously long, but the client was a civilian and couldn’t move even a fraction as far or
fast as they could in a single day. On top of that, they were genin and Kakashi fully intended
 to hang back and let them handle the mission itself until it became necessary for him to step
in. Even then, it shouldn’t take longer than two - but adding a week of buffer would make
sure they had the leeway to deal with anything that might go awry.

It didn’t take skill to inflict a wound, after all, even against a shinobi. It only took one lucky
shot.

“Tomorrow at ten, right, Kakashi-sensei?” Sasuke asked, already most of the way ready to
run off. He didn’t even wait for a verbal response; as soon as Kakashi nodded, he was
heading home, waving over his shoulder. “See you then!” And he was gone. By gods, he was
the most impulsive Uchiha that Kakashi had ever met. Maybe there was hope for him after
all.

Hinata bowed, the nervous tic of formality betraying how anxious she really was about the
mission. “I’ll see you tomorrow too, Kakashi-sensei. Sakura.” Her pace was more sedate, as
she began to walk away - shoulders hunched - but she didn’t glance back. Kakashi left her to
whatever spiralling thoughts she was thinking. Let her panic. If he was lucky - unbelievably,
inhumanly lucky - she’d get through them all today, and be in a better headspace tomorrow.

“Kakashi-sensei?” Sakura asked hesitantly. She shifted her weight when he turned his gaze
on her. Bit her lip. “What… What was the client’s name?” Something in her eyes that
hovered between fear and anger.

She went pale, when he answered.

“Tazuna.”

Chapter End Notes

Stuff and things:

| I told you I didn't forget about Asuma.
| Okay, so… Takigakure. There’s precisely two whole fifths of sweet fuck all
information on it in the wiki, and I didn’t get that far through Naruto to see it in the
manga or anime (for previously established reasons of Kishimoto sucking my dick).
Therefore, the vast majority of Taki culture and literally everything about how its
shinobi system functions is stuff that I and my beta (Clockwork) have created ourselves.
If there’s any actual conflict with anything presented about Taki in canon, well, canon
can get fucked, I’m not changing it LMAO
| On that note, don’t @ me about Taki-nin names. I’ve decided they’re weird. That’s just
how it do now.
| So, about Konohamaru. His name has been changed to (Sarutobi) Kota because Asuma
panicked and picked it at random to avoid the kid being literally named after fucking
Konohagakure, but not before the first syllable was out of his damn mouth. As I'm sure
you've noticed, there are good reasons that Asuma doesn't want the kid literally named
after fucking Konoha.
| I didn't forget about Kiba, either.
| Did any of y’all get the trick for team SILK? Speaking of SILK, Iona uses she/her, Sen
uses they/them, and Lea uses she/her. Should I be doing pronoun notifications for all the
OCs or is it fine just having them used in the actual narrative?
| Let’s be realistic, here: given how integral it is for like, pretty much everything ever,
Kakashi waiting until they’re in the middle of a high-risk death-probable mission to
teach his genin how to chakra-walk on things is up there amongst the stupidest decisions
he’s made, especially considering that he should have been focusing on literally
anything that would keep them alive. They didn’t even use that skill for the actual fight
that ended up happening with Haku and Zabuza. So I’m having him teach that now, in
the comfort of Konoha, before they’re taking out-of-village missions. What the hell kind
of incompetent bullshit was that, taking them out of Konoha when they couldn’t do
something as basic as that. (Then again, this is the same canon that decided nobody
cared about knowing their genin’s chakra affinities out of the Academy so who the fuck
knows, at this point).
| Also, just so we’re crystal clear, Kakashi is not going to be shipped with any of his
students. Or anyone in Sakura’s generation. He’s basically Team Seven's second dad,
a’ight? Ninja Dad.
| Holy fucking shit, the more I read about Kishimoto’s apparent “timeline” the less it
fucking makes sense and the more I have to FIX.
| Writing because lockdown can be bad and I wanna help y’all not lose your mind as
much as possible. ALSO got a Tumblr for this shit, here ya go lads. Silver Starlight
Writes
| FINALLY LADS. WE’RE GETTING TO THE DAMN PLOT. Hope y’all are
ready for the fucking Land of Waves arc. Let us ENGAGE THE STORY, my best
bitches.

Next chapter due: 23rd April 2020

 As We Simply Flutter, Like Leaves in the Mist
Chapter Summary

Sakura and her team walk into the mist.

Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Sakura was the first one at the southern Konoha gate, the next morning. An hour still to go
until they were actually due, but she’d barely slept over the night and risen with the sun.
Running several laps around the village perimeter would only go so far, so she’d done her
cool down stretches and walked as sedately as she could all the way to the gate itself. The
pair of chūnin manning it - she was sure she recognised Izumo’s face - had been eyeing her
for at least an hour now.

Not that she blamed them, necessarily, for being so suspicious of her. The Konoha hitai-ite
gave her credibility, but her size and age said that she shouldn’t be out here on her own. She
especially shouldn’t be walking up and down the walls because she couldn’t bring herself to
keep still, and yet here she was. At least it kept the cold at bay. Winter was mild in Fire
Country, but it was still the coldest that she was accustomed to. The lightweight red jacket
she’d thrown on this morning over her customary clothes only did so much when half her
legs were exposed.

Hinata was the first of her teammates to arrive; she didn’t even notice Sakura initially, only a
few minutes before ten; she let out a shrill yelp when Sakura dropped down at her side. “O-
oh— Good morning, Sakura,” she stammered, and Sakura gave her a soft smile.

“Hi, Hinata. You ready?” Sakura doubted it - but she was probably projecting. The prospect
of meeting Tazuna again was like a whirlpool in her stomach, as if she’d swallowed an
Aburame hive. There was absolutely no protest she could make, no hint she could drop that
Tazuna was lying, without giving herself away.

Kakashi-sensei was smarter than her. He’d nail her in seconds for knowing more than she
should about this mission.

It didn’t make the idea of fighting Zabuza or Haku again any less terrifying.

She wouldn’t be useless this time, of course. She knew how to fight, she’d faced down
deadlier opponents, she wouldn’t freeze. If worse came to worst, she was a master med-nin.
Even though she couldn’t risk showing that particular knowledge-sphere - there was no
explanation she could give except for the truth - she’d done enough tests at home to know
that she was capable of utilising that skill if she had to.
But still. They’d nearly killed Team Seven in its entirety the first time around. Saying nothing
put Sasuke and Hinata in immense danger. She was putting Kakashi-sensei at risk. If they got
hurt - if they died - it would be her fault.

Hinata ran her fingers behind one ear; a habitual motion. Tucking her hair back, if it had been
loose. Still worn long, but Hinata had taken to braiding it recently; a complicated, beautiful
pattern that wound tight against her skull, all the way from her right temple and back around
until it ended just below her left ear, at her jaw. Today, she’d woven something thin and silver
throughout it - it was very pretty, glittering against her dark hair. “... I’m nervous,” she
admitted, forcing a tense little smile. “But I think we’ll be okay. You and Sasuke are really
strong, and Kakashi-sensei is… well, you know.”

Yeah. I know. But instead of acknowledging that, Sakura took a gentle grip of Hinata’s elbow.
“So are you, Hinata. Remember, you can beat me and Sasuke in sparring too.” And they were
going to need every single scrap of strength she had to offer.

White eyes studied her too closely, and Sakura released her grip and looked away. Maybe it
had shown in her face. It wouldn’t surprise her. This would be their first real test. It had been
the first time, too, but the difference was that this time, Sakura knew ahead of time the
monumental risk that they were going to be at.

She knew how close to death they were about to come.

It was only natural that she was terrified… right?

Sasuke showed up next, with barely a minute to spare before ten o’clock. He set down his
bag next to the wall beside Sakura and Hinata’s, and then leant against it himself. “I’ll bet
you both a thousand ryo that Kakashi-sensei doesn’t get here before noon.” Flashed at them
through a smirk. No clue of the horror looming ahead of them.

With a soft little giggle, Hinata tilted her head. “... Okay.” Another smile in return, and
Sasuke reached over to shake her hand. When they glanced at her, Sakura tried to mimic their
smiles and waved both hands, shaking her head.

“I’m out.” There was no telling when Kakashi-sensei would show up. If he wasn’t concerned
about Tazuna - either that his contract would turn out to be false, or that Kakashi would
negatively impact Konoha’s reputation if he was late - then it could be mid-afternoon before
they got going.

If he was concerned about Tazuna, he could be here as early as half an hour from now.

The urge to ask them to spar was overwhelming - something to focus her mind, stop her from
thinking about the mission she knew she wasn’t going to sabotage - but she held it down.
They were in public, at a Konoha gate. Representing the village. This wasn’t a training
ground; this wasn’t the place to throw each other around.

Sasuke shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Time crawled. Hinata was nervous, but it didn’t make Sakura feel any better. Hinata was
always nervous. If she actually expected this mission to blow up in their faces, she’d be a
mess; instead, she was making bets with Sasuke and trying to return his casual chatting.
Gods. Suddenly, Sakura wanted to cry. She’d have given anything - anything - to be the
naive, excited genin everyone thought she was.

Everything felt… so heavy. She knew too much, and she didn’t know what to do about it.

Tazuna was half an hour late in his own right. Just as Sakura remembered, he came
staggering by with a sake bottle in hand. Straw hat tipped back, revealing a ragged beard and
pockmarked face beneath a shock of grey-brown hair. "I'll get him," she chimed in quickly,
before either of her teammates could react. Sakura couldn't imagine either of them giving a
good or particularly helpful reaction.

It was only as she approached the man that it occurred to her that none of them should
actually be able to recognise Tazuna on sight yet. Shit. How did she—? Oh. Obvious,
actually. "Hello, sir?" she asked, tipping her head to look under the hat's brim more
comfortably. "Are you alright?"

Tazuna turned glassy, dark brown eyes on her and stared for just a beat too long. "Th' fuck 're
you?" he grouched, glancing around before taking a swig of sake.

Sighing, Sakura shot a placating glance towards the chūnin on gate duty, shaking her head
minutely. The one who'd risen slightly - she was sure it was Izumo - paused, and then sat
back down. Kept his eyes glued to them, ready to interfere if Tazuna gave Sakura any trouble.
It was almost sweet, given he didn't have the faintest clue how easily Sakura could handle the
bridge-builder on her own.

“I’m a Konoha-nin,” she said, raising her voice just enough for Sasuke and Hinata to hear.
“Do you need any help?” She shouldn’t be able to recognise Tazuna yet - but offering her
help as a shinobi to an obviously inebriated civilian was ninja 101. Even Kakashi couldn’t be
suspicious of her for doing that.

Or… Well… He probably could be, if she was honest, but Kakashi-sensei’s overwhelming
paranoia wasn’t a good reason.

Tazuna sneered at her, and she felt Sasuke and Hinata move up closer, felt the sharpening of
their chakra signatures. If it got aggressive, the whole thing was going to go sideways. Was
Kakashi watching them right now, already? Was he watching her to see what she’d do? Or
was he away in the shinobi graveyard, saying goodbye to his own teammates before leaving
on this mission? Maybe he would never be any the wiser as to what happened now.

Maybe it didn’t matter.

Sakura held a hand out, just a little, flicking her fingers at the other two genin. Still sneering,
Tazuna gave her a rough look up and down, and then turned his gaze on them. There was
fear, underneath the drunken disdain; something hunted, the same frightened gleam of an
animal that knows there’s a predator around the corner. Had that been there the first time,
too?
Had Sasuke seen it there, when Sakura hadn’t known the first damn thing about the real
world? Had Kakashi?

“I’m meetin’ some trumped up ninja for an escort, or summin’.” Scornful, even as Tazuna’s
gaze flickered between the three of them. It was impossible that he’d missed their hitai-ite,
gleaming in the cold morning sun. As short as Sakura was now, he couldn’t have missed even
hers, the metal plate facing the sky instead of the customary place on her forehead.

Hm. She’d been wearing it that way because she’d always worn it that way. Maybe she
should change it, this time around.

From behind her, Hinata got closer. “Are you Tazuna-san?” she asked, her voice ever so
quiet. Sasuke’s chakra signature boiled on Sakura’s other flank, as Tazuna bared his teeth at
them.

“Ya ain’t telling me that you fuckin’ kids are s’posed to protect me.” Derisive, and Sakura
shot Sasuke a warning glance that only barely kept him quiet. He was right, to be offended,
but Sakura couldn’t bring herself to be upset. She knew what they didn’t. She knew that
Tazuna was just afraid he was going to get them killed.

Not this time. She knew better. If they ended up trying to complete this insane suicide mission
to save the Land of Waves from the greed of a single political madman, then she had a good
idea of what they were up against. She knew Kakashi could hold out long enough to protect
them, if push came to shove - she knew the shortcut for saving everyone.

Zabuza wouldn’t bother fighting them if he didn’t stand to make a financial gain. If Gatō was
dead, then he’d leave them all alone. If Gatō died before anyone got seriously hurt, then
Zabuza would have no reason to fight them at all. And if Zabuza didn’t fight, then Haku
wouldn’t either.

Forcing a smile was harder than it should have been, but Sakura did so all the same. “We’re
most of Team Seven, yes. We’ll be your escort party for your trip home.” You liar. But she
knew why. It was hard to be angry, even now, for the same reason she hadn’t been angry with
him the first time. Even if he muttered something about useless kids and she had to ask
herself if she was capable of restraining Sasuke by force. “We’re just waiting for our fourth
team member to arrive.”

Maybe she wasn’t angry with him, but Tazuna was still being a fucking cunt about it. Let him
stew in that for a while. It was an ultimately harmless - if petty - revenge.

Sakura exchanged another glance with Izumo - he was watching closely, eyes narrow, waiting
to see if he needed to intervene - and then backed up a little. Sasuke and Hinata came with
her; the Hyuuga kept her head down, hugging herself, digging her fingers into her own
elbows. “Listen,” she murmured, meeting the fire in Sasuke’s eyes. “I know he’s a dick, but
we have to just deal with it. Alright? We’re representing Konoha, we can’t be turning on our
own clients.”

A low little growl. “Even if he fucking deserves it.” But the note of defeat in Sasuke’s voice
showed he’d heard her. Sakura let out a little sigh of relief. “Don’t listen to him, Hinata. He’s
an idiot.”

Warmth shot through Sakura’s chest. The last six months of trying to acclimate to her new
reality were littered with countless little moments, hundreds of instances of the person Sasuke
truly was. He was just as cunning and opinionated as he'd ever been - but there was
compassion, now. A sense of justice that had been warped into a thirst for vengeance in
Sakura's first lifetime. There was a kindness, that Sakura had deluded herself into seeing even
after Itachi had stamped it out, that Sasuke still carried now.

Now that she actually knew him, Sakura could only wonder at how much Itachi must have
hated himself, after everything that had gone wrong. This time, maybe she could save him
too.

It was barely eleven thirty when Sakura caught the flutter-spark of Kakashi’s chakra signature
nearby. The grin was in place before she could regulate it, but Itachi had taken her and
Sasuke for two full lessons on chakra detection and concealment, and she’d been sure to
show them a dramatic rise in skill. Doing so flew in the face of the incompetence she’d been
trying to portray, and that was a decision she was already regretting; but after six months
Sakura knew well enough that she wasn’t capable of pretending not to notice the flickering
chakra signatures of the village around her.

“Kakashi-sensei’s here,” she announced, to the frustrated groan of defeat that Sasuke offered.
Hinata giggled quietly, a little noise of triumph. Cold and hot swept through Sakura’s body in
equal measure, an unsettling tingling feeling, like her skin being painlessly peeled away. No
matter what, she had to protect them. She couldn’t let Zabuza or Orochimaru or anyone
destroy her team like they had the first time.

Hinata gave Sasuke a high five when he offered his hand. “I owe you,” he conceded,
grumbled but smiling slightly. Still weird, to see him with anything but a sullen scowl, even
after seeing it every day for so long. Weirder, to watch him so casually touch someone.

But Hinata smiled back. “Alright.”

“Are you all ready to go?” came Kakashi’s voice. He sounded incredibly bored, though
Sakura caught the way he eyed Tazuna while the bridge-builder’s focus was on his genin.
Then, without even waiting for them to respond: “Good. I’m Hatake Kakashi,” he greeted
their client, both hands in his pockets. Sakura took the hint and grabbed her bag, slinging it
around her shoulders while Sasuke and Hinata followed suit. “My genin will be in charge of
guarding you.” Gestured towards them with his chin.

It was almost insulting, the complaint that she saw rise in Tazuna’s face as he clenched the
neck of his sake bottle. Even knowing it was born from the knowledge that he’d lied and that
they were in far more danger than Tazuna had said, Sakura was hard-pressed to disagree with
the quiet growl of irritation Sasuke let out.

Before Tazuna could say anything aloud, though, Kakashi’s voice cut through. “Is that a
problem, Tazuna-san?” Perfectly even; not even cold. He sounded so mild.
Lucky for everyone, Tazuna seemed to get the hint, even as drunk as he was. He blinked, cast
another glance over Team Seven, and then wrinkled his nose as he dropped his gaze to the
ground. “Nah, whatever. ‘t’s fine.” It wasn’t fine. Bastard. Knowingly putting them in danger,
even if she understood his desperation. Sakura felt her jaw clench despite herself. If he’d just
been honest with Konoha, there was every chance they’d have helped him. Tsunade would
never want to watch the collapse of an entire nation - even a micro-nation such as Wave
Country - and do nothing.

Just have to protect them. Maybe she could find a way to make Kakashi think the threat was
bigger than he had last time. Reporting it back to Tsunade-sensei once Tazuna confessed
didn’t necessarily mean he wouldn’t get the help he needed. Only this time, maybe it would
be a team of actual qualified jōnin who could tackle a problem like Zabuza and Haku and the
entire economic collapse of the Land of Waves as it was annexed by its own corrupt leader.

Fuck.

Fuck.

They didn’t make small talk as they formed up and Kakashi-sensei walked over to hand the
mission slip to Izumo. It was a mark of how well his lessons had been working that the three
of them didn’t need to say anything to line up, Sakura ahead of Tazuna and Sasuke and
Hinata flanking him. Kakashi glanced over them once, and then took his place on point.

Sakura didn’t know if the others saw, but the briefest flicker of pride in his eye was enough to
tear through the fear of a moment ago. They were in danger, but they would look after each
other.

They got a good few hours’ walking in before anything of note happened. Keeping quiet
wasn’t the easiest task Sakura had ever given herself - watching Kakashi lead the group at a
leisurely pace, listening to Tazuna grumble to himself and work through the last of his sake,
pretending that she wasn’t eavesdropping on Sasuke and Hinata’s occasional whispers - but it
was far from the hardest. Just as it had been that first time, the sun was bright and watery
overhead, shooting through the forest to dapple the established path they were following.

She was on edge, trying to keep her awareness up, behave like they could be attacked at any
moment. Technically speaking, they could. Their official mission was to protect Tazuna from
attack on his way home, so even as frustrating as it was to match his lazy pace, their job was
to maintain keen senses and be prepared. Realistically, if Tazuna had really only been under
casual threat, it wasn’t feasible to do what Sakura was trying. She knew that, knew that the
key was having quick reflexes and keeping her senses open and not holding such a vigilant (
exhausting ) guard, but she couldn’t help it.

There was an attack coming - soon - and she had to be ready for it. Keeping her chakra
signature concealed was a waste of effort while they were travelling in the open, so she put
that effort into detecting anyone else’s instead. Quick little pulses, stretching her senses out as
far as she could. Hunting.

Too much time had passed, and Sakura couldn’t remember what the chakra signatures of the
Mist’s two so-called Demon Brothers felt like; she hadn’t known it was something she would
need, and besides it had been so early on… Sakura wasn’t sure she’d even been able to read
signatures at the time. Sensing another’s chakra was equal parts instinct and training. It didn’t
stop her from straining, searching for any little flicker or warmth that was out of place - but
she was lucky. Even if she couldn’t rely on herself to pick up on their chakra, there was
another huge giveaway that she remembered clearly.

The sun was starting to set when they finally reached it. Kakashi didn’t even pause in the
calm pace he was keeping at their point, nose buried in his book, and though he wasn’t
bothering to conceal his chakra presence either (a comforting electric tingle) Sakura didn’t
feel it even flutter when they walked past the conspicuous puddle.

She’d noticed it the first time too, of course, and unbidden that thought made a bubble of
pride swell up in her chest. It had taken her a long time to put her mind to work, but she’d
had the makings of a formidable shinobi even back then. This time, she’d use it properly.
She’d do better.

Approaching the puddle made the pride curdle into anxiety. Last time, Kakashi had put them
to the test and pretended to let the enemy chūnin ‘kill’ him, just to see what his genin would
do. Well, that and because Kakashi-sensei had always been willing to let a foe underestimate
him. There was an astonishing amount of power in being underestimated; of all his students,
Sakura was the only one who’d learned to use that tactic.

Naruto and Sasuke… just hadn’t been able to. With the immeasurable power they’d
accumulated by the end, it hadn’t even been an option for them. Next to them, it was only
natural that Sakura was always considered weak. In the end, Kakashi had taught her to use
that, rather than to resent it.

But this version of Kakashi - familiar and completely strange at the same time - was different.
She wasn’t sure what he would do. Happy to take advantage of such a situation, if it
occurred, but from what Sakura could tell, he didn’t go out of his way to engineer them. His
reputation - memorised out of the public records of Konoha-nin - was far more brutal than
she remembered it being. Kakashi had always been an extremely dangerous shinobi, and this
time it seemed that everybody knew it.

Sakura had wondered to herself, on the nights she spent scouring through her memories and
encoding the information held therein, how many encounters they might avoid because of it.
There were plenty of instances in which Kakashi had been attacked because his opponent had
decided he couldn’t be as dangerous as all his bingo book entries said he was. Would those
change, now?

It was a question that had crept under her skin and stayed there, coming back without
warning and distracting her. One that wouldn’t leave her alone, that had nagged and nagged.
It wasn’t something she really expected an answer to.
Foolish, it turned out, because as Kakashi wandered past the puddle and Sakura came level
with it, there was no attack forthcoming. Sakura slowed down a little, even as Kakashi
lowered his book and made a show of looking at the sky, and Tazuna came almost level with
her. If they were going to ambush them, then now was the moment. Perhaps they’d chosen to
spring their trap on Tazuna instead of Kakashi; take out the target, rather than the biggest
threat. Less chance of escape, but a much higher chance of success.

Tazuna gave her a little shove, even as she felt the gazes of her teammates settle on her
questioningly, so she let herself stumble forward. Forced down the tension in her body, tried
to keep herself loose and ready to react.

Sasuke and Hinata came to the puddle and then kept going, and still there was no sign of
attack.

And they kept walking, and the puddle stayed right where it was, totally innocent. Further,
still further, still walking— Nothing. No attack. Sakura strained her senses, searching for any
sign of chakra she didn’t recognise. Thought gave way to reflex and she wove her chakra into
her senses, coming to a stop and turning back to scan for movement. At the same time, she
thinned out another portion of chakra and let it pulse in all directions, sturdier than the razor
thin attempts she’d been practicing.

Kakashi’s presence bounced back first, a surge of white lightning that shot through her,
followed by Sasuke (a deep, numbing crackle of electricity) and Hinata (soft and sticky).
Tazuna’s, too, what untrained fragility there was of it.

Nothing else.

Her team came to a sharp stop, and in moments Sasuke and Hinata had kunai in hand, stances
set back into combat-ready. Hinata went wide-eyed, her gaze skating across Sakura and
spinning around them; a moment later she settled on Sakura, where Sasuke was already
staring. A flash of pride broke through the confused fear, just for a second. They’d recognised
that she was the source of the noticeable chakra disruption.

“Sakura?” Sasuke asked, eyes darting to Kakashi over Sakura’s shoulder and then moving
back. “What’s wrong?”

The puddle still hadn’t moved. Nothing suspicious at all aside from its very existence. She
couldn’t pick up any unfamiliar chakra signatures.

Slowly, Sakura tore her eyes off it and looked back towards Kakashi. He’d paused, book held
loosely at his side, and had turned just enough to stare at her. Silent, but questioning. Why
aren’t they attacking? The puddle was there, which meant that the Demon Brothers were
there. Right there, aware of them - watching, waiting - but… but not doing anything. Too late
now, to spring a surprise trap on them.

How many attacks, she’d wondered, would be averted simply because Kakashi was openly
terrifying in this timeline?
“I…” She couldn’t say anything. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t pick out the
chakra signatures she knew must be there. And she shouldn’t know about them - she had
absolutely no way to justify herself unless they attacked. Unless there was even a trace of
unfamiliar chakra to grab onto. “I’m… I’m sorry, Sensei. I thought I… saw something.”

Turning her back on the puddle felt like asking to be stabbed in it. Senses strained outward,
reaching out to their extent, but there was nothing to find. They kept walking, and nothing
happened, and the evening slowly bled into night until Kakashi finally called for a stop.
Hinata was sent hunting while Sasuke was given the task of collecting firewood and starting
a small fire, and Sakura helped set up what little Kakashi had bothered to bring in a series of
storage scrolls.

Not until she’d finished her task and settled against a tree did Kakashi come closer. Leant
against her tree and studied Tazuna where he sat by Sasuke, manipulating his chakra into fire.
“So.” Faintly sharp. Like she’d done something wrong. Even knowing that he was just trying
to figure out her motivation, Sakura felt herself wilting. “What was that?”

Sakura sighed. Looked at her hands, and wondered when she’d taken the shuriken she was
turning over in them out of her kunai holster. “Kakashi-sensei…” There was no way to tell
him the truth without telling him all of it. And she couldn’t. Wording it like the young naive
self she remembered would just have to do. “That puddle… When was the last time it
rained?”

“Hm.” Soft. Sakura glanced up despite herself. Caught Kakashi’s cyclopic gaze. “So you
noticed that.”

The first time, he’d been impressed by her observation. Keen senses, sharp logic, for
someone so young. Sakura couldn’t see why that would be different, this time, but she
couldn’t find it in his expression, didn’t see the little faint twitch of his mask that gave away a
pleased smile. “... I don’t understand,” she lied. It tasted like the ashes of her friends. “How
did it get there, when it hasn’t rained in weeks?”

Again, Kakashi hummed softly and tipped his head back against the tree. “Any number of
ways. It’s good that you thought of our safety first, but not every peculiarity is an attack.
Paranoia will only go so far.” You hypocrite. It was a fond thought. Sakura knew damn well
that he would have had the exact same reaction— that he had had the same reaction, even if
he was meticulous enough that she hadn’t been able to pick up on it. “You were looking for
chakra signatures,” he added, glancing down at her again, and Sakura felt herself go red.

Native response, the bubble of shy anxiety like an afterthought under her skin. It was
something she’d realised she would have to tolerate until she trained herself out of it again,
the odd self-conscious reactions that seemed to come out no matter how little she really felt
them. Squeaks and blushes and glances away, the wringing of her hands or a sigh out of place
or the urge to run her hands through the long hair she no longer had.

Frustrated with it, she heaved a sigh. “I couldn’t find any.” And she knew that they’d been
there, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. Or even hint it. Kakashi was too smart for that,
too relentless. If she pushed at the idea that they’d been in danger of attack - that she knew
there were enemies stalking their every move - he wouldn’t let it go either. He’d make her tell
him.

Sakura was perfectly aware that if she gave too much away, he would pursue it until she told
him the rest. She was only human, after all; she would crumble under Kakashi’s manic need
to know everything around him. It had always made sense that he was like that, under the
carefully constructed facade of ataraxy. Paranoia and suspicion all wrapped up in the carefree
front. After studying with Tsunade-sensei, after watching the combined might of every ninja
village in the land flow together under the leadership of the five Kages, after seeing how
every insecurity and flaw and unbridled primal strength came to the surface of every single
one of them while war erupted into chaos and death around them, after Juubi and Obito and
the desolate hope of witnessing the Reincarnation Jutsu, after—

After, after.

It was before, now. It was never. Her experiences were a barely-there dream adrift in a time
that no longer existed. The Fourth Shinobi War had never happened. There was no Allied
Shinobi Forces. There was no great peace between them.

There was greed and bloodshed and the woeful inadequacy of serving their village at the
expense of all the others, if it came right down to it. There were all the broken jōnin that
Sakura thought she knew and the desperate smiles not all of them could force to try and give
their genin a hope they’d never had.

There were too few years out of the last massive war, and too few left before the next one.

So Kakashi-sensei made perfect sense, when she deconstructed his personality and behaviour,
when she stripped him of personhood and free will and dissected him into motivation and
trauma and sheer unmitigated fucking power. If, this time, he hadn’t survived it all quite so
intact, if he couldn’t find the will to smile at them and pretend he wasn’t just as damaged as
everyone else, then—

Well. Then that was Sakura’s responsibility too.

“Hm. Neither could I.” He sounded reassuring. She didn’t believe him. “It’s early for you
three to be on a mission like this, but you aren’t in any danger. Think of this as intense
training; you’ll be fine. If you do your best.”

There was no extra emphasis in his voice, as he pushed off the tree and walked away to show
Sasuke why the flame wouldn’t hold in the pile of kindling he was working with. Nothing
sharp or judgemental or even vaguely upset. For all intents and purposes, it hadn’t been a
warning. In context, it was something that should have comforted her - if he’d been any other
jōnin, if she’d been any other genin.

Instead, it shivered through her and she let her own arms close around her torso in a facsimile
of a hug. Gods, she missed hugs. The lazy one-armed ones from Tsunade-sensei, given
briefly at the end of hard lessons; the gentle reassuring ones shared with Shizune, when a
lesson was hard, or when they lost a patient; the painful, ribcage-crushing ones from Naruto
that stopped her from breathing. The awkward ones from her parents, who didn’t know how
to talk to her anymore - who were just afraid for their daughter’s life and couldn’t understand
why self-preservation could never be Sakura’s first priority. The bounce-up-and-down
childish squeal-hugs from Ino. She missed the brief and rare hugs from Kakashi-sensei,
affection and trepidation in one, shared once in a blue moon.

After all, in the end, she’d been the only one to stay behind at his side, when their team had
fallen apart.

Sighing, Sakura let her chin sink to her knees. From any other sensei, to any other genin, it
wouldn’t have been a warning. But it was Kakashi-sensei. And it was to her. It was a
warning; he knew she was holding back. He knew she’d been faking a lack of skill. She
thought she’d hidden it better than that.

I should have known better. Of course he knows.

But he was right. Hell, he didn’t even realise how right he was. On missions - even if they
weren’t as serious as this - she had absolutely no business pretending to be worse than she
was. “... Fuck.” As soft as she could. Kakashi was right, and she couldn’t afford to be holding
back; but she couldn’t afford to show the true extent of her skill. She had no excuse for
knowing medical ninjutsu out of the Academy. She had no reason to know Tsunade’s
signature technique.

She’d already showed that one, of course, but she’d had no control of it then. Hadn’t worked
up the chakra weave to properly use it, hadn’t built up the strength and resilience in her body
not to hurt herself trying. Still hadn’t, really, but she was confident now that she could use it
and not break anything.

Except for her cover. Except for her safety, for having any chance whatsoever to successfully
lie to Kakashi-sensei.

The night passed peacefully, as did the entire next day of walking at Tazuna’s excruciatingly
slow pace, and again until early afternoon of the day after. Every moment that went by
smoothly only tore at Sakura’s nerves more. Why was nothing happening? Where were the
assassins, the attacks, the threat? There was no way they were getting Tazuna home and
fulfilling the mission without incident. She had zero faith in the idea.

Gatō would send assassins after Tazuna; he would never let go of his chokehold on the Land
of Waves. He’d have to die first.

Maybe he would. Sakura was about ready to kill someone out of sheer nervous reflex.

But here they were, right on the border, and nothing had yet happened. The Demon Brothers
had never manifested, and they’d even come past the site of Zabuza’s original attack. They
were approaching the shoreline - about two hours walk away, now, at Tazuna’s pace - and
following the river to do it. As much as she knew that the trail following the river was
normal, and that it did indeed make the trek easier and safer for civilians, the constant nearby
presence of water was making her teeth itch.

Their enemies were Kiri-nin. Water was to their advantage.

Was that why they were waiting? Did Zabuza just feel he needed an extra advantage with
which to fight them? But that didn’t make any sense, of course; they’d been on a turn of the
river so vast it almost passed as a small lake, the first time they’d been attacked. It was an
ideal place for an ambush: a wide stretch of calm water to work with, a large clearing to
allow for Zabuza’s destructive fighting style and the enormous sword he carried, but trees
enough to use for advantage, and for Haku to watch from.

And yet here they were, walking along the thinnest stretch of the river before it widened out
into the sea. Still walking, and everyone else was calm, and Sakura couldn’t figure it out.
Where the hell are they? Every little twitch in the undergrowth had her jumping, ready to
throw a kunai, ready to fight. It was so obvious that Sasuke was paying more attention to her
than to their surroundings, and Hinata kept flinching - like Sakura was an explosive tag that
could go off at any second.

She was a distraction, and she knew it.

But her paranoia paid off, in the early afternoon, as they reached the part of the river where it
widened again, bleeding out into the ocean like a vein carefully cut open. It was so quiet that
even Kakashi only paused for a moment in his stride, looking up from his book, and Sasuke
and Hinata didn’t react at all. Distant and faint - the vague scrape of metal on metal. Sakura
froze, found a kunai in her hand without any conscious decision to draw it, and then she
heard it again. Closer.

“Get down.” Snarled at her teammates, spinning around and shifting one foot back, ready to
leap over their heads. Now at her back, Kakashi was at their side in half a second, his book
replaced with a kunai of his own. Without hesitation, Hinata grabbed Tazuna and tugged him
to the ground, taking up a spot on his far side while Sasuke slowly unclipped a shuriken from
his holster strap and peered into the thin, scraggly trees that were all that remained this close
to the beach.

It was the burn of chakra that warned her next - an outward flood that felt like drowning with
her senses so stretched out, a mixture of presences that burst out from nothing and then broke
into a quickly rolling fog. Thick whiteness overtook them in seconds, and for a moment all
Sakura could feel was blinding, searing panic.

Then her training and experience kicked in, and Sakura took a deep breath of the rapidly
cooling air. The panic was still there, a bubbling heat that shivered under her skin, but it
wasn’t helpful so she ignored it. What mattered now was focus. Reflex.

Fight.

Win.

“Hinata, Byakugan,” she gave the low order, forgetting about Kakashi’s authority. Rank
didn’t matter now that they were in real danger. Sakura wouldn’t give any orders that would
get them killed - she trusted her own judgement in that. “Tell me where they are, and how
many.”
Hinata’s activation whisper was so quiet even Sakura barely heard it, right next to her. Good.
Maybe they’d yet keep that as a surprise. “... Four,” came the response, and Hinata’s voice
shook with fear. Four. All of them. Whatever thoughts she’d had of telling Sasuke to take
Tazuna and run evaporated; Kakashi could hold off Zabuza long enough for that to work, and
Sakura and Hinata together could hold of Haku - but with the Demon Brothers there too, they
just couldn’t turn their backs. The best bet of survival (and completing the mission) was to
hunker down and defend themselves.

“Sasuke, Sakura. You’re going to take Tazuna and—”

“No.” Hissed back, and met with absolute silence as everyone registered Sakura outright
defying orders. “Sensei, they’re too strong.” Even as Sakura wondered why Kakashi would
make such a mistake, the answer presented itself: he didn’t know how powerful their foes
were. Not exactly his fault - if Tazuna had been honest, then maybe he’d have expected the
calibre of the shinobi they were up against, but he hadn’t. Kakashi was underestimating them.
“We have to fight. If we run, we die.”

Kakashi didn’t look at her, but she felt the flash of his focus and tried to ignore it. Peering out
into the artificial mist didn’t reveal anything, but she kept trying anyway. “One of them is
about to attack,” Hinata intoned, quiet but strained. “On you, Sensei.”

“Okay. Protect Tazuna. If you identify them, sing out.”

For a moment longer, there was just the mist and the thick feeling of terror in the air. Hinata
was breathing through her open mouth, eyes wide, the pulse of her chakra like static around
them.

Movement came in the form of tiny splashes - feet across the surface of the river - and then
the faint whistling downswing of a sharpened edge. The fog parted, and then there was the
vicious clang of metal on metal and Kakashi let out a low noise of effort. Sakura caught a
glimpse of Zabuza, his monstrous sword cutting into Kakashi’s kunai; one hand braced
against the other, and then he shoved back. Zabuza stumbled. Just as Kakashi whipped up his
hitai-ite and revealed his Sharingan - he’d recognised the threat, good - there was another
scraping clanging sound and Sakura grabbed Tazuna by the shirt and leapt backwards,
yanking him along.

Hinata was already moving sideways, while Sasuke took the cue; he was a fraction of a
second behind them, and a fraction of a second too slow. The first of the Demon Brothers -
What are their names? I don’t remember their names - landed right where Sasuke had been,
and lashed out. His brother was right behind him, jumping further, trying to catch Sasuke in
the jagged chain that linked their gauntlets together. He dropped to the ground, there was a
crackle of pale blue lightning, and he hurled his shuriken.

The impact against the chain snapped and discharged. Both Kiri-nin let out shouts of pain as
the chain was dragged into the ground and pinned by the shuriken, yanking them back.
Stunned by the shock of lightning chakra, they fell easily. Sasuke was already charging the
second shuriken with chakra, twisting back further. With a series of clicks, the chain
disengaged - the Brothers lunged after him, snarling, gauntlets flashing.
Sakura dove past Tazuna and tackled one of them. It was a sloppy and risky attack, but she
threw her whole meagre body into it and they went tumbling past Hinata and across the rough
ground. Stones and whatever else was lying around snagged on Sakura’s skin and clothes, but
she ignored the sting of it - got both hands around the enemy’s gauntlet and shoved it away,
forcing chakra through her arms to overpower the bigger and heavier shinobi. There was
poison in those metal claws, and Sakura had no desire to risk being dosed with it despite the
knowledge that the Demon Brothers carried its antidote.

With several bursts of chakra, Sakura came out on top, holding the gauntlet at arm’s length.
Her position was precarious, balanced on her enemy’s chest with both hands occupied, and
zero points at which she was actually pinning him. If he’d simply tried to buck her off, she’d
have gone flying.

As it turned out, he was an idiot.

His free hand flexed into a half-seal and his chakra spiked like the cracking of ice when she
walked too far onto a frozen lake. Her own surged in response, and the dark mask that
concealed his mouth twitched with movement; even as Sakura’s thoughts spun out into what
possible jutsu he could be using with only one hand, and reviewed her internal arsenal in
response, reflex was already kicking in. Sakura let go of the gauntlet with one hand, curled
her fingers into a fist, and slammed down in his face with as much chakra as she dared.

Thin spirals, like knuckle dusters, and Sakura felt her chakra coil and backflow along the
filaments she’d been building into every inch of muscle she had. A moment later the Kiri-
nin’s face imploded around her fist; blood and bone splintered and sprayed out in every
direction, the mask shredded. Slivers of bone pierced Sakura’s skin, but she could deal with
that later - macerated by the controlled chakra spill, his brain turned to fluid that seeped out
onto the ground, even as the ground itself cracked into pieces. In her other hand, the Kiri-
nin’s gauntlet turned heavy and slipped from her grip. The thud as it slammed into the
ground drew attention.

There was no time to think about it; she could worry later. Right now, Kakashi and Zabuza
were clashing while Hinata fought the other Demon Brother, and Sasuke was staring at her in
abject horror and completely oblivious to where Haku hung back beyond them, watching.
Waiting. They’d waited the first time, for some reason, and played off their presence as a
Hunter-nin after Zabuza - but they had already revealed themself, this time, and so clearly
had no intention of lying.

Maybe it was Hinata’s presence. Maybe they knew that Tazuna’s protection team had a
Hyuuga on the roster. Maybe it didn’t matter - now Haku was someone they had to deal with,
and they were fucking formidable.

Whatever came next, she couldn’t let them get on top of her teammates; they were just genin.
They were so young. They’d die. “Help Hinata!” Given in a rush of air, snapped out as
Sakura scrambled off the shinobi she’d killed and shot across the battlefield towards Haku.
Kakashi flew past her, thrown back by Zabuza, but she just ducked and trusted him to handle
it - she had to trust him. Kakashi-sensei was one of the strongest people she’d ever known,
and getting involved would only put them both at risk.
A flash of chakra told her that Sasuke had heeded her order, had turned and jumped in to help
Hinata defeat the second Demon Brother, so Sakura kept her eyes on Haku. Behind her,
Zabuza growled something, and Kakashi snapped back, but the words washed over her
meaninglessly. Haku watched her approach with liquid brown eyes - the Hunter-nin mask
abandoned somewhere along the way - and remained motionless, even as she got close.

What are you—?

Haku turned at the last second, and slender fingers curled around her wrist as her strike went
wide. She was already twisting, trying to sweep Haku’s legs out from under them, but they’d
seen how she’d dealt with whichever Demon Brother was now dead and they knew what her
aim was - they rotated with her, jumped into the air to flip over her head, and used that
momentum to hurl her downwards. Sakura crashed into the ground, rolled sideways, saw the
pair of shuriken sink into the dirt barely a centimetre away from her face.

There was a moment of silence. Haku landed only several paces away, delicate and fluid on
their feet, and tilted their head. Dark hair spilled loose over their shoulder. “You’ve got
potential,” they said, stepping closer and offering Sakura a hand up. “It’s a shame that you
stand against us.”

She couldn’t help the snarl that tore out of her, but she controlled the urge to slap Haku’s
hand away. Got to her feet, unblinking, and took half a step back from them. Didn’t waste the
breath on coming up with a reply - Haku could afford to banter, to taunt her, but if she took
her focus off fighting them, then she was screwed. Coiling, Sakura took a deep breath, set her
feet, and punched.

Haku sidestepped, a strange half-smile half-frown on their face, and shook their head.
“You’re not fast enough to—” The chakra Sakura had thrown into the attack in razor thin
sheets made Haku’s hair whip up in whirls, and the controlled narrowed blades sent strands
of brown fluttering to the ground, severed. Cuts opened up across Haku’s face; a second later
they were followed by sheer surprise. “Oh, my.” But they were already jumping back as
Sakura lunged, trying to get a hold of them.

Any grip would do. What Sakura lacked in speed or variety, she made up for in spades with
strength; if she could just get a hold of them, she could pin them down and force their
surrender. It wouldn’t do Kakashi-sensei any good with Zabuza - he didn’t care if Haku died
for him or not - but it would free up Sasuke and Hinata to help him.

Spinning and darting back across the river, Haku tossed their hair out of their face, ignored
the blood dripping down their skin, and brought their hands together, even as Sakura gave
chase. Seals that she didn’t even recognise. Only one thing that could mean. Shit, shit. Move,
Sakura! She was too slow on evading, heard the rush of water on all sides, and then her back
collided with something cold and solid. Too dangerous to take her eyes off Haku, even as
their chakra erupted on all sides and the ice coalesced into shimmering mirrors. They’re
pulling this out already?

There was none of the hesitation she remembered - Zabuza’s orders to hold back seemed not
to be in effect. This attack wasn’t a test, wasn’t a scout. They weren’t here to test Tazuna’s
defence and come back later if need be; they were just here to kill everyone involved. Panic
sheared through her chest.

They weren’t prepared. None of them were prepared, and Kakashi could keep up with
Zabuza but he wasn’t vastly superior. Not yet. He wouldn’t even figure out how to safely use
Kamui for another year or so, if Sakura was remembering correctly, if everything wasn’t too
far different.

Zabuza could win. Here, today, they might all die.

“Sakura!” was the only warning she got, a shout in Sasuke’s voice - and then there was heat
and chakra awash around her, and Haku formed a series of one-handed seals, eyes narrowing
angrily. “Sakura, move!”

It might as well have been a puppet jutsu, for how the command sank through her skin and
jolted her into action. The inside of her head felt like silence as she watched herself turn, pull
back a fist and charge with chakra, and then slam her knuckles into the ice mirror at her back
with as much force as she could muster. Weakened by Sasuke’s fireball, it cracked, held a
moment, and then shattered.

Sasuke grabbed her arm and yanked, and she stumbled on the shifting river surface - held up
only by his grip before she managed to catch her feet, and then trying to push him further
back. Haku was still working, they were still fighting, whatever they’d been doing with the
flash of handsigns was still—

Somehow, sprinting, Hinata went past them in a blur. A second later, there was a shrill cry
and a wash of chakra that tasted like lavender against Sakura’s senses, and she watched thin
needles of ice splash back into the river and melt. Whimpering, Hinata fell back into Sakura’s
arms; delicate fingers plucked another needle from pale flesh, and then it turned into fluid
and evaporating chakra against her skin. Shit.

Haku was already moving, weaving seals to make their ice mirrors spin and rotate and slide
through the air towards them, getting ready to trap them again. “One of us needs to help
Kakashi,” Sakura hissed as she helped Hinata find her feet and then got to work pulling the
needles out of her. Less than she’d feared; the cloud of chakra Hinata had pushed out from
every tenketsu in her body had deflected most of them. “Now!”

There was reluctance in his expression, but not in his movement as Sasuke pulled back from
them. “I got it.” And then he was gone, sprinting across the river towards their sensei. Haku
turned their head to track him, and fear jolted Sakura back into action. No matter what, she
couldn’t let Haku chase Sasuke down.

A pulse of chakra through her feet and Sakura was pouncing towards the narrow Kiri-nin,
sailing through the gap in their mirrors and trying to wind her chakra through the coils built
up in her body. Actually beating Haku was unlikely at best, but all they had to do was hold
out until Kakashi and Sasuke beat Zabuza. Surely, together, they could do it. They have to do
it. One of us does. We can’t lose here.
Even as Hinata threw herself into the fight on Sakura’s heels, and Haku spun away to avoid
her attack, weaving signs to replace the shattered mirror and then melting into one of them,
Sakura felt something unbearably cold seep out under her skin. We can’t die here. There was
so much left to do, so much that still threatened the world, that Sakura had to find and deal
with, so much left to save. All the things that needed doing, tracking down Naruto and
preventing the widespread damage of Suna’s attack during the upcoming Exams and the—

Everything she had left to stop, and she’d let herself walk up to Wave Country and risk her
life on a meaningless little mission that she could have prevented, if only she hadn’t been so
afraid to open her mouth. I could have stopped this. I could have made this easy. A properly
informed team of Konoha jōnin could have completed this mission easily.

Instead, Kakashi was going to have to give this fight everything he had and there was no
alternative to his genin risking their lives. She could have prevented this. If she wasn’t so
scared of losing her own personal freedom.

Maybe she’d be better off in the Anbu vault, giving up all the secrets of the future she carried
with her.

“Sakura!!”

There was impact, the breath knocked out of her, and then there was stinging blindness and
wet on all sides and she couldn’t breathe and arms around her— Sakura’s head broke the
surface of the river and she gasped in air and water droplets together. Ringing in her ears.
Hands clamped hard on her shoulders, and pale white eyes wide with fear and chakra met
hers. “Sakura, what do we do?”

They were treading water, and around them Haku’s mirrors closed in and tightened,
narrowing the space they had to move. Sheets of ice shone over their heads in the sunlight,
trapping them. Chakra sticking at her hands, Sakura pulled herself out of the water and
crouched low on the surface, and pulled Hinata out too.

She could have prevented this, but it was too late now. If she dwelt on that, she’d only get
them killed now. So instead, she glanced up and searched for Haku’s image in the mirrors,
and found it reflected on all sides. She was so fucking lucky to have the Byakugan on her
side.

“We fight.”

There was thunder humming in every inch of his body as he left his kunoichi teammates
behind, but Sasuke forced himself not to look back. Thinking about it would only get them
killed; he couldn’t afford to worry about Hinata or the wound she’d sustained while taking
down the Kiri-nin with the gauntlet. He couldn’t dwell on the bloodstains on Sakura’s body
that betrayed how she’d murdered the other gauntleted shinobi without a moment of
hesitation. He couldn’t fear the strange ice jutsu he was leaving them in, or the enormous
sword that he was throwing himself towards.
The thunder was distracting, a nagging feeling that he couldn’t make himself forget - a drum
that wouldn’t stop pounding against the inside of his chest. Adrenaline, or fear. Maybe it was
both.

Maybe it didn’t matter.

Kakashi-sensei and the Kiri-nin fighting him were standing off, as Sasuke ran towards them;
the stranger was standing straight, eyes narrowed as he wove handsigns with a racing fluidity
that Sasuke couldn’t quite follow, and opposite him Kakashi was half-crouched, ready to
dodge or attack at a moment’s notice. Hitai-ite up, Kakashi stared at his enemy, unblinking,
and the Sharingan shone red with the mirrored seals.

Dog, Snake, Monkey, Bird, Dog, Dragon, Ram, Ox, Tiger, Hare, Dog… Sasuke had already
lost track of the signs as they formed, instead trying to just keep count of them as he sidled
around, trying to get behind their foe. Thirteen, sixteen, twenty. Holy fuck. Whatever jutsu it
was that they were casting, it was a powerful one.

But it wouldn’t matter if Sasuke stopped him from casting it. Ignoring their seals in favour of
his own, he mentally lined up his goal, felt his chakra bubble and heat as he prepared the fire
release. Don’t think about Sakura. Don’t think about the shattered skull and spray of blood.
Death was inevitable - all shinobi had to kill, sometimes. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t wrong.

He saw it in the flit of panic across Kakashi’s face before he saw it in their enemy’s
movements. A flash, like cold static, and Sasuke thought - very clearly - that he needed to
stop and run. It was too late, like watching an accident happen, momentum carrying him
towards a goal he should have abandoned. There was a feeling like the wind as the Kiri-nin
let the attempted jutsu fizzle out and his chakra billowed in response, and then Kakashi’s
chakra chased it away, a burst of white-hot electricity and the feeling of fingers closing
around his neck.

“Sasuke!”

Kakashi’s voice was an echo in the back of his mind as his feet left the ground, and fear
turned to a desperate burning in his chest. No, no. Kicking blindly, Sasuke reached up and
pulled at the Kiri-nin’s hand on his throat, gasping and choking; his vision flickered, the fog
on all sides suddenly seeming darker. Not oxygen deprivation, some tiny distant thought said
softly. Too soon for it to be strangulation. Pressure squeezed tighter on either side of his neck,
and Sasuke kicked out again - felt his foot connect with something solid and unyielding -
heard a bark of laughter like howling in his ears.

Stop flailing. He had to focus, he had to do something to get free, and damn the panic.
Closing his eyes, Sasuke forced himself to stop scrabbling at the (much (much)) bigger
shinobi’s curled fingers and reached down, grasping for a kunai. He had at least one left in
his holster, right?

Of course he did. He’d brought…

He couldn’t remember how many.

Fuck.

Sasuke’s fingertips touched cool metal, and something spiked in his chest like a flame, but
the hand at his throat was only getting tigh—

Looser.

Gone.

He fell to the ground and collapsed in a pile of heaving gasps, felt himself reach up one of his
own hands to his neck, as if he could undo the bruising that was sure to form. I don’t have
time. Forcing his eyes open, Sasuke looked up to take stock of their enemy, of where Kakashi
was - and watched his sensei sail through the air and slam into one of the scraggly trees that
lined the coast. It snapped with the sound of bones breaking, and Kakashi tumbled to the
ground. He was getting up a moment later, a faint snarl barely audible as he did, but he was
favouring his right shoulder as he did, arm tucked into his torso.

Chakra buzzed at Sasuke’s back, and he moved without conscious thought. Shot away from it
and towards Kakashi, scrambling to get back on his feet and fight down the fluttering panic.
He couldn’t think about the near misses - couldn’t think about the possibility of failure.
Death.

Stop.

“Sasuke. I need you to distract him.” Kakashi’s voice was low, his gaze fixed on their enemy
while he spoke. They only had a moment - the Kiri-nin was hefting his monstrous sword,
laying the flat of it across his own shoulders. “It might mean he’ll hurt you.” There was
something molten in his voice as he said it. Something dark. “But I won’t let him kill you.
Trust me.”

Trust you?

Like a flashbang, the last six months went through his mind. All the times Kakashi had
deliberately fucked them over, every time Sasuke had wanted to punch him in his smug
fucking face because he’d known exactly the thing to say - ever so softly - to tear Sasuke’s
confidence apart. The moments of quiet affirmation that were all Sasuke needed to get it
back. The fierce joy of mastering everything Kakashi-sensei had thus far tried to teach them.

Trust him?

“Okay.”

Pulling out the small storage scroll, Sasuke withdrew two more of his chakra metal shuriken.
The Kiri-nin was coming at them, spooling his speed into the sword as it lifted and then
arced; ready to slice them clean in half if it hit. Easy to avoid, darting off to the side while
Kakashi sidestepped and deflected. The sword sank half a metre into the soft ground,
quivering at an angle, and the Kiri-nin let go of it to lunge at Kakashi. They met, twirled
around the sword, and Sasuke watched them dance while he tried to track how the enemy
moved.
A pattern showed itself in the way he struck out with his right leg, the same spin twice in a
row, following an open-handed strike and led with the knee, instead of the foot. Okay.
Kakashi dodged back, deflecting an open strike - and Sasuke aimed, sent a surge of chakra
into his shuriken, and threw.

The star connected, and the Kiri-nin went down in a jolt of lightning and a snarl. Kakashi
leapt back, and Sasuke caught the motion of handsigns, but he kept his gaze on the Kiri-nin
and dove in after him. For a split second, he wanted to tag the shuriken still stuck into their
enemy’s leg and send another wave of lightning through it, but Sasuke abandoned the thought
almost as soon as he had it. The Kiri-nin spun and lashed out, and Sasuke barely managed to
duck underneath the attack. Darted in and struck at his ribs and darted right back out, and he
couldn’t parse the split control he’d need to make a chakra-assisted jump while also
channeling chakra into his fourth shuriken, but he twisted and threw it at the Kiri-nin, trying
to keep his focus.

“Hey!” Shouted at the top of his lungs, and he prayed that it didn’t distract Sakura or Hinata
from their fight, but he had one task and he’d use whatever means he needed to accomplish it.
The Kiri-nin caught the last shuriken, rose to his feet while yanking it out of his hand and
then tearing out the one in his leg. Blood dripped. “Fuck you,” Sasuke added, refusing to look
past the Kiri-nin to Kakashi.

White lightning surged, and the sound of a thousand chirping birds filled the air. Kakashi was
cradling a fistful of lightning in his left hand. The Kiri-nin rotated, and Sasuke reacted; this
time, there was no frantic panic fluttering under his skin, no savage desperation that fuelled
his speed.

This time, everything seemed to move like silk. He had a task. All he had to do was execute.

Launching himself at the Kiri-nin, Sasuke yanked out the kunai he’d felt for earlier and held
it in a tight reverse grip. Shouted again - he wasn’t even certain what he said, this time, while
Kakashi closed in their impromptu pincer attack, but the Kiri-nin turned back to look at him.
Victory tasted like acid in the back of his throat.

The Kiri-nin ducked. As if in slow motion, Sasuke found himself twisting, watched the Kiri-
nin’s eyes narrow in a half-hidden sneer, felt the unfamiliar fingers close around his arm.
There was an odd pressure in his eyes as the velvet certainty morphed back into terror and
exploded in his stomach. Nausea boiled underneath it.

Opposite him, the screeching lightning held steady at his side, Kakashi went wide-eyed and
tried to correct - there was a shimmering billow that splashed out at Kakashi’s feet, and that
singing electricity came so close, and the pressure in Sasuke’s eyes turned to pain for a split
second, as he realised he couldn’t break free of the Kiri-nin’s grip, as Kakashi came
centimetres away from sinking his jutsu into Sasuke’s shoulder.

The chakra shone as Kakashi went by, like a white afterimage, and just for a moment Sasuke
met his mismatched eyes. Something grim and feral looked back. Everything was too slow,
too bright - movement all around him gleamed with ethereal red outlines, like echoes. Not
pain anymore, and the pressure morphed into a liquid heat in his eyes.
 Kakashi landed and skidded back, holding the lightning, and the Kiri-nin was moving like he
was going to throw Sasuke after him. Intent read like flowing ink, and Sasuke swapped the
grip on his kunai, felt the speed of it, saw the exact spot at where he should strike.

Oh.

He should feel elation. Joy. Pride. It doesn’t matter. He couldn’t bring himself to be happy.
The sensation was wet and warm and distracting, and everything was too sharp, a red-lined
clarity that might as well have been a cutting edge in his skin. Too bright. Too slow. It didn’t
matter. The Kiri-nin was still fighting, getting back to his feet, and they still had to defeat
him.

Focus.

Use it.

So their enemy rose, trapped between their Sharingan eyes.

Chapter End Notes

Stuff and Things:

| I can’t stop thinking about the fact Sakura is the only one who stayed behind when
Team Seven went to shit. Kakashi is her fucking dad and y’all can FIGHT ME on that.
| Look, I know canon says ‘he’ for Haku, but Kishimoto is a fucking coward and Haku is
an enby icon.
| So, I realise that my description of chakra senses and whatnot is a bit scattered and all
over the place. This is mostly because I personally think of a shinobi’s ability to detect,
identify, and trace chakra is less of an extension of the senses you and I are familiar with
and more of a completely separate sense that we can’t fully comprehend and don’t have
the words for in our languages - largely because it’s not a sense that exists in our world.
As a consequence, my written descriptions of that sense tend to get a bit abstract and dip
into the senses we do understand in a vague attempt to get across an at least somewhat
relatable lie about how it really functions.
| If that previous paragraph actually made sense to you, kudos, because I ended up
rambling like a madman.
| I rewatched Haku’s original fight with Sasuke and Naruto for the purposes of keeping
track of their fucking jutsu and personality (sort of) and I just… Why are Kakashi and
Zabuza - two extremely powerful elite shinobi with huge kill-counts under their belts,
one of whom is responsible for the continued safety of THREE GENIN - just standing
there listening to Haku fucking MONOLOGUE? I love these characters to pieces, I
really do, but gods I fucking hate this anime.

Next chapter due: 7th May 2020

 Of the Wounds of War, and the Scars of Surviving
Chapter Summary

There is no glory in violence, and no victory in survival.

Chapter Notes

This chapter carries a trigger warning for self-harm and referenced suicide, as well as
violence.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

There was a moment at the start of every battle, Kakashi had learned, where the whole world
stood still.

The bare fact that he was fighting Momochi Zabuza, the Demon of the Hidden Mist, was
frightening but manageable. Kakashi had fought others who were his equal before and
triumphed – it wouldn’t be an easy fight, but he could come out of it victorious. That their
client, Tazuna, was apparently a bald-faced liar provoked a quiet, deadly anger that would
have to wait until all their lives weren’t in danger; that he was under threat from shinobi of
this calibre would have required a minimum of A-ranking, and with lethal combat on the
table, Kakashi would have expected an S. Even that Sakura had taken charge, defied him, and
killed one of their enemies without any seeming hesitation was an issue that currently sat
very far down Kakashi’s to-do list. Even that he was burning through chakra like wildfire,
even that Sasuke stood opposite him with red eyes and an ashen face, even that he could
handle.

But that he’d been forced to use his students – three twelve year old genin – in combat as if
they were experienced fighters, as if they had even the slightest clue of what they were doing,
on their first mission—

Fate may as well have dragged a kunai across his wrists itself. No matter what he might think
of them personally, he was their leader, their teacher. He was responsible for their safety.

And it was their safety that he was being forced to sacrifice in order to get a chance at
victory. Sasuke, even with newly awakened Sharingan – especially with newly awakened
Sharingan – was little more than bait against Zabuza. Across the path, trapped on the surface
of the river, Hinata and Sakura fought a jutsu of polished ice and immense speed, and
Kakashi couldn’t turn his back to save them without Zabuza putting his sword in it.
If Kakashi went down, his students would all follow.

Hidden behind his mask, Kakashi bared his teeth and let his breath hiss out; under the shrill
of his Chidori in hand, it might as well have been silent. Zabuza was getting to his feet. They
were too close to his sword, too close to get in fast enough to stop him from wrenching it out
of the ground without risking himself – and, as already proven, Zabuza wouldn’t hesitate to
use them against each other. Kakashi could still feel the cold creeping out under his skin, a
prickling reminder of how Sasuke’s bones would have felt crumbling around his hand. Of
how close they’d been.

Fuck. Enough of this. Zabuza had to die.

It was reckless, but Kakashi launched himself at the Kiri-nin as he yanked on the sword.
Kubikiribōchō, if Kakashi was remembering the Seven Swords correctly. The Executioner’s
Blade. There was no need to jump at him – letting his feet leave the ground just left Kakashi
dedicated to a specific momentum and direction without any good chance to react. He had the
option of chakra expulsions, of course, but he didn’t have the chakra to spare, and if he made
himself vulnerable then he made himself dead.

On Zabuza’s other side, Sasuke’s eyes went wide as he tracked the movement; the kid was
already plenty fast, so it was unlikely to be the speed at which Kakashi went on the offensive
that had caught him off guard, even with the Chidori lightning crackling through him. With a
flicker of chakra, Kubikiribōchō came up to meet Kakashi’s attack.

Pain erupted as Kakashi’s hand met the flat of the blade, but he didn’t pull back. A reluctant
attack wasn’t worth making, so he focused the power of the Chidori as narrowly as he could,
white electricity flashing and searing into what almost became a blade in its own right.

There was a metallic crack.

The resistance broke, and Kakashi cut off chakra flow as he went tumbling forward, tucked
his head and landed shoulder first. Shudders went through him as he impacted the soft ground
and rolled. Behind him, a vicious laugh rose into the air and Sasuke’s chakra signature
rotated closer around it. “Sensei—” he began, only to be cut off as Zabuza changed his grip
on the sword and swung at them. The faint whistle of its edge shrilled higher than before, a
warning in an uneven whine.

Blocking was out of the question; from the feel of it, he’d cracked at least one bone in his
right hand, and the concentrated Chidori had scorched the fabric of his glove. He was fairly
certain that its metal plate had been branded into the back of his hand. Problems for later.
Lashing out with his other hand, Kakashi knocked Sasuke to the ground and let himself drop
at his side. Zabuza’s sword sailed over their heads. The end of it was shorn off, an uneven
break that angled back towards the pommel and left only a narrow sliver of the decapitation
circle.

On reflection, using a Chidori to split one of the Seven Swords was probably a stupid idea.
Let alone the one blade that would self-repair the moment it cut them. At least Kakashi had
cut down the sheer weight Zabuza could throw at them, and almost halved his reach.
“Get behind him.” It was almost hissed, but Kakashi rolled away from Sasuke and sprang to
his feet. Sasuke was scrambling, but Kakashi couldn’t pause to help him. Getting in between
him and Zabuza mattered more, keeping the Kiri-nin’s attention. Still reckless, lunging at
Zabuza again, but risking himself was better than leaving his genin vulnerable.

Never mind that two of them were already fighting for their lives, all on their own.

The kunai still felt inadequate in his palm as he clashed with the damaged sword, and
Kakashi felt the grind of his teeth as he pushed back. Goddamn it. Rarely did he ever miss
having a sword of his own at his back, but he’d have happily killed a man for one now. He
could feel the give of it, of the edge of Zabuza’s sword as it pressed into the kunai, as the
black metal compressed and failed under the force of Kakashi’s strength pitted against his
enemy’s.

Involuntarily – and irreversible – Kakashi took a step back. Zabuza stepped after him. There
was gleeful madness shining in his narrow eyes, something that Kakashi recognised and
wished desperately that he didn’t. Ignore it. If he thought about it, it would take his breath
away.

Letting Zabuza gain ground, Kakashi ducked sideways and spun the force away. Too much
skill to stumble, but Zabuza still went forward another step as Kakashi withdrew all
resistance, and it was enough to lash out as he slipped past, enough to tear out a low noise of
pain even as Zabuza adjusted his grip on the sword and the kunai sank into his flesh. He let
go of the kunai where it stuck in Zabuza’s shoulder and spun away again. Focus on me. He
had to hold Zabuza’s attention; if it strayed to Sasuke then the genin was as good as dead.

Sasuke was trying to creep around behind Zabuza, as instructed, red eyes wide and
unblinking. Determination on his face, diluted with an all too familiar bravado. New
Sharingan, sensory overload. Unimaginable tumbling confidence. It was hard to resist even in
the best of circumstances – and the Uchihas never awoke their Sharingan in the best of
circumstances.

Handsigns wove, as Kakashi ducked under a sword swing and darted in closer. The sword’s
reach was an advantage – in most cases – but it was heavy and cumbersome, and if Kakashi
kept in close then Zabuza would have to abandon it. A jab into Zabuza’s stomach, as he let go
of the sword hilt and diverted the attack; his other hand came up and struck out for Kakashi’s
face. Leaning to the side was enough to dodge, but there was the telltale flare of Sasuke’s
chakra and a whispered activation phrase, and Kakashi turned and grabbed Zabuza’s wrist.
Yanked as hard as he could without chakra supplementing and kicked out at the same time. If
he could ground Zabuza, he could offer Sasuke an easy target.

The fireball blew past them as Zabuza let himself be tumbled, flipping back up to his feet a
moment later. The smell of scorched air erupted around them, even as Sasuke cut his chakra
flow and the fire consumed itself; with the sword out of Zabuza’s grasp, now was the best
time to strike. Kakashi leapt after him, knocking them both to the ground.

They rolled. Even before they came to a stop, Kakashi could feel himself losing the contest of
strength, so as thinly as possible he unwound threads of chakra and forced them into his
limbs. By the time he came out on top, Sasuke was already running towards them, kunai in
hand.

Kakashi’s stomach lurched. Now is not the time. “Cut his throat.” He gave the order despite
how it tasted like ozone and ashes on his tongue. Too young – they’re too young. It shouldn’t
even matter. They were shinobi, and shinobi killed when it was required of them, no matter
how young they were. It certainly hadn’t mattered when Kakashi had been their age.
Younger.

And still, he felt like a traitor all over again as he told Sasuke to take a life.

Sasuke skidded to a halt beside them, dropped to one knee and held out his kunai. His hands
were shaking. If Kakashi could have spared a hand to do the deed himself, he would have –
but pinning Zabuza down was a task he couldn’t afford to give any slack. The steady chakra
drain of fighting his resistance was bad enough without loosening his grip.

“Sensei—”

Sasuke hesitated.

With a jagged noise that fell somewhere between a laugh and a snarl, Zabuza bucked wildly
and rolled as it dislodged Kakashi from his pin. His chakra presence flared up, like lukewarm
blood oozing under Kakashi’s skin. In a moment, Zabuza had thrown him off and vaulted to
his feet, sending Sasuke scrambling back from him. Catching himself on all fours, Kakashi
ignored the twinge that told him he’d landed wrong and lunged back at Zabuza to herd him
away from where Kubikiribōchō lay on the ground.

Zabuza rotated and caught the attack. There was almost no conscious thought in Kakashi’s
actions as he sparred the Kiri-nin away from the sword, all reflex and instinct, both honed to
utmost precision over the years and all the better for the flash and flicker of his stolen
borrowed Sharingan eye. Perhaps the only useful thing to come out of them all. Instead,
Kakashi let his focus fall on Sasuke, watching them fight with wide red eyes and a twisted
expression. Failure.

My failure. Not yours.

But it had to wait until later; Kakashi folded the guilt away into the back of his mind and let it
be. Right now he had to focus on beating the Demon of the Mist – easily his equal. If he
didn’t, his genin would die. It’s inevitable. He shoved that aside. Even if there was no
escaping it, it didn’t have to be today. Turning aside a haymaker – he favours heavy attacks –
Kakashi flashed a field signal at Sasuke and watched for a response. Sasuke’s eyes narrowed,
catching the motion as deliberate, but then they flicked up to Kakashi’s face as a shimmer of
panic overtook the guilt.

Fuck. What in the hell did the Academy teach them if not even the basics of Konoha field
signals? Maybe that was unfair. It had been years since Kakashi had needed to think about
such things, but maybe he hadn’t learned them in the Academy either. Not that it said much;
he knew his experience of the Academy was far from typical, and even more so with the way
the war had forced everyone to streamline training and churn out new shinobi soldiers as
quickly as possible.

But unfair criticism or not, it meant that to give Sasuke any orders at all, he had to say them
aloud. Anything he said aloud gave Zabuza the advantage of preparation. Shit. Catching a
blow against his forearms sent Kakashi staggering back, hissing behind his mask. Fuck, fuck.
He was running out of chakra. Zabuza was physically stronger than him, and he couldn’t
afford to waste chakra on artificially enhancing his melee attacks, but if he let the fight drag
on much longer then the drain of his Sharingan would be enough to put him down. Fancy
plans were possible but too risky. A close-range fireball from Sasuke would catch Kakashi as
well, and while he’d be willing to take the hit in order to protect them, there was still the
issue of the mirror-summoning shinobi. A jutsu Kakashi had never seen and couldn’t figure
out despite having caught it in his peripheral vision: a Kekkei Genkai.

So they had to hit Zabuza hard, they had to hit him fast, and they had to be on their feet
afterwards.

It’s a bad idea. Even the thought of it made him nauseous. He’d already done too much with
it – nearly taken out Sasuke’s shoulder with a misplaced Chidori and ruined his career, if not
worse. Sasuke was at least capable of it, what with the Sharingan to control it, and slightly
more protected than most with a lightning affinity already, but he’d still suffer severe
consequences if he made a mistake.

It was too dangerous. It was irresponsible.

It was the best idea he had.

But still, he couldn’t—

A shrill cry rippled out across the battlefield, jolting Kakashi out of his thoughts. Cold swept
through him, breath suddenly an icy cloud in his chest. “Hinata!” came only a second later,
Sakura’s slightly lower voice. A flare of chakra, Sakura’s, fluttering spidersilk against his
skin. Then, a shout, and the sound of something cracking. An unfamiliar voice that spoke so
softly that Kakashi couldn’t pick out the words.

There was no more time to hesitate. He was risking Sasuke’s life – I promise I won’t let you
die – and it was a lie, it was an unforgivable deceit, but if he didn’t he was leaving his
kunoichi to fight and die without him. No good choices.

Never any good choices. Just blood.

“Copy me, Sasuke,” Kakashi barked sharply, jumping away from Zabuza for a brief respite.
Zabuza held off a beat, analysing, looking back at Sasuke, deciding on his own plan of attack.
Hands raised in a mirror image of Kakashi’s movements, Sasuke didn’t even glance away.
This is a bad idea. You’re going to get him killed. This is a bad idea. Recognition darkened in
their enemy’s eyes as Kakashi ran through the signs and then braced, but the lightning was
already crackling to life in Kakashi’s hands and getting close to try and prevent it was a death
sentence.
At Zabuza’s back, Sasuke bared his teeth in a pained grimace as chakra sparked into a flare of
pale blue electricity.

Not braced properly, and held badly, but still a Chidori.

Ironically enough, with a very low moulding demand and no activation phrase, Kakashi’s
Chidori was one of the easiest ninjutsu to copy with a Sharingan. One of the most dangerous,
but simple at its core.

Sasuke stumbled, and Kakashi’s gaze went back to Zabuza. The Kiri-nin was moving
between them, aiming for Kubikiribōchō. Shifting his stance, Kakashi leant forward slightly
and picked his angle of attack. “With me!” Barked, again, and then a pause as Sasuke
mimicked his position.

They took off together.

Chakra crackling through them, Zabuza had only seconds to react – twisting sideways, trying
to narrow their target and flexing like he might try to grab them out of the air. A shout from
the river, and Kakashi didn’t recognise the voice but it didn’t matter because he and Sasuke
were closing in, everything slowing down. Kakashi’s heart was an irregular rhythm against
his chest; somebody else’s fingers tapping on his ribs like piano keys.

There was a moment, as a rush of shimmering velvet chakra rippled past them, where
everything seemed to stand still.

Zabuza’s teammate resolved in his place. Fast. Too fast. Several voices rose around them, and
a split second later Kakashi felt his Chidori sink into a body. Blood vaporised as it spilled and
the smell of searing flesh filled the air. Only the experience of a thousand times before kept
Kakashi from gagging on it.

The unknown shinobi didn't scream, to their credit, as Kakashi’s hand impaled their shoulder,
nor as on the other side, Sasuke’s pierced their thigh. They whimpered, and their expression
twisted into pain. Sasuke released his Chidori and staggered back, eyes wide and face white,
holding his hand away from his body. I'm sorry, Sasuke. Too soon for them to taste true
combat. All too soon for them to learn that there was no glory in it, no joy in victory. There
was only bloodshed, and the hollow cold of being the one left standing in it.

Kakashi didn’t let them go so easily. With a sharp jolt, he unleashed the lightning of the
Chidori into the shinobi’s body until it was spent. Still they didn’t scream, but a strangled cry
escaped them, and they gurgled as Kakashi ripped his hand back and let them crumple to the
ground. Off to the side, Zabuza clambered back to his feet, growling.

“Haku, you idiot.” Gravelly, an edge that betrayed his rage at Haku’s injuries, but cold
enough to tell Kakashi he wouldn’t act on it. Silently, Kakashi couldn’t help but agree. If
Haku had let Zabuza take the pincer attack Chidori, they would have gotten the chance to
ambush Kakashi. They’d sacrificed their best chance at victory to spare Zabuza’s life.

And assuming Team Seven’s victory, Zabuza would die regardless.

Taking a step towards Zabuza made the ground roll, and Kakashi gritted his teeth against the
swaying chakra fatigue. Sakura and Hinata’s chakra signatures were rapidly following
Haku’s, and in a single four-on-two fight, the odds were stacked further in Kakashi’s favour
than in two split battles.

Her voice sounded distant when Sakura yelled – “ Get down!” – and Kakashi realised he’d
pushed too hard. Throwing himself sideways, he tugged his hitai-ite over his Sharingan, but it
was far too late. Only sheer will was keeping him moving now, his chakra thin and weak. Not
so low that he was in danger of dying, not yet, but he couldn’t afford to play fast and loose
with the threshold.

If he went down, his genin followed.

With a wordless cry of effort, Sakura leapt past him in a blur of red and pink, landed just
short of Zabuza, and slammed her fist into the ground. Chakra burst, and a moment later the
ground ruptured outwards with a sound like thunder. Far more controlled than the first time
Kakashi had seen her use the technique, a narrow cone of splintered earth broke open around
Haku and rushed past to Zabuza. Snagging them in one arm, Zabuza yanked Haku out of the
blast zone and leapt away, back towards his wayward sword.

Sakura was bleeding. Lots of small wounds, half-length senbon that stuck out in all directions
like the bristling of an angry cat, faint dribbles of blood that seeped out from behind them and
dotted her body almost artfully. Several steps behind her, Hinata was bleeding too. Just as
many senbon wounds, if not more, and a severe wound along her right forearm, a laceration
that soaked her jacket a deep crimson.

They seemed almost to be in greyscale in the aftermath of prolonged Sharingan use, the
whole world too dim to feel quite real. Familiar and unwelcome, and Kakashi shoved it away
as Sakura rose to her full height and glared after their enemies.

Suspicions clicked together in the back of his mind, and Kakashi had to actively arrest the
flare of unquiet rage. No matter what she’d tried to pretend – whether it was something she’d
cultivated for her tenure as a genin or if it was carried through from the Academy – Sakura
was someone used to ignoring pain.

Sasuke was still pale as death, and Kakashi was fairly certain that the tremble he could sense
in Sasuke’s chakra was reflected in his body, but he swallowed hard and took a step closer to
his team anyway. To Sakura’s other side, Hinata moved in to tighten their formation, and
though her Byakugan were deactivated now there was a hard steel in her back that spoke of
long experience pushing through pain – loathing for the Hyuuga clan rose breathless in his
chest, and Kakashi tried to swallow it back. Now wasn’t the time for this.

Haku was a bloodied doll folded in Zabuza’s grip, held against his body with one arm.
Backing up to where his sword had been abandoned, Zabuza glanced across his opposition
and snarled. A twitch in his hand, towards the hilt of the cleaved sword, and Kakashi took a
jarring step closer himself. Couldn’t spare the energy to form a full Chidori, but he condensed
a thread of chakra and let it zap around his palm in a threatening echo.

For what little it was worth, Kakashi would spare their lives if they surrendered.
Another sweep of narrow eyes across the battlefield, surveying the opposition and the
smeared mess of the other two Kiri-nin who’d been part of the initial ambush. Behind them,
the mirrors that Haku had used to fight were starting to crack and shatter and fall apart like
wind chimes in a gale, irregular splashes sounding off as pieces crashed back into the river.
Zabuza snarled at them once more, snatched up his sword, and a pained resignation shot
through Kakashi’s chest like he’d been struck.

Once more – at the end of every fight just as at the beginning – there was a moment when
everything went still and Kakashi felt, just for that moment, like a thin bubble on the verge of
popping.

Like the rush of a failed genjutsu, the moment burst around them and Zabuza hoisted
Kubikiribōchō onto his shoulder and took a step away. Turned his back. The burn of his
chakra was brief as Zabuza broke off to flee, apparently counting himself outnumbered and
beaten, but Kakashi gritted his teeth through it and tensed to give chase.

“Sensei,” came the call, and the battlefield spun as Kakashi turned to face it, nerves singing
with dread, chakra a weak fizzing resistance numbing the nexus in his chest. Sakura’s green
eyes met him. “We have to let him go.” Something low and ragged in her voice. Was it
anger? He couldn’t quite tell. “We’re too… wounded.”

Oh, good. The thought was hysterical and distant; someone else’s, maybe. You’re about to
collapse.

His voice wasn’t his own, when he spoke. “You did good.” Did they? Did he?

Darkness embraced him.

As Kakashi went down, Sasuke made a strangled noise and stumbled around the shards of
earth Sakura had disrupted like he meant to catch their sensei, but he was nowhere close. She
should have expected it – there’d been the faint tremor in Kakashi’s hands that she’d learned
to watch out for, the way his stance had been slightly lower than usual, his wide eye and
pinprick pupil. Half a step closer wasn’t nearly enough to prevent the rough impact – and like
whiplash, Hinata shot by and caught Kakashi’s deadweight descent.

She squeaked softly as she did, and a confused blur of movement later she was on the ground
underneath him. A second went by in eerie silence. “Uhm… Help?” Muffled a little, but it
spurred Sakura back into action, and at her flank Sasuke hurried over to help as well.

Fear struck with ice-cold hands as they rolled Kakashi onto his side, limp and wounded, and
Sakura dropped to her knees without thought. Protecting herself first wasn’t an option – it
didn’t even occur to her to worry about exposure. With as fine a control as she could muster,
Sakura called her chakra into her hands and watched a faint green glow emanate from her
skin into his.

“Hinata.” Quiet, but it was a command all the same, and Hinata recognised it and slunk to
Sakura’s side without question. Grimaced as she settled, cradling the arm with the jagged cuts
to her chest. “I need you to tell me what Kakashi’s chakra levels look like.” His heart was a
little slow, under her palms, a faint pulse against the diagnostic jutsu as she slid it across his
lungs next. Tiredly – silently – Hinata blinked on her Byakugan. “His chakra nexus is still
active, right?”

It felt like it, or at least Sakura thought it did. Dim and viscous, but still moving. At her side,
Hinata nodded and let her dōjutsu go. “Yes. He’s alright.”

I doubt that. But something in Sakura’s chest relaxed at the reassurance, and she let out a
slow breath. “Okay.” She didn’t take her eyes off Kakashi – it was hardly the first time she’d
seen him collapse, and she knew that it wouldn’t be the last – but she sheared off a thin film
of her chakra and sent it out around them. Her teammates were too tired to react – tired, or
perhaps just too shell-shocked from their first taste of true violence – but Sakura felt the
feedback of three familiar chakra signatures, the faint glimmer of a civilian, and one she
didn't know.

A quick glance was all it took to soothe the flash of fear. The second Demon Brother, the one
she hadn’t slain, limp on the ground beside the corpse of his kin. Not physically restrained, as
far as she could tell at this distance, but Hinata had fought him. He’d likely be paralysed for
another few hours or so yet.

Zabuza and Haku were already long gone.

The breath she let out was shallow and harsh, but it made taking in the next easier all the
same. “Report back,” she told the other genin, separating her hands and running the
diagnostic jutsu across Kakashi’s body, searching for any injuries that would need immediate
attention. “How hurt are you two?” One of Kakashi’s hands returned the silent crackle of
broken bone as she went over it, and a severe burn on top of it.

Sasuke responded first, shifting unhappily on his feet, one hand moving up to his throat. A
sharp glance revealed bruising starting to blotch dark blue against his skin. As if she’d been
struck in the face, Sakura tasted the acid of anger on her tongue. “I’ll be fine,” he told her,
and part of Sakura wanted to call him on his bullshit. They were never fine, even when they
said they were – her whole team were a bunch of liars.

But that was before. The never team that didn’t exist. And the distinction was there, she
realised a moment later. Not I am fine, but I will be fine. She didn’t believe him – couldn’t
believe him, couldn’t bring herself to without checking him herself – but she could choose to
pretend that she did. For now, that would have to do.

“Okay. You need to deactivate your Sharingan.” Red eyes that were so familiar, and still so
strange. It was almost weirder that he hadn’t had them on command, but now that she was
seeing them again, Sakura wished dearly that she wasn’t. For all the power and skill they
offered, nothing but pain had ever come from the Sharingan. How much happier, she
wondered, would Sasuke have been if he’d been born anyone but an Uchiha?

My Sasuke. The first Sasuke. Sometimes it got hard to remember the difference, but then
Sasuke would smile, or compliment his teammates, or readily admit defeat without
resentment or anger… Not this Sasuke. This Sasuke was happy, despite being an Uchiha. The
thought needed to be put aside.
“You’re draining chakra, and we might need it again soon.” They weren't safe until they were
safe. A beat of silence went by, and Sakura glanced up and met his gaze. Something liquid, in
those crimson eyes, and the hard edge in her chest gave way. Softer, “Don't worry. You’ll be
able to reactivate it when you need it.”

For a moment Sasuke just stared back, and then he took an unsteady breath and blinked his
Sharingan away.

“Good. You're not hurt anywhere else?”

Sasuke shook his head. “Nothing worse than scrapes.”

Mentally, Sakura moved Sasuke down her list of immediate concerns and turned to Hinata
instead. A strained expression met her inspection, echoes of pain that even Hinata hadn’t yet
learned to fully hide. Sakura put down the immediate surge of concern – she was injured
from fighting, they both were, and it didn’t necessarily have to be any more serious than that.
“... I’m alright,” Hinata whispered, dropping her gaze. A familiar lattice of shame wove
across her features.

Letting go of her diagnostic jutsu with one hand, Sakura reached out to take Hinata’s. Gently
laced her fingers between her teammate’s trembling ones, forced herself to drop her tone into
something softer than a command. Tried not to think about her other hand, still hovering over
Kakashi’s chest, tracking his sluggish heartbeat. “Hey, listen to me. I need you to be honest
with me on this, okay? It’s not about strength. If you lie, I might ask you to do something you
can’t. That will get us all hurt.”

Something clicked in Hinata’s expression, and Sakura let go of her hand. Relief trickled in
weak slivers of warmth down her spine, and melted to nothing against the lingering icy fear
just barely held back beneath her skin. “... I don’t think I can use my arm. I’m sorry.”

“Let me look at it.” There was faint noise in her ears as she took Hinata’s wrist and helped
stretch out her arm. No, not a noise, but something almost the same. Like screaming inside
her own skull, silent and overwhelming. The all-too-familiar sense of pressure as she took
charge of the situation. If it went badly now, then it was her fault.

Focus.

She didn’t have time to panic. Zabuza had retreated, and Haku was down for the count – but
they’d lost Kakashi, and there was nothing stopping Zabuza from coming back. Even with all
her experience, even if she threw away every caution and pulled out every trick she knew,
even outnumbering him, their chances of victory without Kakashi-sensei were slim to none.

The sleeve of Hinata’s jacket was torn open and bloodied. That she was still soaking wet
from their fight in the river did nothing to allay the crimson staining. Fluff was streaked down
across the exposed flesh, threads stuck in the wound and slicked with water and blood.
“Sasuke, can you cut her sleeve off?”

Doing it herself would require that she move the hand still hovering above Kakashi’s chest,
the faint beat of his heart and the shallow scrape of each slow breath a reassuring rhythm
under her palm. Normally, she’d just take Kakashi home, but they didn’t have that option.
Too far from Konoha with two genin under her care, and a civilian still under contract—

Sakura gritted her teeth. Tazuna could wait.

Hinata whimpered when Sasuke peeled her sleeve away, kunai slicing easily through the
fabric, but she didn’t pull back. A long cut reached across her forearm, carved from almost
her elbow down to the side of her wrist; as nasty as it looked, it was shallow. It must be, or
Hinata would be significantly closer to bleeding out than she was. Smaller gashes, three of
them, echoed the central wound on either side.

Running her fingers gently down one side of it elicited another low sound of pain, but no
additional blood. Red and inflamed, and hot to the touch despite the cold water soaking
Hinata head to toe. Eyes narrowed, Sakura flashed through the fight they’d just been through.
Haku hadn’t inflicted it – even if Sakura hadn’t seen Hinata come into their fight with it,
Haku didn’t use weapons that would inflict such a—

A growl escaped Sakura’s lips, and she got to her feet. Pushed away the flicker of fear as the
diagnostic jutsu faded and she lost sense of Kakashi’s heartbeat. Sasuke let out a sound of
alarm, but she ignored it. Stomped over to the paralysed Kiri-nin. There was naked terror in
his eyes as she crouched down and stared into them.

Letting him go was out of the question. He’d attacked her team, he’d hurt her teammates. If
Sasuke and Naruto were her brothers, then Hinata was her sister, and Sakura did not abide her
family in pain. Not only physical, but emotional. They’d learn and they’d adjust and one day
this fight would seem small and distant in comparison – but the scars it left would linger
forever. Sasuke had crossed a threshold when he’d awoken his Sharingan. It was damage that
could never be undone. So she bared her teeth while she rummaged through his pockets, and
when she found the little antidote box she slid it gently into one of her own, shifted her
weight to one knee on the ground, and lifted a hand level with her ear. Curled her fingers into
her palm. Even if he hadn’t hurt her team, even if Sakura wasn’t half the vengeful creature
she tried to pretend she wasn’t, leaving him alive was a liability. Even without an emotional
trigger, logic said that she should kill him. They couldn’t take him with them, and they
couldn’t set him free.

Behind her, interrupting the coil of chakra she gathered in her fist, Sasuke shouted her name.
“What are you doing?!” Alarm. Fear, even.

Looking back at him, Sakura felt disembodied for a moment. For Sasuke to be the one calling
for Sakura to show mercy was… surreal. But then, he wasn’t the Sasuke who’d lost his clan,
who’d thrown away everything for one slim chance at vengeance, who was inured to death
and bloodshed. That Sasuke didn’t exist, anymore. He never had. Instead, there was a young
genin staring at her in horror, seeing a calm and casual – a brutal – intent to kill.

She didn’t relax her arm. “We can’t let him go. We can’t take him with us.” There was a flat
chill in her own voice that made the hair on the back of her neck rise. Part of her – native
response, she thought – quailed at it. A shiver that went unseen under her skin, a
subconscious recoil from cold-blooded murder that felt childish. A mental rebuke silenced it,
but Sakura couldn’t shake the faint curling edge of shame.
It didn’t matter. Shame was a worthless emotion – all it did was get in the way of what
needed to be done.

Sasuke watched her like she was a stranger. Perhaps, with as good an upbringing as she could
have hoped for him, he thought she suddenly was. The first time she'd been twelve, she
would have been nauseated by the thought of killing a defenceless person, even an enemy
shinobi.

War changed them all, in the end, she supposed.

“Sakura… You can’t just…” He trailed off. Disconnected, a thought tapped politely at the
back of her head. You don’t have time for this argument. Utterly pallid, Sasuke was just
staring at her. At the fist she held aloft, at the dashed mess she’d made of the first Demon
Brother.

Hardening the small, scared part of herself, Sakura met his gaze squarely. “We’re shinobi.”
I’m sorry, Sasuke. It wasn’t a lesson he should have to learn so soon. It wasn’t one he should
have ever learned so young. “We kill when it’s necessary.” And sometimes when it’s not.

She looked away, at least, when she charged the chakra in her hand and brought it down on
the Kiri-nin’s head. Sasuke didn’t deserve to see it in her eyes. How little she cared. Death
was an inevitability; shinobi died violently. All of us. And she wouldn’t waste herself on
remorse for her enemies when she was better spent protecting her friends.

There was silence, as the skull came apart under her knuckles and blood and brain sprayed
out. Heavy silence; bitter silence.

Maybe she was wrong. Maybe Sasuke was right to judge her.

Too late for us both.

The blood came off too easily, as Sakura rose and sent a sheet of chakra across her skin, but it
was a familiar sensation. The way it all sloughed off in a moment, as if her hands were clean.
Sasuke moved a step away when Sakura got close, his gaze locked on the ground. Pale and
drawn. But there was a furrow in his brow, something dark reflecting from his thoughts to his
eyes.

A lesson learned too soon, and too violently.

Sakura could only hope that she hadn’t taught it wrong. Not enough of anything to fret about
it now – they were running low on both chakra and time. “Tazuna’s hiding over there,” she
said instead, pointing towards the civilian chakra signature. “Bring him back here.” There
was no response to her command, but she felt Sasuke move away to obey. For now, that
would have to be enough. “Alright, Hinata. This won’t be any worse than the senbon, okay?”
Taking the box out from where she’d stashed it and opening it revealed a small syringe, and
two sealed needles for it to slot into. Two needles? Either the Demon Brothers were more
paranoid about their own poison than she’d suspected, or they each carried a double dose of
the antidote.
Which would make sense, Sakura thought as she pried one out and opened the end, popped
the cap off the adapter, and clicked the syringe and needle together. If one of them lost their
antidote, they’d still be carrying enough for them both.

Half the syringe then. At the very least, carrying the rest of it might prove to be useful later.
She studied the wounds again for a few moments, tracing the bloodstains with her eyes, and
then set the barrel of the syringe between her teeth. “Sorry, Hinata.” Mumbled around it, as
she dug out a kunai of her own, but Hinata didn’t resist as Sakura cut off the other sleeve
from her jacket. Didn’t even protest. Too much damage done to the wounded arm, too many
broken blood vessels. One hand curled around Hinata’s wrist, Sakura pulled out her other arm
into a relaxed position and then ran her thumb over the crease of her elbow. Green chakra
glimmered in its wake for a second, and Sakura focused on the feedback of it.

Taking the syringe out of her mouth, Sakura primed the needle and then lined it up with the
imprint of Hinata’s cephalic vein. “Sharp scratch.” It slipped out without thought – a refrain
she’d said a thousand times over, met with a thousand different reactions, from the bemused
exasperation of weathered shinobi to the frightened yips of young civilians.

“Wh—” Hinata’s confusion turned to a soft hiss as the needle went in, but she didn’t flinch.
Don’t blow the vein, Sakura. Giving an intravenous injection was something she’d done
countless times before, and still her hands shook. It took so much concentration to hold
steady and watch for the halfway point as she slowly depressed the plunger that she almost
didn’t hear Hinata speak up again. “Sakura, what is that stuff?”

A note of anxiety in her voice that went beyond the usual. Good fucking going, Sakura. She
hadn’t even bothered to tell Hinata what the hell she was doing. Was it a sign of trust or
stupidity that Hinata had let her administer an unknown substance without question? “It’s an
antidote,” she said instead, placing a thumb over the injection site and pulling the needle out.
“Put your finger here and press.”

While Hinata did as she was told, Sakura got to removing the needle and recapping the
syringe. It was a far cry from the most sterile of practices, but with open wounds doused in
river water already, they were likely to pick up infections regardless. Such was the way of
fighting shinobi. Lucky for them that high chakra flow helped counter illness and disease.

The syringe went back into the small box with the remaining needle, and the whole thing
went into Sakura’s pocket. She pressed the used needle point-first into the ground and sunk it
down a few inches from the surface. With luck, no civilians would ever step on it somehow,
as if the roads weren't littered with lost shuriken and kunai anyway. And if they do, it’s not my
problem.

Sakura quietly put that thought away.

Turning back to Kakashi, Sakura tracked Sasuke’s silent return as he dragged Tazuna back
from wherever he’d hidden – pausing a few times as he picked his way across the battlefield,
retrieving his chakra metal shuriken from where they lay scattered – and considered their
sensei. Kakashi was sporting myriad bruises and minor cuts, but aside from the broken hand
(and the burn on the back of it), his biggest injury was extreme chakra fatigue. Well…
‘Extreme’ was always a relative term with Kakashi – but he was so close to needing a chakra
transfusion that this case qualified.

Had he been this dire the first time around? Was this fight just worse, or had she been too
ignorant back then to realise how fine a line Kakashi danced between recovery and death?

The thought was ice cold under her skin, and Sakura tried to shove it away. What mattered
was that he was as safe to move as she could have hoped for – because under no
circumstance could they stay here. That Zabuza would come looking for them wasn’t a case
of if, it was a case of when.

Think, Sakura. Use what you have.

“Hinata, I know you’re not feeling great right now, but you’re going to have to be our
lookout.” Wounded and tired as she was, Hinata couldn’t help carry Kakashi and she simply
couldn’t protect Tazuna as well as Sasuke could right now. Juuken lost some of its terror
when she could only apply it with one hand. “How much chakra have you got left?” Even as
she got to her feet and evaluated an equal partition of her own.

White eyes tracked her movement, and there was weariness in them but none of the haziness
Sakura was afraid of. Hinata bit her lip while she thought about an answer, and then let it go
and lifted her chin. “A little less than a quarter.” For a moment, Sakura met her gaze,
wondering whether she believed the answer. Then, silencing the suspicious instincts, she
nodded.

“Alright. Try not to overuse your Byakugan. If we’re tracked, our only option is to try and
evade him.” She’d prefer to run like hell, but with a civilian and Hinata wounded, they
couldn’t hope to outrun Zabuza even if Kakashi had been on his feet. A glance towards
Sasuke as he drew level with them, debating with herself about her next words. Hinata was
still so far behind herself, young and riddled with anxiety and self-doubt. The older version
would have taken the proper meaning of it – but then, the older version wouldn’t have needed
to hear it. Sakura fixed Hinata with a grim stare. “You’re our first line of defence, Hinata. If
Zabuza comes after us again, an early warning is the only hope we’ve got.”

If there was even a shred of justice in the world, Hinata would take the confidence Sakura
had in her to perform the task, rather than fret about the immensity of it. That’s a joke. She
knew better than to think the world would offer any justice. But she didn’t have a choice.

“Sasuke, can you help Hinata get those senbon out?” An easy enough task for Sakura to
perform herself, nose twitching slightly as she started plucking the needles out of her own
flesh, but admittedly much harder for Hinata when she could only use one arm. By sight
alone she was fairly sure that none of the senbon she or Hinata bore had opened any arteries,
but it was an outcome that she could fix if she was wrong.

There was a hollow note to Sasuke’s voice as he finally spoke up, even as he moved to do as
she’d asked. Something distant and alien. Sakura tried not to feel the phantom hands closing
around her lungs. “How the hell are we going to take Kakashi-sensei with us? We can’t carry
him that far—”
“I’m going to carry him.” Sasuke blinked at her owlishly, as if she’d spoken a different
language.

“What?”

In response, Sakura put her hands together, followed the split she’d scored into her chakra,
and produced a shadow clone at her side. Thank whatever gods are listening for Kakashi’s
disregard for the rules. Technically speaking, he shouldn’t have taught her the shadow clone
jutsu – but by the time he had, Sasuke had abandoned them and Naruto was gone, and she’d
only had to ask the once.

Sasuke blinked again, speechless for a moment, and she saw the question dance across his
face before he swallowed it back. “Even with two of you, there’s no way that you can carry
him the whole way, and who knows when he’ll wake up? We’re better off just waiting here
unti— What the fuck?” Maybe it was petty to not even let him finish, working in tandem
with her clone to pick Kakashi up off the ground instead of argue with him.

It wasn’t the time for showing off, but holding back meant the exact scenario Sasuke was
trying to navigate, and waiting around for Kakashi to wake up was not only tantamount to
suicide – especially with a civilian and two genin who couldn’t hide their chakra signatures –
but would take far longer than Sasuke thought. Kakashi would be out for the whole day,
easily. Most of the next, too.

They didn’t have that kind of time.

She was in for a rough journey, certainly, while she settled Kakashi’s body between herself
and her clone. The clone went in front, Kakashi’s knees hooked over her arms at the elbow;
each hand closed around the opposing wrist, and she settled in position. Shadow clones didn’t
have muscles, exactly, but the less strain went on her clone, the longer she’d last. A few steps
behind her, Sakura looped her arms under Kakashi’s and locked her hands across his chest to
secure him in place.

Kakashi’s head rested heavy against her collar, his nose turned into her neck. It was mostly
intentional, trying to keep from inflicting the ache of holding a bad angle for a prolonged
period, but she was quickly considering it a mistake. If only his hair was even a mite bit
tamer, and not tickling against her nose.

The chakra flow necessary to augment her physical strength was thinner than she’d expected
to need. How much of it was the constant strength training he’d been putting her through, and
how much of it was the chakra filaments she’d been building in every muscle she had?
Granted, she had a massive advantage in using chakra to bolster herself, because aside from
offering an increased baseline of strength to work with, the filaments gave a faster route
through which to stream her chakra, and both consumed and leaked less of it overall.

Even so, how much of it was that Kakashi was so much lighter than she’d thought?

“Sasuke, you’re responsible for Tazuna.” His shock was fading into narrowed eyes and
furrowed brow, a betrayed lack of recognition as he stared at her. There were claws in her
chest as she met his gaze, but it had to wait – they didn’t have time. “You can fight better
than Hinata right now, and I’m a bit busy.” The sharp giggle that came from Hinata was
hysterical, but it was better than shutting down and Sakura knew only too well how easily
that could happen.

There was deep and acidic familiarity in the way Sasuke glared at her, but he took point when
she told him to and kept his pace slow. A terrifying decision, not to run as fast as they could,
but they were still under contract. No mind that it was void – it was Sakura’s fault they were
here, and she’d shoulder the responsibility for it.

Only as they made their way towards where she knew Tazuna’s small boat was moored did it
strike Sakura that if Zabuza did return for them, their lives weren’t necessarily forfeit. Killing
a bunch of genin wasn’t what he was being paid for, and he’d only taken the fights so
seriously last time around because Kakashi had been a factor. Now, with Kakashi down for
the count and the three of them barely worth a damn, he might not even bother.

Or worse, he’d leave them as gutted and torn as they’d left Haku; a personally-tailored hell
for Kakashi to wake up to. The thought was like biting into ice.

Sasuke was silent as he led the party, Tazuna keeping close at his heel. Sulking, perhaps –
although the word carried a sense of juvenility that was, in this case, undeserved. At their
back Hinata was silent too, but Sakura hoped that it was because she was busy watching for a
tail, and not because she was angry. Or, worse, because the poison was taking effect and the
antidote wasn’t.

Keeping a low-level diagnostic jutsu over Kakashi’s chest where she carried him was enough
to reassure Sakura of his continued heartbeat and chakra circulation, so she let her clone keep
eyes up front and turned her head to catch sight of Hinata. Even steps, wounded arm held
against her chest, but unshaken. As Sakura watched, Hinata’s eyes pulled tight and swept
around them, a silent whisper on her lips. Met Sakura’s gaze for a moment as they relaxed
again, and forced a tiny smile. A nod.

And so the group of them marched on, in silence.

The trip across the water had been a nerve-wracking one; dispersing her clone for the sake of
taking less space in Tazuna’s dingy little boat, resisting every urge to hurry along the trip
either by taking the oar from his grasp (and thus taking her own hands from Kakashi’s chest)
or working a sneaky suiton and rushing the water beneath. She couldn’t risk either, of course
– the former would not only unsettle the delicate balance holding them together but lose her
only reassurance that Kakashi hadn’t dipped so low in chakra to make a transfusion
unavoidable, and the latter would be an egregious waste of chakra that Sakura couldn’t
afford.

Besides which, she shouldn’t know such jutsu, were she the Sakura who belonged to this
timeline. As frayed as she’d realised her cover already was, there was no sense to inviting
further suspicion.

Tazuna carried Kakashi out of the boat once they made it to shore, against Sakura’s
admittedly weak protests. Another clone was more chakra she couldn’t waste, more time
spent circulating it through her body for artificial strength and bleeding the energy she’d need
to ensure her team’s health once they could finally stop moving. She kept close all the same,
one hand curled tightly around Kakashi’s uninjured one and glowing green.

There was more bubbling up as they wove through the village, soft signals that rose up
underneath the regular thrum of his pulse against her fingertips. Lesser things, barely-there
shivers that she would have ignored normally. Old wounds, healed injuries. Scars. Hardly
anything surprising there – shinobi came exclusively with a litany of scars – but the pattern
nagged quietly at the back of Sakura’s mind as they walked. Impossible to be certain without
actually looking, but it was familiar and the longer she lingered on it the tighter dread’s
gentle claws dug into the gaps of her ribs.

She took no notice of Inari or his mother when they finally arrived. Decided not to ponder
their ‘fortune’ at making the trip through the village without attracting attention from Gatō or
his lickspittles despite their obvious wounds and hitai-ite. Word would get back to him soon
enough, but dealing with him could wait.

The room was the same, when Tazuna led them up a small flight of stairs and gently set
Kakashi down. It had been so many years since she’d been here, a small blip in the long line
of catastrophes that made up her shinobi resume, but somehow the details jumped out at her
all the same. The way the floorboards creaked as she stepped over them. (The way they didn’t
as Hinata followed her). Scratches and whorls in the woodwork, the washed-out colour of the
blanket that Inari’s mother brought up after them. The concern etched on Tsunami’s face as
she took in three wounded children, as she watched the way Kakashi’s head lolled sideways
as he was laid down, the absolute lack of tension betraying how deeply unconscious he was.
The way Sakura’s skin hummed with green chakra as she held fiercely to Kakashi’s hand.

His other hand was broken, and Sakura had taken the long silence amongst her team to work
through whatever excuses she might need. Lying to Sasuke and Hinata tasted like the steel of
her own kunai, but it was infinitely easier than lying to Kakashi; as guilty as she felt to even
entertain the thought, she was lucky that he was unconscious. “Sasuke, Hinata,” she began,
dropping to her knees at Kakashi’s side and silently shooing Tazuna and Tsunami back.
“Scout around the house. Make sure we haven’t been followed.” With their dōjutsu they were
both far better suited to such a task than she was – and, more importantly, it would get them
out of the room.

Too dangerous, even to them, for Sakura to show too much of her skill as a med-nin.

Unfair, for her to risk showing off their sensei’s secrets without his consent.

Hinata nodded and turned away to do so, but for a long moment Sasuke just stared at her.
Without any other recourse, Sakura just met his inky gaze. Finally, as he followed the other
kunoichi, Sakura released the diagnostic jutsu monitoring Kakashi and then released his hand
as well.

“Thank you,” she told Tsunami. Tazuna could wait. “Kakashi-sensei will be okay, he just
needs some rest.” A lot of rest. A lot of rest, and as much medical ninjutsu as she dared.
“He’ll recover best if he’s not bothered.” Maybe that was too tacit a request; would she have
been so shy if she was working a shift in Konoha General? It didn’t seem to matter, though.
Tsunami took Tazuna by the elbow and dipped her head briefly. Offered some murmured
platitude that Sakura didn’t hear and steered her father out.

The door shut behind them with a creak and a click.

Everything rushed out from underneath her in the abrupt solitude, and for a few seconds it
was all Sakura could do to swallow the deep rattling sob swelling under her chest. Training
kicked in, and the bubble turned into a single sharp breath, and Sakura focused on her patient.
Her sensei. Only too many times they had been one and the same.

Triage. The first concern was the broken and burned hand. Kakashi being in chakra fatigue
severe enough to knock him out was as terrifying as it always was – with chakra reserves as
thin as Kakashi’s were, and under the constant strain of his Sharingan eye, exhaustion was
common to the point of expectation – but it was a familiar fear and as long as his chakra
stayed circulating, she could avoid a transfusion. She shouldn’t, were she to do her job as a
medic properly, but it was a technique that she shouldn’t even know about with any detail
yet, let alone know how to perform; beyond that, it was a technique that would end any hope
she had of maintaining some semblance of cover. First thing to treat was the hand, so as
gently as she could, Sakura went to Kakashi’s other side and lifted his hand in her own. Even
without a diagnostic jutsu, the damage was obvious enough to Sakura’s experienced touch;
fractures that slipped and ground under light pressure, but didn’t snap or move out of place.

When she ignited the diagnostic jutsu, the crackle of broken bone was matched by the
stickiness of a burn, and Sakura bit her lip. Burns were tricky beasts – fairly straightforward
to treat, and rarely life-threatening for a shinobi when so small as this one, but painful and
prone to infection all the same.

It was risky to fully heal his hand, for more than one reason. Not only would it take far more
chakra than she dared spare to return the injury to a pristine condition, but forcing such
extreme acceleration of healing carried risks in its own right. A lesson she’d learned early,
and watched other budding med-nin struggle with just as she had – just as they all did – but a
lesson she would never forget. And beyond that, even, healing the break to something
Kakashi could still tentatively work with was a risk enough to her cover. She was banking on
the chance that he’d been too focused on the fight, too focused on keeping his genin safe
from such an incredible threat as Momochi Zabuza to pay attention to how much damage had
actually been done to his hand. He’d know he was wounded, but if she was lucky – and she
left a fraction of the break unhealed, if she left the burn painful but safely sealed over – then
he might simply accept that it wasn’t as severe an injury as he might have initially thought.

The green chakra under her palms shifted hue as she wove it into a new purpose, flickering
and flashing in winking constellations as she let her own energy drain into Kakashi,
accelerating normal healing processes and feeling bone and skin knit back together.
Infuriating, that it was even more tiring than it usually was – her twelve-year-old body just
didn’t have the reserves that her eighteen-year-old body had – but it was a feeling she knew
all too well, and she could always sleep afterwards.

Sakura was still examining her work, debating with herself whether she’d done enough or too
much, when there was a soft knock at the door. “Come in.” Tsunami, perhaps, overly polite
even in her own house. Hinata, even. Not Inari or Tazuna, not with so light a knock – and as
much as Sakura wished otherwise, she doubted that Sasuke would be coming to see her right
now. Too much to adjust to, too many beliefs that he had to let go of.

Peeking around the door as she only half-opened it, Hinata took in Kakashi tucked under a
blanket on the futon and the tiredness that Sakura knew she wasn’t hiding. Drawn face,
shoulders slanted down, an arch in her back that she would regret tomorrow. “Uhm…
Tsunami-san made dinner, if you’re hungry.” White eyes swept across Kakashi’s limp form
again, resting on the scrap of visible face. “... Is he going to be okay?”

It took more energy than she wanted to admit, but Sakura gave Hinata a smile. “Yeah. He
used too much chakra in the fight, but like I told Tsunami-san, he’ll be okay with some rest.”
And a little help. “Thanks for letting me know about dinner, but I might just get some sleep
myself.” She hated how little of the exhaustion seeping into her voice was faked. How weak
she was, locked in her child’s body. How much she resented that the only cure was time.

Biting her lip, Hinata looked Sakura over this time, and then nodded. “Okay. I’ll let everyone
know.” A moment later, and a click that was almost silent ( How much practice does she
already have at closing doors silently? ), and Sakura was once more alone with her sensei.

It was wrong, to look further than she needed to in order to verify his safety. Another sweep
to ensure she hadn’t missed anything, one more check that his heart was beating strong
enough and his chakra was still circulating. There was no more that she should do, and so
much more that she shouldn’t. Just because her Kakashi had trusted her with every confession
signed in his skin – both fading and fresh – didn’t mean that this Kakashi did. Even if she
could already guess at the patterns she’d felt lurking beneath his clothes, even if his secrets
were already known to her, this Kakashi hadn’t trusted her with them. This person, this jōnin
here right now, the reality of her sensei and not her memory of him – he had neither revealed
his lingering trauma nor expressed permission for her to scrutinise it.

But she already knew, and he didn’t have to suffer the humiliation of her knowledge if she
just kept her mouth shut.

A glance up and a short bubble of chakra, ensuring that nobody else was about to burst in on
them, and Sakura shifted back to Kakashi’s other side and lifted his uninjured hand. It was
wrong, but while the shape of the scars she’d felt under her diagnostic was a familiar one, the
picture they’d made wasn’t as she remembered.

It took more finessing than it had done in her first timeline, getting Kakashi’s gloves off.
She’d already wondered several times over the months spent relearning how to be a genin,
what change had happened to cause Kakashi to wear gloves that ran as long as Anbu’s – in
fact, as she took a moment to look them over, Sakura was almost certain that they were
straight-up Anbu gloves, instead of the modified version he’d had the first time. Hazards and
guesses she had in abundance, but Kakashi had trained her well in seeing underneath the
underneath, and there was no safe hypothesis without asking him directly.

Perhaps, she thought quietly as the glove slid off his skin and she set the metal plates down
on the floor without a sound, she should have wondered a little less loudly. Carved across his
arm, many running further up under the sleeve she could push only up to his elbow, was a
litany of soft white scars.
Many of them were unconcerning to her; nicks and scratches and uneven lines where Kakashi
had taken hits throughout his long tenure as a shinobi, places where he’d chosen to take
blades to his forearms rather than anywhere more dangerous, divots and small pockmarks
where he’d caught shuriken or senbon. Fainter ones, a long white line that ran halfway down
his arm from his elbow, the faint pearlescence of it betraying how much chakra someone else
had expended to heal it, to minimise the scarring.

Familiar marks, things that inspired not fear or sorrow, but pride in every trophy from fights
that Kakashi had pushed through and won, and kept living afterwards.

And others, just as familiar, and wretchedly so. A neat ladder that ran a gauntlet up his wrist,
horizontal answers to a question that Sakura didn’t have the right to ask. More of them than
she had counted on the Kakashi she’d known before; each one a silent whisper, each one of
them one too many. Several more nestled between older scars, still delicate and pink as they
healed. A dappled shimmer within them clashed with the complete coverage of the rest and
spoke of inexperienced medical ninjutsu; a note she took quietly in the back of her mind and
then set down.

“Oh…” Soft, as if she risked waking him and getting caught. “Oh, Sensei…”

Another, longer than the others and far too precisely straight to be anything but deliberate,
running vertically the full length of his forearm from the inside of his elbow to his wrist. Not
as pale white as the others, this one, a deep purple-pink tint to the scar tissue that betrayed
how serious it must have been – and the same slight pearly glimmer that betrayed how
frantically the med-nins must have attended it.

There was no doubt in Sakura’s heart that Kakashi carried its match on his other arm.

It was easier, even with the faint tremble in her hands, to get his glove back on than it had
been to take it off. Still wrong, guilt plucking across her diaphragm with gentle, relentless
fingers, but Sakura steadied her breath – You’ve seen this plenty of times before, pull it
together, Sakura – and activated her diagnostic jutsu for what she promised herself was the
last time tonight.

Just to check his breathing, his heartbeat, his chakra flow. Just to make sure she hadn’t
missed any other injuries that needed attention. She wasn’t going to look further, she wasn’t
going to invalidate his right to privacy, especially because despite what she remembered –
despite what she wished – Sakura was not his med-nin, and how far she’d yet pried was
reprehensible already. So it was a quick check, up the torso, down the ribs, around the neck
and head, and along every limb, and she didn’t intend to do anything more than what was
required to ensure his safety.

And her roving palm caught, on the triceps of his left arm, and Sakura’s resolve crumbled
like a breath she’d forgotten to let go.

Taking his flak jacket off was something that she would have done anyway, she told herself
as she did, carefully setting it aside and hoping she hadn’t dislodged any hidden weapons.
(There were always hidden weapons). Getting his long-sleeved shirt off, while not as strictly
necessary, was something she’d have at least seriously considered, she reminded herself
 quietly. Making sure he was comfortably settled in the recovery position, left shoulder up,
with the blanket tucked neatly around him; that was normal, comforting, easy. It was
justifiable.

But the soft combat bandage wrapped around his arm, covering the Anbu tattoo he’d borne as
a teenager, was something that she’d always known him to wear under his kit, and something
that offered no obstruction to his recovery. There was no justifying her decision to unwrap it
and peek beneath. Nothing but dire curiosity, the disruption that had spiked under her sensory
chakra and pressed suddenly against her palm, and the gross disregard she watched herself
display for Kakashi’s right to privacy.

Carved into his arm, a vertical ridge that was too jagged to match the cuts on his forearms but
too meticulous to be random, a thick, ugly scar rent his Anbu tattoo asunder.

Chapter End Notes

Stuff, Things, and In Betweens

| So first, I want to apologise for just how far overdue this chapter is. The long and short
of it is that I had a mental health crisis, then I had a lot of study and homework to do,
then I had surgery, and then something else in my life blew up horribly, and it's pretty
much just been a hell of a time. That said, I'm going to be extending my deadlines for
new chapters to a month for a while, and we'll see what happens from there.
| As you've seen in the past though, a month is just the longest potential wait I want to
inflict. If I finish the next chapter early, it will likely be published early.
| Just to top it all off, this chapter has undergone at least three partial rewrites, and a lot
of polishing, and it fought me every step of the way - but I am so happy with how it's
turned out, so victory is MINE damn it!
| A huge and thankful shoutout to ClockworkSirius and Haethel for all of their incredible
beta work. Without them, this chapter would be trash.
| Finally, a link to my official writing Tumblr - this is where progress updates, delays,
and other tidbits can be found. This is also where I will consistently receive prompts or
asks if ever y'all felt the need to give me any. SilverStarlightWrites

Next Chapter due: 7th September 2020

 Memory Is Not All That Bleeds Out
Chapter Summary

Sakura was wrong.

Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

There’s something unique, Sasuke thinks, about the silence of death. Something heavy and
foreboding, an oncoming dread that oozes doubt and darkness. It’s a voiceless echo in his
skull that won’t back down, a whispering terror as he approaches the front door to his own
house.

Bloody handprints sign a sinister promise along the frame. A trail of blackened crimson that
beckons Sasuke past the threshold, towards the shadows and the biting smell of iron in the
air.

He knows, somehow, a sickening weight in his gut that feels like a parasite writhing— He
knows with such surety that he doesn’t even question it, what is awaiting him inside. Dread
wraps cool hands around his throat; he can’t breathe as he creeps further inside, past the
empty central room, through the hallway and out to the little training hall behind the house.
The metallic stench of blood greets him first, but it’s quickly followed by the sight, and then
weakness and nausea overtake all thought and Sasuke collapses to his knees.

The bodies on the floor are familiar and broken. Empty black eyes and a shared puddle of
scarlet that turns everything else greyscale, and it’s with a rumbling purr of agony in his
chest that Sasuke lifts his gaze from his dead parents. He knows, already, he knows, but it
can’t be true.

It’s impossible, he refuses to believe it. It can’t be true.

Itachi would never.

Standing over their corpses is Sasuke’s brother, staring back with glowing red eyes. His
sword is held in one hand, dripping blood that almost seems luminescent; the point has
dipped so low that it almost touches the floor. Itachi doesn’t blink.

It can’t be real, and the mantra tastes like acid on Sasuke’s tongue, but Itachi steps closer.
Over their father’s legs, splayed unnaturally apart. Past their mother’s head, facedown in her
own blood. He still hasn’t blinked.

The sword lifts, ever so slightly, and Sasuke feels the terror crack apart into despair.
“Wh… Itachi…? Please…”

He doesn’t even know what he’s pleading for, but Itachi gets closer, each step stamped on the
floor in blood, and Sasuke doesn’t move. He can’t. It feels like there’s nothing except the red
on all sides, the way Itachi is still getting closer, the sword’s edge that keeps getting higher,
fractions at a time, until finally it rests softly on Sasuke’s collar and stains his shirt.

Cold and distant, Itachi stares him down.

“Why?”

His face blurs as Sasuke stares back, and it isn’t until Itachi leans down to his level and
touches his cheek that Sasuke realises he’s crying. The blade still touches Sasuke’s throat.

There’s a flash, something violent and devastating, like lightning in the depths of night.
Itachi’s face fractures, Sharingan melting into irises bleached a soft grey. There’s blood
seeping from his lips, twisted into a painful smile. Tears of crimson smeared across sallow
skin and sunken cheeks.

A flutter of pressure, like butterfly wings against his forehead.

It ruptures under Itachi’s gentle voice, and the whole room comes crumbling down.

“To see if I could.”

Sasuke leans forward, against the sword, and for the briefest second he feels its bite; frozen
teeth that spread ice into his veins like a flashfire in reverse.

The universe shatters.

The sunlight was watery and dim when Hinata’s eyes first opened to see it. Wet like the air,
wintry and distant – but the fact remained that it was sunlight, and that meant that she’d slept
through the dawn.

Quietly panicking, Hinata dragged in a deep breath in an attempt to control it as she

scrambled out of bed— it wasn’t right, the feeling of it underneath her, the distance from the
floor—

“Hinata?” A familiar voice – but not the one that Hinata expected, too high-pitched and
lacking completely the cold disappointment with which she was so intimate. It was so jarring
that for a moment, Hinata could only blink towards its source, unseeing. “Hey, take it easy,
okay?”

A burning ache in her right arm reminded her viciously why she shouldn’t be moving so
recklessly, but Hinata swallowed back the pain and forced her senses to focus. Sitting across
the room from her – knelt quietly beside Kakashi-sensei – Sakura offered a weak smile.

All at once, memory flashed back, and Hinata bit down on the quaking fear that swept
through her. It was followed, a fraction later, by an aching pain buried under the bones of her
arm, and she choked on a whimper, tucking it against her chest reflexively. “Sakura?” There
were bandages on her arm, mottled red and white, and the steady touch of Sakura’s hands on
her skin still lingered underneath them like a ghost. A glance around the room confirmed that
aside from Kakashi-sensei – still limp and unsettlingly slumbering – they were alone.
“Where’s Sasuke-kun?”

He’d be upset if he’d heard her; the honourific was something that he didn’t like to hear from
them. His team. Even Kakashi-sensei got the side-eye when he used it, despite that he only
used it mockingly. Maybe she was lucky Sasuke wasn’t in the room.

Sakura looked away, and guilt made a path through her face, familiar and unwelcome. “He’s
downstairs with Tsunami-san. We need to have someone on guard as much as possible.” Soft
voice, gaze fixed on their sensei’s slack face. Something… regretful on her features as she
spoke, tracing the shape of Kakashi’s mask with her eyes. “There’s no telling when the Kiri-
nin will try again.”

Ice crept down Hinata’s back, shivering fingers that left lingering fingerprints. It must have
shown, because Sakura waved a hand in her direction and offered an unconvincing smile.
Instead of comfort, Hinata only felt fear radiate from it, curdling with her own.

“Is he okay?” Even Hinata wasn’t certain if she meant Sasuke or Kakashi-sensei. It didn’t
matter though, because Sakura gave her the same tight smile again and waved a hand
vaguely.

“They’ll be alright. Kakashi-sensei just needs to rest, and Sasuke seems… well, he wasn’t
hurt too badly.” An edge to the way she said it, like she didn’t quite believe it – like she knew
she was lying. Looking down at her hands, Hinata pondered it. The bandages were still snug
on her arm after a night of sleeping on them, carefully but expertly applied and chakra-glued
in place. There was a level of experience in the way Sakura was treating them that Hinata
couldn’t explain. Things that they hadn’t been taught in the Academy, things that even Hinata
was shaky on, despite all the advantages of being born not just to the Hyuuga clan, but to the
head of the Hyuuga clan.

She didn’t know much about medicine or medical ninjutsu, but Hinata knew that was
difficult, precise work. Of all of them, Sakura definitely had the chakra control for it – but
where had she learned it? Last night had been too much of a blur to remember to ask. With
Sakura sequestered away with Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke grim and foreboding as he kept
watch, it had fallen on Hinata to get the story out of Tazuna-san about what in the actual heck
was going on.

The answer she’d gotten hadn’t eased the terror of the situation even a fraction.

Curiosity danced on her tongue, but Hinata swallowed it and nodded. Whatever questions she
had for Sakura would wait. Right now, all of their focus needed to be on protecting Tazuna-
san and his family – and staying alive to do it. If all this medical knowledge Sakura had
somehow accrued meant surviving this mission, then they were all the luckier for it.

Instead, Hinata dragged herself off the floor and to her feet. “Have you eaten anything yet,
Sakura?” Vaguely, Sakura had mentioned that she’d sleep through dinner the night before, but
even though she’d failed to come down she’d still been awake and alert when Hinata had
retired herself, and tended to their wounds more thoroughly.

“Oh.” This time, the smile seemed a little bit easier. “I… might have forgotten about that.”

There was a tingle of guilt in Hinata’s chest – almost embarrassment – at the sheer hypocrisy
of it, but she still frowned at Sakura’s admission. “I’ll bring you something up.” No telling if
Sakura would actually eat breakfast if Hinata brought it to her, but the attempt was all she
could do.

At least Sakura nodded, as Hinata made her way towards the door. “I’ll have a look at your
arm when you do. I think I remember something that might help.”

Pausing, Hinata studied her teammate for a minute, watching the way she watched their
sensei. There was an edge in the way her eyes flickered over Kakashi’s form, something
sharp and calculating that Hinata couldn’t identify, but recognised. It was the same severity
with which cousin Neji had watched Hinata and Hanabi’s training in the mornings, before
he’d graduated and been given to Itachi-sensei. A keen knowledge and understanding of what
she was seeing.

Was she really that clever? Had she picked up so much from textbooks?

But the question had to wait, so Hinata left her to it and wandered downstairs. She wasn’t as
stealthy as she’d hoped, because Sasuke was watching for her by the time she reached him.
Eyes shadowed, but he lifted his chin in greeting and then beckoned her over. Inari was on
his other side, but he leaned away from Sasuke slightly, eating silently. Hard to blame him, as
Hinata came level with them; Sasuke’s expression was stormy and dark, and the bruises on
his neck had turned purple-black to match.

“How’d you sleep?” Grumbled, even as Sasuke handed her a bowl. Hinata decided not to
mention the nightmares; she was sure Sasuke had plenty of his own.

Instead, she accepted breakfast and picked at it. “Fine.” Terribly. But he didn’t need to know
that – even if the side-eye he gave her suggested that he didn’t believe her anyway. “How
about you?”

Sasuke’s gaze went back to his food as he replied. “Fine.” And Hinata didn’t believe him, but
she let the lie pass. He hadn’t questioned hers. “... Is Sakura coming down?” Hesitation – like
he didn’t want her to. However unsettled Hinata was by the ease with which Sakura had
assumed command of Team Seven, right now wasn’t the time to question it. They’d be lost
without her leadership.

All the same, Hinata felt his relief when she shook her head, and she tried not to taste his
guilt too. “I said I’d take some breakfast up for her.” Bit her lip and focused down on her
own. “Do you know if she slept at all?” It nagged at the back of her mind, how haggard
Sakura looked. Where was she finding the resolve to stay so calm, to monitor Kakashi
without the raw terror that threatened to choke Hinata senseless if she pondered on it too
long?
The reality of their situation. The sheer vulnerability of it. There was no telling when the
Kiri-nin would return, but he doubtless would. And they were a woefully inadequate force to
defend against him. It was more a question of what he would do with them once he defeated
them, and less a question of whether he would. They didn’t stand a hare’s chance amongst
wolves.

His mouth a thin line, Sasuke set down his chopsticks and leant back in his seat, black eyes
locked on the table. “... I’m not sure. But doesn’t she seem… wrong, to you?” He glanced up,
just for a moment, and then looked away again – his shoulders hunching – as if meeting
Hinata’s gaze was too terrible a task. “She’s not right, Hinata.” Before she could even
respond. “She shouldn’t be able to…” Trailed off, his voice quiet and ashamed. Guilt flashed
through his expression like a fish flashed through water.

Silence stretched out between them. Sticky. Unbearable.

“I— uhm… I don’t know. You know her better than me.” It felt dirty, to stumble through a lie
like that; Hinata shouldn’t lie to her teammates, especially not to her friend, and this was her
second in barely a minute . But Sakura was her friend too. Different from Sasuke, more
withdrawn and subdued most of the time, carrying a silent weight that Hinata couldn’t grasp
– but her friend all the same. It felt just as wrong to talk behind her back like Sasuke was
asking.

But the second glance he shot at her just made her feel worse. “She’s not… acting like
herself, Hinata.” Voice low, still, to avoid drawing their clients into their qualms. “I don’t
know how she… How she did all that.”

All that.

Did he mean the way she’d given out orders without hesitation, even before Kakashi-sensei
had gone down; spoken up, defied him, so calmly and confidently that it was like she had
done it a thousand times before? Did he mean how twitchy and on edge she’d been the whole
mission, even before everything had turned to hell – as if she’d known about the looming
danger? Did he mean the way she’d fought, the skills she’d shown, the knowledge of
techniques and medicine that Kakashi-sensei had never taught them?

Did he mean that she’d killed two people, and shown no remorse for it?

Staring at her own breakfast, but barely seeing it, Hinata bit her tongue and tried to focus on
the sensation of her own teeth, rather than the roaring doubt inside her thoughts. “It doesn’t
matter.”

Sasuke let out a noise like he’d choked, eyes going wide as they finally lifted to look at her
properly. “How can you say that? We’re supposed to be able to trust her, and—”

“Stop it.” As if she’d slapped him – despite that she spoke softly through loose strands of her
hair – Sasuke went silent. “... I’m sorry.” Even if she had to cut off Sasuke’s fearful rambling
before it got too far, before their clients heard, interrupting him felt cruel. Especially when
she let herself think about the trust he was showing in her by doing so. She tried not to.
“Right now, we have to just… do the mission. Everything else has to wait.” Their lives
depended on it. “Do you trust Sakura to be on our side?”

Blinking owlishly, it took Sasuke a minute to process that. Then, slowly, with more
trepidation than Hinata had hoped, he nodded. “Yeah.”

“Alright.” And she reached out, took his hand and laced their fingers together. Squeezed. It
was just as much a selfish action as it was meant to be comforting; the reminder of reality,
warm and calloused skin against her own, helped to dispel the haze of unreality that
threatened at the edge of all her senses. “Then we have to get home first.”

For a moment, acutely aware of the eyes that had turned on them when Hinata had reached
over for Sasuke’s hand, they hovered in suffocating silence, and then Sasuke sighed and
nodded again. “Yeah.” He squeezed back, just for a second, and then extricated his fingers
and went back to eating. Slow, too reluctant to pass any charade of being okay, but eating all
the same.

He’s right. They needed to keep up whatever strength they could, and at least trying to eat
and sleep sufficiently was the bare minimum. Hinata forced a smile for Tsunami’s benefit,
and then got to eating. It tasted like powdered stone as she did, but that was about as
objectionable as it got. Distantly, the detached part of Hinata’s mind analysed itself,
recognising the way her senses weren’t working properly as a sign of stress, skirting the edge
of blind panic as it danced ever closer.

Her brain was playing tag with itself, and if she stumbled then she’d be caught in her own
fear like an animal caught in a trap. It had happened before. It would probably happen again –
but not now. Not here. She couldn’t let it be here and now. She was responsible for more than
her own life.

So were they all. If all Hinata could do to claw out of the threatening spiral of terror was to
eclipse as much unnecessary emotion as she could, then she would do everything in her
power to shut her eyes to it. It could wait. It had to wait. She couldn’t be the reason they died.

Please don’t let me be the reason we die.

Maybe that was why Sakura was acting the way she was. If Hinata looked at herself
objectively, she wasn’t acting normal either. Sasuke wasn’t acting normal. All his usual
bravado was gone, his casual confidence and easy smirk. Utterly lacking was the confident
tilt to his shoulders as he sat at Hinata’s side, the surety to every action that he usually had in
abundance – perhaps even overabundance – that she couldn’t find no matter how much she
searched.

Maybe it was normal. For them to be so abnormal in the face of uncertain death. Hope told
Hinata that there was a chance for them to come out on top, if the Kiri-nin came back soon, if
he knew where Tazuna-san lived, if Kakashi-sensei didn’t recover before that happened – but
logic (fear?) screamed back that there wasn't.

And there was no world in which he didn’t know where Tazuna-san lived. Just as Team
Seven was contract-bound to protect the bridge builder, the Kiri-nin was bound to kill him. If
he came back to try again was a hopeless fantasy that Hinata couldn’t afford to harbour.
When he came back, they would need to be ready.

As ready as they could.

The thought was still as cold as ice, hoarfrost that crept up under her ribcage and curled
merciless fingers around her heart. Like contemplating her own death.

Maybe she was.

“I lied,” broke into her thoughts, and Hinata felt herself jolt and drop her chopsticks. Shame
licked across her cheeks in the form of faint heat, that she’d been so easily startled. She was
supposed to be a shinobi – she was supposed to be protecting someone. She was representing
Konoha.

Is that what they saw, these citizens of Waves, when they looked at her? At Sasuke and
Sakura? Did they see a group of shinobi from a Great Village, ready to lay down their lives to
defend them? Or did they see three terrified children and their sensei, wounded beyond even
consciousness?

Hinata wanted to think that it was a possibility, that they were being perceived as the ninja
they were supposed to be. She wanted to; but she felt like a toddler, treading water
desperately out of her depth.

Sasuke's words finally percolated through her mind, and Hinata felt her brow knit into a
concerned frown. "You lied about what?" Kept her voice low and private.

"... I slept like crap." Equally as quiet. A pained swallow. "I had a… nightmare." And there
was distaste, this time, a sense of anger that came with deepseated shame and could – all too
easily – curdle into self-loathing.

Hinata scrambled for something to say. As familiar with nightmares as she was, she rather
doubted that Sasuke had the same ones she did. “Do you want to talk about it?” The vaguest
of memories, what little comfort she’d ever been able to offer Hanabi, before she’d grown too
old to need it.

It was almost fear that flickered through Sasuke’s eyes as he thought about it – almost, but
not quite. Deeper than that, darker than that. Whatever it was that Sasuke had dreamed about,
it haunted him. After a few moments of visibly struggling, he just shook his head. “It doesn’t
matter.” Muttered, so quietly that Hinata wasn’t certain it was even meant for her.

“... Me too.” Admitting it was better than the silence – even if it was only half-true. She
couldn't remember the fear of whatever had drifted through her dreams, but she remembered
the shadow of its shape. “That's… probably normal. Right? Considering…" Considering that
they nearly died. Considering how much danger they were still in. Even Neji had haunted the
halls of the Hyuuga compound, the first few nights after returning from his first dangerous
mission with Itachi-sensei.
Conflict in Sasuke’s face when he turned it to her, obvious in the way his brows drew
together, his eyes narrowed, but after a few moments he nodded. “... Yeah. Probably.” And
maybe he was only agreeing for Hinata’s benefit, but if it applied to her then it applied to him
too, and she was happy to be the reason it had to. She wasn’t good enough to meet the
standard required of her as a Hyuuga, but Sasuke could meet the Uchiha standards, and she
doubted that they allowed for such weakness as being shaken by nightmares.

It didn’t matter if Hinata fell short of that. She always fell short.

By the time she went back up to Sakura with breakfast – or what amounted to it, despite that
it was closer to lunch time – the food no longer felt like lead in her stomach. The world was
still off balance, everything just a bit too wrong, but it felt a little better with Sasuke keeping
watch on the perimeter. Sakura greeted her with a tired smile over Kakashi's still form.

"Thank you, Hinata." And her voice was gentle, as Hinata took the bowl to her and handed it
over. There was something fundamentally recognisable in it, even if the shadow of her self-
assumed command was still visible in her eyes. A thread of tension in Hinata’s chest
snapped, like cotton pulled to breaking point.

However strange and difficult the situation was for them, it was equally so for her. Sakura
was trying to cope with it in any way she could, in any way that might see them all through.

And it shouldn't be such a surprise, Hinata thought, sitting down by Sakura's side, that under
such extreme stress as they were, that Sakura would take control. They'd seen it before, hints
of it, on all the D-ranks they'd done over the months. The way she’d quietly organised them,
how she’d taken note of their strengths somewhere in her head and knew how to put them to
the best use.

When Kakashi-sensei stood back and watched them work D-ranks, Sakura quietly became
their director, so subtle that somehow it was still a surprise when she did it loudly. Was it
their fault for not expecting it? They should have been able to predict it – Sakura had taken
no pains to hide her character from them. Hinata just hadn’t seen it, and she was starting to
wonder if that had been deliberate.

Gently, Hinata ran her fingertips over the bandages on her arm; only slightly bloody, the
gashes underneath half-sealed from Sakura’s efforts the night before. She hadn’t asked,
neither at the time nor last night, how Sakura had known about the poison in the Kiri
gauntlets, or that they carried an antidote for it. Hadn’t asked how Sakura knew all this
medical ninjutsu; while many branch Hyuuga did take advantage of their newly granted
chance to enrol in the Academy, it was not uncommon for them to become doctors or nurses
in lieu of shinobi. The ability to properly use chakra was highly valued, even amongst
noncombatant medical professionals.

Which meant that Hinata knew how complicated medical ninjutsu was. Not that she had no
firsthand experience performing it, but it wasn’t something unfamiliar. For Sakura to know so
much already – and with enough confidence to use it, even if the circumstance was so dire
she had no real choice – meant that either someone had taught her, or…
Or she’s a genius.

Maybe she was just that smart.

It hovered for a moment, at the tip of Hinata’s tongue; the question of how Sakura had
learned medical techniques, how she'd known to give Hinata an antidote, who had even told
her where to find the antidote. When she'd learned how to give injections. It hovered, but
Hinata didn't ask.

She didn't want to hear the answer that Sakura hadn't known at all. That she'd just guessed it.
Easier to believe that Sakura was a secret prodigy than to hear that she was gambling with
their lives.

There weren't any good alternatives, but Hinata still didn't want to know.

"Inari-kun and Tazuna-san told us why he came to Konoha." She said it quiet, and something
hard and angry flickered through Sakura's eyes. Just for a moment. Just a flash. Maybe
Hinata was imagining it – she was tired and still wounded – but maybe she wasn't. "A man
named Gatō took over and… terrorised everyone."

Hinata wasn’t sure how to describe the look that settled on Sakura’s face. Dark and unsettled
and pensive. When she finally responded, she sounded calm; almost eerily serene. Shivers
ran out across Hinata’s skin, an echo of fear in its wake, too closely reminded of her father.
“Is he the one who sent Zabuza after us?”

Confusion burned into understanding, but context clues didn’t explain how Sakura knew the
name of their attacker. “Zabuza?” An easy confusion to correct.

Sakura shook her head. “He’s in the Konoha bingo book.” Suspicion crept under the edges of
Hinata’s thoughts. “Sorry, I should have said earlier. I wasn’t thinking. He’s an s-rank
missing-nin.” A shiver of tight anxiety reflected in Sakura’s voice, too.

“How did you get hold of a bingo book?”

For a fraction of a second, Sakura’s eyes went wide; then, so fast Hinata couldn’t be sure she
hadn’t imagined it, Sakura gave a soft, forced laugh. “My best friend is Yamanaka Ino,
remember?” Said with a slight but genuine smile, affection plain in her voice.

All at once, the nervous paranoia puddled into cold guilt in Hinata’s gut. “I’m sorry.” It was
senselessly unfair to feel suspicious of Sakura, no matter what skills she displayed or how she
changed under such intense pressure. Stress and fear did strange things to people, even when
their lives weren’t in danger. The immensity of their current situation was infinitely harder
than just protecting their own lives. They had a client depending on them – a family, a
village. A nation.

Don’t be dramatic, Hinata.

She couldn’t actually tell if she was, but it helped – just a tiny bit – to pretend. If everything
wasn’t so dire, then it wouldn’t matter so much when Hinata screwed it up. And she would,
she had no doubt. Were it not so terrifying, it might have been funny. Hysterically,
horrifyingly funny.

“Hey,” broke gently into Hinata’s thoughts, and she startled as cool fingers laced delicately
with her own. “Don’t get into your own head, okay?” Sakura told her, catching her gaze. A
faint smile played on her lips, strained and unhappy, a glitter of despair in her eyes. It must
have been so obvious, the suspicion Hinata couldn’t fully suppress. It must hurt. “I know this
is hard, but we can do this.” Could they? “You’re tough enough to do this with us.”

No, I’m not. But it was easier to let the encouragement wash over her. It was easier to listen,
to do as she was told. If Sakura was going to be their leader while Kakashi-sensei couldn’t,
then Hinata would follow her. There was no room for distrust in Team Seven.

Hinata squeezed Sakura’s hand. “Okay.”

It wasn’t even dark yet, but Sakura’s nerves would wait no longer. It had barely been a day
since Zabuza had first attacked; while there was no way to be sure when he’d come back to
finish the job, it still got closer with every minute Sakura sat idle. With Haku so badly
injured, it wasn’t unreasonable to expect a delay in his next attempt – Zabuza cared for them,
even if he tried not to – but she couldn’t take that gamble when the wager was their lives.

The sooner she acted, the better.

Even with Kakashi still unconscious, even with Hinata injured and Sasuke as shaken and
angry as he was, even leaving them to defend themselves for the duration… it was better this
way. If she left now, she could be done before sunrise. If she was extremely lucky, she could
be done hours before. As dangerous as it was to cut their fighting force down even further, it
would only get more so the longer Sakura dallied.

So, an hour before sunset, Sakura made sure Kakashi was sleeping more naturally than
before, checked his vital signs one last time, and then crossed her fingers to create a clone.
Any alarm system was better than none. If anything happened, Sakura could make it back
from her destination in five minutes flat. Faster, perhaps, if she really pushed herself.

Curse her adolescent body and its narrow limits.

“Good luck,” her clone murmured as she settled in place at Kakashi’s side, and Sakura spared
a sardonic huff for herself. It wasn’t like she could claim to have never kept herself company
with a shadow clone before, but it still felt oddly childish to wish herself luck like this. Like
she was acting as her own imaginary friend.

Sakura didn’t bother to reply as she climbed up the wall and wriggled her way out of the
window. Okay, maybe being small again isn’t all bad. If there were only minor upsides to be
found, then all the more reason to hold onto them as tight as she could.

The team was fraying under her, and she had no one to blame but herself. She could have
stopped this doomed mission from even happening, and failing that she had done so much
wrong already. Kakashi was worse off than he’d been the first time around (and it took every
scrap of self-control Sakura had to stop herself dwelling on that, on how he was worse off
even beyond the scope of this mission), and Hinata was wounded and terrified. Sakura wasn’t
sure Sasuke even trusted her anymore – and she wasn’t sure he was wrong. Just because she
had their best interests at heart didn’t mean she was doing right by lying to them.

Once she fixed the mess she’d made, once they’d gotten home safely, she’d do better. She
had to do better, because the dangers mounting up before them would only get steeper and
deadlier, and she couldn’t afford to make mistakes like this again. Not with the Akatsuki. Not
with Juubi, or Obito—

Phantom hands closed on her chest and squeezed so hard she couldn’t breathe, and Sakura
tripped over the icy rush of it. The streets were sparsely populated this late in the day, but the
few other people walking them didn’t even give her a second look as she slowly picked
herself up. Not now. Worry about it later, Sakura. She couldn’t think about Obito now – she
couldn’t think about any of it now, not Obito or his lunatic ambitions or how it would affect
Kakashi or how badly it would hurt Naruto or how if she didn’t find a way to stop it, then
none of it would even matter because they’d be dead and the world would burn—

Eyes scrunched shut, Sakura wound her fingers into her own hair and pulled. It wasn’t a
sharp movement, and she held too much hair at once to actually pluck it, but the strain spread
and turned into dull pain as she pulled harder. A few moments later, she let out her breath as
slowly as she could and let go, putting her hands at her sides and keeping them there.

Not now. The Akatsuki and everything else would wait. Right now, all that mattered was this
mission – the rest meant nothing if she or her team died here.

Sakura spent the rest of her walk lost inside her own head, running through tactics and her
own arsenal and wishing she knew the layout of the building. She’d be able to map it out
once she got there without a problem, of course, but it was just more time that she didn’t have
to spare. Every moment she spent away from Team Seven was a moment that she couldn’t
protect them.

Stop it. Thinking like that would only slow her down. Doing what she was doing right now
was protecting them.

She felt naked without her hitai-ite as she made her way through the village; leaving it behind
was the right decision, to make sure she attracted no attention for being a shinobi, but it still
felt wrong. As awful as it had been, as overwhelming and terrifying as war was, there was
something to be said for the solidarity she’d enjoyed from the Allied Shinobi Forces. It was
something she missed terribly, every time she felt alone.

And she was always alone, a secret in a timeline that didn’t recognise her.

Loose as her hair was without her hitai-ite, it did a good job of covering her face even with
how short she’d cut it – but she was still very conspicuous. Being a child wandering alone
was enough that most people would probably remember her, but having hair the colour of
cherry blossoms meant that she was rarely forgotten. As she got close, Sakura picked a little
abandoned alley and slunk out of sight.
It had been a long time since she’d thought about Chika; years since Kakashi-sensei had
spent months with her, constructing the harmless persona, building her face and her story and
her character. So long ago that it felt like an entire lifetime. In a way, if she let herself be
aggravatingly technical, it was.

But as far away as that quiet winter was, it took only a few moments to picture the face in her
mind. Older than Sakura had ever gotten to be, firmer of jaw and longer of nose than her own
face, the softest of crow’s feet framing the corners of piercing grey eyes. With a shimmer of
chakra, Sakura put her hands together and shook out the henge, feeling her hair grow long
around her shoulders and tumble down her back. Darkness flowed like ink as her hair turned
black, and a moment later Sakura found herself thirty centimetres taller and quite a few
kilograms heavier. Her first step nearly unbalanced her – no amount of mental familiarity
made it easier to adjust to suddenly being in a body so drastically different from her own.

Deep breath. Acclimating to being Chika again (did it count as again if she’d never done it in
this timeline before?) would take a few minutes, and merely being built differently was only
the half of it. While Sakura hadn’t dared to accessorise her fabricated persona with high-
heeled shoes, Chika’s footwear was fully closed and tighter than Sakura’s own. Long sleeves
of soft and flexible but clingy fabric turned her arms lilac, connected to a matching bodice,
and then puffed out into wide ruffles that fell in cascades halfway down her calves.

"Oh— Whoops." Voice deeper and frailer than her own – disconcerting to hear it come out of
her own mouth, even though she remembered designing it.

Considerable time and effort went into flawlessly replicating the form and feel of whatever or
whoever a shinobi chose to henge into. It took intimate knowledge to be completely
indistinguishable from the original; but copying the shape of something was still easier than
constructing a henge from scratch. Many failed attempts and endless refinement of every
little facet of the brand new body being created – but worth every scrap of it, in the end.

Sakura shook herself again, focusing the mental image that served as the basis of Chika's
henge. The dress darkened into mottled dark greys and blues, the fluffy skirt of it getting
slightly less so, shortening to her knees. It couldn't go fully flat without revealing the
weapons hidden on her thigh, but Sakura narrowed it down as far as she dared. Some assassin
she would make if her attempts at stealth were ruined by rogue frills.

Several laps of the alleyway later, Sakura felt confident enough in Chika's body to continue
with her actual objective. As nice as it was to sink into something so familiar, she couldn't let
it distract her. Their lives were in danger.

And besides, if she let herself think about it too much then it only threatened to rip her apart
from the inside. How much she missed her Kakashi-sensei. How badly she wanted to relax
on his couch on a lazy afternoon and tease him.

She'd never again get to indulge in it. Even if she eventually earned the trust and friendship of
this timeline's Hatake heir, it wouldn't be the same. He wasn't the same.

Her Kakashi was gone. He'd been slain in a war that only existed in her mind, and there was
no getting him back. If she dwelt on it, then despair would swallow her whole. How
desperately she wished her Naruto was here, or her Ino, or even her Sasuke, as fucked up and
impossible as her relationship with him had been.

For a moment, guilt chewed through her and eclipsed all else. At least she still had the chance
to heal some of the wounds this Kakashi bore; still got to witness Sasuke live without the
burden of his clan’s blood, still got to find stolen moments of serenity with Ino. She didn’t
even know where Naruto was.

Six months in, and he was lost, and she hadn’t even started trying to find him.

Enough.

Her thoughts had to end here, because she had a task to do instead.

There were eyes on her as she approached Gatō's offices, none particularly well hidden, the
most obvious of which was a man leaning against the front door. He leered at her as she got
close, and under Chika's skin, Sakura felt her own crawl. “Th’ fuck do you want?” Snapped
at her as she came level and halted, while he pushed off the door to stand his full height. A
hard ball of scorn coalesced in her sternum, an anchor to cling onto in the midst of everything
else.

How pathetic it always was, watching grown men peacock as if their bullying was
impressive. Every friend that Sakura had could have killed him blindfolded and handcuffed.
The man was lucky that Sakura wasn’t here for him, and had no craving for public
bloodshed. Instead of ripping his head off, Sakura put an expression of fear onto Chika’s face
and dropped her gaze. “Nothing.”

She hadn’t expected a nicer reception, but it was always worth seeing how they’d respond if
she simply approached the front door. She’d lost track of how many times she’d heard
Kakashi – her Kakashi – complain about missions made harder than they needed to be,
simply because the shinobi completing it didn’t try the front door.

In this case, though, as she slunk away and around the building, her skills at breaking and
entering were going to be required. Well… Less ‘breaking’ and more ‘entering’ if she wanted
to get the job done with any degree of stealth. Actually breaking buildings tended to leave an
impression.

Useful for causing a distracting ruckus, or when she had full backup; much less so when she
was out on her own and her team was halfway to the afterlife already. The back of the
building wasn’t outright guarded, though Sakura rather suspected that Gatō had more
bodyguards wandering his halls. It was a paranoia that everyone in such a position eventually
grew into – admittedly, with good reason. She was, after all, here to kill him.

It didn’t take long, loitering at the back of the building, for the sun to dip below the horizon.
Eyeing the wall, Sakura sent out a chakra pulse to check everyone’s positions around her. Not
entirely reliable, not when she wasn’t at optimal performance and she was trying to locate
civilians. Untrained as their chakra nexuses were, it was possible for some of them to have
signatures so weak as to escape detection.
But she found nothing in her immediate vicinity, so with one more visual sweep around her,
Sakura coated her hands and feet in chakra and began climbing. She crept around the first
window she encountered, keeping flat to the wall as if she was rock-climbing; the less her
silhouette stood out in the fading light, the less attention she’d attract. It didn’t matter
overmuch if she was spotted – the reason for Chika’s henge – but her task would be easier the
longer she went unseen.

The second window caught her interest for a few moments, peeking through the corner of it.
A single guard wandered the hallway beyond it, lined with closed doors with polished
plaques flashing in the yellow electrical lights. Sakura ducked back from the window and
climbed up to the third floor.

It was a safe bet that she would find Gatō’s main office on the top floor. People like him
always liked to be literally on the top. When she reached the relevant window, a good twelve
metres above the ground, she kept to the side and considered her plan of action; though there
were blinds in place to dim it, light shone through in streaks from the room beyond, a bright
yellow that dirtied the black-painted exterior into a muddy brown. Focusing her ears with a
thin spool of chakra, Sakura could hear the swish of clothes and the murmur of two— three
voices within. This was the room she was aiming for, then; she couldn’t remember what
Gatō’s voice sounded like after so many years, but there was a vague sense of recognition
somewhere under her skin as she listened to the people inside speak. Even so, Sakura studied
the window itself and bit her lip. Going in this directly would be suicide unless she made a
big show of it.

Attracting that much attention might offer a different target to her enemies, but despite her
inherited paranoia she didn’t truly expect Zabuza to return quite so soon. They’d made the
whole trip here from their initial encounter undisturbed – if Zabuza hadn’t turned after them
as soon as Haku could no longer hinder the fight, then they probably had a couple of days of
lenience at least.

If not to create a deliberate distraction, then the commotion she’d cause by bursting in
through an obviously policed point was not only dangerous as hell but put her whole team
and Konoha’s reputation at risk. Just because none of the signatures within the building had
shown a chakra presence worth a damn didn’t mean that she was automatically in the clear.
They didn’t need skill to take down an opponent, no matter how strong she was or how much
she outclassed Gatō and his thugs. They only needed one lucky shot. Even the flimsiest
resistance could kill her if she got careless or unlucky.

Not to mention they could be hiding their chakra. The voice in the back of her head wasn’t
quite her own – lower, a sweeter baritone than she was growing ever more used to. It felt like
warm sunlight on her skin and the cool autumn breeze in her hair.

Sakura shoved it away. Doubtful, from what I remember. That was more herself; but even so,
she crept around the building towards a different side, keeping silent, and readied another
thin chakra pulse to fish out any potential lurkers. Gatō himself had never been a particularly
fearsome opponent, and even though his lickspittles were strong enough to violently bully
civilians, Sakura was easily capable of taking out each and every one of them should the
situation demand it.
The problem was that it hadn’t, the first time around; in her previous timeline, Team Seven
had barely encountered Gatō himself, and the most she’d seen of his crew had been when
Zabuza had torn through them all to kill their leader following Haku’s death.

Guilt spasmed through Sakura’s chest at the thought, and she held her breath to arrest it. It
didn’t matter whether she thought Haku deserved death or not – they’d stood against her
team, and her team had eviscerated them. If they lived or not was not her concern – and even
if it was, it was far from her most pressing one. She could think about it later, when she’d
gotten Team Seven through this mission alive. Always, their lives came before all others.

All of which meant that while she considered it a safe gamble, Sakura couldn’t say for
certain that Gatō wasn’t hiding chakra-capable cronies amongst the rabble guarding him and
his headquarters, and so she had to operate as if the possibility was more likely than she
really thought. Better to take a little longer and eliminate the chance of ambush than to bank
on her own superiority and let arrogance slit her throat.

Two more rejected windows later, and Sakura finally found a dark one. A brief examination
revealed a paltry locking mechanism on the inside of it; she wouldn’t even need the carefully
honed lockpicking skills she’d nagged Kakashi-sensei into teaching her, one of the many (too
few) lazy summer afternoons they’d shared following her promotion to chūnin. One senbon
slipped easily into the narrow gap, and she slid it across the windowsill until the lock flipped
open with a soft clatter. As Sakura put the senbon back in the small pocket of her kunai
holster – silently cursing the folds of fabric that hung around her legs to conceal it – she
evaluated her point of entry.

She was going to have to let go of her henge if she wanted to fit through without anything
catching. Chika was fit enough to allow Sakura an inconspicuous level of activity as needed,
but she was no shinobi and her body had been built to reflect that. Voluptuous curves served
well when trying to gain the trust of strangers, but they were less suited to stealth – and no
matter how carefully Sakura familiarised herself with Chika’s shape, she was simply not
experienced with sneaking around as her alter ego.

A slow breath and a puff of smoke as the chakra layers maintaining her transformation
vapourised, and Sakura was in her own skin again, the red of her clothes brighter in the
halflight than those she’d given Chika. It took another breath, cold and rattling under her ribs,
to adjust back. Too long had passed since she’d last had need of Chika; the past half-year
notwithstanding, it had been months of war and battle preparation as the Akatsuki and Juubi
had loomed before them. Almost more disorienting to pop back into her proper form, than it
had been to take up Chika’s in the first place. Her ears rang softly as she thickened the chakra
that kept her stuck to the vertical surface and shook herself.

Only as she pulled the window open and slipped through it did she manage to put coherent
thought to the strange sensation of dropping her henge. Some part of her still expected to pop
back into the body she’d left behind. At twelve, she was shorter and lankier than she had
been at eighteen, and no matter how much strength training Kakashi put her through, she just
didn’t have the same muscle definition she was used to. It wasn’t really possible until her
body aged a bit more.
Sakura bottled the thought with an annoyed frown as she dropped to her feet in the dark
room, letting her knees bend to absorb what little impact she made and staying in the low
crouch she ended up in. Chakra application could sharpen an average shinobi’s night vision,
but she was no Hyuuga; if pushed too far, the chakra in her eyes would blow the chakra
vessels and probably blind her before it would improve her night vision beyond less fuzzy
monochrome. Still, less fuzzy was all she really needed, no matter whether she could
perceive colour in such low light.

The room she’d ended up in seemed like storage. Narrow and surprisingly long in its own
right, the outer wall was lined with filing cabinets that stood taller than she did, and carried
identical labels. She could make out the faint shadow of them against the darker metal they
hung on, but even as she straightened up and squinted, she couldn’t read them. No matter.
Sakura wasn’t interested in Gatō’s paperwork – no doubt a good portion of it was blackmail,
anyway.

Something tripped in the back of her head, and she hesitated in her careful steps, one foot
hovering just off the floor. Maybe she should be interested in the blackmail. It never hurt to
have an advantage, and though most of it was likely worthless to her – Konoha had no need
for blackmail to exert power over such a small and disenfranchised nation as the Land of
Waves – there was always the chance that something held value.

If Gatō had enticed Zabuza’s employment with something more than coin, for example, then
he very well could have dirt on other people who actually mattered.

Sakura frowned at herself, setting her foot back on the floor, and studied the cabinets. That
was unfair of her, marking all the oppressed civilians around her as unimportant. Just because
they didn’t participate in the end of the world – or the attempt to prevent it – didn’t make
their lives meaningless. Their lives were the whole reason the Allied Shinobi Forces had
fought so bitterly in the first place. She didn’t get to write them off just because they weren’t
part of her social circle. Or her not-so-social circle.

The mental voice that told her so sounded suspiciously like Naruto.

Focus, Sakura. She could have a moral crisis later. Right now what mattered was eliminating
Zabuza’s reasons for attacking Tazuna, and consequently her team.

There was a safe at the far end of the room, noted as she made her way to the door, but
Sakura ignored it. Who knew what was inside it, but whether it was gold or jewels or
information, it didn’t matter. She could always break into it on her way out if her curiosity
demanded. Instead she slunk right up to the door, turned her head, and pressed her ear against
it. Thin yellow light spilled in from under the door, so the other side was certainly lit, but
Sakura couldn’t be sure what kind of space it was. Her gut instinct said that it was probably a
hallway, but it could just as easily be something else.

Another thin pulse of chakra didn’t bounce back anyone in her immediate vicinity, and all
paranoia aside she couldn’t sit here and dither, so Sakura pressed the fingers of her free hand
against the seam between door and frame and then turned the handle. Slight pressure against
the edge countered her own attempt to pull it open, and ever so slowly the door inched open
without a sound. Only a sliver, barely a crack, but enough for Sakura to peer through. There
was no one directly on the other side, so she edged the door open a centimetre more and
looked further.

It was a hallway as she’d expected, ugly yellow lights hanging from the ceiling in regular
intervals, functionally identical to the hall she’d noted on the floor below down to the shiny
plaques that labelled each room, bar that there were fewer of them than she’d counted
downstairs.

To her right, facing the other wall and slouching against the door he guarded, one man in
undyed leathers stood sentry; what little Sakura could see of his face suggested boredom, but
she was still lucky that the door she had opened was on the same side as him. If she’d been
opposite him, there was almost no chance he’d have failed to notice the movement. Well—
granted the assumption of basic competency, and Sakura rather doubted that Gatō’s men
deserved such an assumption, but she had to make it for the sake of her own safety.

Still, he would notice her when she stepped out, so Sakura leaned back slightly and
considered her approach. Not worth closing the door the fraction she’d opened it when she
was simply going to open it again.

She’d have to be fast, once she revealed herself to the stationary guard. Presumably, the door
he stood before led to Gatō’s personal office – the position lined up with the room she’d
initially clocked as her target, if her spatial memory was serving accurately. If she was slow
or she made too much noise, then her attack would alert the people inside it, and it would
become a messy fracas no matter what she did. She had to be fast, but she had to be as quiet
as possible, and then she had to choose whether to hide the guard or whether to take what
advantages she could get and surprise her marks by bursting in then and there. It was a
decision she couldn’t make for certain right now, before she’d even taken out the guard
himself – it would be a split-second evaluation of the moment, based on how quietly she
could neutralise him, on whether she thought she had the time to hide him first and
recalculate her plan of attack for the office itself.

Could she afford to wait for the other people with Gatō (whom she presumed to be Gatō) to
leave, or was the risk of losing her opportunity too great? No matter her skill or power, she
was only one person; her disadvantage at being outnumbered meant she had to exercise every
edge she could. The men weren’t stronger than her and they probably weren’t faster than her,
but their reach was bigger and they were armed, and underestimating them could very well be
her undoing. If Kakashi had taught her nothing else – and he’d taught her countless things – it
was not to underestimate her foes. There was no shame in respecting even the weakest of
battles, and arrogance was the swiftest and deadliest killer of them all.

Sakura eyed the sword that hung at the guard’s hip. Kakashi-sensei’s words wound through
her thoughts, as they never failed to do. A weapon you don’t know how to use is your enemy’s
weapon.

Did they know how to use their swords well? Sakura was no master of kenjutsu, but she
could hold her own with a blade. Was it enough to beat Gatō’s men in a sword fight, if it
came down to it?

Better not to have to find out.

Curling her fingers around a kunai and deciding not to ask herself when she’d drawn it,
Sakura peeked out to check the guard’s position again. Getting to him quickly wasn’t in itself
a challenge – Sakura might be six months out of practice and wielding an untrained body, but
she could body flicker as reliably as any jōnin – but she had to be precise and she had to
strike true. Her best chance for silence was to mangle the man’s ability to make noise as fast
as possible, which meant that striking for the throat was her only good option.

For a moment, she let the plan play out in her mind. Open the door, shunshin in front of him,
stab the kunai into his throat, and catch him so he didn’t hit the floor. Chakra hummed under
her skin in anticipation of it, echoes of movement that she hadn’t yet made vibrating with her
heartbeat.

It was always so different, coming into combat from a position of premeditation. More so
than the difference between real combat and practice – knowing what was about to happen,
planning it, causing the violence rather than simply reacting to it— The adrenaline flooded
her differently when she was attacking instead of defending, a rush that thundered in her ears
and took her breath away but had nowhere to go, not yet, because she was still waiting to
strike.

Should she feel bad for being the aggressor rather than the protector? It wasn’t as if she
hadn’t killed her share of people, but her place in Konoha had been one of healing. Sakura
first and foremost acted to keep her team safe, and to save them when that failed.

Maybe she should feel guilt, plotting out murder in cold-blooded clarity. Maybe it should
disturb her the way she knew it would have disturbed Naruto, the way it disturbed this
timeline’s native Sasuke.

She peered through the open door at the man she was about to kill, and wondered if she
should feel hesitation, but the raw truth of it was that she didn’t. The grip of her kunai was
warm in her palm, the fabric heated by her touch. A steadying breath, focusing on her target,
letting the adrenaline sing, and Sakura moved. Chakra sparked as she opened the door fully
and stepped out, carrying her to the guard before he could finish drawing a startled gasp; she
overshot by a step, the technique new to her adolescent body, lighter than she was used to
working with, but it wasn’t enough to spare the man her blade.

Black metal sank cleanly into the delicate folds of his throat, piercing the cartilage of his
trachea and tearing apart his voicebox. Further, angled up, and there was no way that
Sakura’s kunai would reach his brain but it punched back into his cervical vertebrae and
crunched bone. The vibration went up Sakura’s fingers, stinging in her wrist, and she let go
of her weapon entirely.

Blood seeped out around the wound, and a moment later more bubbled from the man’s lips
on a pathetic gurgle. His hands lifted, grasping futilely at the knife, but his knees were
already buckling as shock swept through him. He gaped at her as she caught his descent,
mouth opening and closing in pointless gasps and frothing blood, his arms failing and
dropping to his sides. Wide-eyed, like he couldn’t believe that he was suddenly dying. He
probably couldn’t, Sakura noted distantly, a detached fragment of thought. His eyes were
light brown. Almost amber.
He was unconscious by the time Sakura set him down in the room full of filing cabinets,
oxygen starved as his lungs filled with blood and his attempts at breathing were ruined by her
kunai and the damage it had done. When she pulled it from his neck, the pulses of blood that
came after it were already weak. He’d be dead in minutes.

For a moment, just a second, Sakura stared at him. She should remember his face – should
remember the people she killed, recognise the lives she ended. Keep count, at the very least.
Three, then.

Three. Do the people I killed in the other timeline count? Or only in this one?

The question made the whole thing seem kind of moot. Even if the war hadn’t happened, that
Sakura had counted those patients she failed to save as marks on her tallied kills, and she’d
lost count. Being the one inflicting the mortal blows, rather than simply being unable to fix
them, didn’t feel all that different. It was a sense of obligation that made her study the man at
her feet, something that felt more like a rule she’d almost forgotten than anything ethical. She
was supposed to remember those she killed – because Naruto would remember. Because not
caring resulted in Sasuke. Because Kakashi had told them, so many times, that the lethal
option was not their first resort. Because Tsunade-sensei had taught her to save lives, not end
them.

But staring at him, Sakura couldn’t find it in herself to care. He wasn’t some innocent child,
he wasn’t defenceless, he wasn’t a random victim. She’d caused his death with reasoned
calculation, and the value of his life simply didn’t measure up to what she’d had to weigh it
against.

She could have taken him out non-lethally. It struck her like the peal of a bell, offhand and
casual. There were plenty of ways she could have simply neutralised him. Noisy. They take
too long. Without the Hyuuga Kekkei Genkai there was no way to finesse an attack of raw
chakra, but she could have even just grabbed him and shoved chakra into him. Still too noisy.
Besides which, that would probably kill him too, just slower. But she could have. She hadn’t
needed to kill him.

The observation was quiet, and still sounded like Naruto. Sakura clenched her jaw. Maybe
she’d feel it later, when this was over, when they weren’t in such peril. For now, maybe the
only thing she’d remember was the colour of his eyes.

Maybe that would have to be enough.

With the guard hidden and out of the way, Sakura turned her attention to the room itself.
Barging straight in through the door was no better than coming in through the window would
have been, and Sakura discarded the idea. Ears pricked for footsteps, she sidled back into the
hall and approached the door, listening for the voices. If she could get an idea of what they
were talking about, she might be able to get a feel for when Gatō’s guests might leave. The
thought of waiting made her skin crawl, but she’d left a shadow clone behind with her team
and until it went off she had the time to spare. Rushing wouldn’t help anyone.

There was blood on her fingers as she lifted them to the plaque screwed to the wall by this
door, but she touched them to the metal anyway. Gatō’s Office engraved in curling script
confirmed that she’d picked the right room; a weight she hadn’t realised she’d been carrying
melted away, and Sakura allowed herself a single moment to close her eyes and sigh in relief.
At least she didn’t have to go hunting for him further.

Glancing around, Sakura kept one ear on the conversation happening inside the office and
contemplated her surroundings. If she was going to wait for the collateral to leave, then she
was going to have to hide when they did, or she’d ruin the whole point of waiting in the first
place. There was always the option of hiding in the storage room again, but it meant she
couldn’t keep eyes on them safely, and she had to be wary of the possibility that Gatō would
leave with them.

Her eyes found the floor, and she scowled. Waiting might not even be a viable option, her
gaze following the streaks of blood that led from here to the storage room door. Genin
mistake. She couldn’t expect that nobody would notice the evidence of her kill, and she
doubted she had the time to clean it up, let alone the proper tools to do so. If she was willing
to burn chakra, perhaps a quick suiton would do the tri—

For a second, her senses switched off. A burst of memory hit her, the vague numbing
aftertaste of chakra on her tongue as she recognised the delivery of her shadow clone’s
experience. As always, the first input was sensory, flashing by between heartbeats.

The smell of scorched air and pervasive ocean brine. A scream like claws down the inside of
her skull, her name lingering in its echo. Sasuke, on all fours under a broken sword, and
Hinata blinking desperate tears from white eyes where she was held by the throat, half a
metre off the ground. The sound of grim laughter.

Emotion came second, a blast of terror like she’d been bodychecked by Gai, and then it
resolved. Her own senses coalesced, and Sakura found herself staring at Gatō’s door, shaking,
vision blurred.

The sense of calm she’d indulged in evaporated, the facade of control shattered. She’d been
wrong. Zabuza was back, he’d come to finish his assassination and wipe them out for trying
to prevent it, and Sakura had banked on the fact that Zabuza wouldn’t pick such a strange
timeframe between retreat and return and she’d been wrong.

Choice was a concept out of her grasp as Sakura kicked down the door and blew into the
office like a storm. Her plans didn’t matter, her stealth didn’t matter, her safety didn’t matter.
Mercy was something she could ponder another day.

Her team was defenceless against Zabuza, and it was her fault for leaving them that way.
Nothing else mattered.

Kunai flew across the room, and the rumble of running footsteps came quickly after the
shouts went up around her, but Sakura was numb to it. She could barely see through the
flickering memory in her head, Hinata on the verge of asphyxiation, Sasuke bleeding on the
ground.

She couldn’t be sure if Gatō cursed her or asked her for mercy. The whole room was a blur,
blood on all sides, and it spurted again as her blade bit into Gatō’s neck. Tendons parted,
 muscle spasmed, metal scraped against bone and Sakura tweaked the angle, caught the edge
between two vertebrae, and shoved with all the chakra-infused strength she could.

The sword cut through Gatō’s spine and sheared off his head with all the resistance of
melting snow, and Sakura stumbled as it came free. When had she taken a sword? It had to
belong to one of the other two guards who’d been in here with him.

Who cares?

That she had a sword meant nothing. That Gatō’s hair between her fingers felt like a thousand
tiny needles didn’t matter.

Zabuza was attacking her team.

She’d been wrong.

I left them.

The window shattered under her heel, and Sakura ignored the shards catching in her skin and
clothes as she scrambled out of it, disregarded her dwindling chakra and broke into an
unbroken string of sprinting body flickers back towards Tazuna’s house. Zabuza was a
merciless foe and felt no remorse for the lives he took, but he wasn’t a monster. If he had no
reason to attack Tazuna, he wouldn’t – if Team Seven weren’t standing in between Zabuza
and his goals, they’d be safe from him. The only reason Zabuza had to kill the bridge builder
was that Gatō had paid him to do it.

So, stolen sword in one hand and Gatō’s head in the other, Sakura fled blindly back towards
her team.

Chapter End Notes

Stuff and Things and Stuff:

|| Welp, this is like a month late. Oops. I don't really have an excuse but fuck, I guess.
|| For how easily Sakura is killing; please remember that the first timeline that she's
coming from ended in a long and brutal war that her side lost and she has in fact
watched almost everyone she loves die. She's a bit less concerned about the morality of
it this time around.
|| Okay I'm going to give myself another deadline for the next chapter and try to keep it.
No promises, we'll see what happens, but hopefully it'll be of some actual value this
time.

Next Chapter Due: 6th November 2020

 Bargains Are Best Made With a Blade in Hand
Chapter Summary

Everyone runs out of luck - and chakra - eventually.

Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

He thought it was another nightmare, at first.

Hoped, more like.

It felt like one, watching the fog that rolled in without warning, the dread that burned through
the bottom of his stomach like an ember, the hollow sensation caught somewhere between
despair and resignation. Overwhelming and unnerving, the dizzying rush of clarity that swept
through him when he blinked on his Sharingan, the way the fog lit up with chakra. His voice
sounded like someone else’s as he shouted for his teammates, their pounding footsteps like
distant echoes as they hurtled out to meet him.

All his senses crashed back into painful reality as a sword cleaved out of the unnatural mist,
barely catching him across the back and knocking him to his knees. The cry it tore out of him
was muted, and matched by Sakura’s gasp and Hinata’s hiss; before he could raise his voice
against it, Hinata had bolted forward. With such speed that it was almost contemptuous, her
attempt to engage their enemy was rewarded with a hand around her throat and her feet
leaving the ground.

She kicked, fruitlessly, just the same impotent resistance that Sasuke had offered in her place.
Almost automatically, Sasuke looked back towards their last teammate. Zabuza only had two
hands, after all.

Sakura met his gaze, eyes glittering with panic, and then she vanished in a puff of smoke and
chakra.

Terror, for a moment, a raw and searing wave that erupted from his chest outwards under his
skin, as if he were being flayed. And then anger, a second later; pale frothing rage that swept
clean through the fear, and left behind an icy emptiness.

A clone.

Sakura had left them.

She’d left them, and they were all that stood between Zabuza and his target – and worse,
Kakashi.
It hadn’t been long enough to fully restore him, but Sasuke felt a hundred times better today
than he had right after the fight yesterday, so he drew chakra into his limbs and threw himself
forward. He could still feel the pain in his back, a wet heat that soaked through his shirt and
inevitably stained red the white fan of the Uchiha crest stitched into it. Twinges spasmed
through him as he collided with Zabuza’s legs, staying low to the ground to keep from
clipping against the blade again where it hung over him.

With one hand on the sword’s hilt and Hinata suspended in the other, the Kiri-nin couldn’t
stop Sasuke from hitting him. Sasuke’s weight alone would have never been enough to
destabilise their enemy, but chakra burned through his legs and burst from his feet as he
impacted, and as he continued to push he felt Zabuza’s stance slide.

A series of thuds heralded that Hinata had been dropped, followed by the raw sound of
desperately gasped air, but Sasuke tried to ignore it and didn’t let up. Muscles flexed against
his grip, and a sense of motion sparked through intangible senses that Sasuke couldn’t name;
details leapt out from everywhere in lines of white fire, and he knew without quite
understanding how that Zabuza was going to turn just so and sink the blade through his side.

Premonition hit him, so violently that it felt physical, and Sasuke saw with absolute certainty
that the sword held enough power to sunder him entirely.

Twisting, feeling his chakra dip as he forced another surge through his legs and out the
tenketsu in his heels, Sasuke grabbed a handful of Zabuza’s shirt to serve as an anchor point
and spun around him. For a fleeting moment they were back to back, and Sasuke took in the
expanse of fog above them, glowing brilliant blue with infused chakra.

In the next second, Sasuke landed on his feet on Zabuza’s other side. Without the resistance
of his body, the sword carved the air; where she’d tumbled to the ground, Hinata fought
frantically for breath. No time for her to react. Panic and relief flashed through Sasuke in
equal measure as the slanted end clipped her shoulder. Blood splattered and Hinata let out a
shrill cry of pain – but if Kakashi-sensei hadn’t sundered the blade in their first fight, she’d
be dead instead of wounded.

“He’s alone,” forced through Hinata’s teeth as she scrambled back from their attacker; a
glance confirmed the glow of concentrated chakra in her eyes and temples, Byakugan active.

Alright. There was no real plan – no chance to properly strategise or analyse – but Sasuke
trusted Hinata’s call. At least they didn’t have to worry about anyone else slipping past them
in the fight; Sasuke was sure that if they had to split their focus off Zabuza to protect
Kakashi-sensei, they’d all simply perish.

Hinata was getting to her feet, her now doubly wounded arm tucked tight against her chest,
dripping fresh blood, eyes narrow and teeth clenched. As dangerous as it was to her
continued future use of it, Sasuke was almost glad that Zabuza had hit the arm already
injured from their last fight. It meant that she still had the immediate use of her other one.
And they’d need every scrap of it to stand even the shadow of a chance.

As he danced a few steps away and Hinata turned slightly to the side, presenting her good
hand palm-first, fingers held gently straight in the Jūken pose Sasuke had grown so familiar
with, Zabuza started to laugh. Low at first, scornful and cutting, and then louder, bouncing
back from the chakra-filled fog on all sides. Despite himself, Sasuke felt the tension wither
into fear, a heavy ache that was almost fatigue, dragging him down.

Zabuza had taken out Kakashi-sensei. What chance did they have against him?

The unsettling premonition struck again, a conviction that rolled through his mind like a
visual echo. Chakra blew out from his feet and Sasuke sprang back blindly into the artificial
mist, watching the end of the sword pass through the space where he’d just been. He had only
a moment to contemplate that before his feet touched the ground— no, something cold and
wet— and all of Sasuke’s senses were eclipsed as he fell into the water and fully submerged.

Fuck, fuck.

He hadn’t realised he’d moved so far out from the house; even for as close to the
embankment as Tazuna and his family lived, it had felt like less distance to cross than he
remembered. Maybe it was the fog, seeping into his thoughts, screwing up his vision. Even
with the Sharingan he couldn’t see further than his own arm’s length.

Clambering onto the surface of the inlet wasn’t an entirely simple task, sheathing his hands
and feet in chakra to repel against the water tension and hold him afloat – but it was, at least,
a familiar one. A solid week of practice at chakra-walking followed by being chased across
the river at every opportunity meant that muscle memory kicked in as Sasuke hauled himself
to his feet. He couldn’t see Zabuza through the fog, even though he couldn’t have jumped
back more than a few metres, but the sound of his laughter cut chills into Sasuke’s chest all
the same.

Sasuke carded a hand through his hair, trying to slick it back out of his face. It shook. Keep it
together. Hinata was still on Zabuza’s other side, and wounded at that. As capable as he knew
her to be, right now they were outclassed and every disadvantage mattered. “Hinata?!”
Shouted into the mist. Sasuke was really starting to loathe it – if it didn’t put himself and
Hinata at the most risk, he’d consider trying to set the chakra forming it alight.

“I’m fine!” came back through the haze, and it brought with it a flash of relief but Sasuke
knew better than to relax. Who knew if Zabuza could see through the white murk but Sasuke
sure as shit couldn’t, even with the Sharingan. He was practically a sitting d— “Go left!”

The movement was automatic, meaning registering before the words themselves did, and
Sasuke threw himself to the left. It was a messy dodge, chakra splashing from his palms as he
scrambled against the shifting water, but the glint of Zabuza’s sword passed through the
surface and his shape became a shadow in the mist. Close enough to track, just barely; there
was a faint gleam to the silhouette, more condensed chakra than what floated through
Zabuza’s fog.

Close enough to track, but even as Zabuza came closer Sasuke couldn’t pick out where the
sword was, couldn’t see where he was going to attack until it was—

“Sasuke, jump!”
Sasuke jumped. She can see through it. Which made sense, of course, that Hinata wasn’t
hindered by the blinding fog, even if it was a little aggravating. What good was having the
damn Sharingan if it was so easily defeated?

And still, midair, when Hinata shouted “Grab his arm!” Sasuke didn’t hesitate. He couldn’t
waste too much more chakra, but a short expulsion was enough to make contact and he dug
his fingers in. Zabuza snarled as Sasuke clung on, lifting his free arm and the sword held in
his hand – a moment later there was the muffled sound of flesh striking flesh. Behind their
enemy, Sasuke could make out a small shadow, brimming with chakra.

There was a splash, and another angry snarl in Sasuke’s ear. The broken sword sank into the
water, Zabuza’s left arm hanging uselessly at his side. Hinata had struck him in the shoulder
and sealed the tenketsu within.

Before Sasuke could even process the brief rush of triumph he felt fingers closing around his
ankle, squeezing tight enough to feel it grind, and abject terror took its place. For a flash, he
could feel the choking grip around his throat again, the ache of black bruises that throbbed as
he swallowed. Hinata, hit him again! But he couldn’t find the air to verbalise the thought,
and a second later he watched the world spin around him, white fog and the faintest flickers
of water.

Pain broke out along his shoulder and side as Zabuza flung him, his body connecting
violently with Hinata’s, and he lost sight of the Kiri-nin in the mist. Hinata whimpered as
they flew back towards the shore; shock or pain, or both. Sasuke couldn’t quite tell.

It was undeniably pain as they hit the ground together, rolling over one another as they
skidded. He heard her let out a moan over the sound of his own, but his thoughts came to a
static standstill as – louder than either of them – he heard something crack.

The fog was starting to thin as Sasuke untangled his limbs from his teammate’s, dissolving at
what had to be Zabuza’s command. It must blind him as well. Enough practice, and being
good at detecting chakra, and he probably didn’t even need to see to defeat opponents who
were equally as blind. With Hinata’s Byakugan and direction, Zabuza lost that advantage. It
only made sense that he’d let it disperse now.

But it meant that whatever advantage they’d had, they’d lost it.

Hinata let out a strangled cry as Sasuke disentangled them, and despite himself Sasuke took
his eyes off Zabuza. Laid out in a sideways mess on the ground, Hinata had her eyes
scrunched shut, the chakra veins that fed her Byakugan smooth and invisible once more.
Teeth clenched, she quieted into roughly panted whimpers, and a twitch of movement – as if
to curl into foetal position – was quickly aborted while she bit down on a louder sound.

Her already-injured arm was underneath her body, where she lay half on her side and half on
her front, head turned sideways and tucked down to her chest. One leg rested on the other,
and while it seemed to be fine, half bent so her foot came part way towards her butt, the leg
underneath was wrong, somehow. The details jumped out as he scoured his Sharingan over
her, catching the bubble of blood at her lips, the tremble in her shoulders, the odd angle of the
leg underneath and the way she was trying to lift her weight off it without getting up.
Sasuke didn’t have enough knowledge about medicine or anatomy to know exactly what was
wrong, but the sum of it was obvious to anyone: Hinata was badly hurt.

After the precious seconds it took for Sasuke to document her state and come to that
conclusion, there came a moment of panicked wondering, trying to decide what to do and
how to protect her. He was already rising to his feet, body aching where they’d collided – but
Hinata had taken the brunt of the impact, had landed between Sasuke and the ground.
Bodywide aches were better than broken bones or internal injuries. If Sasuke was any judge,
Hinata probably had both.

It was too long to spend unfocused on the fight.

Hinata’s eyes came open, shimmering with tears, just as Sasuke heard Zabuza’s approach and
turned to face him. Muscles contracted and Sasuke felt himself moving before he could offer
any conscious input, but he couldn’t dodge across Hinata without risk, and even as his arms
came up to shield his face, Zabuza made contact in a furious roundhouse. Taking the hit
against both forearms spared his skull, but the force knocked Sasuke clean into the air again.
One heel clipped Hinata somewhere as he flew over her, dragging a squeal of pain from her,
and then all sound was eclipsed by the thunderous rumble of yet again tumbling along the
dirt. Something caught against his right arm, locked in position to protect his head, and
Sasuke growled as the skin tore.

Ears ringing, dizziness making the world spin, an irregular shudder pulsing through his body,
Sasuke pushed himself up to his hands and knees and looked for Zabuza’s inevitable
followup. Too slow, too slow, and still Zabuza let him lift his gaze from grey shoes, up the
attached leg warmers and past his waistline, trying to process the flickering red and white
edges that outlined everything.

Halfway through gasping in a breath, Zabuza closed heavy fingers around Sasuke’s neck and
dragged him up from the ground. Panic sheared through the pain, his heart a tangible
drumbeat inside his own chest, and even as the reflex to scrabble at Zabuza’s hand kicked in,
he felt his Sharingan blink off. The grey fabric of Zabuza’s matching arm warmers was even
duller in the aftermath – or was that the oxygen deprivation?

No— Fight! He couldn’t give up like this, couldn’t leave Hinata where she lay defeated,
couldn’t leave Kakashi-sensei vulnerable inside Tazuna’s house.

Tsunami was in there. Inari was in there. A civilian kid, barely eight years old; they were
probably watching the fight, praying. They probably knew their survival depended on Sasuke
and Hinata – which meant that, just like Inari had predicted, they probably knew that they
were doomed.

Anger burned underneath the terror, a dim and distant flame, but enough to catch on the
adrenaline cascading through him and ignite. Gritting his teeth as he fought for air, Sasuke
fixed his gaze on Zabuza’s face and sought after the feeling he remembered from their first
fight. Cold hatred stared back at him.

From beyond the Kiri-nin, her voice jagged and wet, Hinata called. “Don’t—! Sas…uke…”
For a moment, like a burst of red static in reverse, Sasuke lit up his Sharingan again, and the
sensation flowed down to his hands even as it guttered and died. The world behind their
enemy was starting to darken, Zabuza’s focus on cutting the bloodflow to and from his brain
rather than the much slower method of asphyxiating him – it didn’t matter. Without the
wherewithal to worry about it anymore, Sasuke let the unfamiliar series of seals run through
his hands.

Dark brown eyes dropped from Sasuke’s face, narrowed at what they found, and then
widened as chakra jolted to life in Sasuke’s palm. Pale blue light shone outwards as the sound
of screaming sparrows overwhelmed all thought, and a fraction of a second later Sasuke
spasmed as electricity ripped up his arm. Everything went white. He couldn’t hear the choked
cry but he felt it swell and burst in his chest, aborted by Zabuza’s grasp.

He meant to attack, even if the memory of Haku’s body around his hand made him want to
peel his own skin off like a glove, meant to drive the lightning into Zabuza’s elbow and ruin
his other arm too – but instead the backlash made his heart stutter and it didn’t matter that he
struggled against the sudden movement or found he could suddenly gulp in a frantic breath,
because the world was rotating wildly around him. Cutting chakra to the jutsu didn’t stop the
convulsive aftershocks or the flare of nausea.

Sasuke managed to open his eyes, all his senses aflame, and for a split second, it all seemed
to freeze like a snapshot.

He was sailing through the air, heading for the water again, fighting for breath as if he’d run a
thousand laps. Some small part of his mind urged him to move – flail, brace, anything.
Another part, even smaller and twice as quiet, whispered that he was going to drown.
Something pealed out around them, low and snarled and loud, and for a fleeting moment
Sasuke thought it sounded like his name.

I’m sorry.

Limp as a corpse, Sasuke hit the water and sank into darkness.

Sakura heard the shouting first. It was still distant, barely pricking against the chakra woven
into her ears as she ran, each footstep a death knell thudding beneath her ribs. Less distant
was the swell of thick fog that hung over her destination like a shroud, the surest sign that
Zabuza was in the midst of attacking. Each breath was like claws tearing from her throat, but
Sakura ducked her head and pushed harder.

In the scant minutes it took for her to cross the town, the cloud weakened and dissolved;
perhaps if she’d been her native self, that would have reassured her. Instead, as it faded into
the night, Sakura saw her vision blur with fear, a frantic heartbeat crashing in her ears and
engulfing all other sound save for the shattering gasps of her own lungs.

Her hands were numb by the time she reached Tsunami’s house, leaping onto the roof with a
chakra-assisted jump and scrambling over to the other side.

“Sasuke!!”
The voice overrode everything else and Sakura stumbled. Barely caught herself, stabbing the
end of her sword into the slats, both hands occupied. Kakashi-sensei. He shouldn’t be up yet,
let alone exerting himself, and least of all getting into a fight. Then it registered what he’d
shouted, and she lifted her head to search the battlefield, blinking through stinging liquid.
Was it tears or sweat? She wasn’t sure – it didn’t matter.

Hinata was a sorry pile on the ground, half twisted around herself and watching the scene
unfold with a painful squint, her hair an inky puddle around her shoulders where it had come
loose. Across from her stood Zabuza, his left arm at his side with the telltale wet noodling of
a successful Jūken strike, face turned towards the house. Sasuke was nowhere in sight.

Even as she watched, Kakashi shot out into view with a kunai in hand; it only took the
smallest glimpse for Sakura to realise he must have just awoken, dragged back to
consciousness by the sounds of combat outside. His hair was an unruly mess, sticking out in a
silver halo, and he was wearing neither shoes nor flak jacket, his kunai holster and hitai-ite
both missing; presumably still laid neatly at the foot of Kakashi’s futon where Sakura had put
them. His gloves remained, reaching up to his elbows with their protective plates, but the
bandage wrap hiding his slashed Anbu tattoo was exposed.

As Sakura drew breath for a shout of her own, the two elites below met. Zabuza caught
Kakashi’s attack with his one good hand, letting the kunai punch through his palm and
emerge from the back. Internally the clinical part of Sakura flinched, able to imagine all too
easily the bones crunching from the impact. That hand flexed and then curled around
Kakashi’s, and even wounded that badly Sakura knew that Zabuza’s trapping grip was not a
trifling thing.

“STOP!!!”

Silence flooded the wake of Sakura’s cry, and she felt the weight of three pairs of eyes turn
towards her simultaneously. Only now, with a moment to catch her screaming thoughts, did
Sakura realise the picture she must paint: her body streaked in blood and her hair matted with
it, an unfamiliar sword in one hand and a severed head in her other, absent her Konoha hitai-
ite.

The ice that slid gently down her spine had nothing to do with winter.

Doing her best to ignore it, Sakura dropped from the roof with a light touch of chakra to
steady her landing, and then ran to Kakashi’s side. Zabuza must have recognised the face that
she carried, because he let out a low snarl and squeezed Kakashi’s hand harder before
releasing, yanking his hand back and ripping out the kunai.

Kakashi and Hinata were deadly silent, but Zabuza held his hand up to his chest to slow the
bleeding and grumbled. Too low to catch the words, but Sakura recognised the gleaming
threat in his eyes.

With the panic bubbling underneath like fuel, loathing suddenly boiled up in Sakura’s chest,
and she bared her teeth in a snarl of her own, shoving Gatō’s head into Zabuza’s sternum with
all the mundane strength she could muster. He didn’t stumble, but he let out a soft sound and
gripped the hair. “Your benefactor is dead,” Sakura hissed at him, “so you have no reason to
hunt us. You won’t get paid for it.” Her own voice tasted like the bitterest of teas. Violence
welled in Zabuza’s expression as he carelessly tossed the head aside, and Sakura whipped her
blade up to his groin, the edge only a few centimetres away from cutting into his femoral
artery. “Go plunder his offices if you want money.” As much of the ice under her skin went
into her voice as she could cram in, and with a twist of chakra she opened the mental seal on
her killing intent.

Behind her, Hinata let out a soft sound of distress, half-delirious, and what was visible of
Kakashi’s face paled. Not fear, not of her, but the same aloof voice in the back of her head
took note of it anyway, that she’d let enough of it show to alarm him.

Zabuza met her gaze, weighing her up, and then let out an annoyed snort – the bandages
concealing the lower half of his face twitched with a resentful grin. A moment later he
stepped back from them, his stance relaxing, and let out a humourless laugh. “I’ll give you
this, Copy-nin,” he rumbled, turning to walk towards the water. “These genin of yours have
balls of steel.” Paused just a moment at the edge, tossed a glance back over his shoulder.
“They shoulda been born in Kiri.”

He dove into the water – Sakura couldn’t fathom why, nor did she care – and a sideways
glance as she screwed the lid back on her killing aura revealed that Kakashi’s face was
murderously dark.

As much as it stung, the idea that she might no longer embody Konoha’s ideals, it had to
wait. “Where’s Sasuke?” she asked, turning the sword point-down and stabbing it into the
dirt. She couldn’t see him, but she knew he had to be hurt.

There was no reply forthcoming; instead, Kakashi took a running start into the water after
Zabuza.

Gaping after him – He wants to fight Zabuza?? Now?? – it took Sakura a few moments to
think to go after him. It couldn’t be that he was chasing an underwater battle, not as
harrowingly low on chakra as she knew he was, not against such a powerful Kiri shinobi, so
if she held that Kakashi’s mind was still in working order then it had to be—

Zabuza’s sword came up first, leaping out of the water in a glittering arc of reflected
moonlight, and landing barely a metre to Sakura’s left, sticking bladefirst in the earth. A
moment later came its swordsman, using his good arm (for a given value of ‘good’) to haul
himself out of the water. He flashed Sakura a grin that read easily through the makeshift
mask, and yanked the sword from the dirt on his way past. Hands clenching as she controlled
the impulse to punch him straight into the next war, Sakura watched him go, tracking him
until he was out of sight. Even when the sound of Kakashi breaching the surface splashed out
behind her, she kept eyes on Zabuza rounding the corner of Tsunami’s house.

It felt too easy, that he was suddenly not a threat. He’d almost seemed… amicable, as much
as he ever got, and with her body still pounding with adrenaline and fear and anger, it didn’t
seem possible that the danger had been resolved. Not this quickly, not without some kicker at
the end. How hard had they needed to fight to survive the first time, how long had it taken
Naruto and his silver tongue to sway Zabuza to their side? It hadn’t even been a sure thing
after Kakashi had killed Haku, with their body lying crumpled on the ground, a thick puddle
of their own blood seeping out underneath them.

She’d only dared to hope they might survive, that first time, when Gatō had shown up and
given Zabuza the final push in their stead. It had taken years for Kakashi’s words to stop
echoing through her dreams – that Naruto and Sasuke were surely dead.

So where did she get off ending it so easily this time around? How was it possible that the
fight was just simply over, that presenting Gatō’s head was really all it took? It wasn't so
unbelievable, if she was objective about it – Zabuza was only taking mercenary work for the
money, after all. It took deep pockets to rebuild a hidden village ravaged by its own
bloodthirsty practices. But even so, the end of their quarrel felt suspiciously quick.

With her first slow breath since her clone had popped, Sakura shoved down the instinctive
incredulity and tried to order her thoughts. Just because it was over suddenly didn’t mean it
was over easily. Zabuza had no personal interest in them; they were in the way of his
contract, and now his contract was void. There was no point in continuing to fight when the
risk to his person was so high. Better, easier, and arguably more bountiful to do as Sakura had
suggested, and ransack whatever his late employer had.

Worse off for the Land of Waves, in the short-term, but ultimately far more savoury than a
slow economic death.

Kakashi was clambering out of the water himself, hair slicked down around his face and
neck, visibly shivering. In one arm, limp and wet, Kakashi held Sasuke against his chest.
Unconscious. No. He’d been in the water.

Sakura met Kakashi as he crossed back onto land, all thoughts of Zabuza forgotten. Training
kicked in, all at once, boxing her feelings away for later and splitting her mind into distinct
and useful categories. Right now, she was a medic – so everything else was just a distraction.

Despite reaching for Sasuke, Kakashi didn’t give him to her, instead setting him down on his
side and putting one hand to his back. For a single moment, his palm lit up with green chakra
before the strain proved too much, and he slumped back and let it die.

Sensei… But she couldn’t say anything. It wasn’t exactly surprising that this Kakashi had at
some point picked up the basics of medical ninjutsu; her Kakashi had done so too, when he’d
been a teenager, but she doubted very much that this one had sought official training in any
capacity when hers hadn’t either. At the very least, it explained the inexpert healing that had
been applied to some of his scars and not the others.

All this, winding through the back of her mind as she settled on her knees by Sasuke and
pressed a hand to his back, igniting a diagnostic jutsu that shone twice as stable as Kakashi’s
attempt. It was no wonder – he was still exhausted, barely on the edge of safety. Letting him
do anything was an exercise in risk. “It’s okay,” she rambled blithely, focused on the
feedback from her jutsu and the sloshing sensation that betrayed the water in Sasuke’s lungs.
“I’ve got him. He’ll be okay.”
Sakura didn’t even hear herself talking, a reflex of reassurance that she couldn’t spare the
energy to avoid. She couldn’t drag the water out of Sasuke’s body with a suiton – it was
infinitely unsafe even when she was at her best, to push her chakra so close to Sasuke’s own
system in that manner, so close to his nexus, let alone how dangerous the manipulation of the
water could be to his lungs if she was even a fraction careless. In the state she was in right
now, sleep-deprived and running close to fatigue herself, with a twelve-year-old’s less than
stellar chakra control, it would just be asking to shred Sasuke’s lungs from the inside out.

But they were in the field, and she didn’t have any of the medical equipment she’d kept on
hand in storage scrolls by the end of her previous life. Heart still beating. Slow and weak, but
there. She let go the glow of chakra in her hands and touched his face for a moment, checking
the dribble of water from his mouth; found it dissatisfactory. Tilting his head a little further,
she waited for the dribble to all but cease – it took only a moment – and then rolled him onto
his back.

She could feel all eyes on her, a prickling that crept under her skin and stayed there, and
would linger for days. Sakura ignored it. There was nothing to be done, and she needed to act
fast before permanent harm came to her teammates. They were just kids.

They were kids, and she’d left them alone, and maybe it had been the right call because it had
worked, in the end, but they were all so close to death and Sakura couldn’t tell if it was her
fault anymore or not – and maybe it didn’t matter anymore, because she was here now, and
hell would have to open its gates and release the reapers to personally claw their lives out of
her grasp. Not as long as her heart still beat.

Tipping Sasuke’s head back, Sakura pinched shut his nose, used her other hand to open his
mouth, and leaned down. There was a slight resistance as she breathed into him, the water
that had blocked his trachea and filled his lungs. Pulled back and waited a few beats to draw
in another breath of her own, and then pressed that into him too. Less resistance, this time,
trying to gauge exactly how bad it was without jutsu and relying solely on long experience.
Never before had Sakura wished drowning to be more common in Konoha than it was.

The resistance broke on the third breath, Sasuke’s chest lifting faintly as Sakura’s efforts
found the pockets in his lungs that were gloriously free of water. She felt his exhale against
her fingertips when she pulled back, but it was default muscle contraction and nothing more;
he didn’t stir. A flutter of panic made itself known in Sakura’s gut, a hard node at her solar
plexus that wouldn’t bow to the rigid mental conditioning. It was taking too long. He couldn’t
have been in the water for longer than a minute or two, but it didn’t matter if he wouldn’t
start breathing again on his own.

Sasuke’s heart had still been beating when Kakashi had dredged him up, but that mercy was a
limited offer. The longer this went, the closer he got to dying. Her hands were shaking as she
took a few deep breaths, trying to maintain as much oxygenation as she could, but she
ignored Kakashi-sensei’s narrow, scrutinising stare and leaned down again.

Sasuke tasted like blood and salt.

Ignoring Kakashi turned out to be (yet another) mistake, as she paused between one
inhalation and the next; soaking wet and ragged, the shivering unabated, he dragged himself
out of his exhausted slouch and up onto one knee. Obvious in his gaze that he’d refocused on
Hinata beyond them, intent on going to tend her now that Sasuke was in Sakura’s hands. The
growl was out of her mouth before she could check it, the briefest glance away from her
immediate patient to her sensei: “Absolutely fucking not. Sit down.” Incredibly, Kakashi did.
He was right to think Hinata needed attention, but he couldn’t afford to be the one to give it,
not without making himself into another casualty. Everything was urgent right now, and
Sakura had to prioritise exactly who she was helping in five second bursts. As stressful as it
was, as much as it made her feel like every thought was a flash of hazy colour and indistinct
intention, the frenzy was… comfortingly familiar. It had always been like this, days upon
days, at the end.

These thoughts ran parallel to the continuous loop of action and observation, well-worn twin
tracks. She needed to get to all of it, but since she could only do one thing at a time she’d just
have to get it done and move on. Hinata needed attention, but she could wait until the next
five seconds. Sasuke might not.

After she’d kissed a fifth breath into him, as Sakura watched the exhalation, Sasuke finally
twitched. It was slight, initially, a little ripple of motion as he tried to breathe in on his own,
and then it was explosive all at once, broken gasping and choking as water came up. Keeping
her touch gentle – all his senses would be in overdrive as he became more lucid, and touch
was always the first to turn painful – Sakura rolled Sasuke onto his side and let him cough,
watching closely.

Once she saw his eyes flicker open for a second, she looked up to Kakashi instead. “Keep an
eye on him.” And if there was part of her that was disturbed by the ease with which she was
giving her sensei orders, then it would just have to wait its turn. “You know what to watch
for.” Even almost seven years behind her former Kakashi, she had absolutely no doubt that
he’d seen and monitored drownings before.

Getting to her feet was harder than she’d expected it to be, the unsteadiness of chakra fatigue
finally catching up with her. Heaviness sank into every limb, and she allowed herself the time
to take a slow breath, as deep as she could, and held her own lungs at capacity for a few
moments, eyes closed into the sensation. When she let it out, she opened her eyes and made
her way to Hinata’s side.

This body wasn’t accustomed to it yet, but Sakura had the mental fortitude of years of double
and triple shifts at Konoha General. Mere exhaustion wouldn’t stand in her way.

Hinata watched her approach and crouch down, eyes narrow with pain and crying silently.
The streaks down her cheeks shone in the rising moonlight. A cursory glance told Sakura a
number of things all at once – terrifying things – and she swallowed down the urge to swear.
“Hey, Hinata.” As soft as she could. “I’m going to roll you onto your other side, okay?”
Without any proper examination Sakura couldn’t be sure exactly what was wrong with
Hinata’s leg, but there was something definitely wrong. Please don’t be the hip, please don’t
— The prayers amounted to nothing as Sakura helped Hinata onto her good side, as gently as
was physically possible, and tried to ignore the whimpers that broke over the sound of Sasuke
coughing behind her. Blood stained her hands wherever she touched Hinata, the bandages on
her arm half-shredded open, new wounds clamouring for recognition.
The gurgled noise of Sasuke throwing up made her stomach clench, but it soothed something
in her mind. She could hear Kakashi’s voice offering a low reassurance. Unpleasant all
around, and Sasuke was by no means out of danger, but the more salt water his body purged,
the better.

Heart sinking, Sakura ignited the green chakra around her palm again and ran it over Hinata’s
hip, hovering just shy of contact. “Shit.” It slipped out regardless, a frenetic little hiss. Hinata
must have landed on it at some point, or more likely landed on her knee and transferred the
force all the way up her femur, the femoral head slipping from its socket into a posterior
dislocation. Even if it registered under her jutsu as partial, rather than the femoral head being
fully dislocated behind the pelvis, it had to be agony. “Fuck— I’m sorry, Hinata.” What
should she do? If it had been a war injury, and barring surrounding fractures, Sakura would
have just popped the joint back into place without a second thought and dealt with the rest of
the situation, but this wasn’t a war and Hinata wasn’t a weathered chūnin or a veteran jōnin
who had knowingly stepped into the battle; she was a twelve-year-old genin who wasn’t
ready for this level of combat. She was a child who – quite aside from the absence of
anaesthesia – could suffer significant lingering damage if Sakura did this wrong.

At the least, a mercy that Sakura would have gladly given her fingernails to ensure, there
were no breaks she could detect in Hinata’s pelvis or femur.

Putting that dilemma aside for the moment – though she couldn’t leave it for long, hip
dislocations couldn’t simply be left to their own devices – she turned green eyes to the blood
on Hinata’s lips and frowned. “How much blood have you spit up?” Asked in a low voice,
but even Sakura could hear the weariness in it. Sometimes she had to give up being
reassuring to get the job done, and Hinata deserved better but it was all she could do to keep
the diagnostic jutsu from flickering in her hand.

Hinata’s voice was strained and breathless, but she managed shallow gasps between words
and gave a response. “Not… a lot. A few… mouthfuls. Maybe.” Giving a hum in
acknowledgement, Sakura lightly curled her fingers around the wrist of Hinata’s good arm
and lifted it away from her torso. Running her glowing hand up Hinata’s body, it didn’t take
long to find the culprit. Sakura bit her lip. There was a sense of resignation in Hinata’s voice
as she forced out a question: “How bad…?”

There was no point in lying about it. “You’ve got a broken rib. Well, a few, but one of them
broke badly and pierced your lung.” She didn’t elaborate on it, but understanding filtered
through Hinata’s face all the same. “... I can do something about it, Hinata, but… it won’t be
pleasant. And I…” Say it. She owed her team honesty, as much as she could, for all the lies
she couldn’t help. “I don’t think I have the chakra to fix both that and your hip. I can put it
back in place but… but I might do it wrong, and then you’d need healing for the surrounding
soft tissues, and I… I can’t…”

It was going to suck anyway, and even if Sakura worked perfectly Hinata was going to be as
sore as a trampled deer for a while, but some of the additional injuries Sakura could inflict
would need attention as fast as possible.

And… “And it’s going to hurt. I can’t knock you out.” She just didn’t have the chemicals on
hand to do it, and even if she did it was an enormous folly to administer them in the field
without any proper way to monitor the effects and ensure Hinata’s recovery. She was just one
medic, and she didn’t have enough left to do everything.

There was a faint downturn to Hinata’s eyebrows as she considered that, a faint gleam that
made Sakura wonder if she was trying to decide on a course of action. It did rather sound like
Sakura was asking permission, on reflection. Her mistake (again, again).

Shifting her position, Sakura put her hands together, pulled the sheath of chakra over them
both, and then pressed them gently against Hinata’s ribcage. It was awkward positioning, her
hands held in a loose V shape; Hinata turned crimson at the touch, but Sakura pretended not
to notice. It was hardly the first time she’d had to maneuver around a patient’s breasts – even
as barely-there as they were at Hinata’s young age – and it wouldn’t be the last. There wasn’t
much of the human body that Sakura hadn’t seen and handled many times over.

A minute passed in wordlessness. Silence was too generous a term for it, the faint whimpers
Hinata gave while Sakura worked, the painful coughing behind them that quieted the
persistent fear Sasuke might still die. The acute, terrifying nothing as Kakashi watched.
Hinata gave a little cough as Sakura’s chakra dipped towards the threshold of risk, and her
face immediately contorted around a pained moan, the movement jolsting her injuries.

Slowly, stimulated by Sakura’s meddling, the puncture in Hinata’s lung – miraculously small
– sealed over and stopped bleeding into her airways. Sakura didn’t dare do anything with the
ribs themselves; Hinata was going to need more attention when they made it back to Konoha,
and if Sakura set any of the fractures, even the hairline ones, it would just mean more trauma
when they got there. The lung was going to need more healing anyway, but right now Sakura
just wanted to make sure she didn’t drown in her own blood.

Sitting back, pushing away the shadows creeping in at the edges of her vision, Sakura turned
her gaze onto Hinata’s hip again. Bit her lip. Leaving it was a risk she couldn’t abide, but
resetting it was a risk too.

“Just… do it.” Sakura met a resolute white gaze, and offered a tiny nod in reply. Okay. She
should go through it first, make sure that Hinata fully understood the risks involved, but…
but she just couldn’t find the energy to do so. It had been too long since she’d slept, too much
chakra spent on too many jutsu that she had no business knowing.

There was going to be hell to pay after this, when they were safe, when Kakashi-sensei got
the chance to interrogate her again. Even the thought of it was like cotton wool in her skull, a
fuzzy asthenia furling out into every part of her.

Her chakra felt so sluggish as to be almost stagnant as she moved around Hinata to a better
position. There was nothing to be done for it – as thinly and carefully as she’d tried to shear
off each new aliquot of chakra as she’d used it, her reserves were finite and finally failing.
“Sorry,” blurted as she put her hands in place and Hinata flinched at the contact. “I’m gonna
count to three, alright?” Now came the mean bit. I’m sorry. But she had to concentrate, had to
put as much energy as possible into getting this right, because getting it wrong was not an
option. “One, two,” and it was such a common deception that maybe Hinata expected it, the
echo of tension in her face, but Sakura tightened her grip under Hinata’s knee, the rest of her
arm holding her calf to Sakura’s side, pressed down with her other hand against Hinata’s
pelvis to prevent her from bucking, and pulled.

The sound Hinata let out as the joint clunked back into place was muffled by the blood in her
throat and came out scratchy, but it was still a shriek. Not letting go, Sakura held light tension
in Hinata’s leg and with the hand she’d had at her hip summoned up a diagnostic jutsu to run
over it again. Panting roughly, eyes closed, Hinata shuddered and didn’t resist.

His coughing slowing down, Sasuke forced out the syllables of Hinata’s name through a raw
voice. She let out a slightly louder whimper in response, but otherwise remained as she was.
Without looking around, Sakura picked up the line for her; “She’ll… be okay. Dislocated her
hip.”

It was almost tangible, the dread in the air between them. Before she was done checking her
handiwork, Sakura’s jutsu guttered out. For a moment all she could do was lift her palm and
stare at it, as if it would reignite if only she was stern enough.

When it didn’t, she sighed and tipped her head back, and then carefully set Hinata’s leg back
down. The motion elicited a weak moan.

“Tsunami?” Sakura called, looking back towards the house. “Are you there?” Of course she
would be; Sakura couldn’t imagine that they’d done anything other than hide when Zabuza
had shown up, and quite probably listened in terror as the fight had broken out. “It’s okay.
He’s gone now.”

The first head to pop out of their back door was Inari’s. He looked out across them, dark eyes
unreadable as he took in the sorry state of them all. Sasuke’s coughing had quieted down to
intermittent gagging, and Hinata looked barely moments away from passing out. Blood and
water soaked the ground. As soon as Tsunami followed her son in checking them over, she
put her hands on Inari’s shoulders and turned him back inside; whispered something in his
ear that Sakura didn’t hear.

Her hands clenched at her sides, and the faint ache of grinding her teeth grew in her jaw as
she did it harder. She couldn’t afford to drop right now, no matter how tired she was, no
matter how low her chakra reserves were running. She had to stay up, because someone had
to watch their injuries, had to be on standby if Sasuke or Hinata went downhill after
everything done to them; the next forty eight hours were crucial and terrifyingly dangerous.

They needed to get inside, so they could get cleaned up. So Sakura could figure out a way to
get word to Konoha to come and bring them home.

Her breath froze in her chest, immediately chased by a searing ache in her throat and the sting
of heat in her eyes. Stupid, stupid. Even if they were under threat here— especially because
they were under threat here, she should have sent a messenger bird to Konoha the moment
they’d arrived. Surely there was at least one rookery in this godforsaken place. Too busy
lashing herself for her earlier mistakes, too distracted by monitoring Kakashi, still so
maladjusted to this timeline that she’d forgotten they had Konoha at their back. The whole
world wasn’t a battlefield, they weren’t relying on themselves and praying that the isolated
groups on every side were doing better than they were.
She could have called for Konoha. She could have done it at any point – not just when they’d
finally dragged themselves into the Land of Waves proper, not just by buying a messenger
bird, but even earlier. After they’d driven Zabuza off the first time, when Sakura still had
enough chakra left for clones. She could have sent herself back to Konoha, to Tsunade-sama.

Frustrated, exhausted tears made it hard to see, and harder to speak, but Sakura forced herself
to her feet and turned back to Tsunami, now creeping out to them with Tazuna on her heels.
Resolutely trying to pretend she wasn’t crying miserably – and mentally cursing her native
self – Sakura swallowed hard and made her voice heard regardless. “C-can you carry them
inside? Be careful— Try not to… to jostle Hinata’s leg.”

The least convincing orders she’d ever given, but Tsunami spared her a wretched glance
while Tazuna nodded and went to Hinata’s side; Sakura ignored it. If she acknowledged it,
she’d only be even harder pressed to maintain some kind of control. Her chest felt hollow.

“Also, I need to know wh—” and she broke off, a thrill of fearful anger tearing through her
like ghostly claws against her bones, eyes going wide as Kakashi’s chakra flared up for just a
moment. Sakura whipped around, feeling herself sway as the motion sent a surge of dizziness
around her skull, and felt her heart stutter, like someone had punched through her ribcage and
squeezed.

Taking in the situation, the Konoha hitai-ite around her neck glinting, Ūhei swept eyes across
them and picked up one forepaw uncertainly, turning to gently nose Kakashi’s hair. There
was a twitch of his mask as he murmured something softly in her ear, before he crumpled to
the ground and his eyes – only half-visible through the messy curtain of his hair – rolled shut.

Panic made itself known in Sakura’s sternum, a hard little node like being stabbed. The
greyhound’s gaze went to her as she rushed over, stumbling to her knees at Kakashi-sensei’s
side. “Fuck— Damn it, Sensei—” He had to go and burn even more chakra when he’d only
just woken up, when he’d thrown himself straight into a fight he absolutely couldn’t afford,
he just had to play the self-sacrificing idiot and even if Sakura understood why, even if he
was right— “Don’t you dare die here, Sensei.” Hissed through her teeth, the burning tears
spilling down her cheeks in frustration. Unfair of her, perhaps, to be angry with him, but they
were all running on empty now. Sakura wasn’t sure any of them were capable of providing a
successful chakra transfusion anymore.

Her hands over Kakashi’s chakra nexus, Sakura dug into her dwindling energy, fully aware of
the hypocrisy of it. Green sparks came to life under her palms and between her fingers, a
twinkling constellation instead of a steady sheet. As twisty and unreliable as the half-jutsu
was, Sakura focused on it and looked just for Kakashi’s chakra flow, ignoring everything
else; the rest of it she could check manually, but she was no Hyuuga and Hinata was delirious
as Tazuna carried her inside – if his chakra flow had stopped, even though she wasn’t sure
she and Sasuke could manage a transfusion, they’d have to try.

“Where are we?” came Ūhei’s soft voice, standing taller than Sakura’s crown where she knelt
in the mud. A sense of urgency infused the ninken’s question, dragging Sakura’s gaze from
Kakashi to his summons despite the frantic fluttering of her heart. “Sakura, where in the city
are we?”
Practical as ever, straight to the point. It wasn’t even a surprise that she knew Sakura’s name;
there was no doubt that Kakashi had gossipped endlessly to his pack about his students. Ūhei
put a paw on Sakura’s knee, applying no pressure but pushing for an answer.

Sakura’s shoulders slumped, the chakra sparks in her hands died, and she tried not to feel the
swell of new tears as something like relief washed over her. “Northeast Waves. Client’s
house. The inlet turns to a river through the town.” Not a city, but Ūhei had no basis to
assume otherwise. Removing her paw, Ūhei gave Sakura’s cheek a swift lick, reassuring, ears
flicking where they poked through her combat wraps. Memory shattered, the last time she’d
seen Ūhei alive, one eye slashed out and her tail a bloody stump, chakra leaking from her
paws and a hastily scrawled note between her teeth – in case she was incapable of speaking
by the time she reached her destination.

Echoes that stole into an exhale, reaching for the remembered sensation of blood-stained fur
under her fingertips. “Run fast, Ūhei.”

In a puff of chakra and mist, Ūhei unsummoned herself.

As rare as it was to have days off – even after Tsunade-sama dismantled Anbu and rebuilt it
from scratch – two in a row meant that, despite himself, Tenzō was starting to get bored. It
wasn’t that he had no hobbies, exactly, but a childhood spent in Root followed by an
adulthood in Anbu left peculiar marks on one’s personality.

After too many hours spent kicking his heels, the lack of immediate purpose was starting to
grate on him. Walking through Konoha following whatever whim last took him was aimless,
but it was outside and moving, and without an active mission it would just have to do. As
close as he generally was with his Anbu squadmates, his shadows had lives of their own to
attend – and his co-Captain was an unmatched master of idling.

So, in spite of the dread chill that went through him at the sight, Tenzō was quick to react to
the green sparks that shot into the sky over the Hokage Tower, shimmering into the shape of a
lotus before fading entirely. He was on the rooftops before it was gone, sprinting across with
shallow bursts of chakra to clear the gaps between buildings that were just a little too far to
jump manually.

By the time Tenzō closed in on the Hokage Tower, four other shapes were coming in from all
directions; three like him, skipping along the top of Konoha, and the last a serene
motionlessness as he floated through the sky in a giant bubble. It had been long enough in
their company by now that, as Tenzō slipped through the Hokage’s open windows with his
shadows on his heels, they didn’t bother to wait on their second Captain; he was infuriatingly
tranquil, and they would only waste time by accommodating it.

Naturally, Tenzō took point in their loose formation, gathered in front of the Hokage’s desk;
Amaya and Yūgao stood at his flanks, while Iroha stood further afield, holding position to be
on their other Captain’s outer flank. Unusually close to Tsunade-sama, back arched while she
conversed with a fawn-coloured dog, Shizune’s expression dripped with anxiety. Like being
stabbed, Tenzō recognised the ninken.
If the Konoha hitai-ite around her neck wasn’t enough of a clue, the vest across her back –
secured around her forelegs – was so iconic that Tenzō was unlikely to ever forget it. One of
Kakashi’s dogs.

The sense of relief he’d felt at the call to action withered into ash, and Tenzō tried not to taste
it on his tongue. Tsunade-sama’s eyes were harsh and worried as she looked up at them, her
hands laced together before her face. Fear – not for himself, but for Kakashi and his genin –
crept under Tenzō’s skin like many-legged insects. Hadn’t they been sent on an out-of-village
mission recently? It wasn’t something that should have posed any problems to the jōnin, at
the very least.

Tenzō met the Hokage’s gaze, and inwardly cursed his co-Captain for always being slower.
Okay, ‘always’ is a little harsh. But enough so that waiting even the extra seconds it would
take for him to arrive made Tenzō’s teeth itch, watching the storm in Tsunade-sama’s
expression. Rarely did she ever wait until this team was fully assembled.

Amber eyes broke from the team to follow their last member as he slipped through the
window, bubble popping soundlessly as he alighted and then took his position with a placid,
graceful stride. Tsunade-sama spared just a moment to glare at him, and then glanced at the
greyhound and lowered her hands.

“The information we have is limited, at best, but Kakashi’s team encountered… something.
They need extraction as soon as possible; Ūhei will guide you once you get there. You’ve got
five minutes to get your gear together and go.” Voice clipped, Tsunade-sama issued her
orders rapidfire, looking between them. At the momentary pause that Tenzō’s team
collectively had, she scowled at them. “You’re going as a rescue squad, not Anbu. Don’t go
in uniform. Now get moving.”

Clearly dismissed, they shot out the various open windows and gathered on the roof; in
Tenzō’s head, their five minutes were already ticking. Climbing up after them, Ūhei nosed
her way into their huddle. “How many of you need to pick up weapons?” she asked, glancing
between them. Tenzō echoed her gaze. Even in the middle of the night, he had an ample
supply of basic weapons on him, and he rather expected that Amaya would too, regardless of
if she’d been wandering as he had or if she’d been called from home.

The others, though… well. Even with almost five years’ experience in Tsunade-sama’s
rehabilitated Anbu, they just didn’t carry the same paranoia that Root training imparted. With
the time crunch they’d just been given, it was in their favour that Tenzō and Amaya were
likely armed well enough for most of them, on a rescue mission.

Unease bubbled quietly in Tenzō’s belly. What had gone so wrong that Kakashi-senpai not
only couldn’t handle it, but needed a full Anbu squad as rescue?

“I need my sword,” Yūgao intoned immediately, receiving a nod from her other Captain.
Tenzō hesitated for a moment, contemplating it, before he gave a swift nod as well.

Straightening up, Tenzō directed their shadows to split into two parties with his hands.
“Iroha, you come with me and Yūgao. We’ll drop you at the Hyuuga compound on our way
past and pick you up on our way back. Get into something more suited to combat.” Silently,
Iroha nodded; the flowing white robes that Tenzō was starting to suspect were mandatory
amongst the Hyuuga clan might be comfortable to sleep in, but he absolutely couldn’t wear
them out into the field. “Amaya,” as the woman opened her mouth to speak, “you’re going to
leave your daughter a note?”

Expression unreadable, a hard glint in her now-yellow eyes, Amaya nodded. “She’ll worry if
I don’t.”

Tenzō gave a short hum, gaze flashing over to his co-Captain. “Alright. Utakata, go with
her.”

They met at the southern Konoha gate barely eight minutes later, and they didn’t wait; if they
were fast enough, the extra delay wouldn’t amount to much. Ūhei had broken from the group
as they’d split up, but she was already waiting for them with Pakkun riding on her shoulders.
Outside of uniform, Utakata was the only one not wearing standard jōnin kit – the dark blue
kimono wasn’t as egregious as his typical civilian-wear, a little shorter and a little tighter
where it hung from his narrow frame, and tied around his waist with a soft yellow-gold
ribbon that washed out to a shimmery grey in the faint moonlight.

At least it didn’t hang so far off his shoulders that he seemed under constant threat of
indecency. His pipe was nowhere in sight, and the cylinder that held his chakra-infused soap
solution was sealed firmly, tucked into a specially-made pouch attached to the ribbon at his
back, out of the way.

By the time any of them spoke, they’d already struck out in familiar formation; Tenzō and
Utakata on twin points, with Yūgao and Iroha on their flanks and Amaya between them, all
just one step behind. Less familiar, streaking along beside them as they wove through the
forest surrounding Konoha, Ūhei kept pace in silence, Pakkun glued to her back. Her tail
hung low, ears flat against her head, jaws almost fully closed. Barely a hint of fang showed in
her muzzle, eyes focused on her path.

But, after ten minutes of relentless pace, somebody had to ask.

It was Yūgao, with about as much social grace as she ever managed; even at breakneck
speed, her voice was low and even. “Ūhei, what the fuck happened?” Nobody took their eyes
off where they were going, but Tenzō felt the focus of the group constrict around their canine
escort.

Ūhei stayed silent for a few moments, resolutely staring ahead, before she finally responded.
“I don’t know.” The knot of anxiety in Tenzō’s chest slipped loose into fear, spilling out
through the gaps in his ribs like a water balloon bursting. Perhaps it should have been
obvious already, by how brusque Tsunade-sama had been and how narrow their time limit to
leave was – but it still felt like being punched in the face, Ūhei’s admission of ignorance.
 Whatever was so wrong that Kakashi had sent for immediate backup, it was terrible enough
that Ūhei hadn’t even asked after the details. No wonder Tsunade had sent not just an Anbu
team, but this Anbu team. They were going in blind.

As one, they ran faster.

Chapter End Notes

Stuff and Things and Not-Stuff Haha Gotcha:

|| It’s come to my attention that actually, I am an idiot and the ability to sense chakra
presences isn’t actually supposed to be a universal skill.
|| One the other hand, I’m also a stubborn motherfucker, so for the purposes of my own
canon, it is now a universal skill. XD Everyone who’s chakra trained is capable of it,
though the range and accuracy of that skill does vary greatly between shinobi.
|| Also I did consider, with significant detail and input from Haethel, whether Gai and
Lee would be capable of it given their rocky relationship with their own chakra coils,
but ultimately since they both have enough control of their chakra to chakra-walk and
Gai can actively use a summons, they’re both able to pulse out chakra to hunt for nearby
signatures. Granted that Lee is hilariously bad at it.
|| Because ‘killing intent’ is always a bit of a weird one to me, for my own purposes I
consider it a somewhat advanced form of the above ability to detect and identify chakra
signatures. It doesn’t require any training on the part of the recipient, because it’s a
highly specialised form of the pulses shinobi use for detection – but instead of pulsing
out and bouncing off foreign signatures (it’s basically chakra echolocation LMAO) it
emits a low-level aura that carries sheer violence. So basically, it’s bullshit but I’m still
going to use it because murder bubble.
|| Yeah, I know that it’s technically ANBU and not Anbu but I loathe writing the full
capslock every time it comes up, so I’m sticking to Anbu screw acronym rules. Ditto for
Root, for obvious reasons.
|| Remember I named the non-Captain members of Anbu squads shadows? Yeah. I regret
absolutely nothing.

Once again, many dear thanks to my wonderful betas, and HERE is my Authory
sideblog, which is where all fic updates, headcanons, random thoughts, and
miscellaneous go. Also where I'll get prompts.
For. For things.

Next Chapter Due: 1st December 2020

 Everything That We'd Die For
Chapter Summary

Recovery is a long and dangerous road.

Chapter Notes

Very minor trigger warning for lightly referenced self-harm and an even lighter
reference to attempted suicide, near the end of the chapter.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

The rest of the night was a nauseating blur.

It passed in fragments, the vibration of her own voice humming in her chest when she was
spoken to, never remembering anything she said in response. Her hands worked on muscle
memory, numbly following Tsunami and Tazuna back inside, watching blankly as they
carried Kakashi-sensei between them and set him down next to Hinata on the living room
floor. She barely noticed the way Sasuke kept his distance.

She’d asked Tsunami if they had a first aid kit, she was pretty sure. Must have, in fact,
because she remembered silently stitching the reopened wounds on Hinata’s arm and the new
one on her shoulder, and they’d gone through Kakashi’s supplies already.

Sasuke had flinched when she’d turned to him. It was only fair a reaction; she should have
told them she was going. She should have— So many things, so easily done differently, but it
was too late now. All she had left was to patch them up, and do better next time. “Please,” she
thought she heard herself say, and maybe her voice sounded as tired and miserable as she felt,
because Sasuke turned his head away and let her at the wound on his back. It was ugly, and it
was bleeding, but it wasn’t deep.

Not that deep meant an awful lot when it cut across his spine, when his ribcage was so very
close to the surface. Zabuza’s sword must have only just caught, tearing open the skin and
muscle, but beneath them his bones had held. Sasuke hissed when she started treating it – that
stood out clearly, for some reason, the way he’d tensed under her hands and flinched away,
the feeling of letting words she couldn’t even hear tumble out of her mouth in response.

The look that had been in his eyes, suspicious and angry, as he watched her work. Even
soaking wet and starting to shiver, even hurt and exhausted, he’d communicated such…
such…
Ugh. It was all too hazy.

There was more, no doubt, that she should have noticed while she worked, doing all she
could even as her hands shook relentlessly, even as everything seemed to be a blur beyond
her narrow focus. Hinata whined and grabbed at Sakura’s shirt when she moved away, too out
of it to be ashamed of the desire for company. Understandable – normal – but Sakura
carefully pried off Hinata’s fingers and set her hand back down.

She might have asked Tsunami to sit with Hinata instead. No, she was sure that she had,
because there had been wide blue eyes that listened to Sakura’s mumbled instructions. Watch;
Hinata needed to be watched. Not unconscious yet, not fully, but Sakura needed to know the
moment Hinata began to cough up blood again, or if the freshly forming bruises around her
neck swelled badly and obstructed her breathing, or if her leg started to cramp up.

Fragments, still, nonsensical little moments. Sasuke snarling when Tazuna tried to get him to
drink some water. Had Sakura given him the same instructions she’d given Tsunami? A
distant echo of awareness in the back of her mind hoped that she had. Sasuke was just as
much at risk of his throat swelling wrong, or of the water still in his lungs drowning him
again despite that he was on dry land. Kakashi had to be monitored, his breathing and pulse
checked every few minutes, because Sakura couldn’t find the energy to check on his chakra
flow despite the dire warning bells in her head that demanded it, and watching what she
could through mundane means would just have to be good enough.

There was a faint impression of Inari, somewhere, solemn black eyes and a glass being held
to her lips, forgetting how to resist when his squeaky voice ordered her to drink. The sheer
panic of being called over by Tsunami, the scramble to Hinata’s side that left her body numb
and her head spinning, the overwhelming relief of finding that Hinata was merely
unconscious; still breathing, heart still beating.

A crushing ache in her chest, quiet nausea that matched the prickling weight behind her eyes.
Sharper, throbbing pain in her temple and down one side of her face – thinking about it made
an image of Tsunami’s living room flicker in her mind, skewed completely sideways, the
sensation of the cool wooden floor pressing along her whole left side.

“No,” she’d said, she was pretty sure, when concerned voices had told her to rest. Gritty on
her tongue, her voice like stagnant ash. “No!” when they’d insisted. Her eyes had stung.

Sakura remembered the first ray of dawn, grey light seeping in through the windows, and the
way she’d sagged underneath the weight of a blanket someone tucked around her shoulders.
As confusing as the fractured memories were, it was only around here that Sakura began to
wonder if she’d pushed so far as to cause hallucinations. There’d been… shouting, she
thought. Distant and vague, but… something.

Barking. Run fast, Ūhei. Had she? If she had, if they were lucky, then maybe Ūhei had
reached the next unit over. Everybody needed backup, of course, but—

Then there’d been swearing, and too many voices. She’d tried to get up, she hoped, tried to
face whatever new threat had arrived, tried to keep her people safe as long as she could— but
there was movement on all sides like a flurry of fireworks, and she knew that she’d hissed
when she was touched, a ragged sound in the back of her throat that she could still feel.

Black eyes had swum into focus, a low voice that she— she knew? She did know it…
Where…? “...in, can you hear me? Genin…” Fading in and out.

There were other voices too, overlapping, a dizzying cacophony that Sakura needed to
decipher, she needed to listen to because everyone else was down for the count and she had
to… she had to try…

“Yūgao, do a perimeter sweep.”

“... check their chakra flow…”

“Get them up, we have to…”

“...tive will be around in… …t week or so to follow…”

Something soft and weightless caught in Sakura’s throat. She recognised that tone, even if the
voice itself was foreign. Always something bureaucratic to be done, no matter how dire the
war became, even if it had all been reduced from paperwork to mere words.

There were hands on her shoulders, too many hands as she was positioned like a marionette;
she resisted, in vain, and found herself lying on her back. Her own weight was enough to
keep her pinned there, even as the hands pulled away. Voices still, fuzzy and nonsensical.

The faintest noise, like a soft keen, almost indistinguishable under the voices, but she
recognised it and she tried – she tried so hard – to reach towards it.

"...t taking?"

"... No."

Something like cursing; for some reason, Sakura felt quite strongly that it was inappropriate.
The thought shimmered like a translucent bubble, clearer than the haze around it, but ready to
pop if she looked too closely. Another soft keen, almost a gasp, barely a voice. It made
something wet escape down her temples.

"It's taking."

“Okay.”

"...kra nature does she ha…"

"... Water." Sakura knew that voice, too. She needed to protect that voice.

Hands on her again, and she felt a wordless complaint on her own tongue, but it spiralled into
the pulsating nothingness on all sides, and then there was a strange (and strangely familiar)
crackle of— chakra? Something… She knew the sensation, it was right there at the edge of
her mind, in the same echoey spaces that rational thought was slipping through. A crackle
and a looming sense of dread, like she should know—

There was pain.

A noise clawed out of her, raking sharpness up the inside of her throat, taking hold of all her
limbs with steel fangs. She felt ablaze, like there was acid in her veins. Darkness closed in
thicker as she struggled to breathe – the voices came again, but she couldn't tell what they
were saying, anymore.

For a while, there was nothing, until there wasn't.

Movement, then, sharp and rocking. Her head was cradled against something soft. Sakura
wasn’t sure how long it took her, but eventually she managed to force her eyes open, just a
sliver. Sunlight hit hard enough to elicit a pained gasp, and Sakura let them close again – but
her brief glimpse was enough to get a vague idea of what was happening, even as blurry as it
was.

She was being carried. And maybe…? Her team was too. The next unit over must have—

No… wait. She was too small for that. There wasn’t a rampage going on in the distance, she
wasn’t at war. Confusion bubbled up, clashing memories; of course she wasn’t at war, it
hadn’t happened yet – right?

Fuck.

It took so much energy that Sakura was starting to wonder if she’d been put under a genjutsu
somehow, but she got her eyes open again. White eyes flashed down to her face as she tried
to move; familiar, in that Sakura saw the lack of pupils that could only be a Hyuuga, the
common narrow features of the clan, but she couldn’t say which Hyuuga they might belong
to.

Sakura’s eyes closed again, and there was a faint rumble in her ear; the vibration of the
Hyuuga’s voice in their chest, which meant they must be speaking, but Sakura couldn’t pick
out any words. It didn’t matter, though – a Hyuuga meant Konoha. Konoha meant safety.

It all swirled back into indecipherable sensation, and this time Sakura let it go.

The feeling was familiar, but it was still unwelcome. Heaviness came first, a bone-deep ache
that dragged at every limb and made it hard to breathe. A vague prickling under his skin,
covering his whole body like a phantom spiderweb, a sharpness in his left eye like the sting
of tears… or blood.

Kakashi took his time getting his bearings, taking slow breaths until they came a little easier,
twitching his fingers until they moved on command. Full sensation took longer to return,
inputs that he couldn’t quite make sense of, but eventually he recognised the crisp fabric
under his fingertips and let himself relax; no need for paranoid caution. He was in Konoha
hospital.
He tried not to think about the fact he could identify the place by its sheets.

With a soft sigh, Kakashi started sorting through his thoughts – memory first, categorising
and sorting whatever mission had gotten him here this time, so he could prepare for the
reactions he was going to get. What had actually happened would change how Gai
approached him, would change which lecture Kaida gave him. It would matter, later, just how
much of this was Kakashi’s own—

He bolted upright, right eye opening and frantically scouring his surroundings. Dizziness and
nausea struck immediately, and for a desperate second Kakashi tried to arrest them both. A
bowl appeared in front of him, as if his reaction had been expected; it probably was, he
mused in the back of his head, trying to focus on the thought over the painful convulsion of
his stomach and the acid burn of bile. He’d been in this exact position enough times.

Probably why his mask was already around his neck. Reflexively, Kakashi turned his head
away, but a glance sideways confirmed the dark hair and intense green. The colour was
almost enough to make Kakashi’s stomach clench again. There was a hand firm at his back,
taking more of his weight than he’d ever like to admit. The bowl left his (way too narrow)
field of vision and he felt himself being eased back into lying down – despite how loudly
experience told him that it was a bad idea, Kakashi found himself reaching out to grab the
front of Gai’s jumpsuit. The attempt made everything spin, and the churning movement
didn’t stop when he scrunched his eye shut again.

Fuck, fuck.

Gai took his hands, like he always did, and gently pushed Kakashi back down onto his bed.
He tried to resist, of course he did, but there was a static pain in his sternum, an unwelcome
reminder of how much chakra he’d burned through trying to protect his genin, the lingering
aftereffects of the punch of someone else’s chakra through his nexus.

My genin.

Trying to find his voice was like trying to breathe honey, but Gai patted him on the shoulder,
easily keeping him down, and hummed like he could read Kakashi’s mind. “Your kids are
alright, Kakashi.” Voice low, a temporary absence of his usual… enthusiasm… as there
always was, for the first couple of days. “They’re all here; you all made it.”

The words took a minute to percolate into meaning, but when they did Kakashi let out a harsh
sigh. Okay. It wasn’t easy, trying to take even breaths while he got a grip on the panic
crackling under his skin like a crystalline veneer, every inhale unsteady and counted out in
case it all shattered. His heart beat bitterly against his breastbone, a violent reminder of fear
he couldn’t shake. He’d known that taking baby shinobi into the field was a bad idea, he’d
known, because fate was nothing if not a bloodthirsty bitch, and Kakashi was pretty fucking
certain he was her favourite bootycall.

He’d been stupid to let himself care about these genin. People who got too close to him were
easy prey for the reapers.
Softly, Gai’s voice broke through his thoughts. Not words, this time, but a steady hum of
melody that – yet again – Kakashi didn’t recognise. Old frustration jumped in his gut, a
friendly irritation; every single time, no matter how many times this happened, Gai always
had a new tune to hum until Kakashi calmed down. He was starting to suspect Gai was just
making them up as he went along.

Who was he kidding, Gai was probably making up the melodies Kakashi thought he did
recognise too.

But it got easier, steadying his heartbeat, breathing smoother, until Kakashi had convinced
himself that he didn’t need to jump up and rescue anyone. Or kill anyone. Funnily enough,
either one usually involved the other. The mental quip was reflexive, almost hysterical, but
Kakashi tucked that away as far back as it would go and focused on the present. The sound of
Gai’s humming, the starched sheets now tangled loose around him, the sterile smell on all
sides, the taste of bile. Slower breaths.

“You said they’re here?” First thing first, Kakashi needed an entire fucking report on his
genin. Where they were exactly – whether ‘here’ meant in Konoha, or in the hospital, or right
here with him in the very same room. Zabuza had left, he was almost certain, but he didn’t
remember anything after summoning Ūhei. Neither who Tsunade had sent, nor the trip back.

Gai hummed. “Indeed. Tsunade-sama insisted on Team Seven being kept together.” An edge
of the familiar Gai in his voice, a barely controlled urge to wax poetic on just what he thought
about such camaraderie. Kakashi was so grateful that he didn't, it almost moved him to tears.

A soft sigh, almost silent, and Kakashi swallowed the simmering panic. It wouldn’t help
anyone if he lost control to it – dangerous, even, not just to himself but to his kids as well.

He chose not to think about the fact they’d become his kids somewhere along the line.

“What happened?” Not exactly an eloquent question, but Gai had been here just as often as
Kakashi had, and he knew what it meant. Another slow breath – control – and Kakashi
opened his eye to study Gai’s face, reaching up to finally tug his mask back over his own. His
hands were trembling.

Gai sat back in his chair. “Tenzō and Utakata’s team went to retrieve you; it took them about
a day to get you back here. That was three days ago.” Voice low, arms crossed while he
watched Kakashi closely. Waiting for any sign Kakashi might be about to act, ready to hold
him if need be. A familiar scrutiny, enough so that it barely even made him want to slip out
from under it. Tenzō. Better not to think about that, yet. “Sasuke’s been awake for most of it.
Hinata woke up briefly; she’s been sedated. Sakura is still unconscious.”

Quick, to the point. Gai knew what information Kakashi was after, like he always did.
Another slow breath, deeper this time, holding it for a few moments to push through the
searing sting the movement drew from his sternum, his chakra nexus protesting even gentle
tension. It wasn’t a surprise in the slightest, that the rescue team had given him a chakra
transfusion. He’d known it was inevitable when he’d summoned Ūhei – moulding the pitiful
dregs of his chakra to perform the summons had been like peeling off his own skin.

But it had been worth it. Any risk was worth it to stave off the inevitable.

And it was inevitable. Like it always was.

Glancing at the curtains drawn around his bed, Kakashi considered his immediate options.
Leaving, no matter how tempting, was not one of them. Even if he had the energy to sneak
out, wrangling both Gai and whatever hidden guards Tsunade had assigned him this time,
setting that example to his genin this early would be reprehensible. Along the same logic
came limitations for any activity that took him out of bed, especially given how the weakness
of chakra exhaustion seeped into every muscle.

Unusual in their own right, that there were curtains at all. It had been quite some years since
Kakashi was hospitalised without being tucked away in a private room. Something in that,
something that Kakashi should be able to identify, a thread of logic that he knew he could
tease out, if only the nascent throb of an oncoming migraine would quiet down.

Running one hand through his hair – testing, and it still trembled but there was at least a
fluidity of movement to the action – Kakashi pushed away the weariness under his skin, the
way any thought other than that of going back to sleep felt like a burden. “I need to see
them.” Too raw and blatant a request, and he should know better, but Gai just offered a barely
restrained smile and rose to his feet. Kakashi always loathed being wheeled about in a
wheelchair even when he actually couldn’t walk on his own, but—

Gai swept the curtains open, a quick circuit around Kakashi’s bed before he sat back down,
and the stray thread snapped into understanding. Team Seven had been kept together. Stupid.
Obvious, in hindsight, if he’d dedicated more than a single brain cell to it.

In the other three beds that made up the ward were Kakashi’s genin. Opposite him lay his
kunoichi, tucked in neatly and disturbingly still. Both had IV lines that snaked beneath their
blankets, presumably set into their cephalic veins, at the crook of their elbows. More
comfortable than the cannula tagged to Kakashi’s foot, though he had no case to complain.
Only patients who were considered flight risks got the needle in the foot.

To his right, Sasuke was lying against several pillows too many, reading a book with a dour
expression. As Kakashi studied him – Bruising on his neck, still bad, but fading to yellow at
the edges. Breathing easily enough. No other obvious or dire injuries – Sasuke’s face
twitched. A few more seconds’ observation were enough to tell Kakashi that he was scanning
the same passage of the book repeatedly.

Damn. That probably meant he’d heard Kakashi wake up, and everything since.

Sitting watchfully in the middle of the room were Ūhei, Pakkun, Urushi, and Shiba. They’d
all perked up as Gai had drawn the curtains, but they had yet to speak. Something liquid
oozed outwards under Kakashi’s skin, knowing that even when he’d been down, the ninken
had been there to guard his genin.
Pakkun lifted one paw, held it, and then put it back on the floor. Lay down again, his back
tucked against Urushi’s stomach; Urushi stayed sprawled on the floor, a slow wag of their
tail, before Shiba dipped her head to nose at Pakkun’s side, and he mumbled something so
low Kakashi couldn’t hear it.

After a few moments, all four of the dogs watching Kakashi carefully, Shiba and Ūhei settled
on the floor with their fellows. Quiet and vigilant, they sat guard and waited.

Normally, at least one of them (and it was always a toss-up as to whether it would be Pakkun
or Urushi) would be on Kakashi’s bed with him, and there would be seven dogs left scattered
around the room. Normally, they’d crowd him once he was awake, licking him and telling
him off for whatever he’d done to land himself in hospital this time.

But normally, he was alone in the hospital room. Normally, he didn’t have three kids he’d
dragged in with him.

Sasuke was still staring at his book; his eyes had stopped moving entirely. An utterly
transparent attempt at pretending not to be listening, but Kakashi was grateful that he was
making it. “Sasuke,” he called for his attention anyway. Sasuke picked his head up instantly,
looking over and closing the book.

“Sensei.” Acknowledgement and relief in one – it must have been incredibly nerve-wracking
for him, to be in a hospital room with his whole team and be the only one conscious. His
voice was cracked, a mixture of being throttled and being drowned; scratchy, but surprisingly
strong. “... How are you feeling?”

It took more effort than he’d care to admit, but Kakashi waved a hand to try and dissolve the
anxiety in Sasuke’s voice. How shaken he must be, realising so quickly and so harshly that
they were all so fragile, in the end. Anger bubbled quietly in Kakashi’s gut, a quiet rage that
had nowhere to go. As easy as it would be to hate Zabuza for the violence they’d endured, it
was – ultimately – Tazuna’s fault that such an inexperienced team had been put against such a
perilous enemy.

Underneath the anger, pride swept out. Kakashi thought, for a moment, that he might choke
on it.

“I’m fine, Sasuke.” Maybe it would be more convincing if Kakashi could sit up under his
own power, but it would have to do. It wasn’t Sasuke’s job to worry about him. “Do you
remember what happened?” And maybe it was partly selfish, asking for a report from the kid,
but it mattered which parts stood out for him. It would be the things that he recalled with the
most clarity that Kakashi would have to work on with him first.

For a moment, Sasuke glanced away. Something dark flickered across his face. “You mean
after you passed out?” Ouch. A fair question, but it did nothing to placate Kakashi’s
moldering guilt; not that he deserved it to. Humming a soft confirmation, Kakashi tried to
ignore that Pakkun had broken away from the pack, quietly padding over to climb up onto his
bed. His focus needed to stay on Sasuke – but it helped, in spite of himself, when the ninken
settled down at his side. “... Yeah, I remember.”
Ah.

Reaching down with one hand, seeking the familiar comfort of warm fur under his fingertips,
Kakashi sighed softly. Was it too early to make Sasuke put together a verbal report of the
shitshow he’d just been through? It had been days since their return, Gai had said, but it was
easy to forget when Kakashi felt like he’d only just dragged Sasuke out of the water and
watched Sakura revive him.

Mm. That would have to wait.

Given how badly the mission had gone, it was likely Sasuke had already had to give a report,
as the only team member who’d been conscious. Guilt clawed back up the inside of
Kakashi’s ribs, punching razor sharp holes between them. It almost felt like cruelty to ask
him to do it again – but Kakashi had to know. He only remembered broken fragments after
their first encounter with Zabuza, and the chain of events that had taken them from there to
here in the hospital was too incomplete.

Sasuke was still watching him. “... Have you given a report about the mission, yet?” Kakashi
met his gaze, and watched it flash ever so briefly towards Sakura and Hinata.

“Yeah.”

Kakashi sighed again and glanced towards Gai, silently questioning. Would he be in the
wrong for asking? Ordering. In the field Sasuke had trusted him— but the middle of mortal
combat was very different from trapped in quiet recovery with little else to think about, and
Kakashi had done very little to endear himself to them. Had done so deliberately.

With an unsubtle smile that spoke of all the saccharine things Kakashi would have to hear
about later, Gai nodded. Alright then. Shifting focus back to Sasuke, Kakashi took a moment
to construct the sentence in his head. “Give me a summarised version, then.”

Sasuke looked away again, pale-faced even as his eyes went lightless. “... Tazuna lied about
his contract. Some asshole took over the whole country. He sent Zabuza to stop Tazuna from
building a fucking bridge.” Bitter, even more so than the staccato sentences themselves.
Angry that a stranger had risked their lives for a mere construct. There were so many outside
factors that could have gone into that decision – political and economical aspects that were
unreasonable to expect a child to understand – but it didn’t change the echo of murderous
fury that tasted like blood in the back of Kakashi’s throat. “... Sakura killed him.” Dark. An
uncomfortable pause before he grit the words out, as if Sasuke wasn’t entirely sure how to
shape them.

Anger froze over instantly. Memory burned behind Kakashi’s eyes like a flashback, the sound
of bone shattering, the stench of blood as Sakura had shot past him, the way her killing intent
had erupted outward like a savage tide, strong enough to make everything go even more hazy
than it had been. If he’d been any less chakra-deprived it wouldn’t have stunned him –
Kakashi was inured to the deadliest of killing intents – but Sakura’s was lethal.

Light pressure at his hands dragged Kakashi out of his own head, and Gai’s concerned gaze
resolved before him. One hand was held between both of Gai’s, a steady firm pressure that
held his attention. The other had been trapped under one of Pakkun’s paws, the touch of blunt
claws on his skin a reminder of the ninken’s presence. When he glanced towards Pakkun, he
was licked.

Fuck.

Beyond where Gai sat by Kakashi’s bed, Sasuke was watching them in silence, eyes narrow.
Kakashi wasn’t entirely sure what Sasuke saw, while he observed, and after a moment he
decided that he didn’t want to. There was too much of Sasuke’s brother in that look, the
keenness with which Itachi had always read him no matter how many masks Kakashi layered
on. Out of principle, Kakashi refused to look away – he was the jōnin, damn it, he had shed
more enemy blood than his own body could produce in his entire lifetime – but it took more
than a minute of sticky silence before Sasuke broke.

When he finally did, Kakashi dropped his own gaze with bitter relief in his chest. It felt like
he’d breathed in liquid metal, heavy and toxic, the weight of the damage his kids now bore.
He hadn’t intended to take them into something so dangerous – of course he hadn’t, never –
but it didn’t matter, because it never mattered, because they were too close and they would
still be too close the next time Kakashi’s karmic guillotine fell, and it always, always did, on
the people who dared to care about him, on the people he was selfish enough to risk—

—and Sasuke had hesitated, and Sakura hadn’t—

Once more, a gentle squeeze of his hand dragged him out of the thought spiral. Kakashi
spared Gai another glance, an obligation of gratitude he felt he had to fulfil, even if Gai just
gave him an encouraging grin in return, as if their interaction was entirely benign. Skipping
over Gai, Kakashi focused on his kunoichi.

Hinata looked… almost peaceful, her hair splayed across her pillow in a dark halo. “Gai says
Hinata’s sedated?” he asked quietly, watching for Sasuke’s reaction in his periphery. Sasuke
glanced towards Gai – dangerous, dangerous, acknowledging his presence out loud, opening
the door for Sasuke to question it – before settling on Hinata as well.

For just a moment, there was raw fear on his face. “Yeah.” His voice still low, every sentence
curt. “She dislocated her hip. The med-nins said she needs to keep still. She’s mostly just
been sleeping.” Kakashi offered a hum of acknowledgement. It took a conscious reminder to
himself not to just let Sasuke hang and wonder, but now was not the time to enforce whatever
distance between them there might be. Shaken as he was, Sasuke needed reassurance more
than he needed to be protected from Kakashi’s curse. It was too late for that anyway – or they
wouldn’t be here in the first place.

The hand that had been holding his book was scrunched up in Sasuke’s blanket.

“They’ve woken her up to eat?” Sedated was not the same as anaesthetised, and if they’d felt
the need to drug her to ensure she didn’t jostle her hip, then it meant she was awake and
active enough without sedation to worry them.

“Mm.”
Only when Kakashi felt his shoulders relax did he realise he’d tensed up as he’d asked. “...
Good.” There would be no less damage done to Hinata’s psyche, the fear and paranoia that
Kakashi knew he was going to have to work through with them. With Sasuke it was already
obvious how it would take its toll; he was withdrawing, watching with less curiosity and
sharper wariness. Kakashi very much doubted that it would strike Hinata the same way; she
was more likely to internalise it, to take on an even deeper fear than she’d had before. She’d
doubted her ability to do out-of-village missions before she’d ever had the chance to try. No
matter how unfair this mission had been to her, she would take it as a mark of her own
inadequacy.

A soft rumble under his fingers told Kakashi he’d tightened them in Pakkun’s short fur, and
he didn’t need to look but he forced himself to ease his grip, gave the ninken an apologetic
scratch. Pakkun licked his hand, an instant forgiveness, and snorted softly as he settled back
down.

Movement from the floor took everyone’s attention for a second, as Urushi got to their paws.
For a split second, Kakashi thought they were going to climb up and fight Pakkun for a spot
on his bed – and then they padded quietly over to Sasuke’s bed instead, calmly made a
chakra-assisted jump, and walked in one tight circle before settling at Sasuke’s side.

Something molten burst in Kakashi’s chest like a bubble, and he let out a soft exhale. There
were no words for how reassuring it was, that the pack was taking in his genin without
needing to be persuaded, especially Urushi out of all of them – but equally was it terrifying.
Perhaps the pack could protect them from the danger Kakashi put them in. Sasuke flinched
slightly as Urushi lay down by him, their back pressed lightly to Sasuke’s thigh through his
blanket, but it only took a few moments for him to pet them. His shoulders visibly dropped as
he did, the unspoken soothing that only an animal could offer (even a sentient one like the
summons) working its magic.

Once more, Kakashi’s gaze slid to Pakkun. Perhaps, if his kids were already cursed with him,
he could offer them something else as well. He might as well take a shot at redemption.

Setting aside the thought for now, Kakashi looked back to his genin. Sakura was paler than
Hinata, her expression drawn in a way that was anything but peaceful. Still unconscious, Gai
had said. Still. What had happened to her after Kakashi had summoned Ūhei that kept her
down for longer than Kakashi himself? “You said Sakura killed the Wave tyrant?” And he
remembered, now, with such acute clarity it was almost painful, that Sakura had come from
the rooftop of Tazuna’s house, that she’d stormed up to their deadly foe without a trace of
fear, soaked in blood and carrying a blade she must have stolen. He remembered, how she’d
shoved a freshly severed head into Zabuza’s hand – how she’d callously gripped its hair and
not trembled in the slightest as she’d threatened to cut the man’s femoral artery. He
remembered, now, that once again she’d behaved as if she was a battle-hardened shinobi and
Kakashi had been able to find not a trace of the child she appeared.

The thought tripped something in Kakashi’s head, and suspicion tumbled ice cold down his
spine. She appeared to be a child. There was only one other person Kakashi knew who could
maintain a permanently youthful appearance, who wore a henge so sophisticated it could –
theoretically – fool even the Sharingan: Tsunade. Combined with the fact that Sakura knew
medical ninjutsu and had, twice now, demonstrated Tsunade’s other iconic technique…

As absurd as the theory was, upon first examination, it held up under the rapid scrutiny
Kakashi gave it. Gods, Sakura had even admitted it at the start of their training, the day she’d
first shown the ability she shouldn’t have. “I want to be like her someday.” The aspiration to
emulate Tsunade. It hadn’t been unbelievable at the time; Tsunade was the Hokage. Plenty of
young shinobi aspired to be like her.

But this… There were too many coincidences. Things never lined up so seamlessly by
chance. The effort that getting into her position would have taken was immense to the point
of redundancy – anyone who could pull off such an elaborate scheme surely had the power
and cunning to not need to do so – and yet Kakashi could see the way each suspicious thread
might weave together to accomplish it. Building a unique henge that mimicked Tsunade’s
was time- and chakra-consuming, but not unreasonable. Knowing medical ninjutsu would
only need training, and Sakura had the chakra control for it. Nothing except her age made her
ability in it unusual. And the strength technique… Admittedly, it was harder to explain than
the other things, but Tsunade had been gone from Konoha for a long time before returning to
lead it. If she could pick up one acolyte in Shizune, there was no reason she couldn’t have
trained an apprentice at some point.

Gai squeezed his hand yet again, but this time Kakashi twitched at the sensation, almost
pulled away. He didn’t need anchoring this time – he was very much present. Rage boiled up
around Kakashi’s new theory, a raw and violent thing. Maybe, after all, there had been a
Haruno Sakura who fit the profile he’d been given prior to meeting his team. Maybe Kakashi
was right in thinking something awful had happened to her right before her graduation –
maybe it had been the assumption she’d survived that he’d gotten wrong.

If Kakashi’s wakeful recovery had been measurable in days – or hells, even hours – instead
of minutes, he might have acted on the spot. It had been a long, long time since he’d done
anything in blind anger, but the idea that one of his genin was an immaculately smuggled spy,
that it had cost the girl in Sakura’s profile her life—

Kakashi wasn’t sure if Sasuke had responded to his question, but he no longer cared.
“Sasuke.” Fury manifested in his voice in the form of a snarl, and (one hand in Urushi’s fur)
Sasuke went rigid. “Sakura started behaving differently when you lot graduated, didn’t she?”

It was unfair, it was monstrously unfair, but Sasuke’s gaze shot to Sakura and then back to
Kakashi. His voice was tauter than a drawn bowstring when he replied, shredded through
gritted teeth. “... Yeah. Like she’s someone else.”

As if Kakashi had outright presented his thoughts.

Her closest friend had confirmed many times that Sakura wasn’t herself. Not aloud – at least,
not to Kakashi – but he’d spoken of it with Hinata, and it had been written plainly in every
worried little look Sasuke thought nobody had seen, in the way those looks had darkened into
fear into anger into resentment. Sakura was not herself.

Maybe the sentiment was literal.

Pakkun nipped Kakashi’s hand, jolting him out of his thoughts. Only that the med-nin would
have noticed if Sakura was faking her unconsciousness let him take his gaze off her. Deep
brown eyes bored darkly into his, a seriousness that Pakkun rarely brought to bear. Of course,
Kakashi’s sudden shift in emotions was obvious to everyone – a failure, on his part, a lack of
self-control that couldn’t be allowed to continue – but Pakkun knew him better than almost
anyone. He’d have picked it up no matter how well it was hidden.

With one hand, Gai placidly caught Kakashi’s attention. [Explain.]

Unlike the much less complicated field signals Konoha used for combat or stealth
communication – all of which could be made single-handed – longform Konoha sign
language wasn’t a required skill for shinobi ranked below jōnin. Even Anbu members weren’t
strictly obliged to learn it, though it was strongly recommended. There were similarities,
enough so that knowing the standard field signals often gave just enough context to puzzle it
out, but Sasuke knew neither.

Which was only relevant because Gai had chosen to use it to demand an explanation. Part of
Kakashi wanted to respond aloud, to get Sasuke’s input on his suspicions, but the (much
smaller) part (that sounded aggravatingly like Gai) said that it would be cruel. All evidence
aside, it was untested and unproven, and on the off-chance that Kakashi was wrong, offering
the idea to Sasuke first meant it would worm its way into his mind like a parasite.

Sasuke clearly understood what was happening when Kakashi claimed his hands back to
respond, movements shakier than he’d have liked, but no matter how obvious it was what
they were discussing, Sasuke was completely barred from it. Judging by the scowl on his
face, he didn’t like that in the slightest.

[Sakura isn’t herself.] Frowns met him, Gai’s more reserved than felt natural, and Pakkun’s
confused. [She underwent a drastic behavioural change, seemingly overnight. She doesn’t
respond like a genin, she responds like she’s seen hard combat. She knows all of Hokage’s
personal techniques.]

Understanding lit in both of their faces, and Gai leant back in his chair to consider the
implications. Pakkun licked his lips. [You’re saying she’s an imposter?] A simple nod would
do, and Kakashi gave it without hesitation. His instincts were rarely wrong; he shouldn’t have
let them go so easily.

Never mind if multiple inspections under Sharingan didn’t count as ‘easily’.

[She’s a child,] Gai rebuked him, still frowning. [How would—]

Shaking his head this time, Kakashi cut Gai off. [She knows Hokage’s techniques. Two out of
three isn’t accidental. She knows Hokage’s henge.] Which, okay, it was technically still
conjecture, but it made so much sense, no matter how harebrained and complicated a plot it
must be, no matter that Kakashi had yet to assign a valid motive to it. Theft of Konoha’s
secrets was sufficient motive for almost anything.

Gai’s hands lifted to argue – always to argue, at least in this, because Gai would take his own
life before threatening a Konoha genin – but it was Pakkun who broke in. “If she does, she’s
not using it.”

It was said with such implicit confidence that Kakashi felt his whole brain stall. Pakkun was
not in the habit of making claims he couldn’t back up. Staring down at the ninken, Kakashi
silently invited further explanation. Not that he would ever accuse Pakkun of lying, but such
clean dismissal when Kakashi had been so swept up in how everything suddenly seemed to
be clicking together, finally, was like being slapped. The roaring train of thought was a hair’s
breadth away from being derailed.

Shifting slightly to lie on his other side, Pakkun cocked his head. “She's down from chakra
exhaustion, boss.” There was an… uncharacteristically soft note in his voice. “Wood team
had to give her a chakra transfusion when we got there.”

And all at once, the brand new certainty crumbled away. The rising anger shattered into guilt.

Utakata’s team had a Hyuuga on board. If they’d given a genin a chakra transfusion (and the
ache in Kakashi’s sternum flared up once more at even the thought), and they’d done it in the
field, then Sakura’s situation would have been utterly dire. It meant that she’d truly burned
through every scrap of chakra she could drag together, it meant that she’d been just as close
to death as the rest of her team. It meant she’d been willing to throw away all caution to save
them.

It meant that even a henge such as Tsunade’s would have failed.

It meant that, once more, Kakashi was thoroughly fucking wrong.

Sasuke had technically been discharged several days ago, but there was precious little else for
him to do, Hinata supposed. Still, it was heartwarming that he was spending most of his time
in the ward with them anyway; she was pretty sure she’d said that aloud, at some point, when
she’d been awake but still very woozy with the sedatives, but thankfully nobody had thought
to mention it.

Opposite them – sitting up today, slowly sipping his way through a jug of water – Kakashi-
sensei was watching them carefully. His thoughts were as indecipherable as ever while he
stayed quiet most of the time. Was it professionalism (even here) that kept him so, or was it…
worse than that, somehow? Hard to tell at the best of times, and impossible while her
thoughts were still a little dulled. He at least didn’t seem unduly upset today.

Next to her, Sasuke tapped the little tray attached to Hinata’s bed; it held the remnants of
Hinata’s lunch and a mirrored array of playing cards. It was her turn again. Considering her
hand, Hinata tried to focus on strategy and gleaning whatever she could from Sasuke’s
pokerface; to her left was a distracting and uncomfortable bubble where Sakura lay in bed
with a parent on either side, and her shoulders hunched forward. Not that her parents didn’t
seem doting and worried, almost overbearingly so, but there was a sense of irritation
simmering between them. Sakura had already snapped at them today – under her breath,
admittedly, but not quiet enough to hide. She’d apologised right afterwards, of course, a
quiver in her voice like she might suddenly cry, but it hung over them still. That her parents
couldn’t understand her, that they were having doubts about supporting their daughter’s
career choice.

Hinata couldn’t quite get her head around why it upset Sakura so much. She’d spoken
affectionately enough of her parents, on the rare occasion they came up during training, but
actually seeing them interact was…

Well, in any case, Hinata didn’t need to watch them. They were still Sakura’s parents – and
failing that, Kakashi-sensei was fulfilling the duty anyway. Even with his hair loosely
concealing the left half of his face and his ever-present mask, the dislike in his black eye was
blatant.

A narrow white nose touched one of the cards in Hinata’s hands. “Play this,” Shiba said
haltingly. Lanky as she was, where she lay on the left side of the bed, she was all but draped
over Hinata while they played.

They’d met the rest of Kakashi-sensei’s ninken by now, drifting in and out of the room
alongside Itachi-sensei and Gai-sensei, but Pakkun, Shiba, Urushi, and Ūhei had stayed for
their entire recovery. Urushi spent most of their time in Sasuke’s lap, sprawled in a position
that had to be uncomfortable, though neither party would admit it. Pakkun didn’t leave
Kakashi-sensei's side, and Urushi joined him whenever Sasuke had to leave.

Shiba had taken to Hinata, and spent whatever time she could get away with pressed up to
Hinata’s good side, a soft, warm weight that eased even the most tightly knotted anxiety. As
strange as it seemed for a dog not to have fur, there was something comforting in the warmth
of Shiba’s skin, like the supplest leather. And Ūhei kept to Sakura, currently curled up on her
feet, watching her parents with a calm stare. Hinata had to wonder to herself, in between card
games, what Ūhei was thinking. She spoke little, and quietly, but every time she did it
softened Sakura’s gaze, eased her shoulders back, brought a faint smile dancing on her lips.

And it was absolutely transparent, what Kakashi-sensei’s ninken were doing. When the pack
was eight members strong, but only four of them chose to stay in here permanently, with the
way each of them had claimed a member of Team Seven. It was obvious, in observation, that
Ūhei and Urushi both offered Sakura and Sasuke the same reassurance Hinata drew from
Shiba.

Much less obvious, the moments in which Kakashi-sensei took comfort from Pakkun’s
presence, but they were there in the way Kakashi dug his fingers into Pakkun’s fur, in the low
rumble of Pakkun’s voice. Never quite loud enough for Hinata to fathom the words, but
enough.

“Hinata.”

Snapping back to the present, Hinata realised she’d gotten lost inside her own head again. It
was happening less and less as the med-nin tapered off the sedatives, but it hadn’t stopped
entirely yet. Realising made Hinata’s cheeks burn, but she picked out the card Shiba had
selected and played it. “Sorry, Sasuke.” For a moment, Shiba lay her head against Hinata’s
arm.
Sasuke shook his head, playing a card himself, and then absently petted Urushi's spine.
“Don’t worry about it.” He’d gotten used to it, at least. He didn’t really have much choice,
perhaps, but he wasn’t required to spend all his free time in here, with them. “What were you
thinking about?”

Without much thought, Hinata picked a card at random and put it down. “The ninken.” Shiba
let out a soft whuff, laying her head back down, and Urushi flicked their ears. Quirking one
eyebrow, Sasuke played a response and silently asked her to elaborate. Folding her hand,
Hinata shifted slightly to put an arm around Shiba’s shoulders, wincing as it jostled her hip,
and wondered if she was about to be rude. “Well… normally, summoned creatures will go
back to their own realm when they’re not— I mean, not ‘in use’, but… Sorry, Shiba.”

Urushi snorted, picking their head up. “Don’t worry about it. You wanna know why we can
come and go so freely. Yeah?”

While confusion filled Sasuke’s face, Hinata just nodded. It was something she’d tentatively
wondered, watching the way Kakashi-sensei’s pack came and went. Of course, Kakashi
couldn’t be summoning them himself right now – but they didn’t seem to be summoning
themselves, either, or desummoning themselves when they left. Entirely possible that they
simply weren’t doing so within their hospital room, but Hinata didn’t think so. She couldn’t
quite pin down why she was so certain of it, that there was something strange about the
ninken. Urushi’s words seemed to back her up, though, a tacit admission that they weren’t
typical summons somehow.

Quietly, she hoped Sasuke didn’t ask her how she knew anything about summons in the first
place. There were lots of things Hinata had read about, deep into the night, that she would
prefer not to say. There was only so far she could go under her own power, after all, what
little there was of it. External ways to get stronger would, sooner than later, become her only
option.

Flicking their ears again, Urushi set their head down on their paws, considering an answer.
“We’ve got our own realm, like other summons.”

“Tsuki no Mori,” Shiba interrupted, her voice soft with deep affection. Her tail wagged gently
against Hinata’s calf. “Beautiful.”

Urushi nodded. “Yep. Do you guys know about ancestral contracts, yet?” they asked, looking
between Sasuke and Hinata. The words rose on her tongue, acknowledgement that she did,
but Hinata swallowed them. Revealing that she knew, when Kakashi-sensei hadn’t taught
them, would only beg questions she didn’t want to answer. Averting her eyes, Hinata waited
until Sasuke took her silence as denial, and shook his head. Humming, Urushi took the time
to twist in Sasuke’s lap, scratching one ear, perfectly content to let the genin wait. “Well,”
they started again, settling back, “most of the summons lineages only have one summoning
contract bound to humans. And most of those are held by a specific clan, so they’re
considered ancestral. A sort of… heirloom jutsu, I guess.” They flicked their ears, looked up
at Sasuke, and a faintly smug gleam came into their eyes. “Can you figure out why we’d only
give one contract to you lot?”
Meeting Sasuke’s gaze, Hinata watched him consider it. She had some thoughts – pride of the
clan, or the lineage, or both, or compatibility of summons to shinobi – but Hinata held them
silently. Her answers were never satisfactory, and there was no reason to think that this would
be different. Besides, anything she said could lead to more questions.

After a few moments of companionable silence, Sasuke offered an answer, absently stroking
Urushi’s fur. “Shinobi are always fighting; I assume you don’t want to end up fighting other
ninken summons. Right?”

Tail wagging ever so slightly, Urushi flicked their ears again, smiling. There were a lot of
teeth involved. “That’s the primary reason, yeah. Generally it’s because most lineages don’t
contract out specific individuals to every shinobi or samurai on their contract. Really
unpleasant to find yourself fighting a littermate cause your summoners don’t like each other.”
They said it darkly, but their face remained placid. At least, as far as Hinata could tell.
Reading a dog was far harder than reading her teammates. “But there's an element of
compatibility, as well. We took contracts with clans that suited us.”

Sasuke let out a soft noise of understanding. “Clans tend to specialise in specific things. You
want to make sure your summoners work well with what you can do.” Internally, Hinata
glowed. She’d thought that! Probably a lucky guess, but it was still nice to find she’d thought
something right. At her side, Shiba uttered another soft whuff.

“Pretty much. And long term contracts tend to affect the shinobi too,” Urushi confirmed.

Pausing where he was scratching their ears – and getting a low grumble for his efforts –
Sasuke voiced another thought through a light frown. “You said ‘shinobi or samurai’ earlier.”

This time, Shiba let out an amused bork; not quite a bark, quieter, less startling. “Shinobi are
silly.” Said with an affectionate lick of Hinata’s arm. “You are not the only one who has
chakra.” While true – there were plenty of alternative professions that encouraged or required
chakra training, doctors and samurai being chief amongst them – shinobi were by far the
most prevalent. Sometimes Hinata forgot that there were other things she could one day
aspire to be. Things that wouldn’t care about her lacklustre abilities in battle. Disappointment
and hope fluttered in her stomach in equal measure.

“I still don’t understand why you— Why Tsuki no Mori is different,” she intoned softly,
keeping her tone apologetic. If it sounded like she blamed her own ignorance, the ninken was
less likely to take it as an accusation somehow.

Urushi rumbled low in their chest, and shot a quick glance across the room to Kakashi.
Following their eyes, Hinata saw Pakkun watching them back. “We get contracted on an
individual basis; I’m part of Kakashi’s pack, and only Kakashi can summon me. For
example.” There was boundless affection in their voice as they said Kakashi-sensei’s name, a
love that ran so deep Hinata wasn’t even sure she recognised it. Jealousy flared, ever so
gently, under her skin. “Our contract has belonged to the Hatake clan for generations. When
we sign into one of their packs, we get keyed into a summoning matrix set up in their
compound.” A pause while they let Hinata and Sasuke digest that. “Konoha is our permanent
home.”
Quicker on the uptake, as he ever was, Sasuke opened his mouth first. “So when you
desummon, you end up back on Hatake land instead of going home to Tsuki no Mori?”

Urushi grunted a confirmation.

“That’s how Ūhei got here so fast, isn’t it?” Blurted out before she could stop herself, and
Hinata felt the burn of colour in her cheeks, but Shiba gave a pleased hum, tail wagging. “I
mean— When Kakashi-sensei summoned her.”

Shiba’s tail continued thumping lightly against Hinata’s leg, but Urushi looked troubled for a
moment. Glanced across to Kakashi and Pakkun again. “Yeah. She went straight to the
Hokage. Fastest bitch I’ve ever met.” A hint of amusement wove into their voice, looking
across Hinata towards Sakura.

Turning to see, Hinata caught Sakura’s gaze for a second, where she was checking to see
what had attracted Ūhei's attention, ears perked. She must have heard her name.

Sakura’s expression was… strained. Half a smile there, as her parents fussed and worried and
tried to reassure their daughter that they were proud of her no matter what she chose to do
after this – but it was ruined by the shadow in her eyes, the faint twist of anger in her lips that
she couldn’t quite fully hide. Pained tension in her shoulders, a little too much relief in her
sighs when they would finally have to leave. Sakura had been awake and responsive for four
days now, and her parents had been here for all of them, as long as the hospital would allow.

Four days, and six months of training with Sakura, and Hinata really needed to find out their
names.

There was something in the way that they interacted with their daughter that felt… wrong,
somehow. Hinata couldn’t put her finger on it. Sakura was headstrong and sure of herself, but
she was usually very sweet. Too many times she had snapped, albeit quietly, and then fallen
over herself apologising.

Maybe it was just the stress. Their bodies might be healing, but Hinata could see the
psychological damage in her team. In herself. Sasuke flinched every time the bruises on his
neck were checked, had to fight to keep his breathing even. Hinata was almost certain that
Kakashi-sensei wasn’t sleeping. There’d been one night, when Hinata was also pretending,
where Sakura hadn’t been able to fully muffle her quiet weeping.

But still, something about watching Sakura talk with her parents prickled down Hinata’s
spine like senbon points. Most of the time, she just tried not to.

Hinata offered a slight smile back anyway, hoping against all odds that she was helping,
somehow, and then turned back to her own conversation. Grim anger clouded Sasuke’s face.

It could be a long time before he forgave Sakura for leaving them. Unfair, to pass judgement
before she’d even had the chance to explain herself, but there had been nothing fair about the
mission since the moment Tazuna had shown up insulting them, and that Hinata and Sasuke
had been forced to fight Zabuza on their own was no exception.
Even if Tazuna had been right, in the end. Even if they had failed in every capacity.

Silently, Sasuke picked up the cards, shuffled them all back together, and then dealt out
another hand for himself and Hinata. He won most of the rounds – it was a game he’d only
taught her the day before, unfamiliar as Hinata was with cards. She’d never had the
opportunity to play before.

There was a sense of tension in the air that hadn’t gone away since Hinata had gotten more
lucid, something between them all that reminded her of Zabuza’s hand around her neck. It
eased, just a little, when Itachi-sensei took Sasuke home and Sakura’s parents were gone and
it was just the three of them, but it never faded fully. Hinata couldn’t figure out what to do
about it, if there was even anything to be done.

Today was no different, as Sasuke played cards with Hinata and ignored everyone else until
Itachi arrived. Urushi got a cuddle before they jumped off Sasuke’s lap, and Hinata got a
brief moment of interlaced fingers, a gentle squeeze before he went to his brother’s side.
Kakashi got a low “Good night, Sensei,” as he went past, while Urushi jumped up beside
Pakkun. Sakura – watching with liquid eyes, refusing to look at her parents where they
hovered and exchanged worried glances – got nothing.

Sakura’s parents gave her hugs, while she kept her eyes down and awkwardly returned them,
and reluctantly followed the Uchihas out. The first night Sakura had been awake, it had taken
two nurses to harry them out at the end of visiting hours.

For a few minutes after they left, nobody said anything. Sakura sank down in her bed, her
blanket pulled up to her chin, as if she was hiding. Ūhei moved up slightly, sprawling across
Sakura’s legs, her head laid against Sakura’s stomach. One hand snuck out from under the
blankets, slipped under Ūhei’s jaw. Her tail thumped, ever so slowly, against the bed while
Sakura scritched. Hinata couldn’t clearly see her face tonight, but she knew what it would
look like – the same as every other night. Sad and scared and trying, in vain, to hide both.

Across from them, Kakashi-sensei sat propped against an excess of pillows, writing
something out against a clipboard borrowed from the hospital. He’d been working at it on
and off for days now, in between talking quietly whenever Gai-sensei was around, and
brooding with Pakkun. Hinata was pretty sure that it was a written report, not that she’d
asked. She was curious, though, exactly how thorough it would be. It felt presumptuous to
question it, but Kakashi-sensei had been unconscious for most of the mission. The parts of it
that mattered, anyway. If he intended to ask them for details, he hadn’t yet; but offering them
unasked was so insolent that even just the thought made her flinch.

So instead, Hinata petted Shiba quietly and watched Kakashi-sensei work in the light of his
lamp. He had to know she was watching, of course he did, but he didn’t acknowledge it. It
was still strange, to see him in such a… vulnerable position. Bundled up with his dogs, hair
barely covering his Sharingan eye, arms bare but for a bandage wrap around his left bicep,
unarmed. The edge of power that he usually displayed – a vague aura of contempt, of danger,
some unseen sense that Hinata couldn’t quite name – was gone, for now.

She’d tried not to notice, initially, while he’d chipped away at the report. Gloveless. There
was no shortage of reasons for Kakashi-sensei to have scars; all shinobi did, it was just part
 of the job. Even genin came out of the Academy with scars, mistakes made while learning
how to use their weapons, markers of sparring as they’d grown older and gotten more violent.
A jōnin of Kakashi’s power and prestige could only be expected to carry many.

But Hinata had seen, in brief glimpses, in faint shadows as Kakashi wrote, scars that looked
different. Hard to be certain – Hinata would need a closer look to be sure, and there was no
power in the world that could compel her to ask – but they were familiar. Catching herself
eyeing Kakashi-sensei’s arms made shame uncurl between her ribs, long and delicate fingers
that wove endlessly around her bones until she wanted to shake herself free of them. There
was no escape from the guilt of seeking out a better look at his scars, but it wasn’t enough to
make her stop. Spotting darker ones, long and deep purple, only made her own scars itch
where they lay across her thighs in slender white lines. Her guilt was well-deserved.

“Hinata?”

Sakura’s voice was tiny, a half-muffled squeak that shot through the silence like an explosive
tag. When Hinata looked over, she could barely make out Sakura’s eyes, faintly reflecting
Kakashi’s lamp, only just peeking over the edge of her blanket. Drawn brows cast shadows
over them.

Hinata hummed an acknowledgement, trying not to feel Kakashi’s gaze lift to them. She
probably deserved the scrutiny, after all, but it still made her blood run cold.

Another moment of silence went by, Sakura’s gaze darting down to Ūhei for reassurance,
before she looked back to meet Hinata’s eyes. Flickered. “I’m… I’m sorry.” Whispered. It
wasn’t the first time she’d spoken to her team since she woke up, but her words had been few
and far between in the absence of her parents, and even more meaningless.

Her voice cracked as she apologised.

Glancing away, Hinata caught Kakashi’s eye for just a second, and then twitched back in her
bed, focusing on Shiba. Dark eyes looked back, molten and gentle. Shiba licked Hinata’s
hand. Instinct burned on Hinata’s tongue, the need to say that it was okay, that Sakura didn’t
need to worry about it or apologise. Dismissal of the fact that Hinata was hurt, because her
feelings didn’t matter, had never mattered, and only ever got in the way.

But… it stuck, like chewing on foam. For a minute, Hinata struggled with it, unsure if she
was fighting to say it or to not say it, every emotion an ache that felt like it might burst out of
her chest.

Eventually, her voice just as small as her teammate’s, Hinata managed a response.

“I know.”

Chapter End Notes

The Annual List of Thoughts and Stuff:
|| Look, listen, I know that Kishimoto tried to make Kakashi’s whole pack of ninken
male but absolutely fuck that. No, I do not take criticism.
|| On that note, a rundown of the Hatake pack as it currently stands:
- Akino | male chowchow-husky cross.
- Bisuke | female cocker spaniel mix.
- Bull | male old english bulldog.
- Guruko | male beagle spaniel cross.
- Pakkun | male miniature pug. Please note that I'm deliberately altering Pakkun's
design to be that of a longer-muzzled pug, as the punch-face version you're all familiar
with is a fucking abomination and needs to be bred out of existence. The poor things
CANNOT BREATHE, and quite aside from the obvious well-being problems, how the
fuck is a ninja dog supposed to ninja if he can't fucking breathe.
- Shiba | female xoloitzcuintli.
- Ūhei | female greyhound.
- Urushi | nonbinary jack russel terrier mix.
|| You will never, ever convince me that the jōnin don’t all know fancy sign language or
that they don’t use it to talk shit.
|| One of my favourite things about writing something like this is that exactly nobody is
a reliable narrator. Everything they observe and conclude is biased in whatever way that
character has – and all of them have biases and traumas and misinterpretations of the
people around them. It’s absolutely fascinating to watch the way they see another
character do or say something and come to a conclusion about what it means or why
they did it that I know is completely inaccurate because I know what all the other
characters are thinking and feeling, but my PoV character doesn’t.
|| I’m sorry this is a few days late! It fought me hard right up until the very end – but
everything yields in the face of boundless spite.
|| A huge thanks to my beta readers, who do an amazing job in making sure this whole
thing makes sense and stays internally consistent!

And finally, as always, a link to my authory Tumblr where any and all updates can be
found for this fic. This is where I'll post warnings if a chapter will be a little late and any
other relevant updates. ^^

Next Chapter Due: 2nd January 2021

 With Wounds So Sharp, They Cut Like Glass
Chapter Summary

When everyone lives, it's the damage that comes after that cuts the deepest.

Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

In the failure of his newest theory – ill-thought-out and born from sleep deprivation and
frustration – Kakashi had taken only a few days to settle on another. This one wasn’t a new
theory, not really, not when he’d already contemplated it before. Even asked her about it,
once, and gotten I don’t want to talk about it. If Sakura had been a spy, hiding behind
Tsunade’s unique henge, then it could have been explained as holding cover; he’d presented
her a reason to blame her twitchiness on, of course she’d have agreed.

But now…

Watching his genin during the day was a task that Kakashi almost wished he could dedicate
less energy to. It consumed him, taking discreet notes while he pretended to read Icha Icha,
Pakkun quietly nestled at his side. He’d had a real copy out, the first day he’d been awake,
after everything had settled a little. Barely been able to pay attention to it, his gaze constantly
drifting to where Hinata and Sakura lay motionless, to where Sasuke curled up around Urushi
and napped. Gai had been his anchor, quietly humming or muttering away about his own
genin, not caring if Kakashi was actually listening. It never mattered, somehow, whether
Kakashi actually listened. Just that he had the option to.

He’d felt like he was heading into battle when a med-nin had come by to check on them. Soft
questions that Sasuke had sleepily answered through Urushi’s fur, and a stern stare as she’d
interrogated Kakashi. She wasn’t a med-nin that Kakashi recognised, but she knew exactly
what to do with him. The specific protocol he wasn’t supposed to know they had for him was
taught early, apparently.

Kakashi’s hands had gotten so tight on his book while the med-nin had checked over
Sakura’s vitals that Gai had gently taken it away from him, setting it down and replacing it
with his own hands. Gai hadn’t made a sound, no matter how hard Kakashi squeezed. It
hadn’t been any easier watching her deem Sakura safe and move on to Hinata.

The days since had bled that specific tension out of him, watching them recover. Trusting in
their recovery felt like biting a baited hook, but there was nothing else to be done. The med-
nin said they would be okay, so Kakashi told himself – over and over and over – to believe it.

But as that immediate fear had slowly faded, others had risen in its place, a sense of dread
and a numbing anger that never dulled. Hinata was quiet and anxious, and Kakashi knew how
deeply torn her self-confidence would be, how much more work would need to go into
rebuilding what Zabuza – what Tazuna – had stolen from her. How hard that was going to be
when she returned, each night, to the cold judgement of her clan and the sneered
disappointment of her father.

As if the man had the right. As if he dared to harm Hinata. Hiashi's child, perhaps, but she
was Kakashi’s genin now, and he was sick of letting it continue. No matter how hard they
tried, there would be no unlearning her self-doubt when it was reinforced the moment she
slipped away from Kakashi’s hold each day.

None of Hinata’s clanmates had come to visit her. Not even her father, not even her sister.
Hanabi was too young, in all likelihood, to be allowed to make that decision herself, but even
so the lack of concern from Hinata’s family made Kakashi’s blood boil. She’d had more
Uchiha visitors than Hyuuga.

For now, he put it aside. It wasn’t a problem he could solve by ramming his head against it,
no matter how hard. He had ideas, of course, but they needed refining. When he did step in,
his actions needed to be swift and unyielding. If Kakashi gave the Hyuuga tyrant even the
shadow of a chance to stop him interfering, Hiashi would never let it go. Down that path lay
the opportunity for violence, and Kakashi couldn’t risk coming to blows with one of
Konoha’s founding clans.

Even the thought ached, deep in his upper arm.

Sasuke was no better off. He’d spent every day in the ward with them, despite being
discharged a week earlier, and he’d spent most of them doggedly talking to Hinata and no one
else. He responded well enough whenever Kakashi did call on him, and he offered a quiet
greeting in the mornings and a farewell at nights, but he didn’t initiate any other interaction.
He refused to speak to Sakura at all.

And neither was Sakura in any less sorry a state. Demure with her parents, right up until the
moments she wasn’t – and scrambling to apologise immediately afterwards. There was fear
in her, a terror that shone through now, so clearly, when they were all back in Konoha and as
safe as they ever could be at Kakashi’s side, that had been absent when she faced down their
deaths at Zabuza’s hand.

What was worse, here at home, that she was more afraid than she had been of the Demon of
the Mist?

Kakashi had an idea, and it made him want to split the spines of those responsible.

It was made all the more obvious, the night before their formal discharge. Sakura had
recovered from extreme chakra fatigue faster than Kakashi had – which wasn’t a surprise
given Kakashi’s track record – but since she was still so young, the med-nin had insisted she
stay the full term of observation. It wasn’t often that genin hit fatigue, and the effects could
be drastically worse for their underdeveloped chakra network than for an adult's. A truth that
Kakashi could personally attest to.
Hinata had watched him for a while, that night, like she always did once Sasuke left. He’d
actually been scribbling away at his official written report this time, pieced together from the
verbal recounts he’d demanded of his genin and supplemented with his own commentary
based on long experience and what scattered information Pakkun and Ūhei could offer. Far
too late to still be working on it, when it would be handed in tomorrow, but Kakashi had
found time slipping away in other tasks. Notes on the damage to his kids, observations of
new behaviours, thoughts on what he could do to help them.

There was still enough light to continue their lessons in Konoha sign language – a subject
he’d begun teaching them at Sasuke’s request, and one that only made sense since they didn't
already know it. There weren’t more physical lessons they were giving up in order to learn; it
would be some time longer before those resumed. But Kakashi refrained, unwilling to
continue without Sasuke’s presence. As worried as Kakashi was that the boy would use what
he learned to reverse-engineer the conversation Kakashi had silently conducted with Gai, it
was subject matter that they were going to learn at some point anyway. The possibility
wouldn’t be lessened by delay.

Eventually, soon after Kakashi had finished up the last of his written report, Hinata finally
fell asleep. She hadn’t been sleeping well, understandably, but she’d at least slept
consistently. Kakashi was running on a few hours at most, and even that not every night.
Sakura, he knew, was running on barely any more. It showed, during the day, when she
drifted into a haze between the ramblings of her parents – if indeed they even deserved the
moniker. It showed in the dark smudges under her eyes, it showed in the moments Kakashi
caught her staring at him in the dead of night.

Tonight was worse. Sakura had been jumpy all day, even more jittery than she’d been since
she woke up. It wasn’t a surprise that her chakra signature still fluttered faintly against
Kakashi’s senses, even deep into the night. She was doing her best to hide it, judging by how
committed she was to lying almost fully hidden under her blanket, Ūhei curled up at her
back, but it still quivered in the air. Like the touch of spidersilk on his skin and the taste of
rosewater.

It wasn’t unusual, given the precedent of every other night they’d shared in their ward room,
but it nagged all the same. Sank teeth like needles into Kakashi’s thoughts and worried away
at the conclusion he desperately didn’t want to accept. So he lay down with Pakkun and
Urushi sprawled on his bed and quieted his own chakra signature.

An hour passed.

Two.

Near the third hour’s close, Sakura stirred. A stronger (but only barely) pulse of her chakra
swept the room, like the ethereal touch of a veil, and Kakashi made sure to wind what strands
of it connected with his into fraying threads, to echo back only the glutenous oozing of a
sleeping shinobi.

Ūhei picked her head up when Sakura slipped out from under their blanket. Chakra woven
into his eye – the med-nin would gouge it out if they caught him doing so – Kakashi could
pick out the silhouette of Sakura’s movement in the darkness. She gestured, with both hands,
for Ūhei to remain silent. A wordless conversation happened between them, only a few
seconds long, and Ūhei snorted softly, lay her head back on her front paws, and watched.
Only the faintest speck of reflection in her eyes betrayed her.

Shoulders slumping and breathing out a shallow sigh, Sakura crept out from her section of
the room and to the end of Hinata’s bed. There was a quiet clack, like the snap of ghostly
fingers, as she picked up the clipboard containing all the current information on Hinata’s
condition. A shiver went through what Kakashi could feel of her chakra, and then a winking
flame came to life at Sakura’s fingertips, illuminating just enough for Sakura to read.

The med-nin would kill her too; Kakashi tried not to feel a distant edge of amusement. He
hadn’t been the one to teach her such recklessness, no matter if anyone would believe such a
claim. It was overpowered, in any case, by the anxiety that bubbled up as he watched her. The
med-nin were right in their strictness – it was dangerous to mould chakra so soon after
depleting one's reserves of it, and only more so to sculpt it into a jutsu. Even a jutsu so simple
as the Matchlight katon.

For several minutes, Kakashi watched her read. There was no relaxation in Sakura’s
shoulders, but she carefully set the clipboard back and released a soft, heavy sigh. The flame
at her fingers dimmed as she stood up again, but it didn't extinguish. The outline of her jaw
and nose, indistinct shadows in the faint, flickering light, marked her silent approach.

She walked so soundlessly. Had she learned that from Kakashi? Doubtful. The art of moving
without noise was a skill that could not be conferred through observation alone; it was
something that one learned slowly, over years of mistakes, until one figured out how to test
each footstep before it was taken, how to hold the body’s weight high and not in the legs.

Kakashi watched Sakura get close, his eye a narrow slit so as to not catch the light. Her flame
flickered as she reached for his clipboard. Fear? Chakra strain? Could be either – or both.

”You should be sleeping.”

It wasn’t meant to come out sharp, but Kakashi heard the cutting edge in his own voice
anyway. Quiet, so as not to wake Hinata, but Sakura bit down on a panicked gasp and pulled
back into a defensive posture, hands lifted, the clipboard held slightly aloft as if it were a
weapon. Her little orange flame went out.

A moment later, her voice cracked the silence. “... S-Sensei?”

Just as quietly, Kakashi sat up. Pakkun shifted ever so slightly, watching. Urushi picked up
their head, looked towards Ūhei. Across the room, the greyhound flicked her ears. “What are
you doing, Sakura?” Let her interpret what he meant specifically herself – it would be telling,
which aspect she chose to explain first. What she was most concerned about him learning.
Was it why she was up at all? Why she’d been moulding chakra? Why she was snooping
about her team’s medical charts?

Her exhale was shaky, as she slowly lowered Kakashi’s clipboard and set it back where it
belonged. Sakura turned her head away, bit her lip in the darkness. “I’m…” Glanced towards
Ūhei too, met another twitch of the ninken’s ears. “... I don’t have an excuse. I’m sorry,
Sensei.”

Kakashi hummed. Not even an attempt to explain herself – complete submission to whatever
she thought Kakashi would do in response. Better, in her head, to concede the point entirely,
to bear her punishment without mitigation. Was it because she would rather that than share
her thoughts? Or was it that she expected any attempt at explanation to be useless? Or worse,
inflammatory?

“I don’t care about excuses, Sakura.” Even sharper this time, and she flinched as he spoke.
The shadow of her face deepened as she tucked her chin to her collar, shoulders hunched in.
Guilt flickered at his fingertips, a brief impulse to take it back. Fear glittered quietly in her
averted gaze, and Kakashi hated himself just a little bit more for putting it there. She had
enough to fear without his help; he suspected, already, why she might be looking through
their files the night before they would be discharged. If there was any kindness left in the
world, he’d be wrong.

The world was not a kind place.

Silently, Sakura waited for whatever she thought was coming. “Sakura.” Not even a glance
up, but one arm went over her own stomach in a facsimile of a hug, as if she were Hinata.
Her other hand flexed, fingers twitching, as if turning over a weapon within them. “Why are
you reading our medical files?” From the way she tucked her ankles together, lowered her
centre of gravity, tried to make herself smaller, Sakura understood the hidden accusation in
his question. She was good at that, disturbingly so. Picking out unspoken meanings,
recognising warnings and instructions that she had no right to.

The rules were, admittedly, slightly different for shinobi than they were for civilians, but
immediate oversight notwithstanding there was still a level of privacy that came with patient
confidentiality. As their jōnin-sensei, Kakashi had the right to snoop into Sakura, Hinata, and
Sasuke’s files if he so chose – but the privilege didn’t go both ways. The genin didn’t have
the right to read each other’s medical records either, of course not, but it was much less
serious an offence than prying into Kakashi’s.

Even if it weren’t for the principle of it, there was too much there to find for Kakashi to risk
letting them see it.

A minute went by, awkward and strained. Another.

“Sakura.”

Ūhei’s ears flicked. Pakkun let out a soft whuffle, licked his muzzle. Urushi rumbled.

“I-I… I wanted to… know if you’d be alright.” She kept her head down. Her voice tight.
Fearful. The girl had stood up to an s-rank enemy, had threatened him without so much as a
shiver. Possessed a killing intent hidden underneath her skin that rivalled any of Kakashi’s
peers. But this— now, she was afraid. Something about this, about being in hospital, safe
with her team, in Konoha, was worse.
Shifting his weight, Kakashi reached over to the little table by his bed and flicked the lamp
on, releasing the thread of chakra in his eye as he did. None of the dogs even blinked, pupils
contracting in the sudden light, but Sakura flinched and whimpered softly. Squeezed her eyes
shut. Normal response? She’d had a flame lit to read by, but it was dimmer than the electric
bulb. Unprepared for the sudden light, there was no reason to think that her reaction to it was
anything more than expected sensitivity.

It didn’t stop him.

Until Sakura blinked her eyes back open, adjusting to the light, Kakashi stayed his tongue.
He was sure there was something he was supposed to say, something he should do. Sakura
was his responsibility, and she was wounded and scared; he should be doing something to
help her, not frighten her more. It spun in his head like refracted sunlight, the obligation he
didn’t know how to fill – and the attempt cut cleanly through his voice, like a blade across his
throat.

There was a low snuffle, and Ūhei jumped off Sakura’s bed. She was at the kid’s side in a
moment, pushing her head under Sakura’s hand. Slim fingers dug into the combat wraps she
wore, and scritched gently. Being careful not to unbalance her, Ūhei leaned against Sakura’s
side, applying just enough of her weight to offer support.

Quietly, Pakkun nosed Kakashi’s hand, and he reflexively curled his fingers. “We’ve passed
any immediate danger. As long as you take the proper time to rest and recover, you’ll all be
fine.” For now, anyway.

Sakura’s eyes narrowed again, and this time she settled them on Kakashi’s face. “And… And
you too… Right?” Ah, fuck. He hadn’t meant to discount himself from that reassurance, but it
was telling that Sakura jumped on it so fast.

“I’ll be fine.” Kakashi barely listened to his own voice, watching Sakura carefully. It didn’t
seem to soothe her – tight shoulders remained so, her gaze skewing to the side, a shallow and
sharp inhale. Ūhei made a low noise in her throat, leaning ever so slightly heavier against
Sakura, and Sakura leaned back. Her other arm pressed closer to her own stomach, fingers
knotted in the loose hospital garb.

Her eyes again flashed briefly towards the board at the end of Kakashi’s bed, and unquiet
rage rose up along his spine in a prickling heat, an expansion in his chest that made it hard to
breathe evenly. Sakura’s breath caught in her throat, ever so faintly, a shiver of fear that ran
up through her face, a bitten lip and glittering eyes. “... Okay.” Sakura backed up several
steps, glancing towards Hinata before slowly creeping over to her own bed. It shouldn’t
surprise him, that her focus seemed to primarily be on his medical fitness; she was young and
afraid, and Kakashi’s presence offered her safety.

It explained why she’d been so desperate to pass the bell test when she didn’t have a clan
reputation on the line like her teammates. With Kakashi as her sensei, he was obligated to
stand between her and danger. Training everyday, having most of her time consumed by
being with him – and away from home – gave her an escape legitimised by the Village.
 “You promise?” And it was there, something she couldn’t fully hide, a jagged edge in her
voice that she tried to bury under a whisper and failed. Kakashi let his hand clench in his
blanket, behind Pakkun’s body where Sakura couldn’t see, and a bolt of pain sliced through
the anger. Well on its way to healed thanks to the med-nin, but it would be some few more
weeks before Kakashi had full use of his hand back. At least the burn barely hurt anymore.

“I promise.”

The words tasted unfamiliar, a strange flutter of anxiety in his chest as he said them. Liar.
Maybe they’d all made it home this time, maybe they were okay – or would be, with a lot of
effort and even more luck – but it wouldn’t last. It never lasted. Kakashi shouldn’t be making
such promises, but… what else could he say? She was already terrified, and so focused on
her team’s wellbeing—

On Kakashi’s wellbeing.

On whether he was capable of protecting her.

It was almost a joke; he’d already failed to protect her. To protect any of them.

He looked away from her, reached out to turn the lamp off again. “Go to sleep, Sakura.” It
came out firmer than he meant, but Sakura looked up at him with worried eyes, looking him
over in the once-again dark. Forcing his voice into something softer, he added, “We’ll be
discharged tomorrow. Make sure you eat and rest; we start back on Monday.”

“Yes, Sensei.” Whispered, and she slunk back to her bed with Ūhei at her side. Kakashi
watched her, weaving chakra back into his eye in a slender thread. Curled up around Ūhei,
Sakura tugged the blanket up around her neck and closed her eyes, but it took several more
hours for her to actually fall asleep.

Hypocritical of him, to tell her to sleep. It was different – Kakashi was older and fully
developed, he had more experience than the kids, he needed less sleep and less overall
maintenance – but even so…

It took longer than he’d care to admit, but eventually Kakashi did manage to drift off. Far too
late, but even a few hours were better than none; there was a lot of work for him to do once
he got out of here, once he’d let Sakura go with her parents – it made his jaw clench just
thinking about it – and taken Hinata home. For what pathetic value ‘home’ really meant for
her, in the Hyuuga compound. Not only would he have to deliver a more complete version of
his report to Tsunade, in the privacy of her office without his three kids paying keen attention,
but he had to start preparing for… whatever it was he was going to do about the untenable
situations his kunoichi were in. He had to visit Tsuki no Mori and get clearance from the
Alphas. He had to lay out a plan for continued lessons that wouldn’t put them at risk during
the rest of their recovery, and to try and help the genin work through their brand new trauma.

Beyond that, he had to be ready to deal with Gai flitting in and out of his apartment
constantly and without warning, watching for any signs of instability, or… worse. Kaida had
yet to show up, which meant she was withholding her lecture for the presence of his genin,
and no matter how grateful Kakashi was for that decision, it meant that he was in for an
earful when she finally got the chance to give it. Whatever sleep he could get was invaluable.

He was the first to awaken when the sun rose again, but it only took a few minutes for Hinata
to join him. She twitched, waking Shiba who snorted and then yawned, showing off a row of
delicate white teeth. A moment later she lay her head on Hinata’s stomach, rumbling a quiet
reassurance as Hinata’s eyes shot open.

They swept the room, and Hinata visibly relaxed as recognition cleared her anxious
expression. One hand snuck out of her blanket to rest against Shiba’s shoulder. “Good
morning, Kakashi-sensei,” she murmured, glancing across to Sakura. Still slumbering,
though the tremble of her chakra gave away how shallow that sleep was.

“Morning, Hinata.” It felt too close to a lie, when he’d lied to them so much already, to agree
with any assessment of their morning being ‘good.’ Today would be long and trying, for all
of them.

Sakura woke several minutes later, offering a greeting as quiet and worried as Hinata’s, and
they waited in uneasy silence for the sun to rise fully. Whatever thoughts swirled inside their
heads, neither of them spoke aloud, and their eyes stayed down while they petted Kakashi’s
ninken.

He wasn’t sure if Sasuke was going to show. Kakashi gave it 50/50 odds; he knew that his
team was being discharged today, which theoretically made his presence redundant, but
Sasuke also knew as well as any of them the kinds of things Hinata would be facing at home,
and they’d been all but attached at the hip the last week or so. There was every chance he’d
want to offer his support, what he could, once she was out of hospital.

Kakashi couldn’t help but wonder, given Sasuke’s long-standing friendship with Sakura, if he
knew what she faced at home, too. It seemed unlikely, given his recent behaviour with her –
but he was a highly skilled shinobi for his age, and an Uchiha to boot. With all the time he’d
spent with Sakura in the past, surely he must suspect something.

Then again, Itachi had given no indication that he knew. If she’d managed to hide it from
Itachi, then there was every chance Sasuke didn’t know a damn thing.

Trying to put down that line of thinking – and the boiling fury it incited – wasn’t easy, but
Kakashi did all the same. As vehemently as he wanted to pull his kunoichi out as soon as
possible, any rash action now could ruin his chance to get them into a safe environment later.
And it wouldn’t be too much later, he promised himself. It would be soon. The damage done
already could never be erased, but Kakashi would burn Konoha to the ground before he let it
continue unchecked.

The anxiety his kunoichi shared was only amplified when, finally, they were set free. Two
med-nin – of which Kakashi recognised only the woman – came to run them through the
paperwork, which in practice meant handing it over to Kakashi and focusing their efforts on
Hinata and Sakura. He barely looked at it as he signed off on their release, watching their
interactions across the room. No attempt was even made to get Kakashi to leave in a
wheelchair – they knew better – but Sakura was gently encouraged to allow it. She’d
recovered well, all things considered, but it would be a long while yet before they could be
certain such severe chakra exhaustion hadn’t caused long term damage. There was a reason
that Academy students and genin were usually so closely supervised while they worked with
nin- and genjutsu.

Just another reason Kakashi should never have been given a team of children.

Sakura glanced towards Kakashi as she hopped out of the hospital bed, and then declined the
wheelchair. Gentle cajoling met her decision, the med-nin doing his best to convince Sakura
to sit. She allowed him tacit monitoring of her vital signs while she moved around, but
nothing further. For just a second, for the span between heartbeats, Kakashi found himself
considering changing his policy on the matter. It was clearly his example that made her so
stubborn.

A notion he rejected, of course, but the thought itself lingered all the same.

Far less obstinate than her peers, Hinata graciously accepted the crutch she was given and
settled into a wheelchair of her own. She wouldn’t need the crutch for too much longer, but it
was still important to keep as much strain off her hip as possible.

The med-nin who had been talking with Sakura came over to Kakashi to take back the
paperwork, looking harried. A spiteful curl of pride made itself known in Kakashi’s chest.
“Nothing too rigorous with either of them for another week,” he said, an imperious note in
his voice. “Hinata can walk around on her own after that, but make sure you give her some
physical therapy exercises to do.” A pause, while the two of them looked eye to eye, and then
the med-nin frowned slightly. “I assume you know how to do that, but bring her by the clinic
if not.”

Safe enough an assumption to make, not just with Kakashi specifically but with all jōnin, and
there was a faint flicker of irritation that he’d felt the need to add an amendment – but
Kakashi pushed it away, because it was the proper course of action regardless of who he was.
Instead, he nodded slightly. “I know.”

The med-nin sighed. “Alright. Those orders go for you as well, got it?” And… maybe the
warning tone was warranted. No matter how painfully aware Kakashi was that any bad
example he set right now would be taken up by his genin, he hardly had a sparkling track
record.

But he still rolled his eye. When the med-nin took a breath to scold his (not unfairly)
expected dismissal, Kakashi waved a hand to silence him. “I’ve got it,” he acknowledged the
order. Brown eyes narrowed at him, and it was clear that the med-nin didn’t buy it, but
Kakashi put on a smile to forestall anything further. He made sure this one showed through
his mask – the med-nin were not nearly so gormless as to be fooled by an insincere eye-
smile.

It didn’t seem to convince the med-nin regardless, but he sighed again instead of pursuing it.
“Just don’t do anything stupid. You won’t just hurt yourself if you end up back here so
quickly.” Voice low. Maybe he had treated Kakashi in the past, and Kakashi just wasn’t
recognising him. Either that or his reputation amongst the staff was even fiercer than he
thought.

Which wouldn’t be all that surprising, actually.

Smile dropped entirely, Kakashi met the med-nin’s gaze with steel in his own. “I’m aware.”
Cold. For a moment, they just stared at each other, and then the med-nin nodded and hummed
quietly.

“Good.”

And he turned away, went back over to Sakura to escort her to the hospital entrance, a
reassuring and soft expression sliding onto his face as easily as an Anbu mask. Sakura
managed an uneasy smile in response, so fleeting it was likely reflexive, and kept one hand
on Ūhei’s head as she followed his lead towards the door. Ūhei stayed close, her shoulder
brushing Sakura’s side as they walked, keeping her steady even when Sakura glanced over
her shoulder towards Kakashi and Hinata.

Shiba held a similar position at Hinata’s side, paws so close to the wheels that Kakashi
worried about her getting run over. It wasn’t the only reason he stepped over, Pakkun and
Urushi padding after him, to take over pushing her chair, but it contributed.

Even if he’d been willing to let his kunoichi leave his sight, and he wasn’t, the pair of them
oozed such tension that he didn’t dare. Finally getting out of this place should be a relief,
release from the constant monitoring and such limited movement, but Sakura and Hinata
seemed only more and more anxious with every step they took.

Waiting for them, when they reached the exit, were Sakura’s parents.

Harunos Mebuki and Kizashi. Kakashi hadn’t bothered to look deeper into them, half a year
ago, when he’d first received his team lineup. Nothing alarming in Sakura’s files, and no
cause to research them when he’d delved into the available information on their daughter.
He’d neglected to tail her around for a few days, observing, because it had seemed like a
waste of what little free time he’d had left. Her teammates were both prominent clan heirs,
well-documented already as few genin were, and Kizashi and Mebuki were civilians. It was
rare for anything critical to come from the family of civilian-born shinobi.

About as rare as shinobi prodigies.

Figures.

The smile Sakura put on was more believable this time, but there was still a tension in her
shoulders and a shimmer in her eyes that betrayed her. “Flower!” came the now-familiar
exclamation from Kizashi, who rushed forward and picked her up too quickly for her to
protest, forcing her into a koala-hold against him. Ūhei stepped back, moving in closer to
Hinata and Shiba, but she stared at them with piercing amber eyes. “How are you feeling?”
It was so convincing. Kakashi was a master of manipulation, had out-deceived the best of
them, could bluff so well as to make someone question the colour of the sky, and there were
barely any traces of the lie. Almost all of it was in Sakura’s reaction, rather than her parents’
delivery. Of the two, Kizashi’s ruse was crafted all but perfectly.

But Mebuki hung back just a fraction too far. Watched on with eyes that on all accounts
looked worried, but said not a word. She’d rarely spoken, despite that she’d been just as
present as her husband during Sakura’s hospital stay. Her fingers curled just a little too much
towards her palms to be relaxed.

Sakura barely looked at her.

“I’m okay,” she murmured back, and she laid her head on Kizashi’s shoulder but the action
was slow, stiff. Reluctant. “The med-nin said I just… need to rest for a while longer.” An
edge as she relayed their orders. A flicker of her eyes back towards Kakashi.

Mebuki followed her daughter’s glance, a flash of cold suspicion as she gave Kakashi a rapid
once-over. It was visible only for a split second, so fast that if he’d been anyone else, Kakashi
might have questioned that he’d seen it at all.

But he trusted his senses.

“Of course,” Kizashi said soothingly, running one hand over Sakura’s hair and then settling it
on her back, between her shoulder blades. “We’ll just relax when we get home, Flower.”
Voice so gentle that Kakashi almost believed it. The man should have been a spy.

He turned to leave, and Sakura watched Kakashi and Hinata over his shoulder, jaw clenched
tight. It showed in the slight flare of her nostrils, the way her eyes widened just a little further
than normal, in her pinprick pupils. Kizashi stopped, but didn’t look back, as Mebuki finally
spoke up.

“How soon is she expected to return to training?” A question asked sternly, a will to fight
held tightly in her gaze. If Kakashi had been naive, it might have passed for the concern
about Sakura’s recovery that Mebuki was trying to frame it as.

But he wasn’t naive, and he heard the real question loud and clear. How long do we have her
back for? How long would Sakura be trapped with them, how long until they couldn’t protest
her absence again? It took every scrap of Kakashi’s frayed self-control to arrest the urge to
snatch Sakura out of Kizashi’s arms. In spite of himself, his voice came out snarled.
“Tomorrow.” And then, whiplash fast, as visible objection darkened Mebuki’s face, he added,
“Theory lessons.”

Better to keep his conversation with them short. Even if he managed to clear his emotions
from his face, his voice, his posture, they’d already slipped out. People as cunning as the
Harunos wouldn’t have missed them.

Relief shone bright in Sakura’s eyes, where her parents couldn’t currently see.
Mebuki glared at him with naked anger, but Kizashi put his free hand on her elbow and,
when she turned her attention to him, shook his head. A scowl settled on her features, but she
turned on her heel and walked away. “Apologies, Hatake-san,” Kizashi tossed hurriedly over
his shoulder, and then broke into a brisk pace to catch up with his wife. Sakura didn’t look
away until the three of them rounded a corner and were lost to him.

Kakashi’s temper rose under his skin faster than he could check it, hot and blinding. His
blood ran molten in his veins. Each breath came ragged, a heat that passed through his lips so
intensely it made him want to tear his mask off.

It wasn’t intentional – he barely felt himself taking the steps necessary to bring him level
with the wall of the hospital – but before he could process what he was doing, Kakashi felt
the surge of his own chakra and pain broke open in his knuckles. His senses buzzed with
wrathful static, but he heard, ever so clearly, the tiny, terrified squeak behind him.

Like the crack of thunder, rage billowed out into profound shame.

Even as he pulled back from the wall and tried not to see the hairline cracks he’d left behind,
part of his mind was already calculating damage control. He was lucky to have used the hand
not already injured, and that he’d moulded enough chakra into the punch to protect the
delicate bones in his hand. He needed breaks in both of them as much as he needed a Chidori
to the chest. Bruised knuckles and split skin, but nothing worse.

Not that it mattered much. The damage he had to worry about wasn’t physical – frozen in
place ever since Sakura’s parents caught sight of them, Hinata sat stiff and quivering in her
wheelchair, watching him with wide, fearful eyes. Shiba and Ūhei pressed close on either
side of her, and Ūhei was murmuring reassurances while Shiba licked Hinata’s arm, but it
didn’t seem to allay her fright. She looked ready to bolt.

Fuck. You idiot.

It was harder than it should be, taking a slow breath and trying to ignore the unpleasant tingle
in his wrist where he’d reinforced it with chakra he shouldn’t be moulding at all yet, let alone
so aggressively. He was a fucking halfwit. If he let himself get so angry over one kunoichi
that he made the other afraid of him, then what was even the fucking point?

His exhale shuddered, but he followed it with another inhale and took a few steps closer.
Hinata didn’t flee, not yet, but she leaned back and tightened her grip in Shiba’s scruffy little
mane.

Halting, Kakashi lifted his hands slightly, and then slowly lowered himself to one knee.
Hinata’s gaze followed him, and a thread of confusion broke through the fear. It was probably
still subconscious, but it was much harder to be afraid of someone who was kneeling instead
of looming over her. She blinked.

“... I’m sorry, Hinata.” Both harder and easier than it should be, to utter the words. She
swallowed hard, blinked again, took a trembling breath. “I’m not angry with you.” Address
the immediate concern first. Explanations could wait until later – until Kakashi had a chance
to spin something believable that wasn’t the truth. It should be Sakura’s choice, if and when
to tell her teammates.

Her voice shook as much as her body. “I… I’m sorry.” Automatic. Kakashi was prepared for
the wave of rage, this time, so he gritted his teeth and forced it back. It should be no child’s
first instinct to apologise for existing in the presence of someone else’s anger.

Another slow exhale, and Kakashi felt Pakkun put a steadying paw on his calf. Urushi licked
his hand and grumbled, very quietly, at the taste of blood. “You don’t need to apologise. It’s
not you I’m angry with.” He tried, he really did, to keep his voice steady. Calm, even. There
was still anger in it despite that, his words clipped, but at least it wasn’t betraying him. At
least he hadn’t bothered trying to claim not to be angry at all. It would be a wasted lie in any
case, given he’d punched a wall in front of her, but he was still glad he hadn’t tried to sell it.

Fuck me. It had been a long time since he’d lost control like this in front of someone. Let
alone a genin. Let alone his genin. Of all the stupid, harebrained reactions to have—

“Is it… Is it because of Sakura…?” Hinata’s voice was barely a whisper, but it cut clean
through Kakashi’s thoughts like a scalpel.

Steadier now, but as firm as he could without being harsh, Kakashi shook his head and said,
“I’m not angry with her, either.” Which was the truth, however close it skirted. The fear was
easing from Hinata’s face, now, with easier breath and relaxing jaw. She let the dogs nudge
her chair forward, just a little, before closing her hand around the wheel rim. Kakashi stayed
where he was.

Her fingers wove together, anxiety betrayed by small movements, less noticeable than biting
her lip. Easy to hide in her lap, if she had been sitting at a desk or table instead of in a
wheelchair. “I meant…” She paused. Was it so obvious that something was wrong with
Sakura’s relationship with her parents that Hinata had noticed it? Kakashi wanted to deny it,
argue that it couldn’t be obvious, that Hinata was just exceptionally insightful, because it had
taken six months and a prolonged hospital stay for him to notice. Because Sasuke seemingly
never had, because Itachi had never mentioned the possibility. Sakura had hidden it so well
that no one had even suspected; it would have been in her record if anyone had.

But it had been obvious, this past week. Harder to hide such things, when it was impossible
to interact behind closed doors. A façade like that could pass muster in short bursts, for one
or two days in the continuous presence of an outsider, but it broke down when tested longer
than that. Fear of punishment later only controlled fear of pain now for so long.

Despite himself, Kakashi ran a hand through his hair. “You don’t need to worry about
Sakura.” Slight movement, and then he rose to his feet when it didn’t elicit a negative
response. Hinata watched him, but it was with something much sharper than fear. Other
platitudes rose in Kakashi’s throat, reminders of how the responsibility for the team lay on his
shoulders, not hers, a reassurance that she’d done nothing wrong. Too heavy to force across
his tongue, so he stood in silence, but they clamoured all the same. Choked him.

Glancing away, it was Hinata who changed the subject. Her gaze went to the spot on the wall
that bore Kakashi’s rage, and he tried not to think about that. “I… Um, I don’t think… that
anyone will come to get me, so…” So? So she should walk home alone? Wounded?

Absolutely fucking not .

Kakashi hummed a negative. “I’ll walk you.” It had been the plan all along anyway. If Hinata
had been an adult shinobi, she’d have been discharged several days ago; it was only at
Kakashi’s request that she’d been held until he and Sakura were discharged. He’d fully
expected that Mebuki and Kizashi would be there to take their daughter the moment she set
foot outside, and he’d obviously been right about that – but he’d also expected that Hinata
would be left by her clan to fend for herself.

As angry as that made him, it was at least a problem easily resolved. Offering her a hand,
Kakashi helped Hinata out of her chair and to her feet, holding her weight until she got the
crutch in place. He left the wheelchair where it was; the med-nin could fetch it themselves.

He let Hinata set the pace at which they walked. It didn’t matter how slow it was, or that the
restlessness of prolonged inactivity fizzed under his skin relentlessly. However long it took,
Kakashi would walk her home without rushing her.

Eventually, timid but at least not so afraid as not to speak, Hinata glanced up and murmured,
“Sensei?” Kakashi didn’t glance down from their path, fending off the gaze of those around
them with a narrow glare, but he hummed acknowledgement. “You told Sakura’s parents that
we were meeting for training tomorrow.”

Not a question, not really, but it was implicit in her confusion. Kakashi sighed.

“I did.”

“… I thought we weren’t going back until Monday?”

Which was three days away. And it was what he’d told them all the day before, when it had
come up. A long weekend to spend recovering and resting, the chance to unwind in private,
to start trying to process the disaster their mission had become away from each other’s eyes.

But Sakura couldn’t be left that long alone with her parents. She’d been so relieved when
he’d said they were expected tomorrow instead.

It was already obvious to Hinata that Kakashi was distressed over the situation – he’d made it
obvious – so he let himself card a hand through his hair again. “We were. I think you’d all
benefit from not taking such a long break between lessons. Learning a language is difficult,
even a non-verbal one.” Not even close to the real reason, but not a lie either.

They walked in silence the rest of the way to the Hyuuga compound. Kakashi stopped at its
gate, contemplating whether or not he wanted to risk going inside them with Hinata. He was
far from afraid of the Hyuuga patriarch, but it might be more trouble than it was worth to
trespass so freely. Especially if Hiashi tried to set up yet another godforsaken romantic
engagement to ‘combine their clans’.
In practice, if Kakashi was ever interested in such politics – and he ardently was not – it
would be a case of the Hyuuga clan assimilating everything to the Hatake name, including
the Council vote he hadn’t exercised in years. As a founding clan, the Hatake inheritance was
a far cry from small, but Kakashi was its sole inheritor.

He shook his head free of such thoughts, resolved to go with Hinata right up to her door
regardless. He had years of experience dodging such nonsense, and Hinata needed (and
deserved) every reassurance he could give.

She beat him to it. Cleared her throat softly, and spoke up. “Thank you for walking me,
Sensei.” Quiet, but there was an unfamiliar warmth in her voice. “I will see you tomorrow.
Where are we meeting?”

It took a beat for Kakashi to rearrange his thoughts, but he gave a slow nod to buy himself
that time. “In the public library.” As safe a place as any, unlikely to harbour interruptions.
More importantly, it was inside out of the winter cold and rarely attracted an excess of
people. “Lessons start at nine, but you don’t have to attend if you don’t feel able. Your first
mandatory lesson is still on Monday.”

A decision he’d made as they’d walked. All the reasons he’d wanted to give them time still
applied, it was simply that in Sakura’s case, waiting was the greater of two evils. Hinata and
Sasuke were of course welcome to attend if they wished, because Kakashi wasn’t going to
fake a lesson, but it was unfair to require it of them. Hinata blinked up at him in surprise.

“Take Shiba,” he intoned before she could question him. Another startled blink. “She’s going
to keep an eye on you in my place. Ensure that you don’t do anything you’re not supposed to
yet.”

And he said it mildly, as if she were a brat who would get into mischief left unattended, but
her eyes widened and then turned downwards to the ninken in question. Good. Clever,
shrewd kunoichi he had. She’d understood that Shiba was protection – a presence that Hiashi
couldn’t argue, when it was at Kakashi’s command, and one that was not afraid to use that
authority to reject any task Hinata might be given, should she feel it necessary.

Hopefully Shiba’s company alone would be enough to deter Hiashi or any of the other
Hyuuga elders from telling Hinata to break the med-nin’s orders, but she had teeth and chakra
to back it up if it was not.

For the first time today, Hinata smiled at him, albeit very small. “Thank you, Kakashi-sensei.
I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Mm.”

He waited at the gate while she went inside. Watched her limp across the grounds with Shiba
at her side until she, too, was out of sight. Only then did he tip his head back to sigh and turn
away. For a minute, while he began walking and struggled to suppress the desire to go and
speak to Rin and Obito, the three ninken still with him kept their silence. They exchanged
glances, silent communication conveyed through ears and tail and muzzle, and then Ūhei
trotted up close and lifted her head.
“Boss, I—”

Without breaking stride, Kakashi nodded and gestured his acquiescence. “Go. Keep an eye on
her. Let her know where to be tomorrow; after that, don’t get caught.”

Ūhei nodded, flicked her ears in farewell to Pakkun and Urushi, and then took off like a silent
arrow. In moments, she was gone.

Urushi growled softly, discontent in the way their tail hung low and twitched side to side,
ears twisted back slightly to better hear in all directions. Kakashi would send them to inform
Sasuke of the new lesson plan once he’d reported back to Tsunade; for now, he couldn’t bring
himself to lose their company. On Kakashi’s other side, Pakkun shot them a look and then
skipped a few steps of his own to draw level with Urushi, half-jogging on smaller paws and
shorter legs.

“I don’t like it,” Urushi said, each word bitten out from between their teeth. “I don’t like any
of it.”

Pakkun’s chakra sparked briefly, and then Kakashi felt him climb up his side, to settle on his
shoulder. The warm weight was too comforting to reprimand him. “Good call to have Shiba
go with Hinata.” Neither Kakashi nor Urushi replied, even when Pakkun’s silence stretched
on a few more seconds. There was a but in his voice so clear that they knew better than to try.
“... But we can’t be on babysitting duty indefinitely, Kakashi. We’re not contracted to your
pups.”

Even faster than Kakashi could, Urushi rumbled and shook themself. “They’re not his pups.
Not really.” But there was uncertainty in their voice, even as they expressed the sentiment.
Strictly speaking, they were right – but unless something else catastrophic happened soon,
Kakashi was pretty sure it didn’t matter anymore. It was too late to detach himself.

How had it gotten this bad, without him even noticing? When the hell had the little buggers
gotten so deep under his skin?

“Hm… I know it’s a blood contract and all, but it ain’t just about that. There’s plenty of
precedents.” That was enough to garner a glance, Pakkun stating it so assuredly. Kakashi
believed him, of course, but it was the first he was hearing of it. By the way Urushi frowned,
shutting their mouth and very slightly licking their lips, they hadn’t known either. Not that it
was entirely surprising that Pakkun knew more than they did – he’d already been an adult
when Kakashi had first contracted him, all those years ago.

Cocking their head, Urushi contemplated that. “… So… it doesn’t matter, then? That they’re
not Hatakes?”

This time, Kakashi spoke first. “Enough. We’ll discuss it later.” The conversation was a
distraction. A maybe-temporary hope that he couldn’t afford to hold onto until he knew it
could be trusted. Right now, they had more important things to do.

Like give a complete report to Tsunade.

Thank the gods the dogs were still with him.

That first report, given verbally by Sasuke while his whole team lay unconscious around
them, brief and unstructured, missing key pieces of information, had been devastating
enough. Even without the language to offer an officially recorded version, let alone the
authority, even as halting and stumbling and reluctant as Sasuke had given it.

This one, spoken in a quiet monotone for ten whole minutes and supplemented by an
extensive written report that Shizune skimmed through in ever-growing horror, was worse.

Tsunade kept silent while Kakashi spoke and, standing off to the side of her desk opposite
Shizune, Uchiha Itachi did also. She’d already known that it was bad – incredibly bad – but
she hadn’t quite realised the extent when she’d granted Itachi’s request to be present for this
report. Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference if she had, given that Kakashi had
expressed no objection to him, but just how rapidly everything went to shit made her
reconsider not consulting Kakashi beforehand.

Neither she nor Itachi let their reactions show on their faces through the report, waiting for
the complete picture before forming a response, but by the time Kakashi finished, Shizune
was sitting on the end of Tsunade’s desk with her head tilted forward, jaw clenched and
fingers digging painfully into the wood. Kakashi tacitly ignored her, but Tsunade made a
mental note to check in with her once the jōnin were dismissed.

For a minute or two, they all simply thought to themselves. Kakashi’s two ninken stuck close,
Pakkun perched on Kakashi’s shoulder like a bird and Urushi sat practically on Kakashi’s
foot. Urushi had less control than their elder, a hint of fang showing behind faintly parted
lips, but even Pakkun had his mouth closed, too upset to relax into panting.

Finally, Itachi broke the seal on the silence. “Will we contact Kirigakure about this, Tsunade-
sama?” Perfectly level, neither a suggestion nor a warning. As was his place in the hierarchy,
of course, but Tsunade had never cared overmuch for propriety.

That said, it would be prudent. Momochi Zabuza wasn’t officially in Kiri’s employment, not
anymore, but they’d been awfully slow about recognising him as a missing-nin, and even
slower about offering even a token attempt to reign him in. Such an egregious offence as this
couldn’t be overlooked, not for either village. Tsunade sighed, rubbing her face. “I suppose
we’ll have to.” Kiri had long since lacked even an echo of honour, or human decency, but it
was still outrageous to have attacked mere genin so viciously, unprovoked.

“And Tazuna?”

Kakashi asked it calmly, even mildly, but there glittered in his eye a black rage the likes of
which Tsunade hadn’t seen in him since her appointment to Hokage. Suddenly, just for a
moment, Tsunade regretted listening to Gai’s advice in assigning him a team. It was a good
thing, for Kakashi to be able to bond with new people, to try and offset the damage he’d
suffered throughout his tenure in the Anbu – as a shinobi at all – but this had always been the
associated risk of it. That he would get so attached as to act beyond reason.
Tsunade couldn’t even blame him, in this instance. Any client lying to Konoha, to any
Hidden Village, was something that they would punish swiftly and severely. When the
contracts people took with her more often than not endangered her shinobi’s lives, it was
absolutely imperative that she had an accurate understanding of each and every one of them.
Both her contracts and her shinobi. Mistakes in ranking missions, or assigning them to
specific units, were how Tsunade got her people killed. Even lies that turned out to be
harmless were met with harsh and – often – bloody consequences. For something so
profoundly dangerous as this, even with the miracle that was Team Seven’s collective
survival, Konoha was considered well within its rights to have the man murdered.

Judging by the look on Kakashi’s face, he’d be more than happy to carry out that sentence
himself.

But the details… all the little details made it difficult to muster the will to let him. There was
no forgiveness to be had for how much danger Tazuna had put Konoha’s genin in – children,
and a sin committed knowingly when Tazuna had allowed Team Seven to leave Konoha’s
gates with him – but the circumstances were… somewhat extraordinary. There was no small
merit to be found in a tiny city state’s resistance to an economic tyrant, no small bravery in
getting to Konoha to even buy a contract from them despite how perilous a task it was.

No small selfish stupidity in lying about it.

Sometimes Tsunade hated being capable of empathy. It would be so much easier to simply
hate the man for what he’d done, or to be able to choose righteous fury as Kakashi had done.
Instead, she was faced with the impossible duty of deciding Konoha’s response, and having
the heart to try and be impartial with her choice.

She was going to be unpopular, when this got out, if she chose anything less than death.

Setting her hands on her desk, Tsunade scowled. “I haven’t decided, yet. You’re welcome to
offer your thoughts. All of you.”

“Execution.”

He didn’t even hesitate.

This time, Tsunade pinched the bridge of her nose, wishing she was even slightly surprised.
“Duly noted. Anyone else want to share?” Maybe too scathing, when Kakashi’s approach
was entirely reasonable, but there would be enough pressure on her to make that decision
even without the actual jōnin involved pushing for it. In her heart, Tsunade prayed that
Kakashi wouldn’t be vocal about it amongst his peers. It would be all but out of her hands if
he was. She was the Hokage, and the ultimate authority fell to her, but her position was not
one of dictatorship; she had to be swayed by vocal majorities in her shinobi.

If she did Konoha wrong, even as its leader – especially as its leader – Konoha was not above
assassinating her.

Tsunade refused to walk the same fascist path as her predecessor.

Frowning, Itachi shifted his weight slightly. “At the very least, he must be brought in. We
cannot allow people to think such a mission can be mistaken for C-rank.” Reasonable and
merciful, reticent to advise bloodshed, as Itachi ever was. Simply backcharging Tazuna for
the S-rank he should have paid for was far too insufficient a penalty, but it was the bare
minimum that Konoha should demand. No matter what became of Tazuna personally, Waves
owed Konoha proper payment – and not just for the S-rank mission, given the contents of
Kakashi’s report. Sakura had assassinated the Waves tyrant responsible for the whole
situation.

Assassination contracts did not come cheap.

For the first time since entering, Kakashi’s gaze flashed to Itachi. It was bitter and angry.
Betrayed. Even Tsunade had to admit, Itachi was showing remarkable restraint considering it
had been his brother’s life in peril.

Itachi returned the look, and the briefest ribbon of red wove through his eyes.

Hm. Not less angry, then – just better at hiding it. As unsurprising as that was, it still seemed
strange that he would hold back so thoroughly after what Sasuke had been through. Itachi had
almost agreed to slaughter his entire clan in Sasuke’s defence.

Maybe that was the reason, after all. The result of his decision to disobey Danzō’s order had
been a storm of blood and violence, had fractured Konoha’s strength and loyalty, but it hadn’t
cost Sasuke his life. It hadn’t ended the Uchiha clan or Konoha as they knew it. It hadn’t
come with all the dire consequences Danzō had fabricated to manipulate Itachi’s actions. So
perhaps that bled through, now, when Sasuke had already survived the ordeal. Tazuna was
only one man, not an entire clan, but his death would not be without traumatic consequence
in itself. His daughter would survive him.

His grandson.

Or, perhaps worse, they wouldn’t.

Tsunade wished, a desperate and loathsome hope, that she could divorce herself from those
consequences.

She didn’t even try.

Even moreso, she wished for a hard drink.

“Right, putting him aside. What are you going to do with your genin?” Kakashi had logged
enough information on the results of their mission for Tsunade to have a solid grasp of the
most immediate concerns regarding the genin, of course, but he’d submitted almost nothing
on his intentions to try and deal with them. Given his own history, there was a distinct chance
he intended to pass on less than healthy coping mechanisms; if he had no plan, or a bad plan,
Tsunade needed to know so she could circumvent it. The list of med-nin she knew and had
known who were deeply concerned about the way Konoha had treated the mental health of its
soldiers was an endless one, but the list of med-nin who’d ever been in a position to change
policy in Konoha on that front was her, and her alone.
And she had – she’d done so quickly and drastically, and it was to her credit that many of the
genin and Academy students didn’t remember a life without recognition of psychological
damage, let alone allowances for it. But those improvements had come too late for the
generation before them, and so many of her adult shinobi were sunk too deep in the
dangerous coping mechanisms they’d been forced to adopt.

Tsunade would skin herself alive before she let Kakashi inflict his own trauma responses onto
his genin.

Scowling, the faintest trace of a growl in his voice, Kakashi looked her in the eye. “Theory
lessons until they’ve fully recovered.” There was a beat of taut silence. Tsunade narrowed her
eyes. “… Stability first,” Kakashi finally continued, the threatening rumble still flowing
under his words, averting his gaze. “They can’t process any of it if they don’t feel safe.”

Huh.

Taken aback, Tsunade blinked at him. She hadn’t expected a realistic response, let alone one
that showed understanding. A second later, her pleasant surprise was swept away by raw
frustration. If he understood what was happening in their heads, and what kinds of steps were
appropriate to help them with it, then his continued refusal to do anything about his own state
of mind was deliberate. It meant he knew better, and he still denied any attempt at helping
him.

She couldn’t decide if he was brilliant, or fucking stupid.

Well, two things can be real.

“Fine. I’ll leave you to it, then.” No matter what else was happening, she trusted him to work
in the best interests of his kids. There was danger in how deeply devoted he already was to
them, but there was sanctuary in it too. Since he apparently knew what he was doing, there
was no need for Tsunade to micromanage him. “You’re dismissed, both of you,” she said,
gesturing towards Itachi. “Tell your genin that I’ll want to speak with them individually in the
near future.”

Kakashi’s report was the most important, and necessary for official archiving before Konoha
could take any action against Tazuna, but in terms of Sakura, Hinata, and Sasuke’s futures,
their own reports would be invaluable. Tsunade needed to know not only the direct effects of
their trauma, she needed to know how it was going to impact their abilities and predilections.

Even more important, she needed to keep a close eye on their interactions, especially over the
next few months. As dangerous to his genin as Kakashi could potentially become, they posed
an equal danger to him. Manipulating Kakashi into forming new bonds with people was
crucial to whatever recovery she could trick him into making, but those bonds came with the
very real risk of merely repeating his trauma.

Losing them, when he hadn’t wanted to care about them in the first place, would destroy him.
And he knew that as well, even if he’d never admit to it – he knew it well enough to be
terrified of losing them. Of watching them die. That knowledge alone was enough to make
him dangerous. Not just to his genin, but to himself. If he got too paranoid, if things went too
wrong, he could easily start holding onto them so tightly in an effort to protect them that he
became, himself, the threat.

As if that wasn’t already a possibility. Damn it. Kakashi had asked for the mission in the first
place to try and teach Hinata to have more confidence in herself. Having successful missions
under their belts always helped genin believe they could succeed in future ones, and Hinata
was particularly in need of that. Tsunade had granted the mission to prove to Kakashi that he
could relax for one goddamn second, so he had tangible evidence that he didn’t need to keep
them close enough to strangle to keep them safe.

A nice, easy C-rank.

What a resounding fucking success that had been. Now, thanks to a nice, easy C-rank, both of
those goals had been not just failed but failed so miserably that they were even more needed,
and infinitely harder to accomplish. Now his team was in substantial danger of fracturing; not
only with Hinata’s and Kakashi’s confidence in themselves crushed, but with Sasuke barely
on speaking terms with most of his teammates, and Sakura freshly-blooded from her first
kills.

Managing the immediate fallout of that was vital, yes, and she was going to have to keep as
much of an oversight on them as she dared while they all worked through it, but what came
after could be worse. When Kakashi’s rage exhausted itself. When Sakura’s shellshock
passed, when ignoring his team was no longer tenable for Sasuke to keep doing, when Hinata
next faced being relied upon. Whatever they were doing now would only be temporary, and it
was the permanent effects that Tsunade needed to understand.

Not understanding how her shinobi functioned was how she got them killed.

In silence, she watched Kakashi and Itachi leave, aware that they were whispering to each
other as the door closed behind them, and then she turned to Shizune. Black eyes shimmered
with both tears and fury. For a long moment, neither of them said anything.

“Well?” Tsunade finally asked. “What do you think I should do about Tazuna?” As if it were
a simple question. As if there weren’t layers upon layers of implications underneath. As if she
was really just asking about a fucking bridge-builder from the Land of Waves.

Even if she had to seriously consider the popular consensus when she chose a path, it was
Shizune’s opinion that mattered to her the most. Shizune was a gentle creature, but she was
capable and wise. Her kindness rarely wavered in the face of tough decisions, but it was
never the sole contributor to Shizune’s choices.

Another pause stretched thin between them, Shizune’s grip on the edge of Tsunade’s desk
growing ever tighter. Her knuckles were ghostly white. Glittering, a single tear spilled from
her eyes and streaked down her cheek, settled translucent on her lips. It smeared to nothing,
when Shizune spoke.

“I think we should kill him.”

Chapter End Notes

Things and Notes and Betcha Thought I was Gonna say Stuff:
|| Well, I've not figured out a way to integrate this into the actual storytelling (I missed
my cleanest chance by not covering any of Itachi's lessons on chakra sensing with
Sakura and Sasuke, I think) so I'll say it here: I've decided to work with a sort of dual
capability of sensing chakra signatures. The way I've already used egregiously, with the
chakra echolocation (chakralocation?), and a second method that is much more passive
but doesn't usually pick up specifics and has very small range.
|| Basically, I'm saying that Kakashi (and other elites or sensory specialists) can
ambiently sense unmasked chakra signatures in their immediate proximity, and the
fluctuations and changes in them. Hence why Kakashi can sense Sakura's chakra while
not actively hunting for signatures.
Was that convoluted? Yes. It's too late now though, this is what we're doing,
WHEEEEEE. Think of it like passive perception versus active perception rolls in DnD
and other such games.
|| I don’t know if I’ve made it clear or not throughout the story, so just in case: Kakashi,
as Sakura, Sasuke, and Hinata’s jōnin-sensei, is legally responsible for them in the eyes
of Konoha. Their parents, of course, still have guardianship rights but when it comes to
shinobi training and shinobi-related incidents, Kakashi now has primary care of them.
|| On Shiba: Xoloitzcuintli dogs are hairless, for the most part, but some (all?) of them
have a little mane on their necks. Think mane like a horse, not mane like a lion.

I know everyone is desperate to see Sakura admit her time travelling to the rest of the
team.
Good.
:)

Next Chapter Due: 22nd January 2021

 To Accept Affection, Even When You Don't Know How
Chapter Summary

Being solitary and being strong are incompatible behaviours.

Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

She caught up with him outside the Hokage Tower.

They both sensed her approach before they saw her, Kakashi going silent halfway through a
sentence and turning to face her, something strained and weary flashing through his face. It
took a moment for Itachi to place the chakra that buzzed against his senses, heavy and
intangible at the same time, like a gale wind. He did, of course, just a moment before she
dropped to the street level in front of them.

Sunstone eyes studied him for a moment, a flip of tied-up red hair in acknowledgement of his
presence, before she set her focus on Kakashi. The seconds stretched out into terse silence,
while Kakashi stood a little taller and met her gaze, waiting. She wore almost standard jōnin
kit, but her flak jacket went over a sleeveless shirt and she wore Anbu gloves, modified to be
absent the protective plates running the length of her forearms. Barefoot, she shifted her
weight while they continued their silent duel.

Carved into her upper right arm in deep red ink was an Anbu tattoo, and a vicious scar cut
through it in a dark, vertical ridge. Sunlight glinted off the Konoha hitai-ite across her
forehead.

Itachi took a step back, wondering if he should leave them be. His tenure in Kakashi’s Anbu
team had been short, after all, barely a few months before he’d been moved out with his own
team of shadows and replaced. It was always difficult, trying to figure out where he stood
between Kaida and Kakashi; the rest of their team was gone, but Itachi had been part of it for
just a moment.

It felt like a dream, almost, thinking about it. There had been too much else happening, too
much fear and simmering violence, so many threats and accusations that the few normal
missions he’d undergone with Anbu at Kakashi’s command felt like stories instead of real
memories.

“Stay,” she said, waving a hand at him. Itachi froze. “I won’t take long.”

The silence broken, Kakashi let out a harsh sigh and dropped his head forward, eliciting soft
whuffles from his dogs. “Do we really have to do this now, Kaida?” There was aggravation in
his voice still, lingering bitterness and rage in the wake of his report to Tsunade, but it was
cut through with a tired dread. Inside his own head, safe where Kaida couldn’t hear, Itachi
offered his condolences.

Scowling, Kaida reached out with one hand to shove Kakashi back a step. He allowed it,
shoulders tensing, and lifted his chin ever so slightly. “You should be grateful. I even waited
until your genin weren’t around to see it.”

Maybe Itachi should leave anyway. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t witnessed Kaida lecture anyone
before – even his brief stint in their team had been long enough to see it happen, and to earn
one himself – but it always felt… different, when it was aimed at Kakashi. No reason for it,
not anymore, not when the Anbu they’d known no longer even existed and the three of them
shared an equal rank, but Kakashi had been her Captain for so long she’d forgotten how to
put that down. Not that it stopped her.

She took a breath, and her chakra coiled suddenly. In the same moment, even as Itachi felt
himself ready for a fight, and no matter that he trusted Kaida not to attack them, she shot
forward. A second of confused movement went by – a brief tussle between them while Itachi
took another step back – and then they resolved. Kakashi stood barely a pace out of place,
one arm pinned between them and the other raised, hovering between fighting back and
returning her embrace.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she murmured into his shoulder, and for as gentle as she hugged him,
her hands locked together at his back to prevent escape, one foot set lightly behind Kakashi’s,
ready to sweep him if he struggled. “Amaya said it was worse than usual.”

Ever so slowly, his back ramrod straight, Kakashi lowered his hand to touch between Kaida’s
shoulder blades. “So… no lecture?” He sounded dazed.

Kaida squeezed, just barely, and then stood back a little. Her hands went to Kakashi’s
shoulders. “This wasn’t your fault.” For a moment, Kakashi’s gaze shot to Kaida’s right hand;
she followed it, and then took that hand back. Let it fall to her side. Something like
frustration flashed through her eyes, but she swallowed it and gently dug in the fingers still
touching. “This wasn’t your fault, alright?”

Feeling his own breath like water in his lungs, Itachi averted his gaze. As much as he agreed
with the sentiment, it was… unwise, to say it aloud to Kakashi’s face. It had always been so.
And Kaida had never cared, and there was something familiar and comforting about it, but
even this was different to when they’d been his shadows, to the responsibility he’d taken for
the injuries they sustained.

They’d been… well, if not adults in all cases, they’d been experienced enough to understand
the risks of their job. They took their missions knowingly. They knew how to protect
themselves when they got separated, they were capable of taking command if their Captain
went down. This…

This was different.

It was hard to put it into words. Kaida had never been a jōnin-sensei, had never wanted to,
and Itachi wasn’t sure it was possible to explain the weight of it when she’d never felt it
herself. Having children that relied on him not just for training but for safety while he gave it
was a responsibility that never went away. Even now, even knowing that Neji, Ren, and
Shino were in Konoha and safe, there was a part of Itachi that itched relentlessly to seek them
out and ensure it. Only Sasuke had ever meant that much to him before, had taken up so
much of Itachi’s thought without effort. The similarities were frightening.

So this… No matter how much Itachi agreed that Kakashi was not to blame, the
responsibility for the mission still fell on him. It wasn’t his fault, but he had still failed to
protect his genin. It was impossible, unmitigated fucking luck that any of them had made it
out alive. Luck and, Itachi was learning in fragmented whispers that slipped out when Sasuke
could no longer hold them in, a lot of bloodshed.

Kakashi met her orange eyes with a cold gaze, and then reached up to brush off her other
hand. There was— Well, to say there was no anger in it would be a lie of the highest order,
but at the least such anger wasn’t directed at Kaida. Not really. She’d hit his rawest nerve –
she had a talent for it – and he was in no state to shrug it off.

“I don’t have time for this,” he said, painfully even, and made to turn away.

In a flash of chakra, Kaida body flickered in his way, her expression going soft. Her left hand
went out, flat against Kakashi’s chest, stopping him dead. “Look, just… You did everything
you could. Okay? You all made it home. Focus on that.” Kaida took a step closer, tilting her
head slightly.

Kakashi’s shoulders didn’t relax, but he glanced at Kaida’s right arm and then sighed. “Next
time, just give me a lecture.” But the anger seeped out of him as he looked back to Kaida’s
face. Itachi couldn’t see his exact expression from where he stood, studying Kakashi’s
posture from behind, but it wasn’t hard to imagine.

Shaking her head, Kaida broke into a small smile. “Noted, Captain.” The faintest twitch went
through Kakashi’s fingers, but Kaida pretended not to notice. “I’m around for the next few
weeks. Exam prep, you know. Let me know.”

With that, Kaida stepped out of Kakashi’s path again, her weight on her toes while she moved
in a circle to watch him leave. Pakkun stayed on Kakashi’s shoulder, but he nodded in her
direction as they passed, and Urushi paused for just a moment to lift their head and get
petted. Taking the cue, Itachi paced after Kakashi, tipping his head to Kaida as he passed.
“Kaida.” Murmured, an acknowledgement he’d held to himself while she spoke with
Kakashi.

She returned it with a smile, a low call of Itachi’s name, and then her chakra darted away as
Itachi caught up to Kakashi’s leisurely stride. Thoughtlessly, caught up in analysing their
interaction, Itachi reached up to rub at his own arm, the Anbu tattoo beneath his sleeve
prickling.

“Let Sasuke know that we’re starting back tomorrow morning,” Kakashi continued their prior
conversation as if Kaida hadn’t interrupted, watching where they were walking. It felt almost
rude to pretend that she hadn’t shown up, but Itachi could think of nothing to say in her
regard that wouldn’t risk Kakashi’s ire. They trusted each other implicitly – had needed to,
working in Anbu, and then even more the night they’d forsaken it – but Kaida had a way of
plucking at the nerves of those she loved. As much as Itachi respected her, he was reluctantly
grateful that she’d had nothing to say to him.

Humming back a confirmation, Itachi glanced up at the sky to gauge the time. It was getting
on. “If that’s all, I should return home, Kakashi-senpai.” Not that Itachi didn’t enjoy
Kakashi’s company, but there was a limit to how long he could put off his own genin in order
to stay with Sasuke, and – their training having been on and off over the last couple of weeks
– Itachi was reaching it. He’d rather spend the rest of this afternoon at home with his brother,
fully aware it might be a while before he got the chance again.

As if he knew, Kakashi tilted his head slightly, cheek brushing against Pakkun’s shoulder, and
then nodded. “That’s all.” A note of distraction in his voice, something that he was mentally
organising. Whatever his plans were, they weren’t Itachi’s business until (and if) they
affected Sasuke – so he dipped his head forward respectfully and turned away. “The library, if
Sasuke wants to attend,” Kakashi called after him, but a glance back revealed he was still
walking, so Itachi took the information in silence, and went on his way.

Getting her parents to leave her alone long enough to gather her own thoughts was infinitely
harder than Sakura had the energy to deal with, but she managed it. Eventually. Even begging
off exhaustion (not a lie) hadn’t done it, with one or the other popping their head into her
room at irregular intervals to check on her. She’d snapped at her mother, "I can’t sleep when
I’m just waiting for you guys to interrupt me again,” and it seemed to work, but the flash of
hurt she’d seen in Mebuki’s eyes only added more guilt to the ocean Sakura was drowning in.

It should have been easier, to throttle back the emotions, to put down the black sticky
remorse. She was a shinobi, she should have better control over herself than that. But she
couldn’t. No matter what she tried— There was just… so much.

The way Sasuke looked at her – and then the way he wouldn’t. The way Hinata only spoke to
her in closed, clipped fragments. That she hadn’t even accepted Sakura’s apology. This early,
with how fragile Hinata’s self-confidence still was, it showed only how egregious Sakura’s
mistakes had been. How badly she’d fucked up, how much she would need to work to earn
back her team’s trust.

The way Kakashi-sensei watched her. She wasn’t sure what he was looking for, not exactly,
but it didn’t matter. She couldn’t hide from him, not ever, and especially not now. Not when
she couldn’t get her thoughts to stop screaming at her, when she couldn’t stop thinking about
everything that’d gone so fucking wrong. Whatever he was looking for, he’d found it.

We start again tomorrow.

The abrupt switch, turning over from the original plan when questioned by her parents, clung
on in the forefront of her mind. He’d been watching her then, too. Watched the way her father
had scooped her up, watched their hackles raise. It was clear enough he didn’t like them –
and it wasn’t really a surprise. Kakashi had never seen eye to eye with civilians, and her
parents just didn’t have any way to fully appreciate the dangers or decisions that came with
being a shinobi. The responsibility.
But still, that confrontation had felt… personal, somehow. There was more than just general
disharmony with civilians, something else that Kakashi didn’t like about them. Sakura
couldn’t pin it down.

Tomorrow. But whatever it was, he’d set an immediate return. Even if it would be largely
theory, she was sure, Sakura had expected the Monday decision to stick hard and fast –
Kakashi-sensei rarely second-guessed himself in a way that was visible to others. Something
about seeing Sakura going home with her parents had triggered the change.

And as much as she lay and tortured herself with the unanswerable questions, there was a
sheen of relief that undercut it all, like a reflective veneer. Whatever Kakashi was thinking,
Sakura prayed it wasn’t the dissolution of her career.

He’d be well within his rights. She’d proved to be unreliable, insubordinate, and relentlessly
bloodthirsty. Qualities that made her uncontrollable. Dangerous.

Zabuza was right. She was acting like a Kiri-nin.

As far as Sakura saw it, she should be punished for it. She fucked up, and she fucked up bad.
Lives had been at stake. She’d nearly lost them with her hubris. Except Kakashi-sensei had
held her eye, watched her be carried away, declared his claim on her to return immediately.

Had he made sure Sasuke knew? Was Hinata invited? Was this forgiveness, or was this a
quiet mercy, to cut her loose before she got them killed, and to do it without her teammates as
witnesses? But… he hadn’t looked angry. Not with her. Not as he’d held her gaze,
unblinking, as she desperately tried to decipher what the sudden change of plan really meant.
He’d watched her be carried away, and he’d seemed… troubled. Pensive.

The way her Kakashi always looked when seeing her off for a mission he wasn’t part of. The
deep-seated fear that he could never shake, that she’d leave on a mission and fail to come
back.

Goddamn it, Haruno. Sakura didn’t have the time or the energy to be worrying away at this.
Her wounds were still healing; she was still weak. Even with her chakra reserves recovering
more rapidly than she’d hoped for, her network was still fragile and aching from the
transfusion. Only to be expected – even with a mature network and nexus, a chakra
transfusion was rough on the recipient. As a child, with immature nexus and tenketsu, it was
even rougher.

She needed the sleep. Especially if she might have to plead her case with Kakashi-sensei
tomorrow. Which— well, that was the whole fucking issue, wasn’t it? She didn’t know if she
would have to. She hadn’t been able to read Kakashi like she needed to.

And she did need to. When she lost that edge, when she couldn’t predict the people she was
meant to save, then her presence became more dangerous than helpful. How could she protect
them from the shit the future would fling at them if she couldn’t keep track of them? Making
sure some of the things coming went better than they did before required her to manipulate
the events that caused them, demanded that she restrict or cause specific decisions…
Sleep. She needed to sleep.

In the end, she only got a few hours. It was no different from all the nights that came before,
at least. The hospital was never particularly conducive to rest, and worse when laden with a
catastrophically successful mission.

Maybe that was the part she hated the most, when Sakura looked in her mirror and decided
there was no point in even trying to hide the exhaustion in her face. That for everything that
had gone wrong, for all their mistakes, for all the bloodshed, they’d succeeded. Tazuna was
protected. The bridge would be completed. Waves was, if not safe, then rescued from Gatō’s
clutches.

Sakura wasn’t sure she’d ever hated a place more than she hated Waves Country.

And maybe she’d gotten too used to seeing the shadows under her eyes, the hollowness in her
cheeks. Maybe she was too used to the war, to the exhaustion, to the moments where no other
moments mattered. There was no point in trying to hide how terrible she looked, but maybe
she should have. When Sakura finally wandered into the library, having pried herself out of
her parents’ arms and promised to return straight home when her lessons were done, she felt
Kakashi’s eye on her immediately. Couldn’t stop herself from looking up and around for him,
or the sharpness in her own gaze when she found his.

Kakashi stayed in the corner, but for a moment all Sakura could do was stare back. Giving
too much away, again, like always. She was too young to be that aware of other people’s
attention. Wasn’t she? It was getting a little too hard to remember how advanced she was
supposed to be.

Making a conscious effort to keep her eyes down, Sakura picked her way through the almost-
empty library towards her sensei. She took the seat opposite him, trying to think through the
rising fear.

Focus, Sakura. Breathe.

“Good morning, Kakashi-sensei,” she murmured. Tried to keep her voice down so that she
didn’t make it even more obvious how wrecked she was. Tried to keep her voice even, so that
Kakashi didn’t hear the fear. She’d been so taken aback, yesterday, she’d let flourish the
flaring hope that maybe Kakashi wasn’t angry with her, or was at least willing to forgive her.
She’d forgotten herself.

What was he thinking, right now? She could only guess, no matter how well she thought she
knew him. It wasn’t even a surprise that he was here so early – first – because the magnitude
of the situation warranted the rare behaviour. Maybe he couldn’t sleep either. Maybe he
couldn’t even face Obito or Rin or Minato. Maybe he was just too fucking wounded,
throwing away the pretense of laziness. He hadn’t even tried to escape the hospital during
their stay. It was risky to examine him too closely, but Sakura covertly took the chance
anyway. She hadn’t been able to spot anything too severe in the way Kakashi moved, how he
held his weight, and the man was a master of misdirection so the reassurance of his health
was wafer thin, but that she couldn’t find evidence of worse injury on him was… well, it was
something, at least.

If there were any justice, Kakashi wouldn’t be blaming himself in addition to Sakura for what
had happened – because there was no escaping her share of the blame. Even if Kakashi-
sensei insisted on shouldering some himself.

There was no justice. There was only them.

A moment passed, too quiet, too tense, and Sakura glanced up despite herself. Instantly
caught Kakashi’s eye. “You barely slept.” Low and rumbled, and Kakashi delicately folded
his hands together as he spoke, set his chin upon them, elbows on the table. It was practically
accusatory.

Should she hold? Was she supposed to look away? Even if she wanted to, her head felt
locked, like her neck wouldn’t turn anyway. So she let herself bite her lip, and held Kakashi’s
gaze. “Yes, Kakashi-sensei. I’m sorry.” Sakura couldn’t make herself louder than a whisper,
but she knew it wouldn’t matter. There was pretty much no volume she could actually speak
that was too quiet for Kakashi to hear.

His face darkened at her response, and Sakura felt herself shrink back automatically, fear
sparking into preemptive despair that bled under her skin and puddled painfully in her eyes.
Goddamn it. There was no shame in tears, not really; they were messy and aggravating, but
they were a biological process that she couldn’t control. Just another of many – and sure,
with practice it was easier to resist or delay, but she was twelve and shattered, barely
recovering from a mission that—

Gods. Yes, it had always been a dangerous mission. She’d remembered the fear of it, the
bloodcurdling introduction to real life as a working shinobi, the remembered terror so deep
and cold and hollow that Sakura had barely felt real. But by the time everything else had
happened, looking directly into the eyes of the Juubi, like drowning in the moon… The
mission to Wave Country had just seemed so… so…

Well. It didn’t matter. It had nearly killed them all, and she wasn’t the warrior she’d been
when she faced Juubi. None of them were. Nobody was.

Kakashi’s glare didn’t ease, but his voice was calm when he used it again. Gentle, almost.
“What kept you up?” And Sakura blinked, pressed against the back of her chair, entirely
unsure how to answer that. What kept her—? It wasn’t just a strange question, it was absurd.
He’d spent so long in the hospital with her that he’d already known she wasn’t sleeping.
Couldn’t, not when everything just kept stacking up against her.

The Chuunin Exams were in a little under three months. They’d be recovered by then, sure,
but convincing Kakashi-sensei to enter them – if they were even still a team by then – was
another task altogether. They didn’t have Naruto to talk him into it, to weasel their way into a
competition that, frankly, they’d had no fucking business being in. And even if she got them
entered, somehow, what was she supposed to do?
She couldn’t fight Orochimaru. Shit, she couldn’t fight Gaara. Not right now. Especially not
right now, not as an out of control Jinchuuriki whose Bijuu was still wrathful and murderous.

“Sakura.”

Yanked back to herself, Sakura blinked at Kakashi again, picking up her thoughts from where
they’d scattered. “Uh— Sorry, Sensei.” Let her mouth run while she mentally rolled back.
Right. “I’m… It’s just… everything.” Everything she couldn’t say, of course, but Kakashi
thought her a genuine child, so the disaster of their mission was enough. It should be self-
evident to him what was wrong with her. At least, what should be wrong with her. Even
without ever confronting his own, Kakashi could recognise well enough what trauma looked
like.

But his eye narrowed, swept her up and down. Calculating. Judging. Her answer wasn’t
sufficient, for some reason. Maybe he just wanted more details – and it was a little strange,
that he might actually want to delve into it immediately, but it was just another reminder that
he wasn’t the same man who’d died for her.

Control – get control, Haruno.

In direct violation of that desire, Sakura felt the first tear spill. Swiped at it, broke eye contact
with Kakashi, bit down on her lip to fight the swelling cascade. Fuck. Different or not,
Sakura couldn’t imagine any version of Kakashi who knew what to do with a crying child.
“Sorry—” Hissed out between barely controlled breaths as she rubbed at her eyes a little
harder. For gods’ sake. “I’m just— I’m just tired, Sensei.”

Sakura didn’t look up, but she could hear the tension in Kakashi’s voice. Only faintly, barely
a hint, but tangible. “You assassinated a man.” Graceless. Something she was starting to get
used to, the lack of— well, if not tact, then something very similar. This Kakashi-sensei
rarely chose his words to soften their meaning.

“I know.”

“… I allowed you silence in front of your teammates, but you owe me a better explanation
than the one you gave.” He said it coldly, though Sakura barely felt it. The tone he used now
was far less important than the consideration he’d given her in the first place – and that he
had only proved he was trying to handle the whole thing thoughtfully. Trying not to introduce
the strain that might break them, after everything they’d been through.

If only he knew.

But he can’t.

Sniffing, Sakura held her breath while she scrubbed her collar over her face, eyes scrunched
closed. Now wasn’t the time to let her facade fall to shit, nor to lose control. “Yes, Sensei.”
Damn. Choked, her voice trembling, but at least it came out coherent. “I… It seemed like the
quickest solution.” Oh, that was bad. Clinical. She’d described the events already, in
indistinct detail, when she’d given her report in their ward, but she’d never talked about her
motives or emotions on the matter. She’d needed time to properly formulate the emotions she
should admit to, the ones that would make sense for the scared little girl she remembered.

So much for that.

“Is that so.” It wasn’t a question.

Fuck. A minute of terse, weighted silence went by, and then something shifted in the air –
intangible at first, only noticeable in the change of Kakashi’s posture, in the way he sat back
in his chair and allowed (forced?) his shoulders to relax. A second later Sakura felt it too, the
flutter of Hinata’s chakra, and when she made her way to their table and took her seat, Sakura
tried futilely not to look like she’d cried.

Kakashi watched Hinata sit, and then Shiba at Hinata’s side. The ninken’s head went to
Hinata’s lap, eyes turned up silently, and Hinata petted her with nervous, shallow movements.
“Morning, Sensei,” Hinata said quietly, an echo of Sakura’s own greeting, and she got a nod
of acknowledgment in return. For just a moment, Kakashi caught Sakura’s eye, a sharp
flicker of his gaze. A promise that their conversation wasn’t over.

Not that she’d expected anything else, but… Fuck.

Tentatively, her eyes cast down to Shiba, Hinata cleared her throat. “Uhm… Sensei?” A hum
in response. Kakashi’s eye flicked from Sakura to Hinata, and his gaze was no less
calculative. “Can I ask what we're doing today?”

Another hum. “Continuing our work on Konoha sign language. I want you three proficient
before we get back to physical lessons.”

All at once, Sakura’s sense of control shattered. She felt the breath catch in her chest, felt the
way her skin prickled, a shimmer of cold followed by a bloom of heat. She must have made a
noise, from the spasm of her throat and the soft touch of Hinata’s fingers on the back of her
hand – but she didn’t hear it, senses tumbling down in a ringing spiral of crashing relief.

Three.

Counting her amongst them meant that, at least for now, Kakashi still intended her to remain
amongst them. It shouldn’t hit her this hard – she couldn’t afford it to – but Sakura scrunched
her eyes shut and fought for a normal breath and felt the tears slip out anyway, felt the crack
of a half-swallowed sob breaking out. “S-sorry,” she bit through her teeth, trying to get her
thoughts to settle long enough to grab hold of.

It was an impossible task. The sudden discharge of panic, of the fear she’d been holding so
tightly in her chest to stop it from seeping out, so tightly that losing her grip on it was painful
— That she wasn’t being thrown out for her mistakes – as if mistakes was stern enough a
judgement for the damage she’d done – felt like being rescued.

Sakura sat slightly further back in her chair, tucking her feet against her butt and bringing her
knees to her chest, hiding her face against them. If she couldn’t quite stop herself crying, the
least she could do was not make her team directly watch. Leaving was out of the question, of
course – she was here on Kakashi’s orders, here for a lesson – but it was easier for everyone
to let her be a quiet little ball skirting the edge of it.

A sharp wooden scrape punctured the silence, and then there was a trembling, slender arm
across her shoulders. Slight pressure, and Sakura gave in before she could think better of it,
found herself cradled against her teammate. “Hey… uhm… It’ll be alright. Right, Sakura?”

Hinata’s voice was quiet and uncertain, but it was an attempt at reassurance. Not the same as
forgiveness – but a step towards it. That she was willing to try and comfort Sakura at all.
Thank the gods that Sasuke wasn’t here yet.

“Right.” It came out rough, but more controlled. If there was recovery from her actions, then
maybe this was the start of it. Don’t screw it up again, Haruno. “ Sorry. Just— Just ignore
this.” Didn’t pick her head up to try and smile at them, kept her tears hidden, but she hoped
that they heard the gratitude in her voice.

Still part of the team. Even knowing that Kakashi-sensei cared for them deeply, he was
strange and cold and distant enough that Sakura had doubted, had feared he would throw her
out. Because he cared for them, perhaps. A rogue genin with a taste for bloodshed was a
danger to more than herself.

Clearing his throat – He never did know what to do with me when I cried – Kakashi moved
their focus past Sakura’s lapse of control. “Take me through everything you remember.”

Ah. Maybe it was better that Sakura was justifiably distracted. She’d tried to keep up with the
lessons given across their ward, but she already knew KSL and for the life of her, she wasn’t
entirely sure what Kakashi had actually covered. Displaying an in-depth knowledge of it
wasn’t the worst thing she could do – it wasn’t as if KSL wasn’t publicly available to learn,
even to civilians – but it would be yet another thing on top of the massive pile of things that
made her so suspicious.

So she let Hinata take back her arm, after gently patting Sakura’s back, right between her
shoulder blades, and peeked out to watch her go through a litany of basic signs. More than
she’d expected, actually. Always smarter than she gave herself credit for, Hinata. She could
have easily rivalled Sakura or Shikamaru’s technical knowledge if her self-confidence hadn’t
been crushed into dirt by her clan.

Just for a moment, white rage streaked down Sakura’s spine.

“Good,” Kakashi told Hinata when she fumbled for another sign, his voice unusually soft.
Sakura peeked out at him too; his expression was almost neutral, but for a tiny little crease at
the corner of his visible eye that betrayed him. He was trying his best to be gentle.
Encouraging. Trying to start Hinata on piecing back together the courage to continue on.
“You were watching – do you recognise all of the signs Hinata used, Sakura?”

That same softness in his voice, in the faintest downtilt of his mouth behind his mask.
Despite herself, Sakura felt a thin smile breach her face. He wasn’t scolding her – this wasn’t
punishment. She wasn’t being dropped. Kakashi was keeping her.
It was lucky, actually, that they were learning KSL, because even as she scrubbed her face
dry and sat up a little straighter, she didn’t trust her voice. Instead of trying to bully it into
compliance, she just signed Yes at Kakashi.

The mask twitched, ever so slightly, in a briefly amused smirk. “Are there any more that you
remember?”

Ah. Damn. How many should she admit to? Sakura’s hands hovered uncertainly while her
mind ran through basic signs and which ones she thought Kakashi was likely to have covered
– she’d not paid them much attention in the hospital, hadn’t thought she’d need to. Foolish.

She took too long, and Kakashi hummed quietly. “No matter.” Oh. She must have looked as
indecisive as she felt, and lacking the critical knowledge it would only make sense for
Kakashi to assume she didn’t, and merely didn't want to admit it. Probably for the best, really.
It prevented her from having to lie.

Focusing in, Sakura tried her best to push aside her disquiet thoughts and pay attention to
what Kakashi was teaching them now. Already armed with the basic set of communication
signs, he started in on directive ones. The ones they were most likely to need in the field.

Of course. He was just as spooked as they were, and simply better at hiding it. Unable to
smother a fond little smile, Sakura settled in her chair. And it felt better, so much better, to be
home and safe and learning again.

Deceptively better. If she got too comfortable, then what was coming next would blindside
her. She couldn’t afford to let it happen again.

Sasuke arrived late. If he was honest, he hadn’t even been certain he was going to come at all
– Itachi had made sure to tell him, in perhaps the gentlest tone Sasuke had ever heard from
him, that it wasn’t mandatory. And Sasuke dithered for hours after Itachi was gone, staring
glumly at his bedroom ceiling and drowning in his own thoughts.

He didn’t know how he was supposed to go back to his team. As if they felt like a team. As if
they could be, anymore.

What the fuck happened? When had Sakura stopped being his best friend, when had she
become brooding and bloody and silent? Slipped away from them, without a word – with a
trick, a shadow clone left behind to lie to them – abandoned them.

Abandoned him.

It didn’t even feel quite real, when he thought about it – when he concentrated on it, on the
years he and Sakura spent together. She was supposed to be his friend – trustworthy – and
she’d never lied to him before, but…

She hadn’t. Right? But how was he supposed to know, how could he be certain when there
was so much she could do that he hadn’t known a thing about. Shadow clones, medical
ninjutsu, the air of command that she’d taken up so easily when Kakashi-sensei had gone
down. The bloodshed.

Sasuke had thought she’d never lied. Maybe he was just an idiot. Maybe he didn’t know her
at all – the weird mood that had never gone away this time… had they ever been the peculiar
moments he’d thought, or were they glimpses at the real Sakura, the stranger walking around
now in her skin, with her face?

Perhaps… Perhaps his friend had been the lie.

Lost in his thoughts, Sasuke was unprepared to find himself in front of Konoha’s public
library, and for a moment he stared blankly at the doors. Overhead, the weak winter sun
offered the barest warmth, clinging to Sasuke’s loose jacket. It didn’t really manage to seep
through his bandages to his skin, so the chill ran through him unmitigated; the prospect of
walking in so conspicuously, hours and hours late, made an unfamiliar anxiety flutter
breathless in his chest.

Don’t be so pathetic.

He spotted them first, when he slipped into the building. Their backs to him, tucked away in
the far corner of the building – not that the privacy was really needed, what the location
offered between the sprawling shelves. The library was mostly empty. Kakashi-sensei wasn’t
with them, but that wasn’t a particularly concerning fact. He was probably even later than
Sasuke, like usual.

For a minute, Sasuke just watched them. They were facing each other, sitting at slight angles
to the table, signing their way through a slow conversation. Pakkun was sitting on the table,
watching them with a bored gaze, offering what looked to be advice or instruction whenever
they fumbled. At Hinata’s side, Shiba had her head on Hinata’s leg, silent and comforting.
For as harsh as Kakashi could be, Sasuke couldn’t ever articulate how grateful he was for
Kakashi’s ninken.

His fingers twitched, an echo of the pang in his chest at the notion – a brief flicker of guilt at
the sudden, burning desire for Urushi’s company. He couldn’t expect them to stay with him
forever, no matter how he’d let himself wish for it, each long day in the hospital, trying
desperately to pretend that Sakura didn’t exist.

How could he talk to her? What was he supposed to say? Getting into an argument was just…
counterproductive. It wouldn’t solve anything, and they’d been in public. In front of Sakura’s
parents, in front of Hinata.

“You’re late.”

And Sasuke jumped despite himself, breath catching in his throat in a frantically swallowed
gasp, twitching away from the voice even as he spun to face it. Too high in pitch to be
Kakashi’s, too soft. Too short, coming from below his line of sight.

One ear flicking, Ūhei regarded him with cool, amber eyes. As Sasuke stared back, she sat
and tucked her paws together, tail half-curled around as if mimicking a cat. “Are you feeling
well, Sasuke? Your injuries are still healing.”

Okay, it was still a bit strange to have a dog outrank him, even if it was a dog fully capable of
speaking and performing jutsu and – if he was honest – thoroughly kicking his ass, probably.
It helped that she spoke with immediate purpose, navigating conversation as if it was a puzzle
to be solved. Efficient, direct. There was less room for nonsense under her gaze.

“I’m alright.” Physically speaking, it wasn’t even a lie. Oh, he still had a good couple weeks
to go before he’d be healed enough to resume proper training, but the wounds were healing
well. “... Didn’t really feel like coming.” He might as well be honest. Ūhei wasn’t Kakashi,
but she was barely one step below him, and Sasuke was damn sure she’d see through any lie.

Not to mention report it back.

Another flick of her ear, and Ūhei hummed. Mind-blisteringly strange to hear such a human
sound come from the greyhound, even if he was literally in the middle of conversation with
her, but she ignored the flash of consternation. “It’s not a mandatory lesson.” Her words were
considered, her study of him even more so. “You’ve missed Kakashi. He was here earlier.”

Wh— earlier? In what world was Kakashi here earlier, and never mind that Sasuke was half
a day late in his own right.

Ūhei chuckled, jaws parting as she did, a low whuffle. “He has urgent business today. So he
left us to protect you.” Standing, Ūhei let her tail wag low and leaned against Sasuke’s leg.
“You need not participate today,” she murmured. “It’s okay to take a few days to yourself,
Sasuke.”

Something revolted in Sasuke’s chest, something spiny and hard. “I’m fine,” he repeated,
harder than he meant, and Ūhei moved before he could push her away, leaning heavier and
putting one paw on top of his foot. Her teeth closed, briefly and gently, around Sasuke’s hand
and tugged. Even though she caused no pain, the reflex to flinch went off, a sharp gasp of
shock at being bitten. Harmlessly so, but bitten all the same.

“Listen to me, genin,” Ūhei snapped, like she had rank over him – and didn’t she? She was a
shinobi just like he was, and no matter that she wasn’t human. Her Konoha hitai-ite lay snug
around her neck. “Pushing forward when you reach your limits is not strength.” It was like a
slap, and Sasuke felt himself take half a step back from her. The flash of her teeth held his
gaze like a threat. “Ignoring your trauma is not bravery.” Ūhei stepped into him, pushing him
back another step, and Sasuke couldn’t tell if it was a fear reflex on his part, or if she was
exerting her chakra to push him by force, pressing against his legs with her withers. “You
can’t pretend that everything is the same as it was before that mission.”

Ūhei sat down, her paws still on Sasuke’s feet.

“And if you try, then you’re stupid.”

It stung far more than Sasuke would care to admit, the accusation of stupidity, like he was at
fault somehow. Was he at fault? Was there something he was supposed to do, to have done,
that he’d failed at?
Soft laughter broke his thoughts, and Sasuke found himself looking over at his teammates.
Sakura was giggling, while Hinata wore a pleased smile at whatever she’d done to make
Sakura laugh. They looked so… normal. How could they be so normal? As if nothing had
changed.

It was profoundly unfair, but betrayal burned under Sasuke’s skin. Hinata had been left to die
as well, left under the impending threat of Zabuza’s blade while Sakura fucked off to do
whatever cursed, bloody thing she’d been doing. Oh, he’d heard her report to Kakashi – the
tale of her assassination – but even if it was completely true, it was… it was obscene. That
she’d done something like that. That she hadn’t even batted an eye.

So how could Hinata be sitting there, smiling and laughing with Sakura as if she was still one
of them?

The thought struck hard, like whiplash, and Sasuke looked away. Shame suffused out under
his skin, hot and liquid and molten. Even if it was a truth, that he was struggling to see
Sakura as just a genin like them, it was cold and cruel to candidly articulate. Ūhei licked
Sasuke’s hand as he looked away from his teammates, a comfort and distraction in one.

“Whatever you’re thinking and feeling is valid, Sasuke. But you can’t ignore it and try to
keep going as you did before. You’ll hurt yourself – and everyone around you.” Her voice
was soft, and her nose was wet and cool when she pressed it against his hand. Edged her
muzzle under his fingers, let him rub his thumb between her ears. It was comforting in a way
that Sasuke couldn’t quite parse, the warmth of fur and her weight against his legs. “You
don’t need to speak with them today, if you'd rather not. That's okay.”

She said it as if it wasn’t merely not a lie, but as if it was an absolute truth. As if Sasuke
might as well abandon even the thought of protest. Part of him wanted to submit to it, the
opinion and sort-of-instruction of a shinobi who ranked above him. Even if she was an
animal.

Humans were just animals too, when it came right down to it.

Hinata signed something to Sakura, squinting down at an open book between each
movement; following written direction, or translation, while silently conversing. Each twist
and flourish of her hands was graceful and precise despite her hesitation – it was just like
weaving handsigns for performing jutsu. Not the first time he’d thought so, and yet Sasuke
couldn’t help but compare the two while he watched. His fingers twitched. Hinata used very
few actual handsigns in her preferred combat, what with Jūken being a signless style centred
around her dōjutsu and the skills Kakashi-sensei was teaching them being so light on
combative ninjutsu or genjutsu. It tickled something prideful in Sasuke’s belly, watching the
perfect form of each word Hinata signed.

Pride, yes, an odd sense of it but not unwelcome. Recognition of Hinata’s skill. He’d need it
– they’d both need it, the next time they dared take on a mission. When Kakashi went down.
It would be the two of them, while Sakura did… whatever the fuck she wanted.

It hadn’t been easy to get information about Kakashi-sensei out of Itachi, but Sasuke had
managed it over the last couple of weeks. When they next ventured out, when they next
risked their lives, Sasuke had no doubt that Kakashi would be the first to go down. Would
always be the first to go down. His keepsake eye was, according to Itachi, as much of a curse
as it was a blessing.

Surviving as a shinobi wasn’t only about becoming strong enough to overcome one’s
weaknesses. It was about hiding them so well an enemy couldn’t target them.

So it made sense that Kakashi maintained his reputation as so fearsome a man that even a
glimpse of his Sharingan promised doom – but it would only protect them so far. Whenever it
failed, Sasuke and Hinata would have to pick up the slack and protect their team and their
clients.

He had no idea where Sakura would go. Whether she’d stay and help, or whether she’d
abandon them.

The aftermath nagged in the back of Sasuke’s mind; waking up wet and miserable and
groggy, the taste of blood and salt on his tongue. Sakura had been there, he was reluctantly
sure. A pale burn of her chakra, her voice both stern and exhausted as she gave an order. It
had been to Kakashi-sensei, it had turned out, and Sasuke wasn’t even going to bother
confronting the audacity of giving their jōnin-sensei a command – that was something they
could sort out between themselves.

Was it fair to say she'd abandoned them, really? Some voice deep in the back of his thoughts
insisted that it wasn’t, that she’d been doing her best to save them. Fighting Zabuza was…
hopeless, she’d apparently thought. Better to remove his reason for fighting than to risk their
lives against his.

And if she’d just told them before running off on her own, before leaving them with a trick
made of smoke and despair. All she’d had to do was talk to them – and she’d always been
open with Sasuke before, told him her anxieties and fears and, in turn, heard his own. What
had happened to her that she no longer felt able to confide in him?

Was it his fault?

“Sasuke, why don't you come with me, hm?” Ūhei broke in, and for a moment Sasuke was
left reeling at the shift between his own inner monologue and someone else’s voice, but his
hand was still on Ūhei's head, and he rubbed her fur a moment, getting his mental balance
back.

One more glance at his teammates. They hadn’t noticed him— or, he thought they hadn’t
noticed him. Was Sakura sitting up a little straighter than before? It could be anything. He
hadn’t felt the ephemeral shimmer of her chakra searching for signatures around her as she so
often did – but he didn’t always catch them; she was getting so good at it, and he’d been lost
in contemplation.

“Okay.” It was easier than it should be to ignore the little voice piping up that he shouldn’t
blindly take orders. He wasn’t completely sure why it was a lesson that Kakashi had deemed
so important to teach, or why he’d done it the way that he had (okay, that was a lie –
Kakashi-sensei had done it that way because he was an asshole), but it sure stuck fast. Maybe
it was that Ūhei was giving it in the tone of a mere suggestion, or maybe it was that she was
dog-shaped, or maybe even he was just too fucked up to argue.

But he turned away from Hinata and Sakura, and silently followed Ūhei out into the weak
sunlight.

“Have you eaten today?” Ūhei asked, padding along at a stride just barely faster than a walk,
one ear folded back towards him where he lagged slightly and the other perked forward.

The reflexive yes lingered on his tongue when Sasuke hesitated on it. Had he? The days had
gotten… blurry. He was fairly certain that the small breakfast he remembered Mother
bringing up for him had been this morning, but he wouldn’t have sworn on it. And… hm,
nothing since.

He wasn’t even hungry, really, just a gnawing sick ache in his stomach, but he shook his
head. “A little this morning, I think.” Ūhei's tail whapped lightly into his leg. Impossible to
tell if it was a scolding or just the natural movement of her body while she walked.

“I know just the place.”

And, okay, well, even in a shinobi village, it was eerily surreal being taken out for lunch by a
dog, be her a talking ninken or not, and somehow even stranger still that she was greeted by
name when they arrived. It was a small place, right at the edge of the general commercial
district – if Sasuke remembered his clan politics right, it wasn't too far off the Hatake
compound. Or— at least heading in the right direction.

Honestly, Sasuke rather suspected that this being ‘just the place’ had less to do with his
specific situation and more to do with the fact Ūhei was an actual greyhound. It couldn't be
easy, finding places – especially good places – willing to deal with a pack of dogs. Let alone
a pack as big as Kakashi’s. But Ūhei dipped her head at the server who greeted them, tail
wagging slightly behind her, hitting the side of her chair, perfectly at ease.

“Just you today, Ūhei?” the server asked – ambiguous clothes in clean black, with the
establishment’s logo stitched into one lapel, dark hair tied back neatly and their voice pitched
perfectly polite – and Ūhei whoofed a low confirmation. “Your usual, then?”

Of course. It was… pleasing, actually, knowing that there were places about Konoha where
Kakashi’s ninken could freely come and go, and be themselves. Too many civilians – hells,
too many shinobi – just never understood that shinobi animals or even animalistic human
shinobi were people.

“And a…” Ūhei considered Sasuke briefly, head cocked. “Hm… stage 2 lunch for Sasuke.”

Hold up— but the server nodded, gave Ūhei a brief scratch behind the ears, and left to deliver
their order to the kitchen. They smiled on their way, but they didn’t even so much as glance
at Sasuke for confirmation. So he wasn’t apparently allowed to even order his own meal. Was
it a show of dominance? It didn’t seem in character for Ūhei, though granted he didn’t know
her very well.
“Stop that,” she broke in, her voice a little teasing. “Don’t overthink it, okay? You’ll hurt
yourself.” Definitely playful. “I know this place, and you don’t.” A pause. “I know what
you’re going through.”

“And I don’t?” It came out rather grimmer than Sasuke meant, but bitterness was swelling in
his chest at the assumed implication, and he was powerless to keep it in.

Ūhei studied him for a moment, and then put a forepaw on the table. Halfway across,
reaching towards him. “You know best of all what you’re feeling, Sasuke.” Gentle, this time.
“I’ve been there, and I’ve seen others be there, and I can empathise and understand – but no
one knows better than you what you’re experiencing.”

Whatever stifling emotion lingered underneath his ribs, it broke and bled through them as
Ūhei’s words sank in. The sting that rose in his eyes made him turn his head away, clenching
his hands in his lap and his teeth too hard together. Sasuke couldn’t say in all honesty that he
hadn’t cried after this mission, when the team of jōnin had come to rescue them – and
however guilty it made him, he’d been glad that the others had been unconscious and unable
to witness him – but it felt too much like weakness to let it keep happening.

“Thanks,” Sasuke mumbled out anyway, hating how his voice shook. Ūhei rumbled
wordlessly, leaving her paw out on the table. Allowed the silence to grow and settle around
them.

It almost seemed like a bait, that Ūhei just waited for him to pick up whatever conversation
he could; without her active input, Sasuke found himself mentally circling, unable to escape
the same godforsaken spiral of thoughts that had consumed him these past couple of weeks.
He couldn’t burn out the sight of it, of coming to on the bank outside Tazuna’s house with
saltwater searing in his throat, heavy and painful in his lungs, the unending ache of coughing
and vomiting. Kakashi’s murmured reassurances, the gentle hand on his back that hadn’t been
gentle enough, the blinding panic that had erupted as he’d heard Hinata scream.

They’d all been bloody, of course, but in Sakura’s case it hadn’t been her own. Too much of
it, slick and sticky with it. Her hair had been too dark. Her eyes wild and distant and angry.
When Kakashi had summoned Ūhei—

Too strange, too difficult to explain away. She’d been anxious and upset but she’d worked
like she’d done it before, mechanical and stubborn and ruthlessly efficient. Just who the hell
was she underneath the person Sasuke had thought he knew, behind the veneer of friendship
he’d thought they shared? Did he know her at all, really?

The server murmured something to Ūhei when they came with their meals, softly enough not
to break Sasuke’s train of thought. The greyhound responded, a quiet word of gratitude, and
they were left to it. Ūhei’s food was simple, chunks of carrot and sweet potato and pieces of
spinach, and a variety of roasted meats with a light drizzle of gravy. Plain, by the look and
smell – but plain by choice, because Sasuke’s food was well-seasoned, pepper and onion and
some kind of rich sauce. Cut into bite-sized pieces, neatly sectioned on his plate.

Sasuke didn’t really feel hungry, but the smell of food made his stomach rumble quietly, and
Ūhei flicked an ear as she delicately picked up a piece of carrot in her teeth and chewed. Kept
her eyes on him. They were darker than her coat, a deep, soft colour like ale. “Eat,” she told
him as she picked out a pale strip of chicken, and the weight of her gaze was so heavy that he
did as he was told. It was all but automatic – and hunger awoke when he did, an aching
reminder of how many meals he’d barely picked at or outright missed entirely. “Easy.”
Intoned with an edge of amusement as Sasuke began eating in earnest, but it was
unmistakably an order, so he slowed down, chewed longer, made the effort to match her pace.

So lunch passed in silence, but it was an easier silence than before, than the long dragging
days in the hospital or the aimless hiding away in his bedroom. It was… comfortable,
somehow. Soothing in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time. Since graduation? No, earlier than
that.

Since the Konoha Massacre, maybe.

“So you and the other ninken are regulars?” Slipped out, surprisingly casual, and Ūhei looked
up from where she was licking the last of the gravy off her plate. It was so comical – the
normally composed ninken with her ears cocked sideways and her tongue halfway out of her
mouth, eyes wide – that Sasuke found himself snickering, and then crumbling into full
laughter when she sat up straight again, licking her lips hurriedly with just the faintest air of
embarrassment.

She let him laugh, waited patiently for him to calm down. And it wasn’t that funny, not
really, especially when Ūhei’s facial expressions were so hard to read, but it took several
minutes to get it all under control. Maybe it was everything else that was happening; a spot of
relief amidst the chaos of all the things Sasuke’d thought he knew crashing down.

Gods, was it really that dramatic?

Ūhei quirked her lip at him when he finally managed to look at her again without breaking,
nose twitching. “We are, yes. Obviously our options are more limited than a typical shinobi,
but there are a few places that know us.” A moment of silence, and she must have read the
question in his face, because an amused snort escaped her. “Kakashi keeps a tab for us. Here,
and other establishments also.”

The affection in her voice when she said Kakashi’s name was overwhelming. For a split
second, Sasuke was overcome with a chilling jealousy – something that sliced through the
otherwise calm atmosphere and wrenched Sasuke’s thoughts aside. Like a whirlpool. It had
been obvious from the moment they’d arrived in the hospital that Kakashi’s pack was
devoted to him, but it was… different, in some indefinable way, to see it so clearly on an
individual level. Ūhei wasn't a pet, she wasn’t a disciple or a student or some other
independent. She – and all the other ninken – were with Kakashi by choice. Because they
wanted to be, because they were his family.

“Sasuke?” Her paw was back on the table. An invitation. Almost like watching someone else,
Sasuke reached over and laid his hand over the top. Her fur was short across her toes,
thinning to nothing where they spread into webbing and claws. The claws were black, and
blunt, and warm when he ran his fingertips down them. Why was it so novel a feeling?
Good gods, had he never touched a dog’s paws before? What the fuck was wrong with his
life that he knew what a human body sundering around his hand was like, but not something
so simple and innocent as a dog paw?

Ūhei flattened her paw down, widening the gaps between her toes, letting Sasuke see and
touch better. “Why don't you tell me what you’ve been thinking?” Cajoling, and Sasuke
glanced up but Ūhei was watching him calmly, seemingly perfectly at ease with the way
Sasuke was scrutinising her paw.

There was no good reason for it to be easier to speak his mind aloud in the quiet with one of
Kakashi-sensei’s dogs, focused on the exact way her claws emerged from her toes and curved
– so surprisingly distinct from his own fingernails – but it was. Slowly, at first, little
fragments of thought.

“It’s not… what I expected. Combat. Real combat.”

“Sensei told me not to try and do that lightning jutsu he showed me.”

“I thought we were going to die.”

But it came together the longer he went, examining the metacarpals and joints of Ūhei’s ankle
and up her leg, using his eyes as much as his hands to do so. The briefest flicker of Sharingan
showed the cloud of chakra in her body, similar but not quite the same as in a human, paler
and foggier, and then the faint pressure-heat made him nauseous, so he deactivated it. Though
she must have seen, Ūhei didn't comment.

Eventually, she nosed her plate aside and simply laid her front half on the table itself,
allowing Sasuke to compare her two forepaws – there were minute differences, flaws in their
symmetricality that Sasuke could imagine in sensation as she used them, and made him
wonder about his own limbs. “The first time you encounter battle – real battle, the ones
where you might lose – is always jarring. Terrifying, even. And when it’s with people you
know, people you love and trust, it’s even harder. That kind of pressure, it… it shows you
who you really are, at the core. Stripped of your social niceties and your cultural conditioning
and whatever philosophic morality you have. When it’s just you and survival.” Ūhei rested
her head on the table, and picked up one paw to place firmly in Sasuke’s palm. It was warm.
“You have no choice but to do whatever you think is necessary. However you think you can
win, can protect the people with you. And when those paths don’t align with the people
you’re trying to save – the people who are, in turn, trying to save you too – things get messy.
They get complicated.”

Her other paw went on the back of Sasuke’s other hand, demanding— no, asking for his
attention. He wasn’t even sure he had any to give, her words circulating around in his mind
and crashing against the walls, but he tried. Lifted his head, met her gaze. Even with her
expression indecipherable, her face so different from those he was used to reading, there was
something in her eyes so soft and sad and soulful that it felt like a lance. Blunt and painless,
Ūhei’s claws pressed into his skin.

“And usually, we have a system to prevent that – normally we have someone in charge.
That’s why we have someone in the lead of every mission, even when all participants are of
equal rank. Someone has to decide, when things get that bad.”

The point she was making snapped together for Sasuke before she could articulate it, and he
couldn’t look away, his gaze stuck on hers as if magnetised, but he blinked and the gentle
pressure of her claws eased. Perversely, some part of Sasuke wished that it hadn’t.

“We didn’t.”

“No. You didn’t.” For a moment her paws left his hands, and it was unsettlingly disorienting,
the sudden loss of contact, even when it had just been hand-to-paw, but then Ūhei was half-
standing, leaning more fully over the table with no care for its purpose as eating hardware,
and her forelegs fell easily against the inner sides of his forearms. Cold, the tip of her nose
touched the tip of his. “You did the best you could. More than anyone could have or should
have asked of you, and it wasn’t your fault, Sasuke. It wasn’t your fault, or Hinata’s fault – or
Sakura’s fault.”

“It wasn’t Kakashi’s fault either,” Sasuke felt himself say, his own voice a mere vibration in
his throat; defensive, as if Kakashi’s exclusion from Ūhei’s list was an automatic assignment
of guilt. It wasn’t a logical reaction, because no one who loved Kakashi like his ninken
clearly did would make such an accusation, but it came out anyway.

Ūhei bared her fangs, just a little, in what was recognisable as a smile. “No, it wasn’t
Kakashi’s fault either. You all did the best you could.” Another fleeting nose touch, the light
and salty smell of gravy on her breath. Maybe it should be strange, but it was comforting in
the same way that everything the ninken did was. Reassuring and gentle and affectionate.
Was there truth to that? Did the ninken already feel attachment to him, to all of Kakashi’s
genin, just because they were his? “And as unfair as it is, Sasuke, now you have to find a way
to come to terms with that.”

This time, it was a lick, ever so brief, at the corner of Sasuke’s jaw. And he didn’t want to ask
the question burning through his chest, because it was small and pathetic and weak, but it was
just Ūhei here, not his friends and not his family or his clan or his teacher. She was every bit
his direct superior as Kakashi was, but she was a dog, and she carried none of the daunting
presence he did. Maybe it was unfair of him to feel that way – but somehow, he didn’t think
she’d mind.

So he turned his head away, leaned into her when she pressed her muzzle against his neck,
and let himself ask.

“How?”

A lick. A low rumble. The momentary flick of Ūhei’s ear against his skin.

“With help, Sasuke.”

 “But—”

Another rumble. “I couldn’t do it alone, Sasuke, and neither can you. None of us can.”

“…”

Rumble. Lick.

“Okay.”

Chapter End Notes

WELL. THINGS. AND STUFF.

|| Okay, so the obvious thing first - yep, this chapter is... squints at smudged writing on
hand approximately six lifetimes late. Things happen. What in the hell can you do, I
guess. Onwards!
|| Kakashi has a plan. A SCHEME, if you will. Sneaky shenanigannery and subterfuge to
accomplish. One might even say... a PLOT.
|| And no, I will not tell you what it is.
|| And yes, it IS wild as fuck and there's nothing you or I or the goddamn authorial
authorities can do about it. So shall it be written, so shall it be done.
|| Have I made it obvious enough yet that Ūhei is my favourite of the Hatake ninken?
Because she is. I love her so fucking much y'all. Not to worry though, they are going to
be fairly prominent guest stars in this shitshow, we have plenty of time to spend with all
of them individually.
|| Now enjoy this hit and run because yes, yes this chapter posting IS a hit and run.
|| Except you got my license plate and insurance info, because I have a court ordered due
date for the next one.

Are y'all ready for a filler arc? It is Naruto after all. It wouldn't feel quite right without a
nice little filler arc. :)

Next Chapter Due: 18th May 2021

 The Reliance of Our Narrators is Questionable, At Best | Pt. 1
Chapter Summary

Sometimes it's the mundane thing that breaks us.

Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Sunday began… well, much too fucking early, if Sakura was honest. Her parents had been
notably less clingy when she’d finally come home the day before – several hours after dark,
accompanied by Pakkun and Bull – but they’d seemed relieved when Sakura had curled up
with them on the couch. Mebuki had quietly played with Sakura’s hair, smoothing out the
messy locks and creating chains of plaits so delicate Sakura couldn’t properly follow their
paths with her fingers. On Sakura’s other side, Kizashi read one of the many books from
Sakura’s stash, and if she wasn’t completely sure which book or even what was happening in
it then, well, it mattered far less than the soothing cadence of her father’s voice.

She’d let them carry her up to bed, when she’d gotten so sleepy as to be dozing in and out.
Mumbled incoherently as they’d tucked her in, cuddled into their farewell touches and the
softness of her own blankets. It was the earliest she’d gotten to sleep since accepting
Tazuna’s mission, and there was a warm and sweet relief in surrendering to it.

It was still dark – not quite three in the morning, said her clock – when Sakura jolted awake
with a sharp gasp, her eyes flashing open and scanning the room around her, a thin pulse of
her own chakra bouncing back off the walls with disarming velocity. Readily apparent that
she was in her bedroom, alone, but the tangible reassurance had little effect on the blistering
images behind her eyes or the spasming panic that gripped her lungs. Unthinking, Sakura
found herself wiping her hands down on her blanket, fleeing the sensation of blood on her
skin, trying to forget the way the human body broke when struck by Juubi’s chakra. Or the
sound it made under moonlight claws.

Minutes passed, crawling, searing minutes while Sakura tried to engage her senses and focus
on now, on the way her sweat clung damp and sticky to her skin and the shuddering beat of
her heart in her chest, or the faint smell of artificial strawberry that lingered in her room. The
weight of her blankets, the sound of her own breath scraping in her throat. The stale taste of
sleep on her tongue.

It’s not real, Sakura thought to herself, over and over again, her hands numb where her
fingers clenched in soft fabric. It’s not real, not anymore. We’re safe. We’re safe.

When, finally, Sakura could breathe somewhat normally again, she sat up, slowly, shoving
her blankets off, leaning back against the wall. One breath at a time, inhale through the nose,
exhale through the mouth. Slowly. Let her heart hammer, let it beat itself out against her
ribcage, because she was alone and safe and she could afford to. It was okay to be frightened
– it was okay to panic and cry until her body calmed down. She was allowed.

And she was alone, so nobody was there to see it. Hypocrite. But they all were, in the end.
Hypocrites. Sakura could tell everyone around her that cracking under the pressure was
normal, was okay and not a sign of weakness, was healthy even, and she had, but in the end
those thoughts still crept through and stole into her quiet hours.

But she knew better, so Sakura tucked away the curl of shame in her gut and pretended she
didn’t feel it, and smothered herself silent while she shuddered her way free of her
nightmares.

As exhausted as she was when, finally, she’d calmed, it was nearing four am and even if
dawn would be late and Kakashi wasn’t expecting them early, years and years of experience
told her it was pointless to try and get back to sleep. Logically, of course, she’d get a few
hours if she fell asleep fast, and a few hours was invaluable when rest was so scarce – but
fear and trauma rarely bent to logic, so Sakura picked herself up from her bed and retrieved
her hairbrush from her desk.

Her hair was starting to get a bit too long again, against her shoulders while she brushed out
last night’s plaits. Slow, gentle strokes, watching her own reflection in the darkness. The faint
tingle of chakra in her eyes was pleasant, the delicate enhancement of her sight picking out
silver highlights in the mirror, a quiet gleam of eyeshine between blinks. Sakura’s curtains
didn’t completely blot out Konoha’s nighttime light, but it was dark enough in her room that
even with a thread of chakra everything looked black and white.

One hand still running the brush lightly through her hair, Sakura reached out with her other
and fingered her kunai holster where it lay on the desk. She could cut it herself again, but it
would be messy. Unflattering.

That she even thought about that as a concern was almost enough to make her go through
with it, but she resisted. Beauty should never be her primary drive, but there was nothing
wrong with seeking it in controlled amounts. And there were some missions that benefited
from or even required it. A moment later she sighed, setting her brush down, and once more
considered her reflection.

For several long, heavy minutes, Sakura just watched herself. The girl who stared back was
ragged and tired, almost a stranger, and so, so young.

Suddenly, the prospect of the upcoming day – of showering in scalding hot water, of the
agonisingly familiar floral scent of her shampoo, or dressing in the clothes that belonged not
to her, but to the child she’d usurped – was too much. She wasn’t succeeding in pretending to
be the native Haruno Sakura; she hadn’t succeeded at all. At this point, the attempt was more
suspicious than the lack of it. Maybe she couldn’t tell anyone why, but maybe she no longer
had to. The Waves mission had come and gone. She’d killed and come home bloody, and that
was enough of a reason to change. It would justify her to everyone else, in any case.

And if she wasn’t going to pretend not to be herself, then she’d better fucking commit to it.
Her hair would wait until later in the morning; maybe she’d let her favourite hairdresser do
their own thing. A pause, as Sakura set her hands on the desk. Were they even in business
yet? She was still twelve, six years from the war, which meant… Two, three… and a half?
They were still some time from acquiring their own salon – where had they worked before
that? Damn it. She was sure it had come up in the many conversations she’d had with them,
but she couldn’t pull up the name in her mind. She’d have to find time to track it down.

So her hair would wait, but everything else… First went her hitai-ite; fairly easy a change in
the grand scheme of things, and the stitching of the red she’d chosen just after graduation
came undone without resistance. Ripping up one of her older shirts – a deliciously soft, pink
fabric – was even easier, and despite that Sakura had to sneak out and get into her father’s
sewing supplies and toolkit, it took less than half an hour to fully transplant the Konoha plate.
There was no small effort involved, what with having to make do with tools not explicitly
designed for the plate rivets, but a Matchlight katon that made her hands buzz and an
application of chakra that felt like breathing smoke, and she quite well made do. For a few
minutes once she finished, Sakura just turned her hitai-ite over in her hands. The thought
she’d had before leaving Konoha came back, a quiet flutter: maybe she should change how
she wore it. The Sakura who wore her hitai-ite like a headband was (literally) a different
lifetime ago.

Contemplating it, Sakura dug into the back of her wardrobe to find a loose set of clothes;
winter ones, ostensibly, and there was a severe lack of black or grey shirts available to her,
but she picked out long pants and as dark a red jacket as she could. She wouldn’t be really
stealthy without the proper mottled patterns and non-conforming shapes to break up her
silhouette, but she wouldn’t stand out as much. No more than she would anyway, being so
young and small.

The hitai-ite was… taunting her, perhaps, where it lay on her desk while she dressed. She was
already over the precipice of giving up the façade of the girl she’d replaced, but neither did
Sakura have any desire to strive for the person she’d been before. The woman at war. Sakura
had become who she’d had to, given her circumstances, and she felt no shame for it – but that
person wasn’t sustainable. She wasn’t the person Sakura had wanted to be, she’d just been…
necessary. And no longer. In order to accomplish her mission, in order to save this second
shot at her future, Sakura needed to become someone new entirely.

Her hood pulled up and her hitai-ite tied loose around her neck, Sakura grabbed her wallet
and slipped out her window into the night. A shadow clone remained, feigning sleep – the
weakest clone Sakura could safely create, and never mind the soft ache that performing a
jutsu triggered in her chakra nexus. It cost her only a fraction of her mostly-replenished
reserves; the clone would pop under any inspection, but it was solid enough to provide a
physical presence under her blankets, and that was the important part.

Letting go of the thread of chakra in her eyes, Sakura scrambled up the side of her house to
the roof in the village’s half-light. A small shape was waiting for her, gleaming pale against
its own shadow, and it shouldn’t have taken her so off-guard but Sakura twitched back at the
sight, felt herself drop into a half-crouch like she was preparing for a fight, flared her own
chakra to stick hard to the shingles under her feet.
… Shit.

The shape cocked its head. “You… are supposed to be sleeping.” Soft voice, pitched higher
than Sakura’s own, the words as velvet as their speaker’s fur. The ninken didn’t move, not
yet, but she watched Sakura calm and force herself to relax without blinking. It wasn’t
particularly likely that she’d add anything to the gentle accusation until Sakura responded –
Bisuke was a creature of few words – but neither would she allow Sakura her leave unless
she did.

Of course Kakashi had set up the pack to guard his genin. Even in the midst of Konoha, he
was equally as rattled as any of them, and twice as paranoid. Fate was not to be trusted and
chance was just misfortune made pretty – Kakashi-sensei couldn’t bear to lose them. Not
again. It had almost destroyed him, her first Team Seven.

Sighing, Sakura turned her gaze back towards Konoha’s central districts. “… I had a
nightmare. Couldn’t get back to sleep.” No sense in lying, not when she didn’t have to.
Besides, when she had to keep so much hidden, telling Bisuke the simple truth was a relief.

Bisuke hummed. “I heard.” Of course. But she was no doubt under orders not to reveal
herself unless necessary; sneaking out at ass o’clock in the morning counted, Sakura
supposed.

“Are you going to stop me?” It came out resigned, but Sakura met Bisuke’s gaze and didn’t
correct her tone. The prospect of having to evade any of Kakashi’s ninken was exhausting,
but Bisuke particularly was daunting. As the pack’s resident scout, Bisuke was a ninken of
stealth, second to none.

Bisuke slipped her stance, tilting her head to the side and scratching at one ear with her
hindpaw; she held Sakura’s gaze as she did, contemplating. Even at night the silkiness of her
fur was obvious, and part of Sakura longed to reach out and run her hands through it, to
stroke the long ears and elegant slant of her muzzle.

“No.”

Which meant that either Kakashi had failed to think Sakura might sneak out of her house at
night and thus Bisuke was free to choose her own course of action – or Kakashi had given
standing orders not to prevent her from doing so. Sakura strongly suspected the latter;
Kakashi was not a man prone to underpreparing.

Okay, well… that, or Kakashi had deliberately left the decision of what to do with a Sakura
sneaking out up to Bisuke regardless. Yeah, never mind, that was probably it.

“Okay. Thank you, Bisuke.”

Bisuke had a preference for silence, so Sakura held her tongue as she made her way down to
ground level with the spaniel on her heels. Part of her kept track of Bisuke’s movement, using
whatever small sounds she made – each of them deliberate, allowing Sakura to hear her – as
well as the faint warm glow of her chakra, but it was comforting to have one of the Hatake
ninken at her back.
They didn’t speak again, but Sakura found herself savouring Bisuke’s company; quiet and
steady, and lacking absolutely the judgement of her teammates or the overbearing anxiety of
her parents. Not even when Sakura led them into the small nocturnal sector of Konoha –
specifically set up for the shinobi, a commercial district quite a bit smaller than that of the
daylight hours, but open and bustling at all times it wasn't. Shinobi couldn’t always get time
during the day to perform the more mundane necessities, after all, so Konoha had made
certain to provide services for them at night as well.

Not that it was exclusively shinobi who took advantage of it, of course, but the civilian
customers were few and far between, conspicuous where they lacked the flash or glint of a
hitai-ite. Sakura ignored the glances they received – most all the shinobi recognised Bisuke,
and the chūnin who passed them spared her a respectful nod or wave that she returned with
the dip of her muzzle. What looks Sakura got were instead curious, and occasionally laced
with mild concern. It was obvious by her age that she was a genin – Tsunade had made good
time in reforming the Academy with the extra years she’d had as Hokage, and a child chūnin
or jōnin was unfathomable now – and Bisuke’s escort made it clear whose genin she was, but
none made any attempt to stop or confront her. It was strange for a relatively fresh genin to
be wandering around at this time, but it was by no means suspicious. Genin were, in some
fashion, no longer minors. Or at least, no longer minors in the same way civilians of Sakura’s
age were. Tsunade had made sure to place restrictions on the capacities at which genin could
be treated as adults once she’d taken over in Sakura’s former timeline, and given the same
opportunity, so had this Tsunade. If anything, from what Sakura understood from the native
memories she’d inherited and the extensive research she’d done, those laws were even more
strict this time around.

Perhaps it was lucky Bisuke was around; if she’d been alone, Sakura was fairly certain at
least some of the adult shinobi would have asked her if she was okay, or what task she was
theoretically fulfilling. With Kakashi’s ninken as her shadow, it somewhat legitimised her
presence, regardless of what task she was performing.

So, despite the looks, Sakura made her way without incident to a little boutique near the edge
of the night district. She’d known, cognitively, that it would still exist— already exist? It had
been her favourite place to update her wardrobe in her first life, as she’d grown in both
measurement and taste, and she knew its history. Owned by a married pair of women,
passionate seamstresses both, and livened up by their endlessly chatty child, Saya. Sakura
had learned a lot from Saya, let the kid talk themself silly every time she’d been in there for
fittings. Ruby Star Seams had existed for several generations now, passed along not by blood
but from seamstress to seamstress, master to apprentice. In the quiet moments, in watching
Akemi work magic with colour and weave, Sakura had redefined her understanding and
appreciation of clothing. Garments. What they did was every bit as intimate and noble as the
bond she shared with Kakashi-sensei, and the jobs they completed.

Blood, sweat, and tears, Akemi’s wife had always said of their work. It had taken a long time
for Sakura to learn to respect that; it had struck her as… disingenuous, initially. Her work,
after all, was truly blood, sweat, and tears. But then she’d watched them. She’d learned.
Seen the way Tsuna swept Saya up when they stayed out too long: the tears. Watched Akemi
and Tsuna haul bolts of velvets and silks and cottons, the weight of so much raw material, the
storage and sorting of a dozen half-finished pieces: the sweat. Heard the muttered curses and
seen the spotted bandages on their fingers from every time they pricked themselves with their
needles: the blood.

It was Akemi who greeted her, when Sakura slunk into the shop. A bright smile despite the
early hour, setting down a pencil on the counter even as she straightened up to speak. She
was younger than Sakura remembered her – the delicate skin around her mouth still very
smooth, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes soft. Part of Sakura wanted desperately to rush
over, to inspect whatever designs Akemi was doodling and ask how she planned to bring
them to reality. To just… Fuck, it was basically gossip, but Sakura was a stranger to her.
There was no recognition in Akemi’s gaze, and the sharpening concern that belied her
familiarity with Konoha’s hitai-ite. Akemi barely glanced at the identifying plate at Sakura’s
throat.

She did look, however, at Bisuke. For a moment, Sakura tasted panic – and then she forced a
smile, shyer than she’d have liked, and swallowed it. It was only natural for Akemi to focus
on Bisuke; Sakura had been introduced to this place through her sensei, after all. The vests
that Kakashi's ninken pack wore were, indeed, exquisitely made.

“Oh!” Akemi put together the pieces, and came around the counter with a brighter smile.
“You must be one of Hatake-san’s children, no?” Without waiting for an answer, Akemi came
in for a hug, ruffled up Sakura’s hair. “Rather early to be bringing a genin here, Bisuke,” she
continued, fussing a little with the locks she’d just mussed before stepping back and cocking
her head critically. “Surely you're not leaving on a mission at this time of night.”

Bisuke shrugged and sat down by the door to observe, just far enough to the side to ensure
she wouldn’t cop a hit if somebody else opened it. She was eerily still, her status as living
only betrayed by the faint expansion of her breath and the infrequent blinking. Her stare felt
like a safety blanket.

Finding herself smiling at the familiar treatment, Sakura shook her head. Felt the way her
shoulders relaxed and the wound-up tension started to ease. Even if she was a stranger once
more, being so warmly welcomed by someone she cared about personally was a relief.
Especially with the way she’d fucked up her friendship with Sasuke. Again. Gods, could she
never just be a good friend to him? As if the schoolgirl worship hadn’t been bad enough.

“No, ma’am, no mission. I just felt like changing my wardrobe, and I hear you’re the best.”
And not actually open for business during peak day hours, for obvious reasons.

Akemi laughed, waving a hand. “Oh, well, we do try. Come, come.” Twirling on one foot,
Akemi led Sakura towards the rear of the boutique, into a little alcove with mirrors on three
sides. “What sort of thing did you have in— Are you alright, sweetheart?” Her voice dropped
to soft in an instant, pealing brightness to whispered reassurance without missing a beat. It
was pretty common, after all, for shinobi to encounter triggers in daily life, anywhere from
astoundingly minor to breathtakingly severe. In this industry, Akemi and Tsuna saw it all the
time.

And just for a second, for a fraction of a heartbeat, Sakura looked into the mirrors and felt
water under her feet, Haku’s face staring back at her instead of her own.
Squeezing her eyes shut only made the memories of her team’s broken bodies flash behind
them, so Sakura turned her head to look at Akemi instead. Open face, light brown eyes,
reassuring smile and plump cheeks. Familiar. Friendly. Safe. “I’m— Yeah. I’m alright.
Sorry.” Haku was dead – or, if they weren’t, they were leagues away and no longer a threat.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Akemi fussed, twitching back some loose strands of hair falling
across Sakura’s face, and then she tilted Sakura’s head up slightly and considered her. “You
don’t worry about a thing, darling. Now, what sort of ideas do you have for what you want?
A set of similar outfits or several complete looks?”

“… Uh…” Truthfully, Sakura hadn’t thought that far ahead. Her decision to come here now
had been spur of the moment, and the only thing that came to mind in response was a list of
the clothes she’d worn in her previous life. When she’d been older, and filled out a shirt a bit
better. No matter; she intended to let her hairdresser do whatever they wanted, right? There
was nothing stopping her from doing the same here. “Surprise me.”

Akemi offered a titter of delight. “Well, as you say. Let’s put something together to match
that lovely shade of pink on your hitai-ite first, shall we?” She was gone a moment later,
flitting about the front of the store. Absently, Sakura rubbed the soft fabric around her neck.
Whilst the vast majority of clothes sold here were custom made, they did boast a small
collection of pre-fabricated garments, built to general sizing rather than exact. Though, as
Sakura rather suspected would be the case here, Akemi and Tsuna insisted on tailoring even
those to a better fit if the customer’s time permitted.

By the time Akemi came back, a tidy little selection of red and pink clothes in her arms,
Sakura was starting to feel quite a bit better than she had since waking. Warm and… well, if
not exactly happy, then comfortably placid, at least. Drowsiness was catching up with her.
When Akemi dropped most of her bundle on a conveniently placed chair and held up the first
article, it took Sakura almost ten seconds to actually focus on it.

“Is this your style?” Akemi asked, peeking around the edge of the… shirt, it was a shirt.
Bright scarlet, with long sleeves and a laced collar. High-waisted, enough so to reveal
Sakura’s entire abdomen should she put it on.

The smile Sakura returned was automatic. “Yeah. I like it.” A moment of fuzziness before her
good sense caught up, and Sakura shook herself. “Bit cold for winter, though.” Not that
Sakura was particularly worried about that. She was quite adept at countering the chill, not
simply with self-regulating her chakra flow but with one of the simplest katon in any
shinobi’s arsenal – and even ignoring that, Akemi had never let such a thing past her before.
With an answering grin, Akemi reached back and held up a black sweater in her other hand.
Sleeveless, by the look, but fluffy and warm, with a hood.

“Try them on, and if you like them I’ll fit them a little better, sound good?”

Stripping off her current shirt was the work of a moment, and Sakura took the red shirt and
slipped it over her head. It took a little bit of awkward struggling to get her hitai-ite through
the neck of the shirt – she’d have to bear that in mind – and then Sakura was stretching her
arms out to settle the sleeves, rolling her shoulders and tugging the elastic hem into place
around her ribcage. It sat a little too high, actually, maybe a few millimetres above the hem of
Sakura’s chest binder.

Small mercies of being a twelve-year-old again, Sakura supposed. She would miss how easy
it was to bind her breasts when they were just coming in – a soft fabric with minor elasticity
gave more than enough stability at this stage, and would theoretically make her accustomed
to having a bound chest before it became strictly necessary to do so. Ah well.

Snagging a hard-backed notepad off the shelf of sewing supplies, Akemi took down a few
notations in shorthand and then held the notebook in her teeth, her pen held between her ring
and pinky fingers, before picking up a tape measure and stepping up to Sakura’s side. “I’ll
take the hem of this down for you, sweetheart, don’t you worry. And the sleeves will need to
come in a bit, but that’s quite straightforward. If you’re wanting to walk out of here with
these today, it shouldn’t take too long, but if you’re paying for yourself then it’ll be a little bit
of a rush order.” Taking Sakura’s proper measurements while she talked, Akemi paused
between each to write them down. She was very good at measuring people by eye, of course,
but nothing was a fit substitute for a proper measure. At the least, that’s what Tsuna always
said when scolding Akemi’s habits. “Or is Hatake-san footing the bill for this?”

Ah, right. Of course. Even here, when the ninken only sometimes shopped for themselves,
Kakashi held an open tab for them. It seemed that habit had carried through from one
timeline to another, ensuring that the pack had free access to anything they could possibly
want while they weren’t working. Despite being officially recognised Konoha-nin, ranked
and all, they occupied a somewhat unique position amongst Konoha’s shinobi ranks. Whilst
they could take on missions in their own right, the same as any other shinobi, they rarely did
– and in the same vein, those of them who were jōnin were within their rights to pull rank,
but the general understanding was that they wouldn’t. As long as they hadn’t made a different
decision this time, even whatever pay was due the ninken went to Kakashi, hence his holding
open tabs at the various establishments in which his ninken were welcome.

It was a strange situation, all things told. The ancestral Hatake summons weren’t bound in the
same way the Inuzuka ninken had been (were still? The most that Sakura had been able to
find out about their absence was that they’d left around the time of the Konoha Massacre – a
moniker that still slid like ice under her skin). But even so their first obligation went always
to Kakashi, and not Konoha. It wasn’t an entirely easy relationship, and most of the village
was neither privy to the details nor interested in them.

“Um… No, I’m paying myself.” Given how carefully she’d segmented and saved all the D-
rank pay she’d received over the last few months, an outfit like this would still be in her
budget, but the rest she planned on buying lay entirely on the payout she’d been sent home
with yesterday. One quarter of the pay of a properly evaluated S-rank mission – and the
significant sum total of an assassination contract. Tsunade must have paid out from Konoha’s
funds, or possibly her own, and it was… surprising, actually, that she’d bothered. Hiruzen
hadn’t, the first time. Unsettling, too, even if it soothed something in her soul to be handed
the properly sealed envelope and mission receipts. “I don’t mind paying the rush fee.”

Sakura wanted badly to walk out of here with at least one completely new set of clothes.
She’d developed the habit very soon after Sasuke’s departure, in her native timeline, and
Kakashi had supported the coping mechanism wholeheartedly. Hard to blame him, really.
While the mental or emotional implications of trying to remodel herself through clothes
every time something traumatic befell her weren’t exactly great, the mere act of expanding
her wardrobe wasn’t inherently harmful. There were worse ways for her to deal.

With a softer smile, Akemi gave her a nod. “Very well. Now, let’s see here…” Even with all
her skill and experience, Sakura still wasn't completely sure when Akemi had plucked the
pins from their small cushion on the shelf, but she found herself smiling in turn as the
seamstress began pinning in the sleeves of the shirt, keeping track of how far they needed
taking in, and where exactly they should lie against Sakura’s body once in their new
configuration. Far more complex a task than Sakura had ever realised before getting to know
the woman and her wife; there were correct forms in which clothes were supposed to be cut
and fitted, and it was annoyingly easy to sew or wear them into the wrong forms.

“Do you have any longer pants?” Sakura asked, untying her hitai-ite and setting it aside.
When Akemi finished pinning the crop-top into a better fit, Sakura pulled the hooded vest
over her head. It fit around her torso very snug, soft where it touched her skin, but as Sakura
ran her hands down it, she could feel faint little ridges and bumps that betrayed a legion of
small, hidden pockets. Despite herself, a grin that could, in the right light, be described as
feral grew on her face. While Akemi darted off to search for a different pair of leggings,
Sakura bent down to unclip her kunai holster and started to pull out her weapons.

A pair of kunai tucked in nicely to the slim pockets angled up under her armpits, and several
more shuriken folded invisibly into the lower hem. Another pair of kunai, slightly more
visible where they slipped into pockets against her stomach, but out of direct light the black
fabric disguised their outline. Senbon slots ran down each side below the first kunai, and
there was a series of wider slots hidden along her ribcage that Sakura left empty for now; it
was high time she started carrying some medical supplies, and she was perfectly capable of
creating some small storage scrolls. It wasn’t that suspicious for her to know that technique,
even if—

Wait.

The native memories flickered in the back of Sakura’s mind. They were familiar now, like a
movie she’d seen dozens of times, but Sakura was fairly certain they’d never quite feel like
her own. It always took a few moments too long to parse them. In any case, the idea of
creating storage scrolls tickled them, so Sakura cocked her head and sorted through.

Oh. Actually, it wouldn’t be unusual for her to do this at all. Unlike the Academy she
remembered from under Hiruzen’s rule, learning both the theory of sealing and the
practicalities of crafting storage scrolls had been part of the curriculum this time.

Rather pleased with the realisation, Sakura patted herself down – her weapons weren’t
perfectly concealed, and the hoodie’s fit was just loose enough that the weight of her kunai
pulled it out of alignment – but overall it was quite good for an eyeball sizing. Akemi never
disappointed.

Coming back with a pair of long pants, black and streaked with neon pink, Akemi set them
down and plucked up her pins again. “I see you found the pockets.” Grinned, and if she was
amused by Sakura’s attempts then it was compassionately so. “If I might— Best to lay your
shuriken with as many points down as possible,” she advised gently, slipping her fingers into
one of the hemline slots and twisting a shuriken. “One point down poses a bigger risk of
puncturing the fabric – and also makes it more visible.”

Sakura honestly wasn’t sure if she was just that tired, or if she’d done it deliberately to hide
her experience in concealed weapons. Pride said the latter, but Sakura begrudgingly put it
aside. In all likelihood, it had been an outright error – but at least it was an error that she
would be expected to make. Sometimes, very occasionally, the universe was kind.

“There are some more pockets in your sleeves,” Akemi mumbled through the pins held in her
teeth, and while she adjusted the back of the hoodie, Sakura checked. True enough, there
were some narrow slots on the inside of the sleeves, sewn delicately and placed carefully so
as not to disrupt the flow of them. They wouldn't do for bladed weapons – lacking the cut-
resistant mesh that lined the pockets in her hoodie – but there were other things Sakura could
carry in them.

Explosive tags, for example.

“Alright,” Akemi said slowly, dragging out the word while she judged her own handiwork,
and then stepping back as she deemed it adequate. “Try these on.” The pink-accented pants
were tossed over to her, and Sakura shucked off the half-length pair she was already wearing.
There was some good stretch in the fabric, sized perhaps a smidgen too small but
comfortably elastic around her legs. Not much of a chance to hide weapons in them, but it
was hardly a step down from what she already owned. Akemi took a step back, eyeing them
critically. Shifting her weight to one foot, Sakura lifted her other leg into a kick position,
almost parallel with the floor, her body twisting sideways to counterbalance. “Hold on.” As
sharp as Akemi’s voice ever got, and Sakura settled back into standing automatically. “Let’s
get these off, first. Don’t want you getting pricked, now, do we?”

Or dislodging the pins, Sakura added silently, but she appreciated that Akemi emphasised her
comfort aloud. Getting the hoodie and shirt off was considerably more of a task than getting
them on had been, but with patience and gentle instruction, they managed it. The weapons
Sakura had hidden in the hoodie came out beforehand, and lay in a neat pile by her feet.

Now free of the pins, Sakura ran through half a kata, too quickly for it to serve its usual
purpose but a good stress and stretch test for the leggings. Even before she could express
dissatisfaction with them, Akemi was shaking her head. “No, not those ones. Give me a
moment.” She rushed off, leaving Sakura to take them off. There was the murmur of Bisuke’s
voice from the other end of the store, too low to pick out the words, but… it was familiar.
Sakura closed her eyes and took a slow breath, focusing on the moment. Maybe, if she didn’t
let herself question it too closely, just maybe things would be okay.

It was still predawn, not quite two hours later, when Sakura walked back out into the street
one set of clothes heavier and a whole lot of ryō lighter. Even with all the same daunting
things ahead of her today, she felt better. Clad in a new outfit, weapons properly hidden
against her body, a solid plan of what else she could cover this morning laid out. Bisuke’s
company was quiet, but steady.

Akemi was truly a wonder with a needle and thread. The transition against her skin from the
lighter shirt to the hoodie was tangible but comfortable, and the hoodie itself clung to her in
just the right way that her weapons were all but invisible. An experienced eye, no doubt,
would recognise them – but there were only so many ways to conceal weapons, and she
wasn’t meant to be experienced in the first place.

The trousers that they’d settled on, in the end, were a deep, burnished red – almost brown –
and cut off partway down her calves. Not too much give in the fabric, but wedges of much
more elastic neon pink ran up the outer sides of each leg, offering a wealth of movement. On
each hip, just small decorations, was a puff of scarlet fluff, almost feathery to the touch.

Most urgently, Sakura wanted to get herself a good first aid kit. Would it be somewhat
suspicious if she did so immediately? On second thought— well, it wasn’t as if she’d kept her
head down until now anyway. And she’d already revealed her knowledge of medical ninjutsu,
already been caught snooping into her team’s medical charts, already proven that she knew
what she was talking about. Given all that, it might be more suspicious not to get one at this
point.

Which was a relief, if she was honest. Six months or so was not enough time to become
accustomed to not having it. It’d be good to have proper supplies on hand again.

Course set, Sakura let her feet lead her towards the right part of the district, and walked
through her own thoughts instead. The hoodie she’d bought had one more pocket built into it;
a long, slender slot sewn into the back. For a sword. It seemed… if not a cruel twist of fate,
then perhaps a sardonic one. What would Kakashi think if, after the Waves mission, Sakura
asked him to teach her kenjutsu? In his position, Sakura would have been appalled. The level
of fuckery that had happened meant that, in a normal child, swords could easily become a
volatile trigger – and yet, the reality of their situation was that shinobi had to kill. No matter
how much earlier they’d faced it than Kakashi-sensei would have liked, it was an
inevitability that they would have had to face eventually anyway.

Shinobi killed.

And they were good at it.

Asking for training in a combat method that she’d already shown an affinity for was…
logical. In a purely cognitive sense, teaching her swordsmanship was the right decision. If
she’d been dealing with her Kakashi, Sakura would have been able to predict his response.
Sad, probably, but unsurprised. It had eased off a little as she’d grown, become less sorrowful
and more ferocious. As an adult, he’d begun treating her almost – almost, but not quite – like
his peer instead of his pupil. But still, he’d never quite lost the disappointment in the
universe, that it had forced his kids to become warriors so quickly.

Put it down, Haruno. You can’t do anything about it.

Sakura was paying for her new kit of medical supplies when her memory skipped; a strange
mental flicker, like waking up from a dream, and the sudden realisation that she’d forgotten
something crucial until that very moment. Clone memories. Someone had been in her
bedroom, had dispelled her clone.

Panic surged for a split second, and at her side Bisuke’s hackles went up in response, lips
curling just slightly to reveal gleaming fangs. The ghost of her clone’s attacker flashed
behind her eyes: tall and clad in tight black from neck to toe, and a pale mask streaked in red,
like a bloody moon. Upper arms bare, a familiar spiraled marking etched into their skin,
black in the half-light. Anbu. Only a red Anbu – although Sakura couldn’t acknowledge such
information. She knew far more about the internal structure of the Anbu and their ranks than
she was, strictly speaking, allowed to. Hells, even in her previous timeline (she was starting
to wonder if it might be more apt to call it a different lifetime), she'd technically lacked
clearance to know half the things Kakashi and Tsunade had told her.

Not that anyone would have ever called her out on it.

“Interesting,” the Anbu said in her own recollection, through the ears of her now-popped
clone. “Tsunade-sama requests your presence in her office. No later than thirty minutes after
dawn.”

They’d flicked the mimic Sakura in the face; more than enough to dispel such a weak clone.
Presumably they’d left after that. Gods, Sakura hoped they’d just left instead of snooping.
Her diaries – transcripts of her native memories – were written in code, of course, but even
the fact she’d scribbled them all down in a code the Anbu weren’t familiar with was…
somewhat conspicuous.

And disastrous if they were shown to Kakashi. It was his code. A particular cipher that
Kakashi had invented for himself in his early years of service, painstakingly taught to Sakura
once her original Team Seven had dissolved. Would it even be the same in this timeline?

The thought brought her up short. Would Kakashi have the code? Would he have a code at
all? Surely, he would. For all the things about him that were different, his paranoia had
remained unchanged; having a cipher he could write in that no one else knew was no small
comfort to him. Not to mention that he’d invented it before ever meeting Sakura – she
couldn’t have changed the events that led to him creating it. Surely.

“Sakura.” Bisuke’s voice was low, her name almost a single syllable rather than the three it
should be. A glance down revealed the spaniel watching her closely, a mixture of suspicion
and concern in her eyes. Her tail hung in a low arch.

It was unlikely Bisuke would offer up anything further in words, but Sakura gave her time to
speak anyway – used it to organise her own thoughts. Damn it. She should have tried to get
more sleep. “… Sorry, Bisuke.” Held her voice in a quiet murmur. “My clone popped.
Tsunade-sama sent an Anbu to summon me.” It came out far more anxious than Sakura was
expecting; it wasn’t as if the call was particularly startling or even unusual. Hazarding a
guess, Sakura was fairly certain that a formal report would be asked of her. It was procedure.
Granted, she was a little young and inexperienced to be giving solo reports, but—
Well, Kakashi-sensei might well be present, actually. Sakura had no indication one way or
another. And Tsunade would of course want to get reports from each of them, not simply
whatever Sasuke had told her on their return or Kakashi’s official report.

“When?”

Sakura shook herself. All she could do was obey, and come what may. “Soon.” The sky was
pale grey, and faint orange streaks were visible to the east. Dawn was upon them, Konoha
waking up all around them; there was no point in dallying. The other frivolous tasks she
wanted done would wait.

Bisuke keeping close at her side, Sakura made her way towards the Hokage tower, and began
mentally prepping the lies she would need.

Sakura was the first to arrive. Kakashi wasn’t sure, entirely, if that should be expected or
surprising; of all his genin, Sakura was the only one who’d seemed to pick up any of his bad
habits regarding tardiness, but it was easier to show up promptly if she wasn’t sleeping.

And she definitely wasn’t sleeping. When she showed, demurely slipping into the main foyer
and spotting him against the wall, sparing the chūnin on reception duty a nod while she
beelined for Kakashi, she only sort of even looked like herself. New clothes, an assortment of
concealed weapons held within them, her hitai-ite mounted on new fabric and worn around
her neck today instead of its usual position at her crown.

Kakashi made a mental note to pry. If Sakura was simply trying to establish a new normal for
herself in the wake of Waves, then it was an endeavour Kakashi felt he could tentatively
encourage – but there were bad ways she could be doing that, too. Embracing a new self ran
the risk of abandoning one’s truest self. Given the motivation for such change, Kakashi
needed to be extremely careful to make sure she didn’t focus on the bloodshed she’d
experienced.

She couldn’t be allowed to become consumed with violence. While an inescapable part of
shinobi life, it wasn't the only part – and Kakashi couldn’t let Sakura fall prey to the trap of
thinking it was. He couldn’t let her become like him.

Bisuke canted her head sideways as they approached, gave a twitch of her nose and flicked
her tail twice to the left before skipping one step. Out two hours, and Sakura had snuck away
from her home. So deeply it ached, Kakashi wished that he found that surprising – but he
didn’t.

“Sakura.” Her eyes came up at the sound of her name, blinking away the haze of sleep-
deprivation, alert and anxious. “Do you understand why Tsunade’s asking for you?”
Whatever else was going on – and there was a lot that he still had to do, but at least he could
leave Pakkun and Guruko to picking out furniture – the individual reports from his students
took priority. Theoretically, each of them should be given to Tsunade exclusively, but
Kakashi’s protest had been sustained that he would accompany them. It served a practical
purpose for him to witness, even beyond offering whatever familiarity (and, gods help them,
comfort) his presence gave. Kakashi needed to tread carefully, and the more information he
had, the better.

Sakura gave him a weary half-smile. Too easy to be forced, but it lasted barely half a second
and never reached her eyes. “Yes, Sensei,” she confirmed softly, taking a seat against the wall
beside him. Bisuke was in the next chair in a moment, sitting primly with her tail hung over
the side, watching Sakura closely. She would continue to do so until Kakashi released her
from the task – and perhaps he should, but the whole pack was busy helping him ensure a
clean sweep, and it gave him enough peace to breathe with Bisuke on Sakura duty.

But still, he wasn’t looking forward to it. Nor repeating it twice over with Hinata and Sasuke.
As important as it was, the questions were going to suck. And it was a unique flavour of
awful for each of them; Hinata would internalise and drift and choke it all down. Sasuke
would lash out, only more and more if Kakashi couldn’t help him, because at some point the
only way he’d have left to protect himself was violence. Sakura would keep her cool,
Kakashi suspected, and the mechanical calmness didn’t sting any less.

She didn’t quite doze, while they waited for Tsunade to call them in, but she wasn’t focused
either. Her fingers kept creeping up to her hitai-ite, tapping quietly on the plate, rubbing the
pink fabric between them, tracing the shape of it against her throat. Unfamiliar to her, the
weight and presence of it worn like that.

Hinata arrived next, limping in with her crutch, Shiba padding close at her side. Relief and
simmering rage warred in Kakashi’s chest; she was safe, here, with Shiba protecting her – but
she shouldn’t have to be taken from her home, from her family, and given a chūnin
bodyguard to be safe. There was no smile forthcoming when Kakashi greeted her, and when
she took the seat beside Bisuke she kept her gaze down. Extended one hand to tease the stripe
of fur across Shiba’s head, rubbing her thumb just behind one ear, the way Shiba liked.
Whuffling happily, Shiba dropped her head into Hinata’s lap, tilting slightly and letting her
tail wag. It relaxed Hinata, the reassurance. Her expression eased, her shoulders lost tension.

That tension returned when Kakashi knelt in front of her, but Shiba leaned over, nosed
Kakashi’s cheek, licked his mask. When, exactly, Hinata had learned to read Kakashi’s face
under the mask, he couldn’t rightly say, but she glanced up to meet his gaze, and exhaled
softly. Let her grip ease. Saw clean through him and the half-smile he was wearing in an
attempt to calm her. “I’m alright, Kakashi-sensei.” Murmured softly. As if she need worry
about his feelings.

“Mm.” Of course he didn’t believe her, but saying so aloud – especially right now – would
only cause more problems. “Do you understand what’s happening today, Hinata?” It was
imperative that none of his kids went into this blind. The day would be long and arduous, but
the reports they’d give today mattered immensely; and it was something they would have to
become accustomed to, going forward in their careers.

Hinata bit her lip. “I… I think so. We’re giving Tsunade-sama a proper report. Right?”

“That’s right.” Kakashi nodded at her, and slowly rose to his feet again; getting low hadn’t
seemed to calm her, though that did make sense. She wasn’t feeling threatened by him, so
dropping below her eyeline did little to alleviate her anxiety.
Further comments would wait for Sasuke’s arrival. It was better, Kakashi felt, to give them
the rundown they needed only once, and whilst they were all together. Not to mention that
having to repeat himself would – if Sasuke was anything like his brother – be perceived as a
punishment somehow, as if Sasuke had pissed him off. There was no need to run that risk,
and especially not while Sasuke wasn’t even late.

He cut it fine, in the end, but Sasuke arrived five minutes before Tsunade’s deadline. Urushi
kept at his side, wordlessly jumping into the fifth (and final) seat when Sasuke took the
fourth. They never did like being at ground level. Urushi scratched their ear with one hindleg,
looking for all the world at ease, but their gaze never left Sasuke through the movement, and
Kakashi could feel the shimmer of their chakra – a quiet sensation amidst those of Shiba and
Bisuke’s chakra, hidden under the much less carefully controlled signatures of his genin.
“Morning, Sensei. Hinata.” Mumbled. And he spared no words for Sakura, as had become
the troubling norm.

Kakashi still didn’t have a good idea of what to do about that. Figuring out how to make the
three of them sort out the problems that had arisen between them because of this godforsaken
mission was imperative – and yet, Kakashi didn’t have any ideas on how to facilitate that, bar
locking them all in a room together until they figured it out themselves. No matter how
tempting the thought was, Kakashi ignored it. There was no forgiveness to be found down
that path.

There was a pause of silence, and Sasuke took half a breath. Glanced towards Sakura, who
had her head down and her gaze averted – but whose fingers twitched inwards as if she was
aware of the scrutiny. Another moment, while Kakashi held his tongue, waiting for Sasuke’s
decision.

Saying nothing, Sasuke exhaled and turned back to Urushi, stroking their head. He hadn’t
spoken to Sakura yet, not once, not since Waves, and she shrank in on herself at the rejection,
but… well, even just the thought of it was an improvement.

“Today’s lessons are postponed, for obvious reasons.” All three of the genin look up at his
voice, giving him their attention utterly. They didn't know any better. Kakashi hoped it would
be a long time before they did. “Tsunade-sama wishes to get your reports individually, so
you’ll go one at a time. I’ll accompany each of you – you’re my responsibility, so I need to
know your accounts as well. No one else will be there, just me and Tsunade-sama. Do you
understand?” Selfishly, Kakashi hoped that they did. He didn’t know how outright addressing
the problems surfacing on all sides would affect them, right now. Everything was still too
fresh, too raw, and sometimes worrying at a wound just made it worse.

All three nodded.

“Good.” A pause. Sasuke had looked away again while Hinata fiddled with the hem of her
shirt, casting nervous glances towards the elevator. Sakura looked to be half-asleep, eyes
closed, head tucked against the wall. He’d meant to give them the option of choosing for
themselves what order in which to report to Tsunade, but now he made an executive decision.
“Sakura, you’re going first. Hinata next. Don’t worry, Urushi and Shiba will stay with you.”
And would Bisuke join them in Tsunade’s office? Hmm. Sakura twitched at the sound of her
name, jumping up to her feet. Hinata winced slightly at the sudden movement, but Sasuke
gritted his teeth and glared at her. He wouldn’t look directly at her face.

Was he simply unable to bring himself to, or was it something else? Perhaps it was the new
clothes. Sakura looked remarkably different in her new ensemble, almost passable for an
adult at a glance. It wasn’t unusual for shinobi children to look a bit older than they were –
something about the lack of baby fat and the musculature they developed even before puberty
– but Sakura was emphasising it now. Maybe she felt like an adult, with all she’d endured and
a kill under her belt.

“Yes, Kakashi-sensei.” She was doing a decent job of not sounding as tired as she looked, but
it wasn’t altogether convincing. At least it made deciding what to tell her to do afterwards
easy enough. Bisuke raised one forepaw, a question, and Kakashi shook his head. He’d told
them that he and Tsunade would be the only witnesses, and while it was almost a lie (there
would always be Tsunade’s Anbu guards on duty), he saw no point in making it blatantly so.

The brief ride up to Tsunade’s office was quiet. “You don’t seem concerned,” Kakashi offered
quietly. Was he helping? Gods, why in the fuck had Tsunade thought him fit to be a sensei?
Sakura glanced up at him, skin pale, deep smudges under her eyes, expression drawn. She
looked exhausted. At the end of her rope. How long would it be, Kakashi wondered, if left
alone to cope with her abuse, until she finally broke?

And damn it, but this was why. This was the whole point. Even if one day Kakashi would be
the ruination of them, as he always was, the haunting inevitability was better than the current
situation. For both his kunoichi.

Sighing, Sakura scrubbed her face with both hands. “Should I be? It’s only a report. I’ll have
to give them a lot.” Which was true enough, yes, but it still sat slightly wrong in Kakashi’s
chest, how easily Sakura dismissed it. Sure, giving reports was a banality of shinobi life, but
Sakura had never given one before – and the circumstances of her first attempt were far from
typical. Very rarely did a client get away with lying about their contract.

Rage boiled up briefly in Kakashi’s throat, white-hot and blinding. Control yourself. It would
wait.

“You will. Though, not all of them will be like this.” He meant it to be reassuring, and maybe
it worked because Sakura huffed in amusement. Flashed him a smile; short-lived and weary,
but a smile.

“I know this is… unusual. Clients rarely lie to us, and get away with it even less. And
usually…” Her expression crumpled, her eyes dimmed, her gaze dropped. Something…
Something heinously familiar flashed across her face, a tightening of jaw and eyes, a flare of
nostrils. Ugly and cruel. “Usually missions like this are handled better.”

It cut deep.

Kakashi honestly wasn’t sure what hurt more, actually; that no matter her intention, such a
statement was only an accurate assessment of just how badly Kakashi had botched the whole
thing – and he had, from failing to properly prepare them for the possibility of shinobi on
shinobi combat to ignoring the prickling little sting of disquiet that had consumed him as
they’d departed, so badly that even his inexperienced kids had felt it – or that Sakura was
clearly, for no adequately explained reason, blaming herself for it. Self-loathing was a
shadow that Kakashi would recognise anywhere.

He didn’t touch her, because he hated it when people did that to him and he rather suspected
she was the same, but Kakashi hummed and pretended that it didn’t hurt. “It wasn’t your
fault, Sakura.” How could anyone have expected her to stand up against the enemies that she
had? That all of them had. It burned like wildfire, little flickers in between the guilt and fury,
the unbearable pride in them. That they’d done so well. That they’d not just survived but –
somehow, miraculously, horribly – they’d won. Kakashi wouldn’t have lost a wink of sleep
over Tazuna’s demise, but it was important. That he’d lived. That against all odds and at
extreme personal cost, his kids had stuck fast to the contract and kept the client alive.

And Kakashi prayed – to gods he knew wouldn’t listen – that Tazuna’s execution wouldn’t
undo whatever glimmer of good that carried. Because Tazuna would be executed. He’d be
executed by Konoha, as was their right, or Kakashi would buy the fucking assassination
contract himself.

Sakura’s hands tightened, scrunching in her flared sleeves, and she didn’t look up. “… Yes it
was.” Whispered. Because she believed it, and was it Kakashi’s fault that she was grabbing
for a burden that belonged to him, or was it because she’d already been conditioned to blame
herself for bad things in her life?

Murdering civilians was expressly forbidden by Konoha shinobi law, and never had Kakashi
been so close to breaking it than he was now. How dare they make a child carry so crushing a
weight? Their child? His child.

There would be no more. Sakura was his now.

“Sakura—”

“Kakashi-sensei, please?” Soft. Her voice wavered. “I… I can’t tell you why, I just… It’s my
fault. It is. Everyone almost died, and— It’s my fault.”

For a moment, Kakashi didn’t know what to do. Risking any type of agreement was
absolutely off the table, because there was no way for Sakura – for any of them – to have
acted any better than they had, and Kakashi already faced an uphill battle trying to convince
them all of that. Some conventional voice in the back of his head said that he should hug her,
the same voice he let guide his decisions for espionage work, but his prior hesitation still
applied.

But outright telling her she was wrong might not have the desired effect either. It was all too
easy to misconstrue such a sentiment when she was too tangled up inside her own
flagellation, and if Kakashi reinforced that then he was no fucking better than her parents. As
if they deserved the title.

He waited too long. The lift slowed to a stop, and Sakura gave herself a shake. Sniffed and
scrubbed her face and straightened her back. “I’m okay, Sensei.” And she’d inherited her
parents’ acting skills, because it was almost believable. “It’s just a report.”

Kakashi let Sakura lead the way to Tsunade’s office, watched her knock with the confidence
of a weathered shinobi. There were signs of nervousness about her, the little twitches in her
fingers and the rapidity of her breathing, but she walked in when Tsunade called without
hesitation. Tsunade eyed her, and Kakashi couldn’t be certain what observations she was
making, but likely a lot of the same ones he was.

“My team and I took a C-rank escort mission.” Sakura had already taken an at-ease stance in
the middle of the office, her head up and her gaze just slightly diverted from Tsunade.
Launching right in without waiting for the signal to go ahead. There was a practiced air to the
way she spoke – not practiced as in experienced, but practiced as in rehearsed. How many
times had she gone over her words in her own head? Was it a trickle-down of the relentless
preparation she’d always shown in the Academy (and therefore unconcerning, or at least
unsurprising) or was it paranoia of saying the wrong thing and getting herself in trouble
somehow? Even as good at reading people as Kakashi liked to believe he was, it was difficult
to tell. Her voice was clear and steady, but behind her back her nails dug viciously into her
own hands. “It appeared simple enough initially; the client was compliant, if irritable and
intoxicated. We didn’t suspect anything when we left Konoha.”

Sakura’s voice caught, cracked, and she took a sharp breath to hold it. Her jaw clenched, the
tension pulling her ears back a fraction, before she let it hiss out between her teeth. Despite
himself, Kakashi took a step closer to her. Said nothing, but she glanced up at him, and there
was a mixture of gratitude and apprehension in her eyes. The normally clear green looked…
muddled, somehow. Muddied. Self-condemnation bled, invisible, from her every feature. As
if she could have possibly known what even Kakashi hadn’t suspected. As if she could
possibly be at fault.

Returning her focus to Tsunade, Sakura licked her lips and continued. “The first day went
fine. We camped the night and kept moving. It wasn’t until we reached the coast that…” She
dug her nails in deeper, her shoulders stiffening while she stood ramrod straight. “That…”
Flashes were what Kakashi remembered most clearly from the next part. The way Sakura had
boldly opposed him, without hesitation. Hinata’s scream. The overwhelmed, unblinking stare
Sasuke wore as his Sharingan triggered for the first time. How he’d recoiled, though it had
felt so very distant, as they’d sank lightning-coated hands into the slender missing-nin’s body,
or how Momochi had scooped them up and fled, and not one of his kids had seemed relieved
by it.

Clever, they’d been. So clever. Too clever.

“Sorry,” Sakura bit out, taking another breath. Tsunade waved it off, but she didn’t interrupt.
Better that way, since Sakura had prepared her words ahead of time, to simply allow her to
get through them. “It was the mist that warned us first. I…” Another glance at Kakashi. More
anxious, this time. Almost calculative. “I was restless already. Distracting my team.” A
bitterness that was sickeningly familiar. “So the mist came in and we grouped up. Hinata
gave us warning on how many.” And gods, even if Kakashi didn’t have claim on the girl (and
he did), he’d never begrudge a Byakugan on his team. “There were four of them. I killed
two.”
Her voice was cold as she admitted that. Her posture steady. She wasn’t enjoying this report,
and she was traumatised to all hells – but the two lives she’d taken in that battle brought her
no guilt, and even less remorse.

“Zabuza got away. Obviously. Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke nearly killed him, but his teammate
got in the way. I don’t know if they’re dead or not; Zabuza took their body and ran.”

“And you didn’t return to Konoha?” Tsunade’s tone was cool, lacking even a trace of anger,
but Sakura still winced.

Shifting her weight slightly on her feet, Sakura looked down. “No. We should have. We
thought— … I thought that we wouldn’t make it. Kakashi-sensei was down, and we were
closer to Waves than to Konoha.” Not by a lot, mind, but she wasn’t wrong. Whether or not
moving over the water had been a good idea… well, it hardly mattered now. Kakashi had
failed them – they’d made the decisions they’d thought they had to. “I didn’t want to stay put.
Maybe we could have hidden, but… we’re not very good at hiding our chakra signatures yet.
Zabuza’s an S-rank shinobi, I didn’t think we’d be able to evade him. And we had no idea
when he might come back. So we picked up Kakashi-sensei and we moved on.”

Tsunade’s mouth was a thin line. “You say you thought these things. Did you not consult your
teammates?” There was no blatant judgement in her voice, merely establishing facts, but
Sakura dropped her head and shrank into herself a little.

“… No, Tsunade-sama. I didn’t.” Because she’d taken charge. Kakashi was hard-pressed to
pass judgement of his own on that. She wasn’t a ranking member of Team Seven, she had no
authority, and she should have negotiated her decisions with Sasuke and Hinata – but at the
same time, making fast and certain decisions was crucial in a situation like the one they’d
been in. If Sakura hadn’t taken charge, if she’d dithered and the team had sat on their laurels
debating what to do, then perhaps they could have hidden and perhaps they would have
evaded Zabuza long enough for Kakashi to wake and drag them all back to Konoha.

But they probably wouldn’t have, and Zabuza would have simply slaughtered them.

And she’d made the wrong decision, in the end, not returning to Konoha, but she’d made a
decision. It wasn’t her fault that it had been the wrong one. Even for a chūnin, being thrown
into command because your mission lead went down was stressful, and doubly so if you were
still being pursued. Sakura was a genin, on her first mission out of Konoha, and frankly she’d
done a phenomenal job. All of them had.

“Tell me about what happened in Waves.”

A moment of disconcertion passed, Sakura visibly skipping through the script in her head,
before she nodded. Her gaze didn’t lift from the floor. “We holed up in Tazuna’s house.
Stupid of us,” and just a little too harsh. “Zabuza knew where he lives, obviously, and we
endangered his daughter and grandson as well.” Not incorrect, but Kakashi could find within
himself precisely zero sympathy for them. They were complicit in Tazuna’s crime, and
Kakashi couldn’t bring himself to care how unfair that might be. What had been forced on his
kids wasn’t fair either. “They told us about Waves, about Gatō, and why Zabuza was hunting
Tazuna. I… inferred that Zabuza’s only motive was Gatō's employ, and I thought we’d have
more than one day before he caught up with us, since he hadn’t chased us down immediately.
So I snuck out and assassinated Gatō.”

She sounded like a seasoned killer. Like a shadow on a contract. Her voice was cold, but not
angrily so; she felt nothing for the man she’d beheaded, neither pleasure nor remorse. Well. It
could be worse. She could have enjoyed it.

Tsunade’s eyes narrowed, and she steepled her hands in front of herself. “How did you do
that?”

“I tracked down his main office. It wasn’t hard; I found the biggest building with guards on
it. I used a henge so I couldn’t be recognised or remembered later. Then I waited until sunset,
scaled the building, and broke into the top floor.” There was such nothing in her voice, a
hollow recollection that struck Kakashi in the chest like an animal’s kick and shattered. She
was so young to already know that kind of nothingness. The more Konoha changes, the more
stays the same. Strangled violence pulsed under Kakashi’s skin, and this time he wasn’t even
quite sure who he wanted to take it out on. Someone. Everyone. “He had guards inside, of
course. I planned to wait them out, avoid unnecessary casualties.” And perhaps Kakashi
should find relief in that, in Sakura’s apparent lack of bloodlust, that she hadn’t just wiped
out the whole building for the hell of it.

It brought Kakashi pause, just for a moment, to realise that he thought Sakura capable of such
a thing if she so chose. Unlikely that she could truly take out a full building of armed and
(badly) trained bodyguards – but not outside the realm of possibility. His instincts were rarely
wrong. Wondering if they were this time, if Sakura really carried death in her hands just as
Kakashi had so often, tasted like bile and seawater.

Hiruzen would have liked Sakura.

The thought was molten.

“—en my shadow clone popped, I couldn’t wait.” Sakura was still talking. Flat and even. The
sense of rehearsal had faded – perhaps she hadn’t meant to speak about these particular
details – but she daren’t defy a direct line of questioning from the Hokage. “So I swept the
room. I stole a sword from one of Gatō’s men and used it to kill all of them. I don’t remember
how many there were. I was… panicking. I was panicking.”

She didn’t even know how many she’d killed, and Kakashi managed to suppress the shiver
that rushed through him, the dread and dismay that broke open inside his ribcage and crashed
against it, but it was a close thing. Tsunade’s eyes flickered to him, just for a moment, and he
knew she’d seen it. That Kakashi hadn’t known that.

Gods. He’d seen her arrive with sword in hand and head in the other, splattered in blood that
(gloriously) wasn’t her own from top to tail; he’d seen immediately that she’d chosen the
violent way out – as if they’d had any peaceful options – but a single body could bleed that
much. Especially a decapitated body. Every chance Kakashi had allowed blind hope to cloud
his observations, but still he’d thought… he’d wished that she’d committed only a single,
messy murder that night.
“I cut off his head and ran back to my… Tazuna’s house.” The briefest glance up at Kakashi.
Was she asking permission? To— What, to call them her team? Surely not. Kakashi had been
pretty clear that he intended on keeping them together, and Sakura hadn’t said anything about
the matter.

Not directly. But of course, she was… enigmatic, in that regard. Sometimes speaking her
mind openly, sometimes revealing her thoughts only in hints and implication. Paranoia.
Kakashi wasn’t balancing it well with his own – had tried to put it down to avoid fuelling
hers, when he should have remembered: shinobi were paranoid for a reason.

“I figured that Zabuza wouldn’t bother with us if his contract on Tazuna was void. When I
gave him Gatō’s head, he left us. I’m… I’m not sure how long it took for Y— Tenzō and his
team to arrive. I tried to heal what I could, but I was out of chakra.”

She seemed to be expecting the scrutiny she received for that claim, and had she been
reporting for real on the actual mission, she’d deserve worse. So many details left out, and
aspects that mattered, parts that Sakura couldn’t or wouldn't say aloud. But Tsunade studied
her in silence, visibly organising the questions she would ask, and Sakura didn’t stare back
but stood and patiently waited for the metaphorical blade to fall.

Minutes passed. Even Kakashi was starting to feel the discomfort of it, but he kept still and
held his tongue. Finally, with a sigh, Tsunade lowered her hands to her desk and leaned back
in her seat. “I see. Where did you learn medical ninjutsu?” Amber eyes flickered to Kakashi,
just for a moment. Accusatory. Indignation rose in his chest, but he pushed it down and made
sure it didn’t show in his face. It wasn’t exactly an unreasonable assumption – Kakashi knew
the basics of medical ninjutsu, but he was a good portion self-taught and amateur. The
wounds he worked on always healed worse than those of the qualified med-nin. Rin never
had managed to teach him enough to earn the smooth, even pearlescence of expertly healed
wounds.

Sakura caught the look. Glanced between them, before her eyes widened. “No— No,
Tsunade-sama, I taught myself the basics. I read about it, and I thought it would be valuable
to know…” Trailing off, biting her lip like she was unsure of what else to say, but aware of
the fraught danger in whatever she chose. “I was teaching myself before I even met Kakashi-
sensei.”

Hesitantly. Sakura knew that she was revealing potentially risky information, that she might
be moved or treated differently because of her prodigious talent. And it was prodigious.
Medical ninjutsu was one of the most delicate and complicated skills available to a shinobi,
and Sakura had been learning it independently even as a pre-genin. And sure, perhaps
Kakashi had been about her age when he’d done exactly the same thing – but he’d been
almost-a-jōnin and worked as a fledged shinobi for years beforehand. And he’d been in a war.
Experience and necessity that Sakura lacked.

And that was ignoring all the other things. The shadow clones, which were forbidden from
the average shinobi for a very good reason. Tsunade’s personal strength technique. That,
somehow, independently of Tsunade’s tutelage (unless she was playing a very deep long-con
with him, and Kakashi doubted that), Sakura had managed to improve her mastery of it from
breaking her own hand during the first attempt to using it in real combat without injuring
herself at all.

Just how in the hells had she hidden such talent so thoroughly during her time in the
Academy?

“Were you, now?” Contemplative. Tsunade hadn’t stopped scrutinising her, a study so critical
that Sakura shifted her weight again. Fidgeted. Toyed with the hem of her sleeve – but at least
she wasn’t digging her nails into her hands hard enough to draw blood.

“Yes, Tsunade-sama.”

Tsunade hummed. “I see.” Did she? Well, she likely did, actually. “And when did Kakashi
teach you how to create shadow clones?”

Right. That stung more than he’d care for, actually. It was only logical – and Tsunade’s voice
was probing, suspicious and sharp, so she was testing Sakura’s reaction (or… both of their
reactions) more than she was actually making such an accusation. Not that it was
unreasonable, much as that thought embittered him. He was notoriously reckless – but not
with his kids. Not with their lives. If Sakura messed up while splitting her chakra for a
shadow clone, she could easily land herself in hospital for chakra exhaustion (again). Or
worse, she could shear her chakra network itself and cripple her ability to even use it.

Sakura blinked, taken aback by the question. Hard to blame her – Kakashi very decidedly
had not taught her the shadow clone jutsu – but the alternative assumptions were that either
Sakura had figured out the details of it herself, or someone else who knew it had taught her.
And neither Kakashi nor Tsunade wanted to lean towards the latter as a first thought. Another
jōnin (as was the overwhelming likelihood given the technique in question) teaching Sakura
something when she wasn’t their genin and hadn’t consulted Kakashi was egregious enough
of an offence on its own. That something being shadow clones was borderline sabotage. Or
perhaps – infinitely worse – a deliberate attempt to hurt her.

“Kakashi-sensei didn't teach me it,” she said, confusion seeping into her voice. Was it
confusion? The digging nails were back, pressing hard between her knuckles. “I— I figured it
out.” No, not confusion. Wariness. As if weighing up what she could admit, like there was
another option for her to offer in defence of her knowledge of the technique. “Kakashi-
sensei… uses it in training a lot. It wasn’t that hard.”

It wasn’t that fucking hard.

Gods above, what had Kakashi done to deserve these genin? He couldn’t figure out if it must
have been something good, or something bad. If Sasuke – or even Hinata – had managed to
map and copy the shadow clone jutsu from watching Kakashi use it, he would be less
incredulous. Both were also observant kids, after all, and with the Sharingan to copy or the
Byakugan to track his chakra movement, it would be almost routine to have worked it out. If
Sasuke hadn’t already expressed his disbelief in Sakura’s ability to produce shadow clones,
Kakashi might have suspected them of collaborating on it.
It would have been preferable, actually, if they had. Sure, a group of genin who could make
shadow clones was a disaster waiting to happen – but it would be cooperation. And with the
immensity of the task that lay between Kakashi and convincing them all to work together
again—

“Kakashi?”

He gave a little nod as Tsunade questioned him, thoughts snapping back to now instead of all
the later waiting for him. “I didn’t teach her the technique, Tsunade-sama.”

Tsunade sighed. “Tell me the truth, Sakura. Did another jōnin teach you how to make shadow
clones?” A quirk in her brow – the way the corner of her mouth turned in slightly – told
Kakashi that she wasn’t any more certain of which answer would be best than he was. A
response in the positive was catastrophic for the stability and mutual trust of her jōnin roster,
but a negative meant that the entirety of the shinobi force who had, at one stage or another,
been tasked with supervising Sakura (Kakashi included) had failed to see the extreme
capability before them.

Both options were… bad.

Glancing up at Kakashi with a worried shine in her eyes, Sakura slowly shook her head. “No,
Tsunade-sama. I… worked it out on my own.” When, for just a moment too long, she was
met with silence, Sakura shifted her weight, tried to read an answer off Kakashi’s face, stood
a little straighter – as if her back wasn’t ramrod stiff already. “I swear it, Tsunade-sama. No
other jōnin taught me the technique.”

“Very well.” She didn’t seem happy about it, and Kakashi didn’t blame her, but at least there
wasn’t cause to reprimand her own jōnin. “I suppose you ‘figured out’ my technique as
well?” And there was a trace of – something – not irritation but in the same family of
emotion. Almost – but not quite – dismay. After all, working out Tsunade’s technique was
equally as dangerous as shadow clones. Sakura had already demonstrated that danger, the
way she’d hurt herself in the bell test.

Sakura winced. “I… Yes, Tsunade-sama.” A beat of silence, while Tsunade stared at Sakura
expectantly, and just for a moment something sad flickered through Sakura’s eyes. Mournful.
“ I… wanted to be like you, one day.” And, as he had the last time she’d claimed such,
Kakashi couldn’t find anything strange about the proclamation itself. Tsunade was powerful
beyond belief and extremely well-known even before she’d taken up the mantle of Hokage.
No, not so strange a goal, but that past tense flashed down Kakashi’s spine like ice water.
She’d still held that aspiration, the last time she’d shared it. Tsunade quirked a brow at her.
“… I think now I’m of more value in other ways, Tsunade-sama.” Very quietly. Kakashi felt
his jaw clench, though he said nothing – took a slow, even breath, held himself tight in the
relaxed position. He knew only too terribly well what ‘other ways’ she was likely
contemplating. “I figured it was chakra application, so I’d expected it to be fairly easy. Of
course, I… I found quickly enough that you can’t apply that much chakra through a single
outlet without risking tenketsu rupture, not to mention the amount of force can quite easily
break your own bones.” Her gaze was down, now. On her own feet. Ashamed or frightened
or hiding. “But you can shatter buildings in one blow, so you exert far more force than I was.
So I figured… you must be reinforcing your own body against it. And when coiling chakra
on its own didn’t work, I… I figured… well, there must be some other way you're doing it.”

Tsunade hummed. Despite that the line of logic Sakura was laying out seemed fairly
straightforward and obvious, it was still impressive for her to have followed it. “And what
solution did you arrive at?”

“I… thought that you must be using some kind of more… permanent form of reinforcement.”
Bit her lip. Glanced between them. “And if we can bolster our strength and senses with
chakra, then it’s only logical that the method is chakra-based, so… I started creating compact
threads of chakra and… setting them in my muscles and bones. They need constant
maintenance, but… it seems to work.”

And there was another long silence as they absorbed that. Kakashi watched Tsunade’s face,
searching for a sign on whether Sakura had arrived at the right conclusion. Of course,
Tsunade hadn’t taught anyone her secrets – or at least, if Shizune knew them, she didn’t
display them – and Kakashi didn’t actually know for certain what those secrets were. But
from a logical standpoint, Sakura’s reasoning made sense. Perhaps her talent at chakra control
and sensitivity had naturally led to further research into the mechanics of chakra, or perhaps
it was just another thing that she had delved into and kept hidden.

How had nobody – not her Academy teachers, not her classmates, not Itachi – ever seen
through her façade?

Tsunade scowled, just a moment, and then sighed, leaning back in her chair. “Alright. Is there
anything else that you feel needs to be reported, Sakura?”

To give her credit, Sakura did think about it. Cocked her head slightly, let her gaze unfocus
while she ran through her thoughts. And then visibly caught on something. Consternation
settled in her expression. “… Only… I know that Tazuna committed a grievous crime; he put
us at immense risk. He could have cost Konoha an entire team, and not just one of our
strongest jōnin,” with a gesture towards Kakashi, and she was right, of course, but for some
reason it still chilled him to hear his own genin refer to him as such, “but two prominent clan
heirs. Not to mention that Kakashi-sensei is the last living Hatake.” Ouch. There were so
many reasons why Kakashi would have preferred her not to mention that. Of course, there
was the threatening grief that clawed up the inside of his ribs any time he thought about it,
but it was more than that. Sakura had no place worrying about that of all things.

Too much understanding of the politics of the situation for a child. Far more than Kakashi
would expect from a civilian-born shinobi, and moreover far more than Kakashi would like.
The kids shouldn’t have to worry about politics yet. Even he hadn’t had to as a child, not
really. Granted, that had been because he’d been all but isolated and the sole inheritor of a
disgraced and dying clan, but… Fuck, there’d been a point somewhere in that thought.

But Sakura wasn’t finished. Her voice had lowered as she’d spoken, grim and… unhappy
was too tame a descriptor for the rumbling anger she wasn’t holding back as well as she
thought she was. “The most important thing is to make sure nobody thinks they can try this
again. We can’t have people lying to Konoha and we can’t lose shinobi like that. It’s terrible
for us internally, but it might be even worse externally. We can’t appear that weak, or that
easy to fool.” Which was correct, because of course it was correct, but something… mournful
slipped loose in Kakashi’s chest. This wasn’t Sakura’s concern. It shouldn’t be Sakura’s
concern. “And if Tazuna has to die to ensure that… then Tazuna has to die.”

Sakura’s voice was very hard.

Tsunade’s eyes darkened, but she only nodded. “I’ll take that under advisement.” And
perhaps, if Kakashi dared hope – as bitter as the sentiment tasted – then she actually meant it.
“Consider your report concluded.” Instantly, as if flipping a switch, Sakura’s shoulders
dropped and she relaxed out of parade rest. It was so quick even Kakashi barely saw it, but
Tsunade’s expression flickered. “I’m going to have you see T&I for evaluation. It seems
we’ve been teaching you at the wrong level.”

There was no pause in Tsunade’s words, but she saw just as clearly as Kakashi did the burst
of abject terror that burned through Sakura’s face at the mention of T&I, and the cascade of
relief as Tsunade clarified the purpose of it. It wasn’t any surprise that Sakura knew what
T&I was – most genin did – but she should have no reason to be that afraid of them. Even
under the assumption that she knew the specifics of what they did (and it was a long list
despite their reputation), it was an inconsistency with her behaviour; violence and bloodshed
was something she wasn’t perturbed by, to the point of being already capable of casual
murder, and so even if she found the idea of torture distasteful, Kakashi wouldn’t have
expected fear.

Which suggested there was another reason for her reaction. A reason that, given only a few
seconds of thought, Kakashi couldn’t identify.

“Y-yes, Tsunade-sama.” Shaky. Fearful. “ When?”

Tsunade grunted softly. “In a few weeks, once you’re better recovered.” And adjusted, she
didn’t say, but Kakashi was grateful for the discretion. Now was not the time to broach that
topic. “Now get. I’ve got other people to hear out today.”

Accompanied by a dismissive wave of the hand, but Sakura didn’t seem bothered by the
abrupt and abrasive conclusion. She almost – almost – smiled, bowed, and turned to silently
tread out into the hall. On her heels, Kakashi let the silence hold as they approached the
elevator doors, and longer as they waited and then stepped inside.

Once the doors shut, Sakura let out the breath she’d been holding and pressed one hand to the
wall beside her, using it to help support her weight. All at once, she broke out into trembling
gasps, all the anxiety she’d kept hidden from Tsunade escaping control. It wasn’t loud, but
there was no mistaking the hunched shoulders and bowed head, or the rattling breaths.

“Sakura?” Oh, he should help – but what was he to do? A hug ran equal risk of panicking her
further or soothing her, and asking her to articulate herself right now was unfair. It would be,
perhaps, even more unfair to force her to endure this (with luck, minor) breakdown in front of
Sasuke and Hinata. Although, whispered the shrewd, manipulative fraction of his mind, it
might earn her some sympathy if they witness it.
That thought was buried as deeply as possible, and Kakashi refused to acknowledge it. It
would be Sakura’s choice whether or not she was comfortable exposing this to her
teammates. “I-I— I’m alr-right, Sensei,” she gasped out between each fragmented attempt to
inhale. “J-just… It’s fine.” There was an edge in her voice, but it honestly sounded more like
irritation than actual panic. “C-can you—?” Sakura gestured vaguely towards the array of
elevator buttons, which was enough of an indication. Pressing the relevant button, Kakashi
considered her again. It was curious that she even knew what it did, since that button wasn’t
labelled, but far less so than everything else she’d hidden. Silently, the elevator came to a
stop between floors and held, suspended like a bubble. Situations such as this weren’t the
core reason that the stop button existed, but Kakashi was sure they’d been a consideration.

Maybe he should have let Bisuke tag along. The ninken were infinitely better at comfort than
Kakashi. “Deep breaths, Sakura.” Voice low, trying to match a resonance that didn’t come
naturally to him, but Sakura nodded vaguely and did her best to obey. Held her breath when it
proved impossible, and after several moments of no sound but that of Kakashi’s own
heartbeat in his ears, released it again in a slow hiss. “Better.” The praise elicited a faint
smile, even as her breath and body continued to shake, but at least she drew a longer inhale
this time.

“Sorry, Sensei.” It was whispered, but Kakashi heard the guilt in it anyway. Cast a mental
line, fishing for something to say, and left it too long. Sakura hugged herself when she let go
of the wall, but she was steadier on her feet than she’d been even moments ago. Too quick a
recovery. She was forcing the panic away instead of letting it bleed out naturally. “… Will…
Are you supposed to come with me to be… assessed?”

So it was T&I that had triggered this response. What had she been told about them? “Mm,
typically these assessments are done with pre-genin, with their Academy sensei and legal
guardian present.” Which was, excepting orphans, their parents. As Kakashi expected, Sakura
tensed at the mention, her gaze flicking sideways and betraying the way she’d started
scheming on the spot. Trying to figure out a way around it, a way to avoid attending such a
thing with her parents. “Your case is slightly unusual – because you’re a genin, as your jōnin-
sensei I’m obligated to act as your legal guardian.”

And the way she relaxed at that. Still traces of anxiety in the crinkle of her eyes and the flare
of her nostrils, but her shoulders lowered and she exhaled smoothly and managed a small but
genuine smile in his direction.

Frothing, seething rage was becoming far too familiar a feeling in Kakashi’s chest. Like
swallowing fire.

“Okay.” Still shaky, but she lifted her head and squared her shoulders, and took a good,
bracing breath. “I’m sorry, Sensei. I’m alright now.” And damn him, but Kakashi almost
believed it. That he didn’t, quite, wasn’t enough to keep her from stepping over and pressing
the hold button again, releasing the elevator.

But he put a hand on her shoulder – just lightly, just to make sure she was paying attention,
and she didn’t flinch, thank the gods – and held her gaze, unblinking. “You’re not in trouble,
but I want you to stop using shadow clones until I can make sure you’re doing so safely. It’s a
forbidden jutsu for a reason – you could do irreparable damage to yourself and your chakra
network if you do it wrong. Do you understand?”

Her eyes widened, just a little. Well, why wouldn't she be surprised? Learning it from
observing him, there was no way for her to have known about the danger the technique
posed. On the surface, it just appeared to be a better clone, and the immaterial clones pre-
genin learned to craft were essentially harmless. “Yes, Sensei. I understand.”

“Good.” Kakashi released her (not that he’d gripped very hard), and chose not to mention that
she was still trembling faintly. Not enough to be visible, but it was there in her shoulders,
tangible under Kakashi’s fingers. “You’re to follow Bisuke’s orders the rest of today.” And
Bisuke was going to make sure Sakura got some sleep before she had to go back to the hell of
her home life.

Hard enough to be painful, Kakashi felt his teeth grind at the thought. It felt like a betrayal
every time he sent her back, leaving her at the mercy of her parents when he was supposed to
protect her. Another failure, when he’d already failed to protect his kids too many times.

Just once more. It’s only one more night.

The silent reassurance wouldn’t help her, not yet, but it couldn’t be given aloud. Sakura was
proving to be a talented actress, but it was important for her parents not to have even a whiff
of what was about to happen. Perhaps they didn’t have the same level of power – both
political and literal – that Hinata’s clan had, but they could still make the upcoming transition
difficult if given any time to prepare.

Abusers rarely let go their victims without a fight.

“Yes, Kakashi-sensei,” Sakura murmured as the elevator came to a stop and the doors
opened. Hinata watched them anxiously as they approached, one hand still firm on Shiba’s
head, but she relaxed slightly when Sakura flashed a weary grin. It was patently
unconvincing, and Kakashi knew Hinata to be observant and discerning, yet it still seemed to
soothe her.

For a moment, Kakashi considered asking which of his kids wanted to go next, but he
discarded the thought. He hadn’t asked Sakura, and he’d told them the order to expect before
going up the first time. No need to risk inciting even more friction by treating them
differently when he had no cause to.

He still knelt, one knee, when he got to her. “You’re up next, Hinata. Are you ready?” Pale as
death, Hinata nodded and waited for Kakashi to stand and move back before getting to her
feet. Shiba stood as well, keeping by her, and though Kakashi had just told himself to be
consistent with his treatment of them, he didn’t make Shiba sit back down. Hinata hadn’t
been absent Shiba’s company since being discharged from— Actually, before then. Shiba had
claimed Hinata as she’d begun to wake up from sedation, and hadn’t left her side since.
Kakashi wasn’t entirely certain that Shiba would even comply if he told her to remain behind
– but it wasn’t her decision, and Kakashi felt, quite strongly, it wasn’t his either. “Would you
like Shiba to accompany us, Hinata?”
 Hinata blinked at him, wide eyes even paler a white than her skin, and then nodded
vigorously. A shadow of fear, though the intensity of her nodding suggested it was the
possibility of Shiba staying behind that frightened her. Well. A solo report to Tsunade (as solo
as it got, as a genin her age) was daunting, he supposed. It only made sense. Whatever fragile
self-worth that Team Seven had managed to scrape together in her mind, it was shattered
now.

So Kakashi hummed acquiescence, gave Shiba a brief series of signs – making sure that all
three of his genin could see them – and turned to lead the way. Hinata wouldn’t take point,
not a chance in hells, not like Sakura had.

And curse him, but Kakashi couldn’t tell if the difference was a good one or not. Was Sakura
a born leader, or was she just desperate for some kind of power in her life? It would be hard
to blame her if it was the latter – but blame was the last of the problems that could arise if it
were so. That kind of desperation could drive her to cling to control at the cost of her team’s
lives if it wasn’t carefully managed and teased apart.

But the plans for dealing with all that would have to wait. One thing at a time, and the current
thing was getting Hinata through this report and ready for what tomorrow would bring.

Chapter End Notes

STUFF. THINGS. NOTICE.

|| Right, so this IS late but it was with a good cause this time. This chapter will be
followed by the pt. 2 upload tomorrow!
|| Alright well, the first part of this chapter was a complete accident. I had no plans to
create Akemi and Tsuna, or their later-in-the-timeline child, Saya, and yet here we are.
Not gonna lie, I kind of love them, so they're here to stay.
|| They've also taken up an egregious amount of my word count and have directly
contributed to chapter inflation. Now what am I going to do about that?
|| Return back to the 10k quid pro quo after this one, that's what I'm gonna fucking do.
Even if I managed to write this disgustingly high number of words and have, oh, about
two whole fifths of sweet fuck all actually HAPPEN. Oh well. We're overly verbose in
this house.
|| Link to author tumbly - for doc updates and whatnot. This is where you find
announcements about when a chapter will be uploaded and if it'll be late.
|| Soon, we’re going to see Kakashi’s suspicions – and what he plans to do about them –
come to light. And what Sakura is going to do about them. And I don’t think you guys
are going to like it. :)
|| I'm not sure if I'll find a chance to integrate the information naturally, and I've waffled
on about it a fair bit at this point, so here are the current ranks of the Hatake pack:
Akino: chūnin
Bisuke: tokubetsu jōnin
Bull: chūnin
Guruko: chūnin
Pakkun: jōnin
Shiba: chūnin
Ūhei: jōnin
Urushi: chūnin
|| So I have a vague impression of reverse summoning – ie when Naruto yote himself off
to Mt Myoboku for Sage training – is canonically a rare occurrence due to… something?
For whatever reason, I seem to think it's got to do with the efficacy of actually casting a
reverse summoning. Yeah so, I'm nuking that out of existence. Along with all the other
alterations I'm making to how summoning contracts typically work, and there's more
than a few of them, the act of reverse-summoning is a universal option for every chakra-
capable creature who's signed a summoning contract. It's still not very commonly done,
but that's due to etiquette and cultural reasons rather than practical ones.
|| You will see why in about, oh, two chapters.

Second part to this to go up tomorrow: so no due date here!

 The Reliance of Our Narrators is Questionable, At Best | Pt. 2
Chapter Summary

And sometimes, it's not.

Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Tsunade-sama’s office was the same as it had been when they’d accepted the mission, but it
felt immense now, as Hinata slunk inside as well as she could with her crutch, just on
Kakashi-sensei’s tail. Hollow and empty and threatening, somehow, in a way that it hadn’t
been before. Shizune wasn’t here, nor Tonton; just Tsunade-sama, sitting at her desk with
matching stacks of paperwork at either end and a spread of papers before her.

Her eyes were kind, when she looked up at them, but Hinata still felt her fingers curl tightly
around her crutch and her chest become foggy with dread. Breathing was harder than it had
any right to be, like she was being squashed.

The mission had gone so badly. How could a report on such go any better?

“How are you feeling, Hinata?” Tsunade-sama asked, and her voice was every bit as soft as
her gaze. Try as she might, Hinata couldn’t find any anger in her. Hope – sweet and
dangerous – unfurled beneath Hinata’s ribs in gossamer threads. At her side, Shiba sat,
flicked her ears, and made a soft whuffle while placing one paw gently atop Hinata’s foot.

It was as close to unguarded as Shiba had gotten since leaving the hospital. Even yesterday, at
the library, she’d been alerted to all movement around them, and at home she was usually on
her feet at all times. Hard to blame her for not feeling safe in the Hyuuga compound,
especially given the downright hostile greeting she’d received, but it still made Hinata feel
paranoid. More so than usual.

Maybe Shiba was right.

But here she sat calmly, as at ease with Tsunade’s presence as she was with Kakashi’s or
Hinata’s. Okay. Breathe. As long as she didn’t think too hard about the weight of everyone’s
eyes on her (however much two people could count as ‘everyone’, especially when Shiba was
watching Tsunade-sama instead), then she’d be alright.

It struck her – far too late – that she’d actually been asked a question and had, thus far, failed
to answer. “I— Uhm— S-sorry, Tsunade-sama, I—”

“Right, stop that,” Tsunade interrupted, and Hinata felt the squeak in her throat more than she
heard it. Fear struck deep and true, blurring her vision even as she dropped her gaze to the
floor, her ears ringing. With another whuffle, Shiba licked Hinata’s hand, drawing her eyes.
“Hinata, you’re here to give an in-person report – not because you’ve done anything wrong.
You can’t say anything wrong. Now, we’re not in any rush. Take your time.”

Peeking up at Tsunade yielded no scolding, only the sight of the Hokage picking up her pen
and sweeping down a sheet of paper. Hinata couldn’t see what was on it, if anything, but
Tsunade scrawled something at the top and relaxed in her seat. She seemed… languid, as if
there was nothing so exceptional about this all. Should there be? Shinobi gave mission
reports all the time, after all; even if the majority of them came in written format, in-person
ones were hardly unusual.

But this mission had been. Hadn’t it? A client lying was a big deal. At least, Hinata was
pretty sure it was. And they’d— they’d nearly died—

A gentle hand came down on Hinata’s shoulder, scattering her thoughts to the wind, and she
felt herself jump but she managed to swallow the squeak of fright. Kakashi-sensei was
leaning down, his voice very soft, murmured for her ears and not Tsunade’s. His grip on her
shoulder was so light as to be diaphanous, but as the initial startle faded, Hinata found herself
relaxing under it. “You’re overthinking this.” Kakashi-sensei’s black eye was distant when
Hinata looked up at him, but there was kindness somewhere within it. “Take every question
at face value, and give simple, honest answers. Okay?”

“Okay.” Shaky, but some of the sick tension in her gut eased at the instruction. She could do
simple answers. Lifting her gaze felt impetuous, but Hinata glanced up at Tsunade again and
took as steadying a breath as she could. It churned in her chest. “I’m… alright, Hokage-
sama.”

Tsunade grunted. “As you say. Now, you needn’t recount the whole mission – Kakashi gave
me a solid report on that. I want to know what happened from your perspective. So don’t
worry about being objective, that’s not the point. Understand?”

The yes was on Hinata’s tongue so quick she could taste it, but she hesitated and it caught.
Did she understand? Don’t try to be objective. What even was her ‘perspective’ on it? Was
her experience of the mission even remotely objective, or were all the memories and
nightmares too wrapped up in her own biases to—

Shiba was gentle, when she pressed her teeth around Hinata’s hand, and held fast Hinata’s
gaze when she got it. “Safe,” Shiba murmured, very quietly, getting her muzzle under
Hinata’s fingers and nosing her palm. “Just speak.”

“Yes, Tsunade-sama. I understand.” And perhaps it came out frightened, still, but Hinata
found the mettle to look back up at Kakashi-sensei, and his eye gleamed with something…
warm. It was strange to see not anger or disappointment or exasperation, and yet when Hinata
reflected on all the ways Kakashi had ever looked at her, she could only pull up a handful of
instances of such negative emotion directed at her. This one… wasn’t that.

With a hum, Tsunade scribbled down something else and then looked up. “What was your
impression of Tazuna, initially?”
Oh. Not the question Hinata expected – but it made a wicked sort of sense, she supposed.
Tazuna had wronged Konoha, both in coin and in blood. There were rules. Reputations. Just
what revenge was Konoha planning to enact? “He was… rude. Assumed we were incapable
because of our age.” And hadn’t they proved to be? Maybe. They’d… held out, Hinata
supposed. Held out, and nearly died, and… Despite herself, a shiver went through Hinata
while she thought about it. Tucked her free arm against her stomach. “And he was drunk.
Sakura said we just had to deal with it, because we were on a job. Representing Konoha.”

At the time, Hinata had agreed with her. It was important, how they conduct themselves in
the presence of malice. Now… Now she wished they’d let Sasuke snarl at him. Perhaps it
would have spared them.

Something in Tsunade’s expression softened. “In most cases, she would have been right. You
did well to remain diplomatic.” There was a shadow of regret in Tsunade-sama’s words;
recognition that the usual protocol had cost them dearly. Perhaps, if Hinata allowed herself to
be so presumptive, gratitude that it hadn’t cost them even more. And even so, praise from the
Hokage herself sung under Hinata’s skin. She’d done well.

Not even Hinata’s father could tell the Hokage that she was wrong.

Could he?

“Safe to say your impression of him wasn’t good,” Tsunade continued, scribbling down
another note. A chill crept up Hinata’s back, but she tried to ignore it. Of course Tsunade
would be taking notes. This was a report. “Tell me about the start of the mission.”

Alright. Simple answers. It was an easy enough question. And it was easier, too, to think
about the very start. When things had been okay. “It was… nice.” Almost exciting; they’d
still been under the illusion of safety, and watching the scenery change the further they’d
gotten from Konoha. How different it got along the coast, at the border between Fire Country
and Waves. “Tazuna… kept quiet, mostly, so he wasn’t rude to us. Except…” Hinata trailed
off as the thought occurred to her – that they hadn’t all been calm after all.

When she held silent just a little too long, Tsunade put down her pen. “Except what?”

Guilt crept up Hinata’s throat, a gasp of hesitation that slipped out before her voice. But she
couldn’t refuse a question from the Hokage. Loyalty to Tsunade trumped loyalty to her
teammates – and, even if it didn’t, was she really even betraying anyone by saying so? It
wasn’t as if she’d done anything wrong. Not… not really. Not technically. “Except for
Sakura. She was…” Hinata glanced up at Kakashi, looking for any sign that she should have
shut up. It was an obvious enough emotion – or maybe Hinata was just good at spotting it,
given how often her father had to wear it – but she couldn’t find it anywhere in Kakashi’s
face. His gaze was pensive, but encouraging. Turning back to Tsunade netted her a faint
smile, inviting her to continue. “She was on edge. Right from the beginning. I thought she
was just angry with Tazuna at first, but… She got really jumpy about halfway through the
first day. Worse the second.”

But she’d been right, in the end. The realisation was cold.
Was Sakura just paranoid? It wasn’t that unusual for a shinobi – perhaps slightly more so for
one as young as them, and even more again for Sakura being from a civilian family, but even
then… Well, shinobi were all paranoid to one extent or another. There was every possibility it
was just that, what with leaving Konoha for the very first time. Maybe Sakura had just found
the unfamiliar landscape unnerving rather than beautiful or interesting.

Or maybe, whispered Hinata’s own, quiet paranoia, she knew it was going to go badly.

No. Just her paranoia. After all, Sakura would behave the same way if she knew something
was going to go wrong as if she was afraid something would go wrong. And this— this
worry was just Hinata’s paranoia on top of it. Sakura was their friend; she wouldn’t have let
them walk into death if she’d known it was coming. Just because she thought in different
(and sharp-edged) ways to Hinata and Sasuke didn’t mean she wasn’t trying to keep them
safe, just like they all were.

Tsunade hummed, a curious little sound, softer than really fit her visage. As if the note, while
perhaps interesting, was of no deep concern. Of course it isn't. Sakura was on their side.

“Very good, Hinata. Almost done. What stands out to you the most about that initial fight?
Four things, in order of their occurrence to you.”

Which might well be the strangest request Hinata had ever been asked, and for a moment
nothing whatsoever occurred to her. Things that stood out about that fight – that stood out to
her. Exactly what kinds of things was Tsunade after? Surely any random inane detail that
might pop into Hinata’s head weren’t important enough to share, but if she discounted them
was she appropriately weeding information or was she merely being a recalcitrant brat? To
the Hokage. She couldn’t afford to mess this up, not like—

Kakashi’s voice was very low when he murmured in Hinata’s ear again, but the intangible
rumble of it soothed something in Hinata’s chest. “Overthinking. You can’t get this wrong,
Hinata. Anything that you think of clearly is good. So, that first fight.”

Surely, if Kakashi-sensei promised it was alright, then it would be. So Hinata inhaled and
tried to throw blank thoughts towards the memories.

The first thing that stuck was… “The mist. The stuff that they sent forward to hide their
approach. It’s strong; Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke couldn’t see through it with their Sharingan,
but I could. They didn’t know ahead of time who would be guarding Tazuna – so… I don’t
think it was a setup for us at all.” Oh, she’d definitely rambled too long there. The thoughts
had occurred in a mini cascade, and that was sort of what Tsunade had asked for, except
Hinata was wasting her time with inane little tangents that Tsunade had no doubt already
considered in full herself.

It shouldn't be so surprising, though, that Tsunade merely nodded and gestured for Hinata to
continue. Shouldn’t it? Her first thoughts. Maybe… it was expected that she ramble a little
bit. Hopefully. With any grace, Hinata would be forgiven the slipping of control.

“Uhm… Well…” Second thought, what else was the immediate reaction she had? Not all the
little flitting tangential ones, the half-word analyses of each thought itself, or the constantly
muttering catalogue of her own body language, but the actual thoughts. “We… should have
died.”

It came out firmer than it had any right to, especially while Hinata’s fingers tightened on
Shiba’s mane and she felt her own heartbeat vibrating in her chest. And she couldn’t even tell
if it was about that first fight or if it was about the rest of them – but maybe it didn't matter.

Shiba whined softly and leaned gently into her, tucking her muzzle against Hinata’s arm. Still
with a hand on her shoulder, Kakashi squeezed lightly, a reassuring enough presence to ease
her next breath. Hinata heard her own voice, more than tasted it, as it repeated what she’d
said. “We should have died.” She sounded… sad? It was hard to connect to the feeling
through the swirling thoughts and the ongoing attempts to make them blank.

In a blink – was it truly so fast, or were things just moving strangely out of time again, the
way they did whenever she pushed through her initial exhaustion in pursuit of a more
respectable level of stamina – Tsunade had risen from her seat and stepped around her desk to
approach. For a moment, Hinata was afraid she’d done something wrong, that Tsunade
wasn’t as peaceable as Kakashi thought her to be, that he’d been mistaken in assuring her she
couldn’t mess this up. The hand not holding her crutch pulled Shiba closer against her, and
she felt herself lean slightly more towards Kakashi.

Tsunade paused, just a moment, and then touched one finger to Hinata’s chin. Lifted her head
until she had to meet Tsunade’s gaze. “‘Should’ is a very dangerous word, Hinata. In most
situations – this one included – there is no such thing as ‘should’. You shouldn’t have done
anything. You all simply did what you could. Do you understand?” Perhaps her voice wasn’t
as soft as Kakashi’s had been, an edge of firm authority undercutting any attempt she might
be making to sound comforting. Strangely enough, though, Hinata found the terrified tension
in her chest easing a little. They should have died, except that Tsunade-sama said they
shouldn’t have, and it wasn't a platitude. It was a command. Even delivered without bite,
Tsunade was the Hokage and her word could not be ignored.

They shouldn’t have done anything. Not an encouragement. An edict.

“… Yes, Tsunade-sama. I understand.”

Kakashi-sensei squeezed her shoulder again, very gently, and released her as Tsunade nodded
and moved back to her seat, but the presence lingered warmly against her skin.

Maybe… Maybe they were right.

“Alright. Never mind the fight. I have one more question for you. Is that okay?” As far as
Hinata could tell, it was sincere; genuinely asking her if it was okay to keep going, as if the
Hokage needed her permission for a damn thing. Eyes wide, Hinata nodded. How could she
say no, even if she wanted to – and she didn’t. Of course not. Tsunade could ask anyone
anything she liked. “Mm. What do you think should be done about Tazuna?”

Oh. Because he’d lied about the mission contract he’d bought, because he’d put Konoha-nin
at risk. Hinata knew she was a weak shinobi, but the rest of Team Seven were not, and they
shouldn’t have ever gone up against what they had. Even Kakashi-sensei, as powerful and
experienced as he was, hadn’t been properly prepared for it.

“Uhm…” And Tsunade wanted her opinion on it? Why? “… Whatever happens to him…”
Which could be anything. Konoha was largely benevolent, Hinata thought, but it was owed
something and it rarely stood for debt. “His family aren’t responsible for what he did. Inari-
kun and Tsunami-san don’t deserve to be hurt. Or… in financial debt or anything like that.
They’re innocent.” It was hard to imagine Tsunade hurting them for Tazuna’s crimes, while
she was being gentle and kind and right there, a real person instead of a hovering, mysterious
presence – but she was still the Hokage, and she couldn’t do nothing. Quietly, just to herself,
Hinata prayed she didn’t have Tazuna pay with his life. If Konoha executed him, what had
been the point of protecting him at all?

“Hm. Thank you for your thoughts. I think that’s enough, unless there’s anything else you
think might be important, Hinata?” Tsunade asked as she sat back down. “Anything at all, not
just initial contact.” Her pen stayed flat on the desk, her entire attention focused on Hinata
instead. It made her skin prickle and itch – but she didn’t drop her gaze. She’d been told, with
an undeniable gesture, that she was to keep her head up.

The question was for her personally. She still glanced towards Kakashi first, seeking
confirmation, but he nodded slightly to give it, so she refocused on Tsunade while she
thought. Most everything had already been told to her, surely, since Sasuke had given her an
opening report when they’d gotten back and Kakashi had given her the proper one since then.
Her perspective, Tsunade had said. What stood out to her personally? Was there anything
more that needed to be said about that first fight – or the second?

Memory caught on jagged corners, split strangely around the agony she’d been in, sprawled
unnaturally on the ground trying desperately to breathe. Everything was blurry after Zabuza
had thrown Sasuke into her, but pieces stuck out like sharp spikes. The way Sakura had
shouted. Kakashi snarling, Zabuza laughing. The coughing and retching after Sasuke had
been fished up. The soft weariness of Sakura’s voice when she’d come to heal what she
could, the pain of her touch where it was firm in ways everything else wasn’t. Fragments that,
if she analysed them, seemed to run out of order in her head, but bled together all the same.

Voices were the clearest. Sakura cursing, the quiet urgency that Hinata could now identify as
Ūhei, Zabuza’s sneer.

They shoulda been born in Kiri.

“… No, Tsunade-sama. That's all.”

The lobby was unbearably quiet, and it was unbearably quiet for a long time. Sakura had
asked Bisuke if they were going almost the moment the elevator doors had closed on Hinata
and Kakashi, and despite the negative response Bisuke had given, they hadn’t said a word to
each other since.

That was Sasuke’s fault, he was pretty sure.

It stung more than he wanted it to, that Sakura wanted to leave. Even if it was his own fault,
the idea that she wanted to get away from him – even though he was nowhere near figuring
out how to forgive her for leaving them – was shockingly painful.

Which was unbelievably fucking unfair, actually. That she could cut so deep so fucking easily
when she wasn’t even trying. Urushi grumbled in Sasuke’s lap when he dug his fingers into
their fur; short and coarse, almost bristly against Sasuke’s palms. A sharp relief compared to
the rest of the ninken, and a welcome one if he was honest. Urushi’s company was a saving
grace that Sasuke had been lucky enough to keep since being discharged from Ūhei’s care
into theirs.

They picked their head up when Sasuke sighed, catching and holding his gaze until he gave
in. “… This is… awkward.” Muttered low enough that he prayed Sakura couldn’t pick out
the words. Bisuke didn’t move from where she sat by Sakura’s feet, not even a twitch, but
Sakura glanced over. Just for a fraction of a second, and then she tilted her head just slightly,
settling her eyes only sort of in his direction but with a distance that betrayed she wasn’t
focused. Because she was watching him in her periphery, of course, trying to be subtle about
it. The exact same thing she’d always done when she was covertly eavesdropping or
daydreaming.

It was such a familiar quirk that for half a breath, Sasuke wanted to jolt her out of it just to
tease her. Like he’d always done. Like nothing had changed.

As if they could ever be as playful and naive as they’d been.

Grumbling, Urushi twisted their head and scratched an ear with one hindpaw, contemplating
a response. Wait— but intuition struck too fucking late, and Urushi had already turned to
Bisuke and Sakura. “Hey, Bisuke. Pup thinks it’s too awkward.”

Oh gods. Yeah, that was even worse. More so that Sakura couldn’t fully stifle a laugh, short-
lived and… dark, but still with lingering humour. She had the good grace to look away
properly, afterwards, shifting her weight slightly and swallowing the rest of her laughter, but
it hardly mattered.

“Sorry, sorry,” Sakura murmured, her voice tight. Was it her amusement straining her words,
or was it more than that? Whatever had happened during her report had left her unsettled –
and try as she might to hide it, Sasuke could read her easily. She’d changed immeasurably
since graduation, but her tells remained. She’d been on the verge of panic when Kakashi had
walked her to her seat and taken Hinata up in her place.

Sasuke wasn’t expecting the hitch in her breath when he muttered a reply – brief and low,
barely audible, “Forget it.” – but he heard it all the same and glanced up to find Sakura biting
her lip, watching the floor intently. Uncertainty clouded her face, but why—?

Oh. Belatedly, Sasuke realised that ‘forget it’ might well be the first words he’d said directly
to her since returning home. A frown wedged itself on Sasuke’s face; had he really been so
reticent? Yeah, he’d ignored her largely, but only because he couldn’t figure out what to say
to her or how to swallow the bitter, writhing feelings that rose up whenever he contemplated
it. She’d abandoned him – except Ūhei’s voice echoed in his head, that things like this
brought out the parts of people they usually buried, that Sakura had been trying her best just
like the rest of them, and… Well, maybe she’d left them, but just maybe, she hadn’t betrayed
them.

After all… it had worked, hadn’t it? Her plan? Sasuke hadn’t seen it happen – and he tried
very hard not to think about that, about the water closing around him like a cold blanket,
about the horrible burning rush of seawater flooding his chest or the way the darkness had
seemed so sweet an embrace, at the end there – but Hinata had recounted it to him, in the
shimmering fragments she remembered clearly enough. Sakura had succeeded in calling
Zabuza off, no matter how viscerally terrible her method had been.

Sasuke sighed again, rubbing his face with both hands. He had no idea, still, of who Sakura
really was and which parts were an act or even how real their friendship was to her, but he
wasn’t going to get answers by walling her out. And… well, there was familiarity there after
all, as he looked her over. A recognisable tension in the tilt of her head, held unconsciously
while she worried over something in her own thoughts, too wound up to realise she was
creating a crick in her neck. The way her heels kept lifting off the floor, how she kept fiddling
with her sleeves. Her hair was too short to really toy with anymore, but her fingers plucked at
the fabric of her hitai-ite around her neck in its place, disturbing the otherwise smooth curve
of it, creating little irritations that she scratched absent-mindedly between movements. A
quiet pull on her bottom lip that told Sasuke she was biting it, a familiar hazy-eyedness she’d
always gotten when she didn’t get enough sleep.

Stressing over tests or forgetting to sleep at all while engrossed in theory reading, it used to
be. Now… gods only knew what nightmares and anxieties were keeping her up.

All at once, guilt came crashing down on Sasuke like a dam had burst. It had no effect on all
his own fears, of course, didn’t mitigate any of the betrayal or the hurt Sasuke was carrying
around, but the things that had happened were affecting Sakura, too. And if Sasuke was
brutally honest with himself, Sakura keeping her head the way she had while out there was a
big contributor to their continued lives.

She’d just been doing whatever she thought she could. Just like the rest of them. Did getting
it wrong – even as horribly wrong as she had – really undo everything else between them?

“… Listen,” Sasuke forced out, and it was hard to get his voice through his teeth, so much
harder than it had any right to be. She’d been his best friend only a few months ago. They’d
told each other everything. (Had they? Had she?) “I’m still… angry.” Figure out how to come
to terms with it, Ūhei had said, and not to try and do it alone. Sakura couldn’t do it alone
either. “I don’t understand. But… you should get the chance to explain. I guess.”

Her eyes had lit up, stuck on him while he mumbled through it, and she took a breath to
respond—

The elevator opened, drawing both their gazes, and Hinata hobbled out on Kakashi’s heels.
Glanced up at them, a shadow in her eyes. They’d never struck Sasuke as particularly eerie
before, even with the pupil completely hidden by the Hyuuga lenses that carried the chakra
load for Byakugan – but somehow, this time, meeting her gaze made an uncertain dread twist
in Sasuke’s chest.
There had to be a way forward from this – Ūhei had all but promised it – but for the life of
him, Sasuke couldn’t figure out where it lay. “Take a seat, Hinata,” Kakashi intoned softly,
stopping before Sasuke. “You’re up.” Silence hung heavy on them while Sasuke got to his
feet, and Kakashi visibly hesitated when Urushi dropped to their paws at Sasuke’s side. Then,
a moment later: “Would you prefer Urushi to accompany you or not?”

“Yes.” Out before Sasuke could think, and his teeth ground together painfully as he registered
the sense of neediness that portrayed, but Kakashi merely nodded and turned around again
with a gesture for Sasuke to follow. “... Thanks,” Sasuke muttered as he skipped a few steps
to catch up, Urushi padding quietly after. Hinata had been given the choice of Shiba’s
accompaniment, but it hadn’t escaped Sasuke’s awareness that Sakura hadn’t, in regards to
Bisuke. There’d been every chance that Hinata was an exception, since she spooked so much
easier than her teammates.

Kakashi offered a low, indistinct noise, like he didn’t want to acknowledge the point.
Acknowledging Sasuke anyway. Something tight and hot coiled in Sasuke’s chest.

“Sensei?”

Fuck. What was he even about to ask? There were a thousand and one things that still writhed
in his thoughts under the thin veneer of composure he was trying to wear. It probably wasn’t
at all convincing, given that everyone was still being strangely gentle with him, but Sasuke
couldn’t find the will to be annoyed by it. Even if he didn’t want to admit it, Sasuke was
pretty sure whatever stability he felt right now was balanced on a kunai’s edge. Maybe it was
the same for all of them. Maybe none of them were as okay as they were trying to pretend
they were.

“Hmm?” Kakashi-sensei paused as the elevator doors slid shut, hovering just before pressing
the button to Tsunade’s floor. His gaze was questioning, lacking the edge of judgment that
Sasuke was so used to.

And Sasuke hesitated. What was he going to ask? Should he focus on the mission, or the
consequences of it, and which aspect of them? The interpersonal ones for Team Seven as a
whole were already apparent – and Sasuke was loathe to contemplate all the possible ways
they could get worse – but there were so many more avenues down which Sasuke had tried
(in vain) to avoid thinking about. Legal ones, however Konoha was going to figure that one
out, what might happen to Waves itself after the dramatic change in leadership Sakura had
inflicted. Or for them personally – for how they might be seen by their peers, or even the
adult shinobi, once word got out proper. All the things Kakashi was going to have to do in the
wake of it.

What would those things even be? How was everything supposed to change to accommodate
the fact that they’d… done the things they had? Now that they knew— Now that Sasuke
knew what Kakashi was truly training them for, in the end. No matter what glorifications
shinobi life was dressed up with, Sasuke had seen it now. The bloody reality.

Because Sakura had slaughtered someone and carried back his head, and it was the only thing
that had stopped Zabuza from massacring them.
Because there would always be another massacre.

“I… I don’t know.” Sasuke looked away. “Sorry. Never mind.”

Pressing the button, Kakashi took a step closer, hesitated again, and then set a hand on
Sasuke’s shoulder. The touch was light, and Sasuke couldn’t feel any heat through the layers
of his clothes and bandages. “It’s okay, Sasuke.” The faintest pressure, strange over the cling
of bandages but not painful. “You don’t have to know all the time.”

Somewhere in the back of Sasuke’s mind, a voice of better judgement hissed at him to shut
up, but he heard the words form on his tongue and escape all the same. “… Do you? Not
know all the time?”

A flicker went across Kakashi’s face. It was minute, and mostly hidden by his mask, but
Sasuke caught it. The brief dip of Kakashi dropping his gaze, the way the edge of the mask
twitched and shifted slightly where it lay across his nose. Maybe Sasuke shouldn’t have
asked. It was a bit too soul-searching a question to put to the man, as aloof as he usually was
– except that behaviour had abruptly ceased the moment they’d all woken up in the hospital,
and he’d been so… gentle, since. Accommodating, kind. Dropped a façade, refrained from
the verbal whips and the disdainful stare and the sneered dismissals. They’d been getting
thinner all the time, if Sasuke took a moment to think it over, but whatever had been driving
Kakashi’s endeavours to be a cunt, it had vanished entirely, now.

Was it fair to find comfort in that, to have Kakashi’s more clearly displayed humanity bring
him solace when whoever lay behind Sakura’s crumbling walls offered only anger and pain?
Just because Sakura’s inner truths didn’t serve him, and Kakashi’s did?

“… More than I’d care to admit.” It was muttered, when Kakashi finally responded, a quiet
and bitter and reluctant affair. Words to the affirmative that he clearly didn’t want to give –
but gave all the same.

The doors opened again before Sasuke could articulate another question, if indeed he even
wanted to ask it, but it was oddly… fine. The number of things Sasuke didn’t know, couldn’t
figure out, and refused to ponder was overwhelmingly high, and yet if a shinobi of Kakashi’s
calibre didn’t know then maybe it wasn’t so terrible and pathetic a thing…? To not know? To
be so out of his depth that even just treading water felt like drowning?

Tsunade watched them enter in silence, waited for the door to shut behind them and Sasuke to
come to a stop several metres back from her desk, and then steepled her fingers. “I’ll get right
on with it: there’s not much point in your giving me yet another personal report, Sasuke.” He
hadn’t even realised how much he didn’t want to until Tsunade freed him of the task, and
suddenly it dissipated in his chest like ice cream melting, a cold and sticky diffusion out
under his skin so intense he was almost convinced he could taste it on his own breath as he
exhaled. With the slightest quirk of her lips, Tsunade gave a low, bemused grunt. “But it’s
important for holding balance in your team that you’re here. So instead of reinspecting the
minutiae of this mission for you, I think it’s only fair to allow you your own questions. If you
have any for me or Kakashi specifically.” Said with a nod towards Kakashi at Sasuke’s side.
At his feet, Urushi rumbled and sat, leaning against Sasuke’s calf. They were suspiciously
quiet, but maybe it was simply respect for the Hokage that kept them so. Sasuke hadn’t seen
them – or any of the Hatake ninken, actually – interact with Tsunade personally, not even
when she’d briefly visited the hospital to get Sasuke’s initial report, but surely it couldn’t be
that uncommon. They were all in a fairly unusual situation as Konoha-nin, after all, from
everything Sasuke understood. Intelligence and chakra-capability were a far cry from the
only prerequisites for earning a Konoha hitai-ite, after all. Itachi’s crow summons were both,
and none of them wore one.

And if Sasuke edged a little closer to Urushi, so their weight was heavier against his leg, then
nobody made comment on that.

There was no reason it should be easier to think of questions in here than it had been in the
elevator, only moments ago, but the clamouring noise resolved itself somewhat in Sasuke’s
head. As if they’d never been a tangle to begin with, several presented themselves, properly
articulated. Rude bastards.

“I never got a chance to ask; who was the team that rescued us?” Sasuke had seen all their
faces, of course, and he was sure he could recognise them, but they hadn’t given their names
directly and while he’d been awake for their arrival and most of the trip back, the whole thing
was an indistinct haze in his memory. There’d been conversation, questions he was pretty
sure he’d answered, but Sasuke couldn’t remember any of the particulars of it. Just the
swearing, and the fervent muttering between them, and the way Sakura had screamed, the
way that even unconscious, Kakashi had jolted and gasped.

Tsunade made a reluctant noise before sighing. “A highly elite team. Frankly, who they are is
above your pay grade.” She eyed him, clearly not finished but tossing up a decision, so
Sasuke held his tongue and wondered if he was passing scrutiny. Urushi still didn’t seem at
all concerned with the situation, when he glanced down to them, somewhere in their own
thoughts. “Perhaps another time. Don’t hold your breath, though.”

Frustrating. Sasuke couldn’t help the sigh, nor the irritated edge with which it came out, but
he set the topic aside. Classified information was something he would encounter everywhere
as he grew stronger as a shinobi – even classified individuals – and if he didn’t start getting
used to it now, he’d never get anywhere. “… Right.” Memory flickered again, like ripples on
a muddy pond. Indecipherable, unseemly. “What about… They did something to Kakashi-
sensei and Sakura, when they got there. What—” Urushi tensed up where they sat, enough to
catch Sasuke’s attention and divert it entirely. They didn’t meet his gaze when he glanced
down, instead having turned black eyes to Kakashi. Somewhere between accusing and
frantic, studying him carefully.

Kakashi had winced, when Sasuke looked at him too. “It’s called a chakra transfusion. I’ll
teach you more about it later – unless you want to explain, Tsunade-sama?” And Sasuke
turned back to the Hokage, belatedly remembering that she was a first-class medic. Quirking
an eyebrow, Tsunade gave a half-smirk and shook her head.

“Wouldn’t dream of depriving you of a lesson, Kakashi.” Amused, teasing. A joke that
Sasuke wasn’t part of. It hit like being submerged, the realisation Kakashi had a life outside
of being their sensei. He’d been theirs for a little over six months now, and it was all at once
difficult to picture how small a fraction of Kakashi’s life Sasuke really constituted, when
Kakashi was such a massive part of his own. Jōnin took on more than a single team over the
course of their careers – had Kakashi had genin before? Would he have more later? How
could Kakashi be so important in Sasuke’s life, and yet Sasuke barely knew a thing about
him?

Grimacing, obvious behind the mask (and had Sasuke really been unable to see through it at
first? It felt like an aeon ago), Kakashi gestured vaguely. “Another time, then.” Eyes narrow,
Urushi thumped their tail against the floor, once, as if making a proclamation, and then
settled back into their more relaxed sit, leaning against Sasuke.

Sasuke felt the slip of his focus, but it ran right past the situational awareness he should be
maintaining and zeroed in on Urushi. Was that a motion of warning, or understanding, or
mere aggravation? It felt almost angry, except Sasuke couldn’t read any other signs of anger
in their body language, or at least didn’t recognise any. It could be an agreed-upon signal that
Sasuke wasn’t privy to; Urushi had been with Kakashi for far longer than Sasuke had. It
was… surreal, trying to contemplate his own position from Kakashi’s perspective, or even
from Urushi’s. The whole pack had practically adopted him and Hinata and Sakura, just
because they were Kakashi’s. And if it wasn’t genuine, then it was such a good act that
Sasuke couldn’t tell the difference.

“Sasuke.” Jolted out of his own head, Sasuke looked up at Tsunade, disoriented for a
moment. Her gaze was questioning, but kind; an edge of… sorrow? Something. All at once,
Sasuke’s thoughts were overwhelming again, a cacophony of inarticulate questions. There
was so much— so much everything, and he’d had more than enough time to adjust but he just
couldn’t get the cold creeping sensation of inadequacy to fade. It was only even colder in the
wake of realisation that his position with Kakashi wouldn’t ever be one of equality. Kakashi
could have many genin, but Sasuke would only ever have the one jōnin-sensei. “Do you have
any other questions?” Ones that they could actually answer, perhaps.

He didn’t know where it tumbled out from, but Sasuke heard his own voice ask all the same.
“Do you still see your jōnin-senseis?” Was that what his future looked like? Was he destined
to simply lose touch with Kakashi one day, even though his whole life right now pretty much
revolved around the man?

Tsunade’s face saddened as Sasuke stared at her, only half-seeing. She sighed. Slumped back
in her seat. “No, Sasuke. I don’t.” Fear bolted through Sasuke’s chest like lightning – not the
same kind of fear as he’d felt at the end of Zabuza’s blade, no, that was a hot, molten fear.
Immediate and demanding, a deafening rush that was too wild to contain, something that
triggered movement and chakra and fight. This… this was different to that. Icy and slow.
Glacial. A sense of choking dread that wrapped silken fingers around Sasuke’s throat and—

Oh gods. He could feel it, the steel of Zabuza’s grip, the way he’d felt unmoored from
gravity, from reality, while the world peeled away with his ability to breathe. Why could he
feel Zabuza’s fingers on his neck, it wasn’t— he wasn’t even here, Sasuke was totally safe
here, what— why—?

It was the sharp pain in his ankle that broke through the cascade of panic first, and Sasuke
found himself flinching as he choked on a whimper, gasping. Urushi was on their paws, teeth
bared from where they’d just—

“Did… Did you bite me?” Sasuke wasn’t sure of the last time his voice had come out that
squeaky, but all things considered he was just grateful it came out at all. The room spun
slightly as he focused, but Urushi looked right back at him with the same kind of look they’d
given Kakashi only a minute before.

They didn’t get a chance to answer before Kakashi spoke over them. Close by and quiet, and
yet… “Easy, Sasuke. Can you take a deep breath for me?”

Sasuke did so. Automatically, without thought, just because Kakashi had asked him to. Fuck.
Was that allowed? Even as a genin, even from his sensei, should he really be thoughtlessly
obeying every order? Even one so benign as take a breath was still—

“Sasuke, whatever you’re thinking about, stop.” Sasuke’s mind went blank. “Focus on me,
right now.”

Despite how gentle Kakashi’s voice was, when Sasuke managed to get a handle on his senses
and actually processed the sight of his face, it was disturbingly neutral. Emotionless, mask
upon mask upon mask. Was it… Which part was the act? The hollow gaze, or the
compassionate tone? Gods, he couldn’t wade through what parts he thought he knew of
Kakashi being real or not, not right now, not again. Not on top of Sakura. Someone had to just
be themselves.

Stop. Focus. Another deep breath. Sasuke hadn’t looked away from Kakashi yet, hadn't
blinked. Neither had he. So they just stared at each other while Sasuke breathed – gods, air
had never been sweeter – until his heart stopped raging. The sense of cold was seeping back
in as Sasuke calmed, and he couldn’t tell if it was dread under his skin, or sweat sticking
against it, but either way it was almost welcome over the screaming not-noise of his thoughts.

And then, finally, Kakashi broke contact. Looked away, straightened up. “… No, I don’t see
my sensei.”

As if nothing had happened. Was it mercy, or was it spite? Maybe it was both. Maybe it was
something else entirely.

“In both cases, by virtue of them being dead, Sasuke,” Tsunade continued, as if that were a
reassurance, and Sasuke turned back to look at her instead and wished that he was still in bed.
Both dead. That wasn’t better. Should he just expect to watch Kakashi die at some point,
then? How was that any better than Kakashi choosing not to stay in his life? He’d be gone
either way, and there was nothing Sasuke could do about death. The twisting pain in his chest
was familiar. He’d felt it before: when Itachi had snatched him out of bed in the dead of night
and fled their home, when they’d attended their father’s funeral, when he’d realised that
Sakura was never going to go back to the way that she’d been before. When he’d watched
Kakashi go down after Zabuza disengaged.

How in the depths of hell was dead supposed to be better?

Urushi stood briefly on Sasuke’s foot. “Got any other questions, pup?” they rumbled at him,
rubbing their head lightly against Sasuke’s leg in apology for biting him. Well— it was more
of a nip, really. Hadn’t broken either clothing or skin.

For a crazy, stupid moment, Sasuke actually considered thinking about what other possible
questions he could ask. All the racing uncertainties that made him feel sick any time he
contemplated them. No. They’d wait. It could all wait. It had to wait.

Mutely, Sasuke shook his head. He hadn’t expected this experience to be fun, but it was… so
much worse than he’d prepared for. Maybe it shouldn’t surprise him so much. Sakura had
come out of it fucked up, too. Suddenly, Sasuke had a burning need to check on Hinata.

“Alright. Before you go, Sasuke, I do have one question for you,” Tsunade intoned, leaning
back on her desk, spinning a pen idly in one hand. “Are you ready?”

Gods, no. But it didn’t matter. One question. One more he could handle, and then he could
escape. Hopefully. He wasn’t required to attend lessons until tomorrow, right?

At Sasuke’s nod, Tsunade pursed her lips. “Tazuna. What do you think should be done about
him?”

About…? Was this about the money he still owed for the mission? No, it couldn’t be that
simple. Could it? “… He still owes Konoha a proper mission fee… right?”

“He does.” Tsunade’s expression was curious but otherwise neutral, as if she had no personal
stake in the outcome. Everything Sasuke knew of her reign, and what he remembered of how
things had been before it, said that she was incredibly invested in this mess, and even without
that, her position as Hokage was so intricately tied up in Konoha as a whole that basic self-
preservation made the matter her concern. “But it’s more complicated than simply making up
the fee. We’re shinobi, we don’t do payment plans.”

“And we don’t do missions for free,” Urushi added gruffly, with another single-beat tail
thump. “Especially escort missions against S-rank missing-nin.” Growled, this time, another
little flash of their fangs as they spoke.

And especially assassinations.

Kakashi-sensei’s face had withered from neutral to angry, when Sasuke dared glance at him.
Tension visibly lined his jaw, movement in the fabric as he swallowed. Whatever Kakashi’s
personal response was to this question, it was bad. Once again – as they had non-stop for
days – the battles flashed through Sasuke’s mind, except this time the parts that burned were
what fragments he remembered of Kakashi fighting. There were far too many, thanks to the
Sharingan. And there was something calculated in him that neither Sasuke nor Hinata had.
Something quietly echoed in the way Sakura moved, too. A confidence that spoke of
experience, and of course Kakashi fought with experience; he was an experienced jōnin, one
of the best. The amount of combat he’d seen was— it was— fucking unimaginable, actually,
now that Sasuke had endured it himself.
Fingers flexed around the echo of lightning and flesh, a flicker of hot and cold at the same
time as he remembered how easily his hand sunk into Haku’s body, all the way to the wrist.
Just how many times had Kakashi done that? How much blood had he smelled as it
vapourised around his own chakra?

Which amounted to the violence in his eye as the conversation carried on. So his answer
was… honestly something the details of which Sasuke didn’t want to know. And if Tsunade
was asking Sasuke’s opinion on such a critical matter, he felt safe enough in the assumption
that his teammates had been asked as well. Opinion or not, there was little point in repeating
options that had already been raised.

Not that any of them could likely offer one Tsunade hadn’t already thought about herself
anyway, but… still.

Sasuke couldn’t imagine Hinata having anything remotely so violent to say as whatever
Kakashi was thinking, and before graduation he would have thought the same of Sakura but
now… it could be anything. And where did that leave them at? Obviously there was justified
blame to lay on Tazuna, but it wasn’t exactly difficult to understand why he’d done it. Sasuke
was torn between empathising with him and hating him. How could he claim the welfare of
his people – his children – as motivation when he’d knowingly led a team of fresh genin into
—

A nightmare that Sasuke couldn’t seem to wake up from.

“… There’s not much point in taking it out on him personally,” Sasuke said slowly, trying to
corral his thoughts. “He can’t even make up the fee, let alone all the other… damage.” And
fuck him if his voice dropped at the end, if he couldn’t quite articulate the concept without
shrinking back from it. “He says he did it for Waves, right? So… make Waves pay for it.”
After all, if the Waves residents were anywhere near as close knit as Tazuna had implied then
taking on the debt Tazuna had incurred on their behalf was… logical. And despite all the
terrible ways Sasuke was sure that Konoha could inflict such a response, surely it was easier
on Waves as a whole to collectively shoulder the consequences. Not to mention that Tazuna’s
bridge was their self-professed only hope of recovery, so paying the price as a collective
seemed fair en—

Like whiplash, another thought struck. Exactly how far could they trust Tazuna’s word
anyway? Yeah, he’d told them that the bridge was a last ditch effort to bring in trade and
salvage Waves’ floundering economy, but… Well, they had no reason to believe that. Did
they?

What if Tazuna had risked all their lives just for the no doubt not-insignificant gain of owning
the central commerce route?

Tsunade hummed. “Thank you, Sasuke. You can go.”

It might be rude, but Sasuke barely took the time to nod before he was turning on his heel and
slinking out, Kakashi close behind him. Even empty and open, with as carefully as Tsunade
had handled him – and, likely, his teammates – there was something about standing in the
Hokage’s office that was suffocating. Or maybe that was just the ghost of Zabuza’s hand
around his neck, and the memory of choking on salt.

“You did well,” Kakashi murmured as they stepped back into the elevator. Despite himself,
even though Sasuke was pretty fucking certain that whatever he’d done was far from well, the
praise sent a welcome bubble of warmth rising in his chest. Praise was more easily
forthcoming at the moment, but it didn’t erase the rarity of it before, the way it only came
when truly deserved. Maybe Sasuke’s judgement was wrong. It wasn’t as if he had any basis
for comparison.

Rumbling an agreement, Urushi whapped their tail gently against Sasuke’s leg, a constant
reassuring presence. It was harder to doubt them both than it was just one of them. “We’ll
take it easy the rest of the day. Lots to do tomorrow.”

In theory, Sasuke should be excited to get back to training; he wanted to be excited. Instead,
the prospect filled him with an aching weariness, dragging a low sigh out of him, dropping
his head and his shoulders. Voice full of consternation, Kakashi slid his hands into his
pockets and didn’t meet Sasuke’s gaze when he spoke. “Don’t worry, Sasuke. Not about that,
anyway. We’re not doing anything that demanding. Just… some team-building.”

It wasn’t very convincing, really, but Sasuke tried to set aside his misgivings all the same.
After all, Kakashi-sensei had gotten just as fucked up as any of them. He had to be dealing
with the same things.

There was an odd weight in the air as the elevator started to slow. A silence that none of them
broke, somewhere between comfort and misery. Gods. Itachi had been right, all those times
he’d told Sasuke not to rush too quickly into his future as a shinobi. All those times Sasuke
had never listened.

“Sensei,” he heard himself finally say, again, as the doors slid open. On the far side of the
reception, Sakura and Hinata looked up at them instantly. Leading them out, Kakashi
hummed another acknowledgement, and for a moment Sasuke wasn’t entirely certain if they
were coming back down from Tsunade’s office, or heading up again. The disorientation was
unbalancing, a bump in the floor where Sasuke wasn’t expecting it, and he stumbled. Saw
Kakashi stop and turn in a fraction of a second, felt the focus of his teammates sharpen. One
hand hovered, ready to catch him if he needed it. Some of the swirling tension in his chest
melted at the thought. “I’m alright,” he mumbled, pausing to make sure he wasn’t lying. And
then he looked up again, finally certain on at least one question he wanted to ask. “Are you?”

Something flashed through Kakashi’s expression, not quite surprise and not quite dismay but
not quite anything else either. The briefest glint of— something, before his whole face went
blank and hollow. The way he’d been upstairs. “I’m fine, Sasuke.” Soft, but empty. A
promise he didn’t believe, and didn’t expect Sasuke to either, but one given anyway.

Okay.

It would just have to be enough, for now.

Sakura was on her feet when they actually got to her, Hinata sitting anxiously at her side.
There was something unnerving about the way her eyes raked over him, a hard green
glimmer that made him feel exposed. Like she could read into every secret with just a look –
as if she’d even need to, after so many years together. She already knew all his secrets.

Well… Most of them.

The second visual scouring was worse, though. Sadness instead of scrutiny – recognition,
regret. A well of hopelessness in her face as she finally looked away from him. Like a punch
to the gut, the instinct to hug her burst under his skin, so urgent that resisting was a breathless
exercise. But he did resist.

“Are you okay?” Hinata asked, glancing between them all uncertainly. Shiba’s head was in
Hinata’s lap, but she watched Kakashi move while Sasuke nodded a response. “... Okay,”
Hinata murmured, clearly unconvinced but accepting the response anyway.

Gods. Maybe they should just stop pretending to each other. None of them were fooling the
others anyway.

“Alright.” Shorter than Kakashi had been with them all morning, but not like how he was
when they did something wrong. More… anxious than that, restless and unsettled. “You’re all
under supervision from the ninken today,” he told them, gesturing towards Bisuke, Urushi,
and Shiba. “I’ve got some errands to run.”

Errands? What errands? Kakashi was supposed to be recovering just the same as they were –
what in the hells was he even up to? He’d had ‘urgent business’ yesterday, as well.

“One more thing.” And maybe there was a flicker of uncertainty in Kakashi’s voice, the
faintest hint, so fleeting and slight that Sasuke wasn’t certain he hadn’t just imagined it.
“Sasuke, I want you to pack for a four day trip.” What? On what planet were any of them in a
fit state for a trip? “Sakura, Hinata, I want you to pack for two weeks, and anything you own
of sentimental value to you.”

Chill fingers crept down Sasuke’s spine. He didn’t have the first clue as to what Kakashi was
actually planning – team-building, he’d said, of whatever was meant to happen tomorrow –
but there was an ominous air to these instructions that Sasuke couldn’t quite bring himself to
study too directly.

Why was he singled out for this? Pack less and ignore an extra order that was being applied
to both teammates? It was small mercy and even less comfort that neither of them seemed to
understand, either. Sakura was frowning at Kakashi, consternation clear on her face, thoughts
visibly racing. Hinata was folding and unfolding her hands in her lap, clearly unsettled,
drawing into herself.

Kakashi waved one hand, an abrupt gesture, strangely uncoordinated. “Bisuke, Shiba, Urushi
– you know what they’ll need. Keep an eye on them.”

And in a swirl of leaves, with no further explanation, Kakashi vanished, and left them to
themselves. They looked at one another, silent, for several more minutes than was at all
 comfortable, before Bisuke finally stood, shook herself once, and briefly pawed Sakura’s leg.
“Come.”

With one more glance, Sakura followed Bisuke out. It took a little longer for Shiba and
Urushi to get him and Hinata moving, but all too soon, Sasuke was heading home to pack for
a trip he knew nothing about.

Chapter End Notes

Additional Stuff. Additional Things.

|| I meant that warning, by the way. I see your speculations and I am certain that none of
you are going to like what Sakura does about Kakashi raising his belief that her parents
are abusing her. I look forward to it immensely.
|| Next chapter is filler. This is Naruto, you should have known what you were signing
up for – though it is at least a filler chapter that follows the other genin of Konoha so…
|| I meant to write a bonus scene here, but tbh I'm just gonna put that on hold and you'll
get it when you get it. Real life is getting righteously in the way like the rude
motherfucker it always is.
|| As of the publishing of this chapter, the total word count for this fic comes to 169k.
Nice.

Next Chapter Due: 11th July 2021

 Meanwhile...
Chapter Summary

Or perhaps, geninwhile.

Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

When Ino had first learned that Sakura and her team were leaving Konoha on their first C-
rank, she’d been unimaginably jealous. It made some sense that Team Seven were the first of
their year’s graduates to do so – two big clan heirs and Sakura’s cleverness paired with
Hatake-san, whomst Inoichi had spoken of multiple times as Konoha’s potential next kage –
but even so it had burned under her skin. The desire to follow them. Ino-Shika-Chō was a
tried and true combination, and Mitskuni-sensei, Ino had come to believe, was an incredibly
capable shinobi.

The elation she’d felt upon being taken up to the Hokage Tower with Shikamaru and Chōji at
her sides was something Ino hadn’t thought she had the words to describe, a fierce joy that
tasted like triumph on the sparring field.

So it was an impossible anguish when she set out the morning they were slated to leave, and
word made its way across the village of Team Seven’s return. A sweeping whisper of a rescue
team sent in the dead of night, murmurings about retroactive classification of the mission and
that Konoha had been duped. It took all the self-control Ino had to make her way to the
western gate instead of abandoning her obligations and going straight to Sakura’s side. Or,
failing that, to her father’s so she could demand answers.

Shikamaru and Chōji were there before her, which was one part surprise and two parts relief;
she wouldn’t have to wait for them to bring it up. As it was, she hadn’t even drawn breath to
speak when she got within earshot and Shikamaru hissed – under his breath – “We heard.
Mitskuni-sensei isn’t here yet.”

It was so unusual for Mitskuni-sensei to be late, let alone later than them, that for a moment
Ino’s thoughts on Sakura pulled up short. “What? I’m late!” And perhaps only by a few
minutes, but still. Chōji shifted his weight from foot to foot, unsettled, fingers curling into his
jacket while he pulled it tighter around his shoulders. Ino scrubbed her face with both hands.
How in the heck was she supposed to petition for their mission to wait another day or two if
Mitskuni wasn’t even here? “Dad was gone already when I got up,” she murmured to them,
getting in close to maintain a level of privacy in their conversation. The chūnin on gate duty
didn’t seem particularly interested in them, and that everyone already seemed to know about
Team Seven’s mission – disaster, she’d heard on her way – meant that it wasn’t the same kind
of classified info she’d made a small, illegitimate business out of in the Academy, but habit
died hard.

Humming, Shikamaru tilted his head a little, joining their conspiratorial circle. “Ours too.
Whatever happened has the jōnin up in arms.” Without missing a beat, Ino accepted the small
yellow candy Chōji handed her and quietly unwrapped it. “Mum wouldn’t give me anything
when I asked her either.”

Ino wished that the sugar helped at all, but the sharp citric taste at least offered some sliver of
mental distraction. “If Mitskuni doesn’t show up, I’m just gonna go.” Which was,
objectively, the wrong decision. She knew that it was – that it would be a huge strike against
her if she walked out on a mission without proper notice or a direct threat against her. Maybe
she’d get some leeway given the situation, given her age and lack of experience, given all the
ways Konoha had changed since Tsunade took the Hokage title, both subtle and not – but if
she was honest, at the core of it Ino didn’t care. Things had been different since graduation,
but Sakura was still her friend. The thought that she was potentially badly wounded filled Ino
with fear.

And, though it was perhaps less gallant a response, no small measure of dread. Leaving
Konoha was supposed to be a celebrated milestone, and yet here was the absolute proof that
doing so was dangerous. What if the same thing, whatever it was, happened when Ino and co
left the village borders too?

“And if you simply left,” came the unusually grim voice from behind them, startling
Shikamaru and Ino out of their huddle and garnering a surprised yelp out of Chōji, “what
would I say to Tsunade-sama about my suddenly missing genin, do you think?”

Shit. They hadn’t gotten even a hint of Mitskuni’s approach – it just went to show that his
usual arrival was a deliberate choice, a freely given offering of upbeat personality and
consideration of their inexperience. As he’d just demonstrated, he was perfectly capable of
sneaking up on them if he wanted to.

Shikamaru dropped his gaze with a sigh, unease flickering across his face, while Chōji
crunched audibly on his hard candy. Ino held onto just enough resolve to meet Mitskuni’s
gaze. She wished it was easier. “I have to go see Sakura,” and gods forsake her, but she
wished her voice was steadier as well.

But it was hard to resist the dark expression that Mitskuni-sensei met her with. Being on the
wrong side of a jōnin’s ire was never a fun exercise, no matter how accustomed Ino was to it,
and this was no exception. There was something worse about it, though, now that it was
Mitskuni. Worse because of everything else, or just because Mitskuni occupied a unique
place in her life? Maybe it was just because the comparison was so stark. Granted, Ino hadn’t
had longterm interactions with lots of jōnin, but she’d had enough to know that Mitskuni was
unusually chipper amongst their ranks. It made the borderline glare he levelled at her now all
the more chilling.

“No.”
Something broke in Ino’s chest. It felt uncomfortably like tears, and swallowing it was
shockingly difficult; though Ino grit her teeth, she knew her whole team could still hear it.
“Sensei, I need to know what happened. She’s my friend!” Mitskuni understood their
emotional needs fairly well, all things considered. He’d gotten better with Chōji too, started
to figure out what kinds of encouragement worked, started to find ways of motivating
Shikamaru that didn’t involve scorching him with lasers when he didn’t comply. Surely Ino
could talk him around. Even if appealing to his compassionate side didn’t work, she was sure
there were other, less savoury methods to get her way. She’d prefer not to use them, but just
being genin had stripped so much of the time Ino used to spend with her friends. Knowing
that Sakura was hurt, potentially very hurt, and being unable to verify how bad or even just
hug her was unbearable.

Mitskuni lifted his chin. No nibbling on his lip ring, no twitch of his fingers. Just an ice cold
stare. “I said no.” His voice was scalding. “We’ve got a mission to complete.”

Whatever the broken thing was, Ino felt the jagged ends of it dig in, like grabbing hold of
somebody else’s kunai, and a noise that was tears and rage all at once clawed free of her.
“I’m going. I can’t just leave when my friend’s come back hurt—” The rant broke off in a
yelp. Not pain, because it didn’t hurt when Mitskuni grabbed her wrist and held it above her
head, but it was startling and sudden. Ino didn’t even see him move, he was just suddenly
there, pulling her up just enough to arch her, green eyes glittering with… with something that
Ino didn’t recognise.

“Yamanaka Ino, you will do as you’re told.”

Ino felt herself bare her teeth, but the flare of anger was dying down as Mitskuni held tight,
forced her to wade through the thunder inside her skin rather than weaponise it to try and get
her way. His voice was icy, but not angry. He held her wrist just tight enough to keep her, not
hard enough to hurt unless she struggled. Over his shoulder, Shikamaru was watching with a
wary alertness, and Chōji had half-stepped behind him to hide, eyes wide and anxious.

Suddenly, Ino wondered what they would do if she refused. Would Mitskuni-sensei zap her
like he zapped Shikamaru for being recalcitrant – would it be something so benign as to leave
only a welt for a couple of days, or would he shift into more extreme measures to control
her?

Worse— Would he let her?

No matter how terrible it felt contemplating the very real future of leaving Konoha right
when Sakura came home, wounded and probably terrified, with whatever horrific damage
had been done to Team Seven’s psyche from— from whatever catastrophic thing had
happened— Gods, Ino felt like a monster when she considered abandoning her to it, and yet
it was still somehow better than the alternative future where Mitskuni-sensei let her break
contract and walk away, and it cost Ino her career as a shinobi. Oh, she had options, certainly.
A civilian mother and a well-learned craft, with a strong reputation to go with it – but Ino had
only ever wanted to be a shinobi, and… and even if she was happy in a flower shop for the
rest of her life, if it was this that did her in, then… would Sakura blame herself? Would she
be wrong to?
Discourse that meant nothing, in the end, because even knowing all that, the only thing Ino
wanted to do was to throw it in anyway. What was a career next to a friend? And yet,
Mitskuni-sensei held fast when she pushed at him with her free hand, knocked away her
clumsy attempt to grab a kunai from her thigh holster, spun her around when she tried to form
the one-handed seal he’d helped her begin work on. Turned, her back pressed flat against
Mitskuni’s front, pinned by the angle of her own arm across her torso, Ino found herself with
no choice but to consider the village. Sprawling out before them, all the way back to the
Hokage monument, asleep and alive at the same time so early in the morning. Her only
alternative was to contemplate the sky, and the slate grey of early dawn was too mocking to
bear.

Chōji squeaked behind them, a sound like he wanted to intervene and couldn’t figure out how
– a sound all too painfully familiar. Strong morals and a shy personality did not peacefully go
together. Presumably Shikamaru shut down the thought of intervening, because neither of
them spoke and neither of them acted.

For a long minute, panting roughly through her teeth, Ino endured the silence. Mitskuni-
sensei didn’t release her, didn’t pin her further. If she struggled, there was a chance of freeing
herself from such a precarious hold – but she refrained. It might just piss Mitskuni off, or it
might make him give up on stopping her. Was he being cruel, or was he saving her from
reckless decisions? Maybe it was both. It could be both, right?

“Are you done?”

The chill did nothing to douse the cinders bleeding into every pore Ino had, but she tried to
think through it. Not being done was a very bad idea.

“Yes.”

Even ignoring the potential loss of her career, or the very real power Mitskuni had to drop her
as a genin, fighting him was stupid. He could kick her ass sixteen ways from Sunday and not
break a sweat.

When Mitskuni released her, she expected to be thrown off him, the way she’d always toss
away her sparring opponent when she beat them in the Academy. The way all of them had
done, when they’d won. She was braced for it, ready to catch her feet under her, or catch her
weight with her forearms if need be – except the shove never came. Instead, Mitskuni’s arms
closed around her shoulders, holding her in place without the edge of restrained violence. He
squeezed. Gently. “This is a feeling you will have to get used to,” he said quietly in her ear.

Regretfully.

Mournfully.

“The ones we love, when we’re all so reckless as to love other shinobi, are always going to
be in danger, Ino.” The look that she hadn’t recognised in his eyes cut through in his voice, a
blade across Ino’s face, and if it felt like being punched in the gut then at least Mitskuni
hadn’t done so literally. Raising his voice, Mitskuni took one arm from Ino’s shoulders and
beckoned the other two closer; Chōji darted in immediately, hunched and nervous, but he
relaxed a little as Mitskuni-sensei included him in the impromptu hug. “I know this feels bad,
leaving when your friend is hurt – but that’s the reality we face. Our friends are going to be
hurt. Often. This feels bad, but it will become the least of it.”

Mitskuni let them go, as they processed that. Chōji stayed close, reluctant to lose the physical
reassurance so quickly – so tactile a person he was at heart – but Ino took his hand without
thought and, on his other side, Shikamaru wordlessly slid into place to link their arms. It was
habit on their part, a lifetime of knowing one another, a thoughtless and subconscious read
and response. Shikamaru’s eyes, dark, stayed fixed on Mitskuni. Calculating. Thinking.

It was almost enough to tempt Ino into breaking into Shikamaru’s mind. What conclusions
was he coming to? The words themselves – it will become the least of it – were threatening,
almost, some kind of warning or rebuke for feeling so bad right now when it was apparently
supposed to be meaningless— except Mitskuni had never spoken to them like that before,
had always shown compassion no matter the nameless spectres Ino and her team could see
draped around his shoulders.

The heaviest Ino had heard him, Mitskuni-sensei sighed and closed his eyes. “Your friends
are in Konoha. They’re safe now. Everything else will have to wait, because we’re
professionals, and we have a job to get done. Do you understand?” Directed at all of them,
rather than only Ino. She couldn’t tell if it was a genuine gesture, or just to spare her from
feeling targeted – but if it was, then she found herself appreciating it.

Chōji murmured an affirmative, sticking close with his head down, and Shikamaru echoed it
but his eyes remained narrow. “... That’s not fair,” Ino heard herself mutter, and if it was true
then it was also fucking pathetic. With a soft hum, Mitskuni-sensei nodded and opened his
eyes again.

“It’s not. There’s an infinite number of unfair things about being a shinobi, and they don’t
stop. They won’t. If you three want to pursue this path, you’re going to have to get used to
that.” The cold of before was gone, now, Mitskuni’s voice gentle and sorrowful. Like normal,
considerate even when he was teaching them something that sucked. There were far too many
of those things for Ino’s tastes. More than she’d thought.

But she nodded. Clenched her jaw against the writhing emotion in her chest. It was bitter.

“Is it worth it?” Surprised, Ino looked across Chōji to Shikamaru. Not the sort of question
she’d usually expect from him, though cutting, and to the point – and that at least was
familiar. Shikamaru rarely had the energy to dance around a point.

Mitskuni tilted his head. “... For me, it is. Yes. But I can’t make that determination for anyone
else. It’s something you’ll have to figure out for yourself.”

It hung over their heads as he led them over to the chūnin on gate duty, to sign them out. The
thought that she might decide, in spite of her strength and her legacy, that shinobi life wasn’t
worth it was terrifying. What would Ino’s father think of her? What would her friends think
of her? Would it be weak to throw in the towel if the cost was too high, or was it smart?

And no matter which, what if she only figured out the answer once it was too late?
The worst part, Neji had decided, of having to share his sensei with two amateurs was the
lack of interesting missions. He’d become accustomed to his place in the group now – as de
facto second-in-command – but it was still unbearably boring having to direct Shino and Ren
through D-ranks while Itachi-sensei watched on in silence. There was value in the task, as
Itachi-sensei had told him in no uncertain terms the day Neji had finally complained; Neji
was talented and confident, and practice at leading a team was an essential part of becoming
an independent shinobi. Especially because Itachi-sensei expected him to become a jōnin.
Even remembering the praise caused a fierce pride to writhe in Neji’s chest.

Itachi-sensei didn't really give praise, nor criticism. He gave judgement.

It sounded rather a bit dramatic, put like that, but that’s what training under him felt like.
There was no emotion attached to Itachi-sensei’s teaching, no cloudy hope or personal pride
in them. Itachi-sensei was responsible for their development, true, but their accomplishments
weren’t his, and neither was his power theirs. They were a team, but they were individuals as
well. And ultimately, Neji knew, every one of them was responsible for themselves. As were
all shinobi. The world would carve Neji’s heart from his chest if he wore it too openly.

But none of that made it any easier to stomach the endless manual labour, monotonous and
mundane, that came with non-prodigious genin. Although technically in that category
himself, Neji was far ahead of his teammates. More so, he felt, than simply the year of
training with Itachi-sensei he had on them. The two of them had surpassed D-ranks within
months of Neji being assigned, and the loss of missions leaving Konoha was almost
frustrating enough to make him scream.

Today, Itachi-sensei had given Neji full command. Watched him direct Shino and Ren to
different parts of the building they were painting. Silently judged his decisions. Ren had
surprising stamina for their limited experience, but Neji had set them to painting the inside of
the building all the same. Their ability to simply keep trudging along had value for the
external work, but it would help them with all the changing of colours and the several coats
every room would need as well. Shino was handling the outside painting, his swarms of
kikaichu surprisingly deft at maneuvering the wide rollers of paint at the heights their master
couldn’t reach.

The Byakugan was an ideal tool for checking in on Ren, leaving Neji to sit along the little
stone wall lining the property next to Itachi-sensei. For as little as Neji liked winter, it was
still better than this sort of work in the summer. The wan heat of midday wasn’t enough to
have Ren or Shino sweating, let alone overdoing it.

Eventually, watching his other genin with deep red eyes, Itachi-sensei broke the silence. “You
chose not to assist in this job,” he murmured, and it wasn’t a question but Neji knew well
enough that he was expected to answer.

“I don’t think they need me. And I didn’t want to.” It was somehow less boring to sit with
Itachi-sensei and do nothing than join in on the painting. “Besides, they’ll get more pay out
of it this way.” Not participating in the work meant not receiving any of the compensation,
but if he was honest, Neji didn’t need it. He was far from wealthy, but being a Hyuuga – even
a branch Hyuuga – had its perks. Until he chose to leave the Hyuuga compound, Neji’s cost
of living was rather low.

Itachi-sensei hummed. “So you made an altruistic decision, then?”

An edge in his voice. Testing, almost, if not for the faintly amused note. Neji offered a hum in
return. “Only incidentally, Itachi-sensei.” Was it? Neji honestly wasn't sure anymore. Ren and
Shino brought with them no small aggravation and intense boredom, but Neji had found
himself becoming… fond of them. Nowhere near enough so to join in on their lunch dates,
but he may have quietly stalked them at times, to keep an eye on them. Shino spent most of
his free time at the Aburame compound, although occasionally he’d climb the trail to the top
of the Hokage monument. Ren, on the other hand, could almost always be found helping with
their parents’ restaurant when they weren’t training or with Shino. Maybe it contributed to
their stamina, or maybe they did the work because of their stamina. Either way, they didn’t
get a lot of time to themself.

“Do you think that’s better than having chosen so with that goal in mind?” Itachi-sensei
asked, and though it was merely curiosity in his tone, Neji found himself looking for the barb
in the question.

Finding none, Neji glanced up at him, an indistinct tension in his chest. Was he supposed to
give a particular answer? Hmph. If he’d been asked by anyone else, Neji was sure it would be
a trap armed with moral judgement, but Itachi-sensei rarely (if ever) passed such on him. Neji
could only recall a handful of ethics lessons in the eighteen months he’d spent in Itachi-
sensei’s tutelage, and of those most had regarded wider subject matter than personal and
ultimately meaningless decisions. Fiddling absently with his hair, Neji blinked on his
Byakugan to check on Ren. “I don’t think it matters, Sensei.” They were stretching, paint
rollers lain down in the paint-trays, but Neji had every confidence that they weren’t slacking.
“It’s merely a lesser consequence.”

Once more, Itachi-sensei hummed. “That significance – or lack thereof – is a matter of

perspective, Neji. Do you understand?”

“… My perspective, or theirs?” Such cryptic questions were hardly unusual; Neji had stopped
trying to pick them apart only several months into his geninhood. Most of the time he
couldn’t even begin to parse the thought process that led Itachi-sensei to them, but they could
be reliably taken at face value. For holding such a mysterious reputation, Neji had found
Itachi-sensei to be a surprisingly straightforward person.

He chuckled softly. “That is correct. The opportunity cost for you is negligible; D-rank wages
mean little enough to you or I that choosing not to participate is both reasonable and
desirable. But for Shino and Ren, their pay for this mission is no small sum.”

Ah. Of course. Neji had forgotten (far too quickly) the freedom of having a personal income
for the first time. Whilst D-ranks paid a relatively tiny amount, some ryō was a huge increase
from no ryō.

“Is that how you feel with us, Sensei?” Neji heard himself ask. Such a shift in perspective
between Shino’s and Ren’s, still fresh enough to have no C-rank experience, to Neji’s was
dwarfed by the difference in Neji’s experience and Itachi-sensei’s. Just how small must their
worries seem next to those of a long-time jōnin?

But Itachi-sensei shook his head, taking his gaze from Shino to focus on Neji fully. “No,
Neji. My position is not the same as yours. Shino and Ren are, however little you feel it to be
so at times, your peers. I am not.”

It was intended positively, Neji was certain, and there was no admonishment evident in either
Itachi-sensei’s expression or cadence, but it still struck a chord in Neji’s chest so strange that
he found himself looking at his own feet. The weight of it was unfamiliar and suffocating, a
heavy ooze like honey in his lungs, his own heartbeat like threatening footsteps in his ears.
“Doesn’t that make our perspectives seem even more childish, Sensei?” After all, if Neji
found Ren and Shino’s to be jejune when he was only a year their senior in both age and
experience, how much more puerile and naive must they seem in comparison to Itachi-
sensei?

Letting the red dissolve in his eyes, Itachi-sensei shifted his weight so that he faced Neji
more fully, a wistful smile softening his features. “You believe ‘childish’ and ‘stupid’ to be
synonymous, Neji. I do not. Your inexperience is precious, and your teammates’ naivety is to
be protected.” Leaning in very slightly, a motion that Neji had come to learn was a demand
for his full attention, Itachi-sensei held Neji’s gaze. “There is nothing I won’t give to ensure
that you, Ren, and Shino never have to learn the same way I did.”

With that proclamation hanging in the air, Itachi-sensei got to his feet, giving Neji space to
absorb it. He gave a murmured promise of return and strode across the small yard to the
house, pausing first by Shino and then heading inside. Shino gestured towards his swarm
with one hand, watching closely as his kikaichu deposited the paint rollers and flew back into
his sleeve for the safety of his body.

Nothing…? Neji knew a little of the way the world had been during Itachi-sensei’s
adolescence, but surely there was value to the urgency of it? Pressure was a vicious
motivator, perhaps, but it was an effective one. Shino was a methodical student and refused
many of the shinobi-typical learning techniques – in no small part because many of the
lessons, the physical ones especially, posed a threat to his swarm – but Ren was as standard a
genin as it got, and they’d never picked up a new skill faster than when Neji lit the
metaphorical fire under their heels. Of course there was a difference between Neji applying
pressure in a safe training environment and the pressure of a true combat situation, but it
wasn’t that drastic.

And Neji wasn’t simply making juvenile assumptions in that regard. Granted that he had no
B-ranks under his belt yet, but he and Itachi-sensei had been in battle on his C-ranks several
times. Bandits, twice, and twice more with lone and petty criminals. Once with an angry bear.
There was a definite and distinct fear that came with those fights that no friendly spar could
replicate, but half the point was that Shino and Ren didn’t know that. They had no basis of
comparison – when Neji put pressure on them, it was the height of their experience. Until that
ceiling got raised, they were operating at their peak anxiety in those moments.

So practically speaking, what difference did it really make where that pressure came from?
“You are troubled,” Shino’s even voice broke Neji’s musings, and Neji huffed out an annoyed
sigh. He should know better than to get so caught up in his own thoughts he didn’t notice
another's approach. “Why do I mention it? Because I would like to offer assistance in
whatever matter is troubling you.”

Straightening up, Neji shook himself. “It’s nothing. Did Itachi-sensei say what we’re
breaking for?”

“Lunch,” Shino replied, his expression entirely inscrutable while he studied Neji. Which
quite succinctly explained why Ren came bouncing out of the house on Itachi-sensei’s heels,
excitement written all over their face. They’d taken to inviting the whole team to their
aforementioned family restaurant for meals, and while the (not insignificant) discount was
welcome, it was becoming more and more apparent that Ren was using them as guinea pigs
for new dishes that hadn’t made the menu just yet. For all their shockingly considerable
knowledge regarding flavour profiles, they’d contributed some dish concepts that were
downright inhuman.

Though, some of them had proven quite pleasant regardless, so… “… They look like they’ve
had another idea,” Neji commented quietly as Ren and Itachi-sensei made their way back.

Shino chuckled. Short and subtle, more a soft huff than actual laughter, but it was about as
close as he ever got. “I suppose it is our duty to accommodate this new idea as their
teammates and friends.”

Neji squinted at him. Friends? Did the relationship Neji had with them really constitute
friendship? It wasn’t something he’d ever actively pursued – there was no point in it. From
what he’d observed of his classmates throughout his Academy years, friendship seemed like
far more aggravation and drama than it was worth. And some of things he’d seen it fall apart
over— What a waste of time and energy. He was far better served spending those resources
on himself and his own skills.

Rushing ahead of Itachi-sensei, Ren reached them, eager grin in place. “Come on, let’s go!”
they insisted, giving a little tug on Shino’s sleeve while bodily grabbing Neji’s wrist and
yanking him away from the wall. Neji almost stumbled; they’d taken to heart the idea of
being the team’s defensive powerhouse, and already the heavy strength-training was paying
off. “If we hurry, we can beat the lunch rush!”

Shino simply hummed his agreement and fell into step as Ren began to bounce off again, and
Neji found himself following suit despite the scowl he wore, or that Ren had fucking grabbed
him. By rights he should be justly pissed off about it, really, that Ren was always so
boisterous now that the initial shyness had worn off, and especially that they were so
accursedly tactile, and yet there was a begrudging placidity winding under his skin that
bordered far too close on contentment.

“One of these days,” he muttered as Itachi-sensei drew level with him, holding the short
distance between the two halves of their team, letting Ren lead.

Just a single note, Itachi-sensei laughed.

“What?!”

Offering a placating smile, Itachi-sensei shook his head. “It will mean more if you figure this
out without my input, Neji.” Amused, but warm all the same.

Cryptic bastard. Not that Neji would even dream of saying such a thing to Itachi-sensei
aloud. Still, there was an annoying sense of teasing in the way Itachi-sensei hastened their
pace slightly, bringing them up just a step behind Ren and Shino.

“Oh, right— No one’s allergic to bees, right?” Ren threw over their shoulder, skipping a step
and almost tripping as they stopped watching where they were going. Bees. What in the
world were they trying to feed everyone that a bee allergy would be relevant?

No small part of Neji wanted to say yes, just to get him out of whatever weird meal was
apparently coming their way. Ren hardly constituted someone close enough to warrant
allowing them to mess up Neji’s digestive tract at their whim.

He sighed. “No.”

“Awesome!”

Itachi-sensei chuckled again.

Of course, the questioning came. Later than Mitskuni expected, if he was honest, but he kept
a pace that was almost a little too punishing for a group of genin. Having fully discouraged
conversation while they travelled was worth whatever resentment might lace his genins’
gazes.

Shikamaru came close while he and Mitskuni set up a large tent – pulled from a medium
storage scroll in Mitskuni’s pack – and at least he was exercising some degree of discretion.
With Chōji busy getting a fire lit and Ino hunting for dinner nearby, it was a question that
wouldn’t be easily overheard.

“So, Sensei,” Shikamaru began, sounding almost casual as he pushed a peg into the ground.
Dreading whatever soul-searching question he’d settled on this time, Mitskuni hummed an
acknowledgement. Good gods, but the kid had a talent for pinning down and asking the most
cutting questions possible. Mitskuni wasn’t sure if it was better or worse that he typically
asked them in his almost-bored drawl. “Who did you leave behind?”

And there it was. Not an unreasonable assumption to make, really, considering the state of
mind they’d departed Konoha in, but still… painful. Lying to the kid was a prospect that
Mitskuni didn’t quite feel like indulging, especially when he’d promised them honesty.
Shikamaru chose to ask personal questions less frequently than his peers, but the questions he
did ask were always so calculated that it was hard to scold him for his silence. Shikamaru
was going to be a tactician and team leader far beyond his ken – if, indeed, he wasn’t already.

But none of that made the answer easier to give. It caught in Mitskuni’s throat like thorns, a
pain split evenly between phantasmal and real. “We leave a lot of people behind, Shikamaru,”
he pushed out instead, trying to focus on the task at hand. The years had been long enough
that the recollection no longer brought him to his knees, but Mitskuni would still rather not
indulge his grief when they were outside of Konoha’s safety. “And our loved ones leave us
behind. It just means we have an obligation to do everything in our power to ensure we get
back.”

Sometimes – when Ino didn't push him to snoop further – Shikamaru would leave such
responses be. Not a lie, and not exactly cryptic, but hedging all the same. There were things
that Mitskuni didn’t think he should share; no matter his own personal feelings, they were
kids. Moreover, they were kids in Mitskuni’s direct care. What kind of blunder would it be to
lay his own traumas upon them?

Not this time, though. Frowning, Shikamaru straightened up and folded his arms. “Perhaps.
But this was something specific, Sensei. Right?”

Of all the things for him to get stubborn about. Sighing, Mitskuni ran his hands through his
hair. Only realised he was chewing on his lip ring when he felt the tug. “... As your
generation matures, Shikamaru, you’re going to learn the hard truth that there is no such
thing as an untraumatised shinobi.” As if this was the time or place to have this conversation.
Literally as they were starting their first out-of-village mission. Avoiding the risk of dumping
his own issues onto his genin might not be worth it if the alternative was ominous promises.

“So that’s yours, specifically, then?”

Oh— Goddamn it. Just once, Mitskuni wished Shikamaru would use that absurd insight to
figure out Mitskuni’s favourite sweet or something instead of picking apart his damage. The
sigh he let out this time was resigned, one hand carding through his hair, before he gestured
for Shikamaru to get back to work on the tent. “That’s… a fair analysis.” And Shikamaru just
glanced at him, tugging back another corner of the tent and pegging it in place. “... Some
things about myself I’m not going to share with you, Shikamaru. Any of you. Not because I
don’t trust you,” Mitskuni tagged on quickly, seeing the glance up and glint in Shikamaru’s
gaze, “but because I am your teacher and your guardian. Not your peer.”

Mitskuni remembered hating that, when he was a genin. Another thing to add to the mental
list of reasons he had to apologise to Ryō-sensei. That he’d been right there with his own
teammates, upset that Ryō-sensei had refused to engage with them as peers.

“... Chōji would say you’re our friend.” But spoken low. Uncertain. Shikamaru was probing –
didn’t quite understand the exact nuance of Mitskuni’s rejection, perhaps, or maybe he just
wanted a deeper explanation.

Glancing up, Mitskuni offered him a small smile. It was more forced than he would have
liked. “And what would you say?”

Shikamaru scowled. “Being our sensei doesn’t preclude you from being our friend.” Which
didn’t actually answer the intended question, Mitskuni noted, but he let it slide. This wasn’t
an official lesson, after all, and jumping on Shikamaru’s back about the semantics was a
surefire way to upset him, especially when he was clearly already unsettled by the
conversation. A day of trekking in near-silence after how the morning had gone was, perhaps,
finally coming to bite Mitskuni in the ass.

“That’s true.” Just to keep his hands busy, Mitskuni got started on the rainshield that draped
over the tent proper. “But friend is not necessarily the same as peer. I have a responsibility to
you three that you do not have to me; sometimes that means that no matter what affection we
may have for one another, I can’t share that kind of burden with you like you should share
with me and each other.”

Chōji had crept up behind Shikamaru as Mitskuni talked, the beginnings of a healthy fire
crackling behind him. His expression was shrouded, but the frown was a familiar one. Upset,
not on his own behalf (as he so very rarely was), but on another’s. On Mitskuni’s behalf, in
this case, he was willing to bet. “But Sensei—”

“You have far more pressing concerns than the details of my past, Chōji,” Mitskuni cut in.
Getting off this subject now was for the best, before Chōji could get too invested in it. The
kid was a truly empathetic and kind creature, and it would serve him well if he could learn to
harness it for the right people and not waste it on his enemies – but until he learned how to
prioritise, Chōji’s heart made him vulnerable. And right now, a Chōji who was worrying
about events long passed was a Chōji who wasn’t paying attention to the present.
“Shikamaru, go and find Ino. If she hasn’t caught anything yet, we’ll go without meat
tonight.”

Sure, they could have brought some with them, of course. One day out of Konoha wasn’t
enough to have rendered perishable rations inedible – but Mitskuni had chosen to forgo such
perishables. Now was an ideal time to work on their survival skills. They didn’t need them
right now, but they would one day, and being able to fend for themselves in the wild was a
critical skill to have.

The darkening evening felt a little bit chiller as Mitskuni considered it. Not skills they would
need to rely on without him, on a mission like this – but shinobi on shinobi combat skills
were something that barely fledged genin weren’t supposed to need either. Fuck. As
unwilling as Mitskuni was to discuss it, and as harsh as he’d been with Ino that morning,
Team Seven’s disastrous mission was a source of no small anxiety. It was a fluke, almost
certainly, and there hadn’t been such an incident in decades, but Mitskuni knew he wasn’t the
only jōnin who’d tightened the reigns on their genin in response. They shouldn’t need to
know how to survive without Mitskuni out here, but that didn’t mean that they wouldn’t.

Shikamaru’s acquiescence was huffed, and he briefly squeezed Choji’s elbow before heading
off after Ino. “Chōji,” Mitskuni added, stepping back from the finally pitched tent. Anxiety
sprouted on Chōji’s face, and Mitskuni resisted the urge to sigh. There was a long way to go
before Chōji would stop jumping to negative conclusions the moment he was directly called
upon. Having asked his Academy sensei about it, Mitskuni knew that it was a long-standing
anxiety that Chōji carried, and it hadn’t been helped by his formative years. Kids could be
cruel, after all, and from everything Mitskuni had spoken about with Chōza, the Akimichi
clan children had long needed to prove themselves twice as much next to their peers. “I want
you to start boiling some water. While you do that, come up with a watch schedule.”
Giving Chōji team responsibilities was an exercise of careful balancing. Too much would
overwhelm him or panic him, and neither state was conducive to good decision-making or
learning, but too little and the efforts would be wasted. Chōji would never live out his shinobi
tenure without ever being given mission lead, or having such a position fall to him by default
in the field, and it was imperative for Konoha as a whole as well as for Chōji personally that
he learn how to navigate it.

Chōji was neither as tactically clever as Shikamaru nor as brave as Ino, but his place in the
team was nonetheless crucial. Convincing him of that was proving more difficult than
Mitskuni had hoped, but at the very least Chōji seemed to be the only team member who
didn’t know that already.

“Y-yes, Sensei,” Chōji stammered out all the same, paling slightly, before scurrying away to
get on with the water. Mitskuni strode over to the growing campfire and dropped to the
ground beside it with a soft sigh. Giving Chōji command of the watch schedule was a very
real delegation of power, and he didn’t anticipate they’d run into anything particularly
dangerous, but to discount the possibility was how Mitskuni got them killed. It was tempting
to create a shadow clone to keep watch through his kids’ shifts, but there was more than one
reason it was a bad idea. Quite aside from Mitskuni’s inexperience with the technique – he
could do it, just like every other jōnin, but he practically never used it – there was the relay
problem. If he left a clone up all night, then he’d inherit its weariness when it dispersed.

It was probably a small enough risk, all things considered, but… it still wasn’t appealing.
Besides, what if the genin caught it? Would it be reassuring for them, that Mitskuni was
making certain of their safety, or would it be disheartening? Mitskuni trusted them to do their
best, and for any average threat, be it animal or human, he had full confidence that their best
would be enough.

Another shinobi, though, as miniscule as that risk was… Well. It hadn’t mattered to Team
Seven.

Fuck. And that was it, really, wasn’t it? Mitskuni wasn’t the only jōnin who’d gotten paranoid
about it as a result. Almost all of them had. Gai seemed to be the only one immune to the
effect, and even that Mitskuni wasn’t certain of. He was a difficult man to read accurately.
But Itachi had scoped out the sites for Team Six’s upcoming D-ranks, Ryō had teamed up
with Taiyo and set up a series of big group training exercises, and Kazuko had outright pulled
her team off the C-rank they’d been scheduled to take. Maybe she’d been right to do so.

But the reality was that this kind of thing would happen. It wasn’t an easy lesson, but it was
necessary. Perhaps Mitskuni should have waited. Perhaps they were still too young.

It was too late now.

Coming back, a pot of stream water held carefully in his hands, Chōji glanced up,
consternation on his face. “Sensei?”

“Yes?” There were good parts to being a shinobi as well. Mitskuni could probably do with a
few lessons that focused on that. A miserable sensei made miserable genin.
“I… thought it would be best to, um, put you on watch first.” He kept his head down as Chōji
set the pot down in the small hollow he’d built into the centre of the fire and then turned to
rummage in his pack for a small set of summoning scrolls. “You’re the most experienced,
so… I thought you’d be the least tired after travelling all day.”

A smile crept onto Mitskuni’s face. “Good thinking. You’re right, I’m the best candidate to
go first.” Not to mention that it gave him more time to consider the merits of shadow cloning
into the other three shifts too. “And the rest?”

Chōji’s summoning scrolls turned out to carry an assortment of seasonings. And— hmm, a
skein of something liquid, too. “Me and Ino in the middle.” He still sounded uncertain, but
the praise combined with the distraction of the cooking supplies eased the overt anxiety
somewhat. “Shikamaru last, because that way he should have enough light to use his jutsu if
he needs to.”

“Very good.” Truthful, and Mitskuni made no efforts to hide the approval in his voice. There
were some benefits to having Ino-Shika-Chō as his genin, after all, despite the daunting
immensity of training such a historic formation. They’d grown up like siblings, and their
clans had been close for generations. Mitskuni’s kids knew each other’s techniques almost as
well as they knew their own – and better than Mitskuni did, even having gone to their fathers
for a crash course on their mechanics. “Do you always carry around a small kitchen with
you?” Mitskuni made sure to insert a teasing chuckle into his voice as he asked, so that Chōji
would know it wasn’t a tacit criticism.

Though he didn’t look up or stop what he was doing, Chōji’s face and ears flamed red. “Uhm
— I-it was a gift from Mum. To, uh, celebrate our first C-rank.”

Leaning over, Mitskuni let himself sprawl around the campfire to get a better look at Chōji's
kit. “It’s a good idea. This team’s low reliance on material weapons makes the opportunity
cost of carrying all this negligible.” There was only so much that a team could carry after all,
and seasoning was very low on the list of priorities. Field rations were far from the most (or
even slightly) appetising of meals, but they were palatable.

But there was little substitute for the morale boost of the kind of meal Chōji planned to make.
If he wasn’t careful, Mitskuni was going to get spoiled.

“Do you know what kinds of things are foragable out here, Sensei?” After a moment of
blinking, Mitskuni found himself smiling again.

“The basics, yes. Enough to get by if I needed to.” It was something that was worth knowing,
and passing his jōnin exam had been notably harder than just being good at fighting. He was
expected to have a basic knowledge of almost everything short of celebrity trivia.

Chōji tilted his head, biting his lip. “Do you… Would it be alright if we foraged some
vegetables or something to go with this?” Ah, of course. Not much of a stew with just
whatever game Ino and Shikamaru came back with, Mitskuni supposed.

“Good idea. I’ll go,” Mitskuni decided, getting to his feet and brushing the dirt off his
clothes. “Someone needs to stay and keep an eye on the camp.” A gesture made it clear that
Mitskuni meant Chōji specifically for that job. “If anything happens, shout.” And Mitskuni
paused here, meeting Chōji’s gaze directly, making sure that it was received as an order. It
wasn’t a turn of phrase in this case; if there was trouble, Chōji might need to shout. Not that
Mitskuni intended to go very far, but still. Letting his kids split up even as much as they
already were was a deliberate pushback against the lingering paranoia.

They’ll be fine. The chances they’d be attacked at all was small, let alone by something or
someone that constituted a threat worth being frightened of.

Chōji nodded. “Yes, Mitskuni-sensei.”

“Good. I won't be long.”

Praying for the quiet to continue into the night, and silently scolding himself for being so
nervous despite the fact hundreds of C-ranks had gone without a hitch this year prior to Team
Seven’s, Mitskuni headed off after Ino and Shikamaru.

Shikamaru was pretty sure that they could have made the trip to Yonoka village in half the
time if Mitskuni-sensei had pushed them, but he was glad that Mitskuni had refrained. As
annoying as it was to be camping out, the drawn-out travel had given Ino and Chōji the
chance to properly deal with the shitshow of their departure. Well— Shikamaru, too, if he
was honest with himself. It sat wrong, leaving Konoha before even being able to verify the
wellbeing of their former classmates. Logically, Mitskuni-sensei was right of course – and
being home meant safety for them, but still… Shikamaru was pretty sure it would be a good,
long while before he got accustomed to the feeling.

Yonoka was quiet when they arrived, four days after setting out. It sprawled unevenly near
the Land of Rivers border, a small huddle of houses that surrounded a general goods store, a
series of shrines, what seemed to be a dining establishment, and – surprisingly – a small but
elegant-looking bathhouse. The outer houses were built into the townwards edge of
farmlands, and totalled what Shikamaru could count as at least six separate farming entities.

It felt wrong, somehow, to simply walk into the central square without being stopped by
anyone, let alone some kind of protective force, but the village had no walls and no gate.
There were people, of course, but they were all busy about themselves; a few adults spared
them curious stares as they passed, but none deviated from their own tasks, of which
Shikamaru could deduce some (a clear farmhand, who surely must be chakra-capable to be
carrying four such large bags of grain unassisted), but others were a mystery he wished he
could chase down (a kid who looked about his own age, wearing some kind of knee-high
boots and with inkspots on his hands and face, carrying what looked to be a very small
sheep).

It wasn’t until they got near the shrines that anyone took notice of them: a rather pudgy
woman came scurrying over, ash on her fingers and a pleasantly floral scent on the air around
her. “Oh, hello there, dears,” she greeted them, looking them over. It took a few moments too
long, but she correctly identified Mitskuni-sensei as the team leader and offered him a half-
bow. Mitskuni returned it, but he kept his gaze up. “I’d best wager you four to be shinobi,
judging by those plates adorning you.”
Shikamaru blinked. The accent was definitely Fire Country, but it had a faint twinge that
Shikamaru wasn't accustomed to – and beyond that, it was… unsettling, almost, not to be
unmistakably marked as Konoha-nin.

“You’d make a tidy profit off us if I indulged you,” Mitskuni replied with a laugh, and
Shikamaru suddenly found himself re-evaluating. Mitskuni wasn’t an anxious person most of
the time, or if he was then he did a stellar job of hiding it, but there was a stiffness to him
most of the time. Trying to prove himself, Ino and Shikamaru had agreed upon. From what
Ino had dug up, he was a rather fresh jōnin to be a sensei. That gave Shikamaru a level of
faith in him, if he was honest, because it meant that Tsunade-sama had trusted him to do the
job despite his relative inexperience, but it did explain those harder edges in Mitskuni’s
behaviour.

Except now it was gone. Relaxed and smiling, finally, after a tense trip. He looked like such a
strange place as Yonoka was familiar. Was it? He wasn’t originally from Konoha, by his own
admission. Had he been born in a place like this, perhaps?

The woman cackled and waved a hand. “Right you are. Ol' Goro-san finally went and bought
you, I reckon.” When Mitskuni tilted his head and hummed, she laughed again. It was a
sharp, grating sound, at odds with her soft appearance. Careless, she slapped Mitskuni’s
shoulder. “Well, I guess you should tell me why you're here, then.”

Chōji had crept close behind Shikamaru and Ino, and out of habit Shikamaru stepped in a
little closer to her to shield Chōji from view. Unthinking, they both offered back their inner
hands, and Chōji linked his fingers with theirs. Steadied, slightly, at the touch. With half a
glance and a shoulder-to-shoulder nudge, Ino expressed her astonishment at the interaction.
Friendly or not, a perfect stranger had just hit a jōnin, and while Shikamaru believed that
Mitskuni would never deliberately hurt a civilian without compelling reason, it was still
beyond strange to see such disregard for his position. Hells, it was actually more unsettling
for how friendly a gesture it seemed.

But Mitskuni just laughed back. “We’ve been called in to unhaunt a barn.” Ah. Right, the
actual mission. Honestly, they’d all but forgotten it amidst everything else. Chōji tensed up
again at the reminder, a shudder of fear passing through him. Ghosts were a tentative subject
with him at the best of times, and it was some kind of cosmic irony that this was their first C-
rank.

The woman, grinning, shook her head. “Ah yeah, that’s Goro-san, alright. He’s been
threatening to call in shinobi help for years. Hope you charged him a fresh mint for the
trouble.” Winked at them, and Mitskuni-sensei chuckled as if she was acting perfectly
normal.

They were strangers, for gods’ sake!

“You’ll be wanting to head out towards the hay paddocks, then,” the woman continued,
gesturing off to the right and towards the village outskirts. “Farmhouse with the colourful
chickens on, can't miss it.”
Mitskuni offered her another half-bow. “Thank you, kindly. We’ll be on our way then.” He
nodded for the genin to follow him, even as he turned away from the woman and began
walking again.

“Oh!” called after them, and Shikamaru and Ino stopped mid-step automatically, before
letting Chōji nudge them forward again when Mitskuni didn’t even pause. “Name's Etsuko! I
manage the shrines!”

Mitskuni-sensei turned his head halfway, but he didn’t even fully look back as he replied.
“Mitskuni!”

It was Ino who spoke up first, as they wove their way across the village and started down a
dusty path towards the farms. “... Sensei, what the fuck?” And okay, so they’d all been
thinking it, but Chōji choked and nearly stumbled, and Shikamaru stopped dead to stabilise
him.

Turning around to face them (and now walking backwards, forcing Chōji and Shikamaru to
get moving again), Mitskuni quirked an eyebrow at them. “Try again.”

Ino shook herself. “That was… strange.” ‘Strange’ was being generous. The whole
interaction had been fucking surreal, really. Not offensively so, and there’d been no
aggression, but it was several orders of magnitude more casual than any shinobi—civilian
interaction that Shikamaru had ever witnessed in Konoha. For all that Konoha needed the
diversity of work in order to survive, there was still a sense of deference from civilians to
shinobi.

Actually… It was quite pronounced, if Shikamaru was going to properly examine it. Or
maybe it only seemed so in its sudden absence. And even weirder that Mitskuni was so
unbothered by it when he worked so hard to maintain the airs of his rank within Konoha’s
walls.

Chuckling, Mitskuni took mercy on them. “In small communities like this, there’s no room
for formality or what you’d consider ‘polite’ distance like there is in Konoha. They’re all
reliant on each other as individuals, and everyone here knows everyone else – you’d have
better luck keeping a secret by tattooing it on your forehead.” With a sweeping gesture,
Mitskuni turned back to walk the right way again. “They show their respect in other ways.
Besides which, we are the outsiders, here. We might be getting paid to be here, but we still
stay only on the good graces of the locals.”

“But—” Cut off with another wave, and Ino gritted her teeth. “You seem so comfortable with
it, Sensei. Did you come from a place like this?”

Feeling cold dread creep under his skin, Shikamaru exchanged a glance with Chōji. Ino’s
tone was biting – the question wasn’t simple curiosity, it was barbed. Perhaps she hadn’t
gotten her head around what had happened with Sakura as much as Shikamaru had thought, if
she was willing to snap at Mitskuni like this. He was a friendly instructor, for the most part,
but he wasn’t in the habit of letting them get away with any shit.
Barely a twitch went through Mitskuni’s fingers. “I did, actually. We’re at the wrong border,
and it wasn’t a farming village, but otherwise it was very similar.” Slowly, Shikamaru let out
his breath. Mitskuni sounded almost cheerful, which might have been reassuring if it wasn’t
so out of character. Whilst generally not a brooding man, Mitskuni wasn’t happy to discuss
his past either, and damn him if he wasn’t a cagey bastard when they did ask direct questions.

Chōji squeezed their hands, and Shikamaru glanced back at him a moment. Saw a mixture of
determination and anxiety glittering in his eyes, the way they always did when Chōji was
working himself up to do something that required courage of him. Exchanging a look with
Ino, Shikamaru mirrored the breath she took to silence Chōji before he spoke – he was
empathetic by nature, and far more insightful than he was given credit for, but he had a
tendency to ask questions that cut to the quick when he was with people he trusted.

Too late Shikamaru squeezed back, and then winced as Chōji spoke. “Are you alright, Sens—
Huh?” Broke away to look between Shikamaru and Ino, who must have done the same thing
to get his attention, the concern on his face morphing from compassion to nervousness.
“Uh… N-never mind, Sensei.”

Mitskuni took to walking backwards again, considering them. “It’s alright, you know. To ask
questions. I won’t get upset with you for asking questions – curiosity is a valuable trait,
especially in our field, and it’s only natural for you to want to know more about me. I was a
genin once, too, I remember how important my sensei was to me.” He said it with a smile, a
familiar quirk that was somehow wistful and amused at the same time, more slight and less
overtly happy. Looked across the three of them as he spoke, before focusing on Chōji
specifically. “Your empathy will cause you pain, sometimes, Chōji, but don’t ever let anyone
kill it. Understand?”

Feeling his jaw clench, Shikamaru looked away.

“Do you disagree, Shikamaru?”

Fuck. “… It’s not always going to be haunted barns and friendly strangers.” He wasn’t sure if
he should even elaborate, really, but Mitskuni-sensei had told them more than once that he
expected complete honesty from them, and he’d asked a direct question. Though…
Shikamaru wasn’t strictly required to answer so directly; Mitskuni had promised them
honesty in return, and he’d exercised his right to tell them he’d rather not discuss things
plenty of times. He seemed rather serious about maintaining a uniform standard between
them. “We can’t always afford to care about people.” Especially when they’d be called to do
things that might bring harm to innocent people. When they’d sometimes be called on to kill.

Slowing to a standstill, Mitskuni hummed as he considered that. Surely it was something he’d
considered before – the man was a jōnin for gods’ sake. “You wouldn’t be alone in feeling
that way, Shikamaru. Plenty of shinobi do, and for some of us it’s the best method of
protecting ourselves we have. But it’s not the only one.” Stepping in between Shikamaru and
Ino, Mitskuni put a hand on Chōji’s shoulder. Chōji didn’t flinch. When had that happened?
Chōji hated being touched by most people, Shikamaru and Ino a clear exception, along with
his own family. “There are going to be times when you have to hurt people you empathise
with, Chōji.” Mitskuni’s voice had gone all soft, the way it did when he wanted them to
remember what he was saying. When he was teaching them something that he thought they
needed rather than something he wanted to teach. “It’s not easy. It’s not fun. But that empathy
you have, that’s not weakness. Sometimes you’ll have to choose to put it down, no matter
how painful that might be, and knowing when to do that is strength.” Even though it wasn’t
aimed at them, Shikamaru couldn’t help but feel that there might be a tacit scolding in that
for him and Ino. “And sometimes it will be the thing that lets you help. It’s my duty to help
you learn how to tell the difference.”

For a long minute, Mitskuni and Chōji just stared at each other. Was he speaking from
experience? Given the context, it certainly seemed like it. Suddenly, Shikamaru was struck
with a sense of distance, a yawning chasm between him and Chōji that he’d never noticed
before. Conceptually, he understood Chōji’s position and the way he viewed the world, but
Shikamaru didn’t necessarily share all those views. In this specific regard, he was more like
Ino; she was a cynical, critical creature, despite the kindness and love she had for those
people she’d decided mattered. And Shikamaru had never been able to bring himself to care
about strangers. It all seemed like stress he could do without. He was beholden to the people
he loved, and to a slightly lesser degree he was beholden to all of Konoha, and that was more
than enough responsibility.

But Mitskuni-sensei… understood, apparently, in a way that Shikamaru knew he never

would.

“I understand, Sensei,” Chōji finally murmured, dropping his gaze, and Shikamaru couldn’t
bring himself to read whatever expression he wore so he looked at Ino instead. She was
frowning, troubled, a mirror of Shikamaru’s thoughts evident in the crease of her brow and
flare of her nostrils, and she met his gaze. Avoiding theirs.

Nodding, Mitskuni ruffled Chōji’s hair and then stepped away, taking up point position as
they started moving again. “To answer your question, I’m alright, Chōji. It’s… not often I end
up in little places like this. I like them.”

This time, Chōji glanced between Ino and Shikamaru before speaking, but Shikamaru just
offered a half-shrug and Ino continued to frown. Lacking any response in the negative, Chōji
bit his lip and spoke up again. “Because… it reminds you of home?”

Mitskuni hummed. “Not really. Konoha is my home. But it reminds me of the good memories
of my parents, and my brother, rather than the bad ones.” There was that edge of sadness
now, the one that always came through when Mitskuni actually talked about his childhood,
but Shikamaru could still hear the smile in his voice. “And before you ask – I appreciate the
concern, but I’m not going to talk about my brother.”

“Okay, Sensei.”

How fucking surreal it was for Chōji to be carrying the conversation, while Shikamaru and
Ino held their uncomfortable silence. But hold it they did, even as new questions occurred to
Shikamaru and he filed them away. He’d already known that Mitskuni hadn’t been born in
Konoha, but a tiny nowhere place like Yonoko village? How had he ended up being whisked
away to Konoha by a retired jōnin?

Okay, Iseya Yonosuke hadn’t been retired during the Third Shinobi War, but still.
That Mitskuni was chakra-capable wasn’t necessarily surprising, even if he’d come from a
small locale, but that wasn’t the whole of it. He wasn’t just chakra-capable, he used inherited
techniques. The Okita family had passed down his laser ninjutsu for an undisclosed number
of generations, or so Mitskuni claimed. What tiny border village had their own shinobi?

“Shikamaru, you’re going to hurt yourself if you keep thinking that hard,” broke in Mitskuni-
sensei’s voice, teasing, and Shikamaru jolted out of his own head. Goddamn it, the man
hadn’t even turned around. How in the hell did he know? Maybe Shikamaru was just
predictable. That was… annoying, actually. “Come on, speak up. I’m not going to be angry
about a question. The worst I’ll do is refuse to answer.”

Well, if he was going to insist, so be it. “You said you were born in a village like this one, but
I don’t think there are any border villages that have their own shinobi. Did your family defect
or something?” How else did a place like Yonoka end up with a personal shinobi family? And
if so – where had they defected from? Surely not Konoha, or else it must have been a long
time ago.

But it was still an insensitive question. The Great Villages didn’t take kindly to defections;
the only ones that Shikamaru knew about in recent history were the Inuzukas – along with the
splinter Uchiha, Hyuuga, and Ibara groups – but that was… unique in circumstance.
Shikamaru hadn’t quite meant to put it that way, but sometimes he was so busy thinking that
he forgot to control what he was saying.

Relief flushed up under his skin as Mitskuni-sensei laughed, and Shikamaru felt his teeth grit
again. What a loathsome emotion. Relief was always preceded by fear or guilt, and neither
was particularly welcome.

“We weren’t shinobi,” he said easily. “We just had a family ninjutsu. Not everyone who uses
their chakra is a shinobi – that’s a career choice, not an innate classification of chakra-users.”
And that just raised a whole host of other questions, because not -shinobi with such a
specialised ancestral ninjutsu might be even weirder, and no matter that Shikamaru felt a bit
stupid for automatically categorising any chakra-user as a shinobi.

But he never got any of them out, because Mitskuni let out a wordless exclamation and
gestured at— It was supposed to be a gate. Probably. “We’re here.” Stuck in the ground by
the biggest fencepost was a small metal sculpture depicting a chicken and two even smaller
chicks under her wings.

Though, granted, Shikamaru had never seen a chicken with neon green feathers. Somewhere
in the distance, far enough away that Shikamaru couldn’t pick out any details, was a larger
building that must be the farmhouse. Shikamaru could only assume they were in for more
improbably-neon chickens.

Mitskuni fell back slightly as they hopped the gate and headed off towards the farmhouse, so
that he was walking closer in line with them rather than directly ahead. “Just shelve this for
now, alright?” With a sideways smile. “We can pick this conversation up later.”

Hmm. It would have to do, Shikamaru supposed. Not that he really had much choice about it.
Given the subject matter, Mitskuni would be in total control of the conversation even if he
 weren’t their sensei or ranking team member. But Shikamaru nodded his acquiescence
anyway, and tried to shuffle those questions away.

Onwards to the rainbow chickens, he supposed.

Chapter End Notes

Items of Note HAH I Bet You Expected Stuff And/Or Things

|| Canon is a sandbox, and I have turned the sand to glass.
|| Do I have any idea what this means? No, but it was in my notes for this section, so
here it is.
|| Lateness is because I got my own due date wrong, sorry about that!!
|| So anyway, I said this was just gonna be filler but then some plot snuck in there
somehow, so we'll revisit the haunted barn.
|| Also the neon chickens, which aren't important to the plot, but they're important to me.
|| Just to be fully clear: that farmhand is decidedly not chakra-capable, farmhands just
Be Like That.
|| And I had nothing else here, so we're back to Team Seven's shenanigans next chapter.
It's already started to be written, and I'm greatly looking forward to it.

Next Chapter Due: 13th August 2021

 In Which Hatake Kakashi Sends a Message
Chapter Summary

And that message is "Fuck you."

Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

The last few days at home had been… tense. Shiba seemed to be entirely unaffected by the
animosity in the air or the dark looks she got from every member of the Hyuuga main family,
and as comforting as her presence was, Hinata was dreading the day she finally went home
and left Hinata alone with them. No infraction ever went unpunished, and needing an outsider
to help her in every aspect of her life while within the Hyuuga estate was… demeaning, she
was sure. Hiashi had shown nothing but scorn for Shiba. It was incredible how easily Shiba
had yawned it all off, flashing both fangs and calm disregard, and part of Hinata was in awe
of her – but all the same, the controlled anger in her father’s eyes was frightening. There
would be no escaping it once she lost the protection of her jōnin-sensei’s presence, even if it
was only by proxy.

But it was worse this time. Gods only knew why he’d sought her out in her room now,
because he forgot about it when he saw the state of it. Half her things stripped from their
usual places, and an open bag half-packed on the floor. Shiba was using a henge to help her
pack, given herself a human shape with hands to ensure Hinata didn’t put any undue strain on
her hip or shoulder, and for a moment Hiashi was stunned by the presence of an unfamiliar
adult shinobi in his daughter’s bedroom.

An instant later, Shiba had bared her teeth, and recognition sparked in Hiashi’s face. “And
just what,” he asked coldly, “do you think you’re doing?”

The right words to explain herself froze and died in Hinata’s throat, but Shiba set down the
small, decorative blade she’d been holding and stood her full height. The human form she’d
chosen was dark-skinned and slender, a recognisable facsimile of her true body, and almost
inhumanly tall. It was immediately obvious that Hiashi didn’t like having to look up to meet
her gaze. “We are packing,” Shiba told him. “Under Kakashi’s order.”

Hiashi gritted his teeth, looked past Shiba to Hinata. As if Shiba might have the grace to
disappear if he ignored her hard enough. “And just where are you going in your state that
requires such thorough packing?”

Despite herself, Hinata flinched. “I-it’s for a team-building exercise of some kind.” She tried
to speak clearly, to eliminate the anxious stammer in the back of her throat and the quieting
fear that usually made her whisper. It wasn’t worth the trouble it would cause afterwards,
being too demure, but it was a fine line that she’d never perfectly figured out how to tread
between that and disrespecting her father. How on earth did Hanabi get away with it?

“That’s hardly an explanation.” Hiashi scowled at her, and if he shifted his weight just
enough to glare around Shiba then he sure didn’t acknowledge having to do so. Maybe it was
better that way, honestly. After the last time Shiba had snarled at him, it was probably better
all around to avoid overt confrontation. As much as Hiashi detested having Shiba inside his
house, the potential political fallout if she got into a physical fight with any Hyuuga – let
alone the clan Head – outweighed the immediate grievance.

Which made the barely-concealed rage when Shiba stepped in between him and Hinata all
the more terrifying. “Details are not for you,” she told him, low, as if she was in a position to
give him orders. Was she? The whole situation was murky at best – as her father, Hiashi had
the legal right to know where she was and what she was doing, so long as that information
wasn’t classified by Konoha, but Kakashi was her jōnin-sensei, and he had the right to take
her out on whatever training he felt she needed, without notice. Kakashi didn’t need Hiashi's
permission to take Hinata out of Konoha.

And Shiba wasn’t Kakashi, but she was here on Kakashi’s order, and she was invoking his
authority on the matter at hand.

“Hinata?” Imperious, even though he’d finally looked back to Shiba instead. If pulling on her
hip that way didn’t hurt so much, Hinata would have curled up on her bed.

She couldn't bring herself to raise her head. “I’m not s-sure, Father. Kakashi-sensei wouldn’t
— uhm— wouldn’t tell us anything except… what to pack.” Oh gods. If the gods were
benevolent, then Hiashi wouldn’t ask after the specifics of that instruction. Even without
explanation, there was something daunting about what Kakashi-sensei had told them. What
possible trip could they be making that made it necessary for Hinata to pack sentimental
items? That allowed for Sasuke not to do so?

What, exactly, was about to happen, Hinata didn’t have the foggiest idea – but there was so
much about this sudden escapade that didn’t make sense.

Yet. Didn’t make sense yet. Kakashi always made them understand in the end. All she had to
do was get through tonight and then go with Shiba in the morning, and it would make sense
eventually. But that answer wouldn’t satisfy Hiashi.

The look he gave her could have withered grass. “I expect the courtesy of knowing where my
heir will be,” he said, frigid, before meeting Shiba’s gaze. His distaste at looking up made the
anger in his face all the darker. “Report that back to your master.”

When he swept out of the room, Hinata couldn’t help the shudder that went through her with
the sharp click as her door closed. Without missing a beat, Shiba strode over to her bed and
released her henge with a ripple of chakra that felt like a sugar glaze and tasted like spiced
coffee. A moment later, Shiba had settled down and tucked herself against Hinata’s side.

For a few minutes, they just cuddled. It should be humiliating, and Hinata was certain it
would be if any of her family witnessed it, that she needed such coddling – but with just
Shiba there she couldn’t find the will to be ashamed. She would later, probably. Right now,
the warmth and weight Shiba provided was too comforting to reject.

“I’m sorry,” Hinata eventually managed to whisper. Shiba’s ears, ever sensitive, twitched.

She licked Hinata’s elbow. “You do no wrong, Hinata. Not your place to apologise.” Voice
soft. Twisting around hurt too much, but Hinata dug her fingers into Shiba’s skin just a little,
and the ninken shifted her weight, lifted her head. Let Hinata press their faces together and
close her eyes. The darkness behind her eyelids was soothing with Shiba there, almost
enough to forget the endless pressure waiting beyond her embrace. “… It will be better, soon.
I promise.”

What? What did that mean, exactly? There was a sense of finality in the way Shiba said it –
not a promise to find a way to make it better, but… a declaration that one was fast
approaching.

Was it whatever trip they were about to go on? The possibilities spiralled almost instantly out
of control in Hinata’s mind. An absurd list of things that surely could never happen, each
more ludicrous than the last. There were only so many ways Hinata could escape her own
weakness, after all.

But she didn’t pursue it. If she was honest with herself, she didn’t want to know. Whatever it
was that Kakashi had planned, Hinata couldn’t do anything to change it, so it was better not
to have the details early. She didn’t think she had it in her to agonise over something
inevitable. Not tonight.

Shiba gave her another lick, her nose a cool wet spot under Hinata’s chin, and then broke
away. “I finish packing,” she told Hinata, and it was gentle but it was a command. Hinata was
almost getting used to those, the orders Shiba gave her that came with such tenderness.
Almost, but not quite. It still felt a little surreal, watching Shiba get off the bed, henge back
into her beautiful human persona, and continue packing away Hinata’s things.

But she obeyed, taking opportunities when Shiba paused or directly asked to point out what
remained of her sentimental possessions.

There were depressingly few.

It was still dark when Shiba woke Hinata with a gentle nudge and a whisper of her name.
That in itself didn’t mean much, since they were just starting to come to the end of winter, but
there was a subtle difference between the just-before-dawn dark and the dead-of-night dark,
and this was the latter.

“Shiba?” Hinata mumbled her name sleepily, pushing herself up a little and rubbing at her
eyes. “What is i— B-Bisuke?”

The little spaniel was on the floor just beyond Shiba, standing on her hind legs with her front
paws on the bed. With solemn, dark eyes, Bisuke stared back for a few moments, before
tossing her head, getting to her feet, and melting into the shadows.

Hinata was already scrambling to sit up when Shiba lightly pushed a paw against her chest.
“Move slow, Hinata. It is all well.”

Despite herself, Hinata relaxed somewhat at the reassurance, but she couldn’t stop searching
for Bisuke in the corners of her room. “What’s Bisuke doing here?” Not that Hinata would
dream of rejecting her company, of course. Somehow, though, she didn’t think Bisuke was
here for a quiet chat. And— “Wait— What happened to my bags?”

Shiba nosed Hinata’s hand. “Bisuke took. We thought… better leave early than fight with
Hiashi.”

Oh. Well, she wasn’t exactly wrong. Hinata would prefer losing some sleep over the risk of
causing a truly spectacular Incident™, and if Hiashi and Shiba had to fight over Hinata’s
leave, then… well, she’d much rather they didn’t. There’d be hell to pay upon her return, of
course, but Hinata could endure it. Besides, all this was still on the word of her jōnin-sensei.
Hiashi couldn’t be too angry about it, right? Kakashi had specifically told her to obey Shiba’s
orders, and it wasn’t as if she was some mere lackey. Shiba was a Konoha chūnin in her own
right. Even without Kakashi, Shiba held rank on Hinata.

“Okay.” It was almost unbearably quiet a response, Hinata’s voice a faint catch in her own
throat as she threw off her blankets and sat up fully. The prospect of sneaking out at some
ungodly hour of the morning was several orders of magnitude terrifying, especially because if
they got caught, Hinata was sure to be severely punished for such ignoble behaviour – but
refusing Shiba was… unthinkable. After everything Shiba had done, all the time she’d given
to Hinata without complaint or even apparent displeasure, and so readily risking Hiashi’s ire,
how could Hinata say no?

And, well, with Kakashi-sensei’s standing orders, she really wasn’t in a position to, even if
she’d wanted to.

Hinata slid to the edge of her bed and reached for her crutch, only to freeze as she found it
missing. “… Shiba?” she began tentatively, trying to ignore the sudden screaming voice in
the back of her head as it decided that this had to be a trick or a test. Shiba wouldn’t do
something like that, so there had to be a reasonable explanation she just hadn’t figured out y
—

A soft puff of chakra swept the room as Shiba henged. “I carry,” she said firmly, stepping in
close and holding out her currently-human arms. There was a faint sense of awkward tension
in the movement, a hint of unfamiliarity that spoke to how this shape wasn’t natural to her,
but Shiba scooped Hinata up without trouble when she didn’t protest. “You rest,” Shiba
added, dipping her head to put their foreheads together, just for a moment. Her short, rough-
cut hair tickled Hinata’s nose.

Maybe she should have protested being picked up, or at least that Shiba was sneaking her out
while still in her sleepwear, but Hinata couldn’t bring herself to do it. Especially not when
they had far more pressing immediate concerns. For example:
“But there’s patrols.” Or— The Hyuuga clan didn’t call them anything so formal, but there
were always a few people wandering the estate, keeping an eye out on Hiashi’s behalf. He
and the clan elders were very keen on knowing exactly where all their members were at any
time. They’d only gotten more vigilant in the years since Tsunade’s rise to power, and her
denouncing the use of the Caged Bird Seal as illegal.

Shiba grinned a wolfish grin. “That’s why Bisuke.” Oh. That made sense; from what Shiba
had told her about the other ninken (and she was a right gossip when she got comfortable),
Bisuke was the pack’s chief scout and infiltrator. Not a skillset that they needed to use all too
often as a group, but one that had netted her a tokubetsu jōnin ranking.

Though, as Shiba slipped almost silently out of Hinata’s room – and tucked Hinata a little
tighter against her chest – she couldn’t see Bisuke anywhere. “Is—?”

“Shh,” Shiba quieted her, barely a whisper. “She leaves chakra trail. I smell it.”

Hinata felt the confusion wrinkle her face at that, but it would wait. Sensing chakra was a
universal skill amongst shinobi – or anyone chakra-capable, really – and there was more than
one method of parsing such input, but… smell? Nodding anyway, Hinata set down the
question and reached up to secure her arms around Shiba’s neck. She only managed one
properly, the dressings on her right shoulder inhibiting her range of movement, and even then
her ribs ached at the stretch. It was worth it for the soft rumble in Shiba’s chest.

As nerve-wracking as it was to be snuck out of the Hyuuga complex like this, there was an
unquiet thrill that ran underneath her anxiety, something wild and breathless that took a
carefully bridled joy in such delinquency. She tried to crush it; the cost of delinquency wasn’t
one she was eager to pay. There shouldn’t be any joy to be had here.

And the thought was sobering, when she followed it to its conclusion. Liking the feeling of
recalcitrance was a dangerous precedent to set for herself, and yet without the threat of
immediate retribution, Hinata found she couldn’t quite help it.

Huddling into Shiba, Hinata pushed that thought away. It would just have to wait. Right now,
she needed to worry about the trip Kakashi-sensei was about to take them on.

However they managed it, Bisuke and Shiba made it beyond the Hyuuga estate walls without
incident. Bisuke was waiting for them next to Hinata’s bags, paws tucked in like she was a
cat. She flicked one ear, a strange little twitch that didn’t quite make it all the way down to
the end, before she rose to her paws and half-lifted her tail.

A rumble went through Shiba’s chest. “Thank you, Bisuke.” Voice soft. “I think it… be good
if you help.”

Bisuke hummed briefly, and there was a faint quiver of chakra that Hinata couldn’t quite
describe, only a moment before she henged. Her chosen persona was small, almost as short as
Hinata herself standing up, with a narrow build and long ruddy hair tied in a ponytail.
Without a word, she picked up both bags and Hinata’s kunai holster and started to walk.
Chuckling, Shiba shifted her grip on Hinata, hooked one foot underneath Hinata’s crutch
where it lay, and kicked it up into one hand. “We meet Kakashi, now.” With a little smile, she
hummed as they made their way after Bisuke. Something slow and soothing, a melody that
Hinata didn’t recognise but found she quite liked. The night air was cool, but not
unpleasantly so with Shiba to offset the loss of warmth through Hinata’s light pyjamas.

Hinata wasn’t entirely sure when she drifted off, but it was the rumble of voices that roused
her again. Familiar voices, the soft vibration transferring from one speaker to her own
ribcage, and another in between words that sounded like safety. When she finally found the
will to stir, blinking open her eyes, a gentle hand went through her hair.

“It’s okay, Hinata. Go back sleep.” That was Shiba.

And… it was a tempting thought, actually, all fuzzy warmth and comfortable weight. But the
other voice was Kakashi-sensei, Hinata was pretty sure, and more urgent than the clinging
sleepiness was the sense of obligation that his presence demanded of her. So, still blinking in
the half-light, she lifted her head and looked around.

“Hello, Sensei,” she murmured as she spotted him, only a few paces away, dressed in his full
kit. It was— Actually, she wasn’t sure what time it was, but it had to be very early. Had he
slept at all?

Hypocrite, said a murmur in the back of her head, one that sounded angry and scathing and
upsettingly like Hanabi.

Kakashi sighed. “Hello, Hinata. How are you feeling?”

Her first attempt at answering came out an incoherent stammer, and broke into a yawn. All at
once the vague disorientation of being half-asleep burned off in a flash of anxiety, and Hinata
sat up a little in Shiba’s arms. Oh gods, she was still in Shiba’s arms. How long had she been
asleep? She was hardly a small child anymore; carrying her around for so long must be tiring,
even for a shinobi. Much clearer, Hinata swallowed and tried again.

“I’m alright, Sensei. Can I… ask where we are?” Looking around yielded little information:
an unfamiliar but spacious room, the walls half-lined with furniture – some assembled and
some still in boxes – and doors, most of which were closed, though Hinata couldn’t see
clearly into the wells of darkness behind the ones that were open. Several figures moved
about the place, carrying things. It looked… residential, but unlived in.

After a moment, Kakashi sighed again. It was hard to be certain, but Hinata had the
advantage of Hyuuga night vision and he almost seemed… perturbed. There was an
unfamiliar agitation in the way he stood so very still; none of the normal, human twitches a
relaxed person displayed.

“My house.”

Which was even odder, actually, given the barely-moved-in state of the—
Hinata felt her eyes go wide. “Oh,” she heard herself squeak, and didn’t ask anything more.
The question twisted around itself, of course, because the curiosity of why he was moving
house now of all times— Well, if he was moving house now, which was only a logical
conclusion given the evidence, but still—

“Easy,” Kakashi murmured, stepping in slightly closer. His shoulders tensed as he did, but
Shiba whuffled quietly and nobody made comment on it. “I’ll answer your questions, Hinata,
just… not yet.”

He was definitely uneasy about something. If Hinata hadn’t seen him stare down near-certain
death without even blinking, she’d have thought he was nervous, but what could he possibly
be nervous about?

Either way, Hinata nodded. “Yes, Sensei.”

Kakashi stepped back again, and then gestured vaguely towards one of the doors. “Get some
more rest, Hinata. That’s an order.”

Dang.

There were no protests to give, though, so Hinata mumbled her compliance and let Shiba
carry her over to the door without complaint. How exactly Shiba managed to open the door
while carrying both Hinata and her crutch was a mystery, albeit a mystery that she had no
desire to pursue. Inside the room was an unmade double bed, strewn with blankets.

Shiba set down Hinata first, and then set her crutch against the wall, and then dropped her
henge with a soft puff of chakra. “I stay,” she said, jumping onto the bed and picking up the
corner of one blanket in her teeth. Once draped over Hinata, Shiba curled up close. “Sleep
now.”

“Alright.” And it was far too easy to comply, even in a strange environment on a bed that
wasn’t her own.

The dawn woke her, this time, a surprisingly warm greyness that brought the colour leaching
back into the world. Apparently still asleep herself, Shiba didn’t stir when Hinata slowly sat
up – except then Hinata winced, hissing slightly, and she opened one eye. Flicked an ear.
Hummed.

“You’re right.” Mumbled, an edge in her voice that could almost be called grumpiness as she
sat up and stretched. “The others will get here soon. Come.”

It took a few minutes for Shiba to help Hinata get changed into appropriate day wear, but it
was still twice as fast as the first time she’d done it. Hinata was almost embarrassed, her
healing ribs and shoulder and hip hindering her range of motion enough to render the help
necessary, but somehow Shiba made it difficult to be upset.

They made their way outside, and found Kakashi standing at the end of the small path
between the porch and the road. He glanced at them as they approached, that same air of
disquiet draped around him like a shroud.
Somehow, Hinata doubted she’d get any important answers right now, even if she dared ask.
Explaining what they were really doing would go better if he told them all at once, probably,
so Hinata bit her tongue and waited with him, leaning her weight on her crutch. She was
surprised to find the silence was… fine. That it wasn’t unsettling in and of itself was almost
unsettling, though she tried to ignore that.

Maybe she shouldn’t? Kakashi seemed to be a bit unsettled as well.

“Hinata,” he said abruptly, glancing at her. “I’m going to ask you something you’re going to
find difficult to answer. You need to be honest with me, do you understand?” Quiet, but stern.
Gaze held on the road rather than her as he spoke.

Her stomach knotted. “Y-yes, Kakashi-sensei. I understand.” It wasn’t even a question, really;
there was no world in which she’d lie to him. Even if he weren’t her sensei, she had no clue
how she’d lie to a shinobi of his authority, let alone how she’d lie successfully, and that he
was her sensei only made the concept even more absurd.

Still… With a warning like that, surely the question must be terrible indeed. Kakashi had
never taken pains to spare them difficult questions before.

After a prolonged moment of further silence, Kakashi looked over at her again. Properly, this
time. “What do you think about the way your clan has raised you?”

Hinata stared back. What? What did that even mean?

“I think…” I think they’ve raised me as best I could be raised. It’s not their fault I failed. But
the words died on her tongue.

Honesty, he’d commanded her. Was that an honest answer? It had been so simple when she’d
been in the Academy. Even just before Waves. She’d been raised the same as her father had
been raised, and his father before him, and his mother before him. She hadn’t lived up to
those examples, and so her punishments came meted out carefully and as deserved.

Or… at least… that’s what she’d always been told.

It felt… different, now.

Wrong, somehow.

They’d succeeded, after all. They’d nearly died, they should have died, but they’d succeeded.

Honesty, Kakashi was demanding.

“I…”

What did she think?

“I don’t know.”
Kakashi’s one visible eye softened, and then crinkled up slightly in a smile. “Better.” Better?
Than what, exactly?

Quietly, Hinata scolded herself. The answer was obvious, given the context, even if she
didn’t fully understand it. He must know the answer she’d have given only a few weeks ago,
after all. Had he known this new answer as well? He seemed… relieved.

Hoped, perhaps, rather than known.

“I’m sorry, Sensei.” It came out squeaked. Automatic, despite the fact that Hinata wasn’t
entirely certain what she was even apologising for.

Neither was Kakashi, apparently, because he frowned through his mask and stood up a little
straighter.

“You have nothing to apologise for.”

Monday began, just as the days that had preceded it, much too early. This time, though, once
Sakura had huddled under her blankets long enough to ease her breathing and settle her
heartbeat, she remained in bed until the grey rays of dawn began to seep through her curtains.
It helped that her designated guard dog wasn’t bothering to hide, and was instead curled up
within reach on her bed. Akino whuffled sleepily when she sank one hand into his thick fur,
but he didn’t fully wake.

Sakura knew that it would be a long time until the nightmares finally started to fade, and even
longer until they ceased to keep her up at night. It was something she’d expected, really, but
no amount of preparation made the actual living with them any easier. Rubbing her eyes only
made the phantom images burn in her mind. They were starting to bleed together, Zabuza
slicing through Kakashi’s body with a sword that morphed into a Bijuu beast ball halfway
through; twelve year old Hinata on the battlefield with black chakra receivers skewering her
to the ground, bloody and empty-eyed. Even her native memories were starting to get
involved. She’d dreamt of the night Itachi showed up at her house with a shaking, terrified
Sasuke in tow, and then they’d been met with Naruto’s dying moments from the wrong
timeline, his chest and stomach burst open where Kurama had been torn out of him, the rattle
of his final breath rising on the wisps of his fading chakra. Her recollection of how it had felt
to defy temporal law was spotty and transient, but she was sure that it was the source of the
nameless and agonising pressure she’d felt somewhere in her nightmares.

So breathing became easier with Akino cuddled against her side, with his warmth and slow
inhales to follow. The stillness of her house offered too much time to think, but Sakura was
tired of fighting her own thoughts, so she let them go. They slid through one another,
invisible streaks along the inside of her skull, until she managed to pluck one away and
silently articulate it. The field trip she had ahead of her today was… daunting. Not really the
practicalities of the trip itself – at least, not for Sakura, who was recovered enough to push on
for quite some time without dire consequence if she had to, although the rest of her team
wasn’t quite so lucky – but the mystery purpose of it. Team-building exercises, Kakashi had
said. Well, Team Seven needed them, for sure, but dragging away two still-wounded genin
when leaving Konoha had been the trigger for this whole clusterfuck in the first place seemed
unwise.

More concerning was the sheer secrecy of the whole thing. Kakashi-sensei could always be a
rat bastard when he was trying to get them to figure out something on their own, even in his
original iteration, but this was distinctly different. The cloud of anxiety shrouding their orders
to pack their bags – and differing orders at that, singling out Sasuke to bring less than Sakura
or Hinata – was thick enough to suffocate them if they weren’t careful. Hopefully Kakashi
wouldn’t feel the need to tarry too long in explaining once they met up.

Sakura had packed as ordered the night before, so she let herself ponder the possibilities.
Each was more unlikely than the last, of course, but it was harmless speculation. She couldn’t
remember the last time she’d indulged in harmless, meaningless ponderance. It was relaxing
to put the tactical part of her mind to work with no stakes whatsoever, and by the time Akino
awoke and rose to stretch, Sakura had come up with half a dozen completely ludicrous
potentials to amuse herself with. By far her favourite – and perhaps the most realistic – idea
was a team vacation to a hot springs. It didn’t make any logistical sense, of course, given that
Konoha had its own rather exquisite bathhouse and Sasuke wouldn’t need to pack less than
the girls for such a trip, but the hot springs fantasy was nevertheless appealing.

Eventually, nosing Sakura’s blanket gently while he got a sense of her position, Akino
mumbled a morning greeting. Cocked his head slightly, scratching an ear, and then shook
himself. “What time is it?” he asked, and Sakura twisted to look up at her clock. Akino had a
shockingly good sense of time, so he would already know that it was early morning, but he
couldn’t magic up a specific timestamp out of thin air, nor could he read the clock himself.

“Uh… nearly six. Did you sleep okay?” With Akino properly awake, Sakura carefully sat up
and stretched, ignoring the ache in her back and neck, or the almost-faded sting in her chest
from where the chakra transfusion had bruised her nexus. Well— ‘bruised’ was a bit of a
misnomer in regards to the chakra network, but biological accuracy got pretty complicated
once the chakra system came into play. There was an aspect to its existence that was more
psychological than physiological, which only made treating damage done to it all the more
difficult.

The thought flung Sakura back for a moment, alighting briefly on her first first Chūnin
Exams. Rock Lee had nearly killed himself, and Gaara had nearly finished the job, and the
miracle that Tsunade had pulled off in salvaging Lee’s nexus was more and more astounding
every time Sakura thought about it. Saving enough of what Gaara’s bloodlust and Jinchūriki
strength had ruined just to save his life was impressive enough, but Lee had made enough of
a recovery to continue being a shinobi. Frankly, that accomplishment ranked up in the realms
of incredulity right next to Chiyo exchanging her life for Gaara’s.

“Well enough, thank you.” Akino’s voice yanked her back, and Sakura rubbed absently at her
chest. “It’s still early for meeting up with the pack, but is there anything else you’d like to get
done?” He was the same as he’d been the first time around; friendly and kind-natured, but
easily the most prim of Kakashi’s ninken. Most of them spoke with the typical Konoha
accent, having been contracted to Kakashi since puppyhood, but Akino retained a genteel
edge that Sakura had assumed came from Tsuki no Mori itself. It was a comfort that Sakura
didn’t have the words to describe, that the ninken were the same people in this timeline as
they’d been in her original one, no matter all the things she’d changed.

Part of her wished she could have changed the mission that cost Akino his eyes, despite that,
but Sakura tried to drown that part out as best she could. Quite aside from the fact that it had
happened during Kakashi’s Anbu days when Sakura had been barely a toddler, the previous
Akino had made very clear his immense disdain and lack of patience for such sentiment.

“Uhm…” Trying to corral her thoughts, Sakura ran through her mental to-do list. “I don’t
think there was anything… Should I eat beforehand?” Without any information on where
they were headed or what, exactly, the team-building exercises would entail, it was
impossible to properly prepare on her own, but if anyone knew what Kakashi was planning it
would be the Hatake ninken.

Akino pawed delicately until he found the edge of Sakura’s bed and then jumped down to the
floor. “A light breakfast wouldn’t go amiss, though it may be best to eat with the pack once
we arrive. Have you a specific preference?” Taking the chance to stretch out again, Akino
moved far enough away to give Sakura plenty of space to rise herself, and then padded
towards her bags. Considering her answer, Sakura got out of bed and started to change from
her pyjamas to the new set of clothes she’d acquired yesterday. She wasn’t looking forward
to the old wardrobe currently packed up, but there was no way she could rush all six of the
alternate outfits she’d commissioned in a single day. Until later, the old clothes would have to
do.

“Not really. Sorry, Akino.” Sheepish, a little, while she balled up her pyjamas and walked
over to stuff them in a side pocket on her biggest bag. She had three, total, if she counted her
kunai holster. In her defence only one of the other two had any bulk. A small-to-medium
suitcase that held her clothes and all the important things she owned. Anything you own of
sentimental value, Kakashi had told them. It was an order that, if Sakura let herself ponder
for too long, was absolutely chilling. The list of things that Sakura had placed in that category
was longer than she’d like, and greatly varied. It included (but was not strictly limited to) the
ribbon that Ino had given her when they’d first become friends, a pair of stuffed animals that
she’d had her whole life, an antique set of jewellery – brooch, necklace, bracelet, hair pin –
she’d been given by her mother as a graduation gift and never worn, a jar of little origami
flowers that periodically grew in number thanks to her father, and her set of notebooks
containing all her encoded memories. That last one was a point of some contention in her
own head, though. Yes, they were important, and it was imperative that no one else discover
and attempt to read them, but it was even more important that Kakashi specifically never
found them, and bringing them with her was tempting fate.

At the same time, Sakura took orders that Kakashi issued seriously, and he’d been quite direct
in this one. Anything of sentimental value. So in the books had gone, along with her small
collection of pens, and Sakura could only pray that fate would – for once – have some morsel
of mercy.

Akino hummed as she went back and forth again, opening the suitcase and shoving in her
pillow and a light, embroidered blanket from the top of her bed. “Very well. We’ll eat with
the pack before you go.”
“Okay.” Confirmation, Sakura was fairly sure, that Team Seven would be leaving Konoha. It
took a very slight application of Sakura’s chakra to push the suitcase closed enough to zip up
again, and she saw Akino’s muzzle wrinkle as he sensed it, disapproving, but thankfully he
said nothing about it. With a soft huff, Sakura picked up her backpack – full of storage
scrolls, spare weapons, five rolls of boomtags, a few textbooks (notably her copy of the
shinobi handbook and one on complex chakra theory), and a small, very carefully stored and
sealed inkwell of chakra ink that had cost her a significant chunk of the funds she’d had
leftover from buying her new wardrobe. Making sure the straps settled properly on her
shoulders, Sakura then picked up her suitcase and ignored the wordless grumble Akino gave
at the feeling of her chakra in the air again.

Wordless only on account of his teeth being currently occupied by carrying her kunai holster.
He let her lead them downstairs, and remained silent when they were met with Kizashi in the
main hall, but there was a twitch of his tail and flattening of his ears that announced clearly
his dislike.

“Flower, are you alright? You’re up so early,” Kizashi fussed, setting down his mug and
hurrying over to take Sakura’s suitcase.

Letting him, Sakura leaned into the hug. “I’m fine, Dad,” she murmured back, and wished
she sounded more convincing. “Just tired.”

There was the faintest edge in Kizashi’s voice when he responded, a brief but anxious glance
at Akino. “It’s too soon for you to be going out like this, Flower. Maybe your mother’s right –
we can tell that sensei of yours he won’t be taking you out yet, if—”

Even if it weren’t for the rumble Akino gave, a muffled growl that he didn’t even try to hide,
Sakura probably would have protested. As it was, the idea of her parents getting into an
argument with Kakashi was unnerving enough that Sakura was quick to reject it. They were
already at odds with Kakashi, at least indirectly, and had been right from graduation. It came
from a position of love on their part, of course, because she was a child and they simply
didn’t understand the realities of being a shinobi. All they saw was their young daughter
coming home from training covered in sweat and minor injuries, and finding out that she’d
come home from her first real mission having brushed so close to death had only worsened
their fear and paranoia. As far as they were concerned, Kakashi was reckless and callous and
cruel, and even though they couldn’t be more wrong, it was hard to blame them for coming to
that conclusion.

Not to mention that Kakashi disliked them right back. Sakura couldn’t even begin to puzzle
out why he’d seemed so ready to throw hands with her civilian parents when they’d collected
her from the hospital, but the ‘why’ was less important than just… keeping them apart. For
her own sake, if nothing else.

So Sakura shook her head and cut Kizashi off, perhaps just a touch too fast. “No, it’s alright,
Dad. Really, I’ll be fine. Kakashi-sensei just wants to try and… fix some stuff.” A long
moment of hesitation, the silence unbearably heavy, while Sakura tried to parse exactly what
she could tell Kizashi. The details of their mission were highly classified after all, and
nepotism was something Tsunade was vehement and zealous about stamping out. That he
was her parent didn’t change the fact that Kizashi wasn’t even close to being cleared to know
such things. “… Sasuke is still angry with me,” she finally settled on, and even without much
context, they’d noticed the iciness he’d treated her with in the hospital and had asked about it.
After all, he’d been around their place for dinner almost as often as she’d been at the
Uchiha’s, if she consulted her native memory.

Kizashi stroked back Sakura’s hair gently, and leaned down to kiss her forehead. “Don’t
worry about him,” he mumbled, rubbing her back. At Sakura’s side, Akino went stiff. “You
need to worry about yourself. Alright, Flower?”

“Alright.” It felt wrong to agree to it, but Sakura knew better than to argue. For one, it was
the exact advice she’d had to give on many occasions, to remind stubborn shinobi that it was
not only okay but necessary to prioritise themselves sometimes. For another, the most she
even could do was apologise and, when Sasuke gave her the chance, try to explain herself.
Whether or not he forgave her was entirely out of her hands.

Using low, gentle sweeps of his tail, Akino located the exact position of Sakura’s leg and then
stepped up against it, a little in front of her. Set her kunai holster on the floor. “It’s time we
got going, Sakura.” Intoned sharply, the Tsuki no Mori accent clipping his words more
acutely than normal. It wasn’t particularly surprising to see that Kakashi’s distaste for
Sakura’s parents was shared by his ninken, but Sakura’s heart sank all the same. They’d
barely even met in her first lifetime, but they’d not much liked one another then, either.
Sakura had hoped – clearly foolishly – that there was a chance this time for them to get
along. Kakashi was like her second father, after all, and… frankly, the man could have done
with some more family.

“Okay,” she said again, a whisper, before leaning in for one more hug from Kizashi. After
indulging her, Kizashi put his hands on her cheeks and gave her a forced smile.

“Come back soon.” His voice stayed low this time, and there was a deep anxiety hidden by it
that shone clear in his face.

If she’d had half a chance, Sakura would have tried to come up with a reassurance that
Kizashi would believe, but Akino had already picked up her holster again and started walking
towards the door. Tellingly, he was moving even slower than he usually would in an
unfamiliar environment (outside of battle, of course, but he had half a dozen tricks with
which to navigate a battlefield without sight, they were simply chakra-exhaustive), but still
fast enough that Sakura knew she couldn’t tarry any longer.

Instead, she flashed Kizashi a smile and a nod as she snatched up her suitcase again. “Bye,
Dad.” And scurried out after Akino. She felt a little bad for taking off so fast, but Sakura
pushed it down as she caught up with her ninken bodyguard and closed the door behind them.
She could rectify it later, once she was back from the trip. Given how little information she
had – two weeks of clothes, amongst other things, for her and Hinata, but only four days for
Sasuke – Sakura hadn’t been able to give her parents a solid idea of how long she’d be away,
and it had only heightened the angry tension rolling off Mebuki in waves.

Had she been so antagonised by Kakashi the first time? Sakura was trying to remember,
combing through the memories of her childhood, but they were hazy at best; they had been
for a long time, even before she had a second one to confuse it. Her Kakashi hadn’t gotten
along with her parents either, but—

The thought brought her up short. Her Kakashi, she kept thinking of the first incarnation of
him, the version she’d known in her previous life, the Kakashi who was dead. But it wasn’t
really fair, was it, that she did that? As if this second Kakashi was somehow… not hers.
Because he was. She didn’t love him any less for his unfamiliar scars, nor the prickly
attempts to push them away when first he’d decided to pass them on their Bell Test.

Thinking about it, Sakura wasn’t entirely sure why he had, this time. It had made sense in the
moment, because she’d still been operating on the understanding of a Kakashi that no longer
applied, but revisiting it with all she knew now… it was strange. Perhaps it had been Sasuke
and Hinata that had tipped his favour, the prospect of rejecting the Hyuuga heiress and
Itachi’s little brother. Perhaps he’d been unwilling to let another jōnin try to pick apart
Sakura’s mimicry of Tsunade-shishō’s techniques. Maybe it had been a combination of those
factors.

“You’re thinking very loudly,” Akino intoned from where he was leading her, just half a step
ahead of her, nose and ears twitching constantly as he used them to navigate. Intermittently,
Sakura could feel the gentle brush of his chakra, like a dandelion spun with sugar.

Sakura made a low noise of acknowledgement. “Sorry. I’m… I’m just confused.” There was
no point in trying to offset the unspoken concern and curiosity in Akino’s voice. He was
always incredibly perceptive, and never mind his blindness. “Kakashi-sensei didn’t explain
anything about this trip.” And if she tried to emphasise the anxiety in her tone as she spoke,
well, Akino would have heard it anyway.

Without skipping a beat, Akino gently whapped his tail against her leg. “I understand. I can’t
tell you the details, but I can promise you that it’s for your own good.” A pause, as Akino
cocked his head, and then turned off their current road. “Things are going to be okay.”

As reassuring as that was supposed to be, Sakura couldn’t stop the creeping fingers of dread
down her spine. He said it as if things were not currently okay. And there were a lot of things
that were fucked up right now, there was a lot of intra-team work to do, but… there was
something about the way Akino said it that felt… more than that. Like it was for Sakura
personally, like— It was hard to pinpoint, and even harder to articulate.

He noticed, of course, and tagged her leg with his tail a few more times, but he didn’t
elaborate. Eventually, Sakura realised that they weren’t headed towards the training grounds,
nor were they heading towards the core of the shinobi housing district where Kakashi’s little
apartment was. Not that Sakura was supposed to know that, of course, but she had no reason
to think he lived anywhere different in this timeline than he had in the previous.

Oh. That felt… better. A prior timeline, rather than the first or the original timeline. This one
was no less real or authentic just because Sakura had experienced a different one before.

“Akino?” He flicked an ear at her, hummed a wordless response. “Where are we going? I
thought we were meeting up with Kakashi-sensei.”
Letting out a whuffle that was almost amused – but not quite – Akino nodded. “We are.”

But then— Sakura kept her protest to herself, because she had no plausible reason to know
that this was the wrong direction for Kakashi’s apartment. And even if she had, it was an
assumption on her part that they would meet him there, if not at the training grounds or one
of the main gates. Clearly, it was an assumption she’d made incorrectly.

Akino didn’t answer the actual question, though, so Sakura contented herself with following
his lead as they headed towards… wait, one of the residential districts? They were fairly
small, perhaps a few dozen houses apiece, but each house boasted a small garden and a
grassy yard. The vast majority of Konohan citizens were housed in the denser urban sprawl,
but the more wealthy or eccentric had the run of the village outskirts. Or— well, maybe that
was just the impression that Sakura had of the place. She’d never lived there herself, nor
spent much time there. The only people she’d actually known who did live there were Rock
Lee and Gai-sensei.

That might be it, actually. Team-building exercises were well served by an outside force,
either to give them direction as a unit or to offer a shared enemy against which to band
together. Gai and his genin not only made a force to be reckoned with, but giving them the
opportunity to lead a group of less experienced shinobi like Team Seven would be a good
inter-team exercise for them, too.

It was obvious when they reached the right row of houses. Their destination was all the way
at the other end, but Sakura could clearly make out Kakashi and Hinata out the front of it,
Shiba sitting calmly at Hinata’s side. Behind them wove three— no, four people Sakura
couldn’t immediately name, carrying boxes of various sizes in from the small collection on
the porch. As Sakura found herself picking up her pace, taking the lead from Akino towards
them, Gai-sensei appeared from within the house. Came up to Kakashi, murmured
something, got a flick of the hand and some words in response. Gai clapped him on the
shoulder, beamed, and then turned back to pick up the biggest box left.

Only when they got close did Sakura recognise one of the others; a veritable bear of a man,
Bull’s typical human henge was unmistakable. Which led to— ah, yes. Looking closer, the
others were also ninken, helping with the boxes in their human henges. Guruko, Bisuke,
Ūhei, and Bull.

The implication was… confusing. For a moment, Sakura had concluded that they were
meeting at Gai-sensei’s house, and having Team Ten involved in team building exercises was
a sound plan – but surely Gai didn’t need piles of boxes moved into his house? Certainly not
enough that he’d actually enlist help, let alone the help of the Hatake pack. Gai-sensei would
turn moving into his own house into a personal challenge. ‘If I can’t move all these boxes in
one hour, I will run four hundred laps around Konoha on my hands’ or some such. So
then…?

“Akino?”

“Yes?”
Sakura bit her lip. “Can I ask… what’s going on?” It felt a little bit dirty, asking Akino when
Kakashi was right there and might not want to answer – but it wouldn’t be the first time she’d
gotten information straight from the pack, and it wouldn’t be the last. Sometimes it was better
to let them speak on Kakashi’s behalf; sometimes there were things that needed saying that
Kakashi couldn’t bring himself to say.

This, though, turned out not to be one of those things. Giving an amused grumble, Akino
gently flicked his tail against her. “You’ll understand in a bit. Kakashi will tell you.”

Well. Nothing to be done for it, then. “Alright.” And they walked the rest of the way in
comfortable, if curious, silence.

Urushi’s company was an expected and welcome comfort as Sasuke dragged himself out of
bed, reluctantly ate some breakfast, and picked up his bag to meet up with the rest of his
team. Itachi’s was much more surprising, but no less welcome for it. He’d plucked Sasuke’s
bag from his hands with ease, slung it across his own shoulder, and fallen into stride with
Sasuke in silence. Unsure of what to say, Sasuke had simply left it, letting Urushi lead the
way half a step ahead.

Eventually, Itachi spoke. “Is there anything else you need, Sasuke?” There was a strain in his
voice that Sasuke was starting to get used to hearing; it was the same as in Mikoto’s, and
Sakura’s, and Kakashi’s. He didn’t have the right words to describe or define it, but he
loathed it – and he couldn’t quite articulate that either, why he hated it so much. Why hearing
it made him want to shout until he couldn’t anymore.

“Sensei only said to pack for four days,” he grumbled back, trying to bite down on the
impulse to scream, or spit fire. Four days for him, of course. Not for his teammates. Not for
the kunoichi.

Itachi stopped in his tracks, and a second later Sasuke did too. No choice when Itachi reached
out and gripped Sasuke’s shoulder. When he half-turned back so he could glare, Itachi
quickly dropped his grip from Sasuke’s shoulder to Sasuke’s hand. Squeezed. “I don’t mean
weapons,” he said softly. The tension, though, was no less stark for it.

Yanking his hand back, Sasuke started walking again. It was stupid, and Urushi hung back so
they couldn’t lead, which meant Sasuke had no fucking clue where the hells he was actually
going, but it didn’t matter.

Everyone kept acting like if they weren’t careful enough, Sasuke might break. Nobody had
cared so much when he’d been younger, when he’d pushed so hard trying to teach himself the
Great Fireball katon he’d burned through his chakra and had to miss several days at the
Academy. That he still had faint, shimmery marks on his fingers and palms where the doctors
had healed the blistered skin.

They’d fussed, of course, his mother had been worried, but Fugaku had dismissed it and
Itachi had been… distant. He hadn’t been close to Sakura yet. They’d fussed, but they hadn’t
cared like this… Had they?
It was totally different this time, and yet it was eerily the same.

The worst part was, most of the time, Sasuke wasn’t at all sure that he wouldn’t.

Break.

Urushi sat down, directly in Sasuke’s path, and lifted black eyes to meet Sasuke’s own. They
didn’t blink, even when Sasuke pulled up short to avoid walking into them, and a moment
later Itachi had caught up and put an arm around his shoulders. For a split second, Sasuke
contemplated resisting when Itachi pulled him in closer, but the prospect tasted like salt in his
throat, and he allowed himself to be turned into a tight hug.

Itachi held him even tighter when Sasuke locked arms around his waist. “… I’m always
here,” Itachi murmured, a little uncertainly, like he wasn’t sure how to say it. Which was…

Something slimy and cold slid between Sasuke’s ribs, like a knife, and he felt his breath catch
painfully. The idea that Itachi didn’t know how to do something was ludicrous, because Itachi
was the Uchiha’s shining star, perfect at everything, the ideal for them all to aspire – but…
but that was even more foolish. Wasn’t it. Because nobody was perfect. Nobody knew how to
do everything. Even Kakashi-sensei, the man who was so powerful a shinobi that he’d been
Itachi’s Captain when he’d first entered the Anbu, even Kakashi sometimes just… didn’t
know.

Emotions weren’t something that the clan often indulged in – or at least, they were something
that the Uchihas didn’t like to display too openly. And while there were reasons for that, of
course (not that anybody had bothered to explain that sort of thing to Sasuke before the
Massacre had thrown everything into disarray), it meant that… well, actually, Itachi might
not know, really, how to offer what he was trying to.

Itachi wasn’t any less real and independent a person than Kakashi-sensei was, and being
Sasuke’s big brother didn’t automatically make him infallible. He’d been alive before Sasuke
had even existed, had memories of a life without him, had already become fearsome in his
own right by the time Sasuke had been born. Sasuke had no doubt whatsoever about how
deeply Itachi loved him – but for all that Sasuke had thought of him as knowing everything,
being able to solve or do anything, it was the same naive bullshit that he’d thought of
Kakashi.

It was all Sasuke’s own absurd expectations, things he’d placed on them without
consideration. They held no fault for not living up to them. The fault was Sasuke’s alone.

Did that apply to Sakura, too?

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled into Itachi’s chest, and refused to loosen his arms when Itachi tried
to pull back a little. It was hard enough to verbally acknowledge his fuck-ups at all – there
was no way he wanted to look Itachi in the eye while he did it. “… Thank you. For— For
being here.”
Sasuke heard Itachi stop breathing, just for a moment, before squeezing him hard enough to
hurt. He didn’t complain. “Always,” Itachi mumbled, and actually… that was enough.

This time, Sasuke let Itachi pull back, glancing away and needlessly fixing his hair. “We’re
gonna be late,” Urushi broke in, sounding oddly casual, and turning to look revealed that
they’d gotten to their paws again and turned their back. “We’ve got to make it to the other
side of Konoha, you know.”

Falling into line behind Urushi, Sasuke settled a little closer to Itachi than he was walking
before. Thinking about it, he’d left a gap between them that he couldn’t remember creating.
He’d pretty much clung to Itachi’s side when he’d been smaller. When had that stopped?
Sasuke had no idea when he’d started moving further away, and it was only even noticeable
by comparing the space now to his oldest memories.

Well, fuck that.

Sasuke looped one arm with Itachi’s. Embarrassment was for idiots who had too much time.
He’d almost fucking died – they’d all almost fucking died. And it could happen again. It
probably would. Fuck the Uchiha reservation, and especially fuck the way Fugaku had judged
them every scrap of affection he’d witnessed. Fuck hiding if he loved people.

A twitch went through Itachi at the touch, and he glanced down with a silent question. Met
Sasuke’s gaze for a heartbeat. They followed Urushi the rest of the way arm in arm, and
Sasuke couldn’t tell if the way nobody even looked at them strangely was because of the
glare he knew he was wearing, or if the rest of Konoha was just better adjusted than the
Uchiha clan when it came to familial affection, but it was somehow reassuring that Sasuke
faced no retribution or even overt judgement.

When they finally got there, Itachi paused. Just for a moment, a fleeting twitch of hesitation
as they turned onto the suburban lane and spotted the rest of Team Seven at the far end. If
Sasuke hadn’t been touching him, it would have been unnoticeable. “What is it?” Sasuke
tried to murmur it quietly, tilting his head towards Itachi a little. Urushi flicked one ear, but
they didn’t acknowledge the question.

Another moment of hesitation. Was it surprise? Sasuke couldn’t tell. Then, equally as quiet,
Itachi gave a low hum. “It looks like he’s moving in. If this is his house, that makes sense;
this isn’t where he lives.” Itachi’s expression twitched. “Wasn’t.”

Actually, that didn’t clear anything up at all. In fact, it kind of made it even more confusing.
What in hells was Kakashi-sensei planning? Leaving on a team trip at all was fucking weird
given the circumstances, and the unequal packing instructions were confusing and (if he was
going to be emotionally honest) strangely hurtful, but throwing in the potential of buying a
whole new house on top of that was just… weird.

Itachi came to a stop just outside of polite earshot of the house, and Sasuke stopped with him.
Urushi’s ears flicked again, but they kept going until about halfway the distance again, and
then sat down to wait. There was a strained moment, as if Itachi was once more at a loss,
before he briefly squeezed Sasuke’s wrist. “I’ll see you when you return,” he said quietly, a
little quirk in his brow that Sasuke hadn’t seen in years.
Anger flooded under Sasuke’s skin, a searing flash that was gone as fast as it came but that
left him breathless. He’d known, of course he’d known, that Itachi had been stressed in their
younger years, but he hadn’t understood. It hit him as one, the realisation, seeing the faint
frown for the first time since the Massacre.

Whatever it was, whatever had happened to cause that look, Sasuke hated it more than he’d
ever hated anything.

“Yeah.” It was such a weak response, and it deserved more than that— Itachi deserved more
than that, but Sasuke couldn’t figure out what. He couldn’t give a reassurance (and it was
surreal, considering that Itachi might actually need such a thing) if he didn’t know what it
was that Itachi was thinking. So— Okay, fuck it, then. If Sasuke was going to reject the
shame he was starting to feel more like a collar around his neck, then he was going to fucking
reject it. “I love you.”

Itachi blinked. And then his expression relaxed, the quirk between his brow disappearing.
Releasing Sasuke’s arm, Itachi reached up and tapped two fingers, gently, against his
forehead. “I love you, too.” And it was almost stiff, just a hint unfamiliar, but then Itachi had
stepped back and moved away, heading off to his own team obligations.

Still, Sasuke was feeling… more settled than he had since before Waves, as he came up
beside Urushi and approached the house. There were others about, several people moving in
and out with a variety of furniture and other assorted house things. They seemed familiar,
somehow, but aside from Gai-sensei (it was easier not to question it), Sasuke couldn’t name
them.

Shiba rumbled a wordless greeting as they got close, one that Urushi returned, and Hinata
half-lifted one hand. “Good morning, Sasuke.” As soft as ever, but the smile was more
genuine than she’d worn in a while. Thank gods. Things had to be going right again, if
everyone was starting to seem okay.

Huh. It felt stranger than Sasuke wanted to admit, thinking that things could actually be okay
after everything.

“Morning Hinata. Sensei.” A pause, and then Sasuke set his shoulders. Fuck it. Motto of the
morning went for everything, so fuck it. “Morning, Sakura.”

Alright. The smile she gave him was worth it.

“Right,” Kakashi said, and there was an air of finality in his voice that immediately unsettled
the good mood. “Come with me.”

Sasuke glanced between Sakura and Hinata as they followed Kakashi inside. For just a
moment, it felt… normal. The three of them against whatever bullshit Kakashi-sensei was
going to pull out today. But Hinata was still bandaged and limping, her expression just a little
too drawn, and Sakura was quiet and dressed in her new, unfamiliar clothes. Normal and
wrong at the same time, confusing and unwelcome – but ultimately… maybe not their fault.
They were just trying to adjust, the same as him.
Urushi and Shiba stopped at the door Kakashi led them to. Sakura followed him right in, but
Hinata hesitated with Sasuke. Together, the ninken lifted one paw each and gestured them
away. Well, they’d technically been given an order, so Sasuke swallowed the desire to stay
with Urushi and went inside. Hinata went on his heels.

Kakashi was quietly grim as he closed the door behind them, and Sakura had gone still,
staring at the table in the otherwise almost-bare room. There was a large scroll laid out on the
table, rolled halfway open and scrawled with columns of… names? Getting closer, Sasuke
confirmed the guess; names and signatures, scrawled in a thin, dark brown ink that Sasuke
strongly suspected wasn’t ink, and each punctuated at the bottom with a curve of fingerprints
in the same… ‘ink’.

A soft gasp drew Sasuke’s attention to Hinata as she got close enough to apparently recognise
the scroll. “Is this…?” she asked, looking back up to Kakashi.

“Yes.” But it was Sakura who answered, and her voice was… wrong. Strained. That strain
that made Sasuke grit his teeth, like either she or everyone around her might break at any
moment if she didn’t step exactly right. “But I don’t understand— Why—?”

Sounding equally as pained, Kakashi shifted his weight on his feet. Folded his arms. “You’re
my genin.” And there was something in the tone he said it in, like it was important, like their
position was precious or unique, that soothed the fear in the back of Sasuke’s mind. They
weren’t just another set of genin to Kakashi. Surely not, if he was talking like that. “You
deserve this as much as any heir.”

Heir? What— Okay, sure Sasuke had just been thinking about their place in Kakashi’s life
again, but that was a leap that—

Sasuke looked back at the scroll. All the names held one key similarity: they were all Hatake.

The room was painfully silent as the three of them put together what was happening. That
right there, being offered by the last of them, was the Hatake ancestral summoning contract.
Being offered it was practically a proclamation on Kakashi’s part – admitting their names
onto the ancestral contract was as good as admitting their names onto the family tree.

Suddenly the stiffness with which Kakashi was acting made sense. He was a rat bastard a lot
of the time and often harsh with his words, but there was no clearer a declaration than this.

“Okay.” Sakura broke the weight of it, stepped up to the table. Drew a kunai from—
somewhere, did she have hidden pockets in her clothes—? And pressed the point into her
index finger. Wrote her name in her own blood in the next empty column, with easy,
sweeping strokes. Pricked the rest of the fingers on that hand, laid a set of bloody fingerprints
onto the scroll below her name, and then stepped away with a deep breath.

Then she twisted on the spot, darted over to Kakashi and locked her arms around his waist.
Received an uncertain, one-armed hug in return. She was shaking.

“Thank you.”
Chapter End Notes

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
| I may or may not be working on a little side-project. Mayhaps even… a little shipfic.
[waggly eyebrows] You never know when it’ll be done, but even Apollo himself
couldn’t predict the tides of my writing.
| Look, I know that practically no plot happened here, but we got character development
instead, and we simply cannot have both at the same time. It cannot be done. Definitely
nothing to do with my waffly style, not at all, how dare you good sirs and assorted
genders.
| As a result of a conversation with one of my betas: so anyway, flatpack furniture isn’t a
thing, we do not have a Naruto IKEA – howwwwever we do have a whole lot of shinobi
bullshit, so that’s how we get furniture crafted in pieces that only require some chakra
adhesive to put together.
My other beta has offered the counterpoint that the shoeboxes look to have identical
furniture of a suspiciously ninja IKEA nature, and honestly that makes sense in that it
makes no sense just like everything else about the canon setting and timeline. XD
| So anyway, let’s settle somewhere in the middle there and then pretend it never
happened because honestly, the level of tech in Naruto is just. the worst. Nobody got
time to try and parse all the details of that. Bluetooth headsets anybody?
| Listen, I love the man to absolute pieces but Kakashi is a rat bastard and his kids know
it.
| Henge is such a weird fucking jutsu. It's not an illusion, not really, but true
shapeshifting being that basic a skill (and then NEVER USED in high-level combat) is
ludicrous. I mean, we are talking about Kishi and his maniac timeline and universal
rules here, so it's very possible, but still. For my purposes, henge is somewhere in
between – a remoulded body and solid in the confines of the new shape, but held
together with willpower and chakra. That's what half-enables mass-shifting along with
it, but that's a whole complex issue that I don't feel like nailing out, so I'm not going to.
| Okay so that's what I had in my notes but it turns out that one of my betas and I had a
conversation about it and there were some Ideas™ exchanged, so now we're going to
explore that actually, get ready.
| Henge is still fucking weird.

Next Chapter Due: 11th September 2021

 See We the Lights Above
Chapter Summary

Families begin in a thousand different ways.

Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Her hand still stung as they fell in line behind Kakashi and Pakkun, but Hinata tried to ignore
it. It was a deserved reminder, really, of the betrayal she’d just committed.

Hiashi would be incandescent with rage when he found out what she’d done. The ancestral
Hyuuga contract hadn’t been used in generations – even in her privileged position, Hinata
had never seen it – but there was one. And Hinata had signed herself over to another contract,
another clan, signed and sealed in her own blood. Hyuuga blood.

Any Hyuuga doing so was an affront to the clan, but Hinata… Hinata was its heir. She’d done
something that she couldn’t undo, and no matter that being offered a place in Kakashi-
sensei’s clan (because that’s what he’d done, really) felt like an honour she could never
refuse, like an admission of love, however tacit.

She wasn’t entirely sure what expression was showing on her face, but Sasuke fell back a
step to briefly squeeze her hand. “What are you thinking about?” he asked. Quietly, but…
kindly. There was something different in the way he spoke, almost vulnerability but for the
steel that underlay it. He seemed… resolved.

So she squeezed back, just for a moment. “… My father is going to be furious.” Murmured,
and there was little hope of Kakashi not overhearing, but it was worth trying. It was difficult
to separate the fear of whatever immense punishment awaited her from the surprisingly fierce
joy of the decision itself, but Hinata tried. Because it was a surreal sort of joy, that Kakashi
thought her worth claiming in such an official and binding way. Even though she wasn’t.

Sasuke’s expression went dark. “If he wanted you on the Hyuuga contract, he should have
offered it to you.”

Biting her lip, Hinata glanced away. “Nobody’s signed the Hyuuga contract for generations.”
Quietly. Was that something she should be embarrassed about? Sasuke didn’t look
judgemental, at least not that way, but it was hard to tell for sure. A brief glance from Sakura
gave away that she was listening, but she held her tongue.

“Seriously?” Sasuke finally settled on saying. Scowled. “What’s the point of having the
contract if nobody’s signing the damn thing?”
“Pride,” Sakura broke in with a soft murmur. “The Hyuuga clan is a very proud clan, even
more than the Uchiha.” She offered Hinata an apologetic glance, vaguely gesturing with one
hand. “And I suppose… one of the Heads decided that partnership with a summons is
admission of weakness, rather than a sacred honour?”

For a second, Hinata didn’t respond. It was… not unsettling, exactly, but it felt strange for
Sakura to be so knowledgeable. Even if she was just making educated guesses, to hear it so
succinctly summarised by an outsider – and a civilian-born outsider at that – made a voice in
the back of Hinata’s head seethe. It sounded terribly like Hiashi. Only when she realised that
both other genin were waiting for a response from her did Hinata remember how speaking
worked. “Oh— Uhm… yes. That sounds about right.”

Sasuke snorted. “That’s stupid. It takes a lot of skill to be able to work with a summons. You
can’t just be weak and have a summons to compensate.”

Something very cold slid its way down Hinata’s back. Was Sasuke right? It seemed silly to
assume he was wrong, but why would the ancestral Hyuuga contract be so looked down upon
if he wasn’t? And aside from that – having a summons was… something Hinata had quietly
wished for in the safety of her own mind. She was weak on her own (they’d succeeded, and
she’d been needed, but she was weak… wasn’t she?) and having someone stronger than her to
back her up was a comforting thought.

And maybe she’d been lying to herself.

Ahead of them, his shoulders far more tense than he let himself sound, Kakashi hummed.
“That’s correct, Sasuke.” It felt even colder inside her own skin, now. “Your summons is your
partner, not your slave. Their power isn’t yours, but as long as you treat them with the respect
they deserve, they’ll lend it to you. And yours to them.”

Kakashi sounded grave as he spoke, but there was some deeply buried sense of warmth in
there, somewhere. On his shoulder, Pakkun snorted. “The pups you’re gonna bond with are
genin just like you. Think of it that way.”

Shiba, Urushi, and Ūhei had chosen to accompany them, wherever they were going, and
Shiba offered a pleased whuffle while Ūhei flashed her delicate fangs in a smile. “As you’ve
discussed before,” with a flick of her ears towards Sasuke and Hinata, “we Hatake summons
are slightly different from most others.”

“Which is a clever way of saying we’re a pain in the tail,” Urushi snickered, skipping a step
to push a paw against Sasuke’s calf for a moment. “But we’re more reliable, too.” Was it
pride in their voice, or just amusement?

Sasuke frowned at them. “What do you mean, more reliable?”

Flicking her tail against Sakura’s hip, Ūhei laughed softly. “Most contracts form a connection
between the person who signs it and the lineage they signed with, but—”

“We covered this already,” Urushi broke in, rolling their eyes. “Surely you pups ain’t
forgotten already.”
Hinata met Sasuke’s gaze, flipping through her memory, before understanding dawned. She
could see it reflected in Sasuke’s face, so she held her tongue, but it was a near thing. With
Shiba fixed to her side, she felt a shimmer of daring that was going to get her in trouble.

“Because you contract specific individuals instead of the whole lineage, right?” And he
earned himself a pleased grin from Urushi.

“Damn right. And once we choose a shinobi…?” They cocked their head, looking up at
Sasuke expectantly.

But Hinata blurted out her realisation too quickly, and even as she spoke Sakura froze. “You
said you have to key into a matrix on Hatake land.” Hinata could feel her own eyes wide in
her face. Shiba laughed, pleased, while Ūhei gently nosed Sakura’s hand. “Is that where
we’re going?”

“Yes.” Pakkun’s voice was surprisingly grim, given the circumstances – Hinata felt the oddly
light feeling in her chest burst. “We’ll be going to Tsuki no Mori for a few days.”

A few steps behind them now, Sakura got moving again, nudged along by Ūhei. Her
expression was shrouded by the hood of her jacket; when had she pulled it up? Hinata hadn’t
seen it happen. Wielder of the Byakugan, and still blind.

“And after that?” she asked quietly, her hand resting between Ūhei’s ears.

For a moment, Hinata found herself exchanging a glance with Sasuke. After that was
something she was trying not to think about, but it was impossible to avoid once Sakura
asked openly. ‘Four days’, Kakashi had told Sasuke to pack for – and it was an easy
assumption to make now, that Kakashi intended them to stay in Tsuki no Mori for that period.
But as for Sakura and Hinata… Sakura carried her own suitcase, but she had a backpack as
well that rested on Ūhei’s shoulders; Shiba had refused to allow Hinata to carry her own, and
was balancing the larger of them on her back. The other was in Kakashi’s hands, his own
back occupied by a backpack that must be his. Whatever was in store for them, it was a far
sight longer than four days.

The thought that maybe Kakashi would leave them in Tsuki no Mori was absurd, and Hinata
tried to pretend it hadn’t occurred to her, but the anxiety of it still lifted her heartbeat in her
chest, an uneasy pulse in her own throat.

“I’ll tell you once we’re there,” Kakashi-sensei replied, his voice low and dark and strained.
Angry? The image of Kakashi punching the hospital’s outer wall flashed in Hinata’s mind,
and she bit the inside of her cheek. It wasn’t her place to say anything about it. Besides,
Kakashi had promised her that she wasn’t the cause of that anger. That it was to do with
Sakura… Sakura’s parents.

Hinata couldn’t be sure that either of her teammates were even going to speak, but letting
them could only end badly with how upset Kakashi clearly was. Was it still about Sakura’s
parents? Was it something else? “Yes, Kakashi-sensei.” Said hurriedly, with as much finality
as Hinata could muster. Questions would wait until they didn’t risk turning Kakashi’s ire onto
them.
Would they? Even if they pushed, would he really bite back at them? Before Waves, Hinata
wouldn’t have even questioned it. Kakashi cared for them, certainly, but he wasn’t above
cutting them down when need be.

Except… Except he’d been so much softer, since. Sure, she only had a couple of weeks to
base her new judgement off, but they’d been together in the hospital ward for pretty much
that entire time. It was—

Gods, was it really only Monday? They’d been formally discharged barely two days ago. It
felt like a lifetime since they’d left Konoha on their first C-rank.

Their first C-rank. What a farce.

Shiba grumbled, perhaps sensing Hinata’s thoughts, and rubbed her head gently against
Hinata’s hand. “You’ll like Tsuki no Mori,” she said, affection shining in her eyes. “Beautiful
and peaceful.”

There was a rumble of agreement from the other ninken. They seemed to share a quiet
contentment between them, an alien pleasure at the thought of returning home. Was it home
for them in Tsuki no Mori? They’d been in Konoha for so long – Urushi had called it not just
home, but permanent.

Maybe they just had more than one.

The rest of the walk went by quietly, the ninken giving a reassuring and ever-more-familiar
warmth with their presence. It was no wonder Pakkun was on Kakashi’s shoulder, despite
being just large enough to be unwieldy in his position. With all the tension Kakashi was
carrying around, it was almost surprising that the walk felt as calm as it did, even with the
ninken there. It should have been terrifying, the walk, but instead it felt… companionable.
Almost… safe, an unfamiliar feeling that wove through her thoughts and pulled gently at her
doubts.

Part of her was certain that she didn’t deserve this. Didn’t deserve the company Shiba gave
her, the gentleness she and everyone else had been treating Hinata with, didn’t deserve the
consideration she was being shown, didn’t deserve the unfathomable honour of what
Kakashi-sensei had just gifted them.

A ninken. She was getting a ninken.

Hiashi would disavow her when he found out, surely. Any Hyuuga being claimed by another
clan was an outrage, let alone by an almost-defunct clan like the Hatake, but Hinata wasn’t
just any Hyuuga. Did Kakashi know what potential conflict he was sparking here? He must
know.

Oh gods, why had Hinata agreed to this? Even Sasuke had hesitated, and he was in no danger
of becoming the primary Uchiha heir; unlike Hanabi, he didn’t bear the burden of his elder
sibling’s incompetence.

Hanabi.
Shame filled out under Hinata’s skin like heat, a sticky, choking sensation that locked her
throat and made her eyes water. She’d known for a long time that Hanabi would one day be
named the Hyuuga heir. Hinata simply wasn’t competent enough to protect her from it. But
this— this was a whole new level to that betrayal. Kakashi might have been the one to offer
his ancestral contract, but Hinata had chosen to accept it.

She’d done so too easily. Sakura had barely even hesitated, and Kakashi had cautiously put
an arm around her shoulders when she’d hugged him. Despite his discomfort with it, he
hadn’t rejected her. And Hinata hadn’t even thought it through, she’d just pulled out a kunai
of her own and copied Sakura. How could she say no to such a thing as this – she couldn’t
even call it a gesture, because it was so much deeper than that. Kakashi-sensei was offering
them a place in his clan. In his family.

He was claiming them, in a way that was far more binding than the social-legal rights
Kakashi had over them as their jōnin-sensei.

Why hadn’t she thought first? Surely Kakashi wouldn’t have been surprised by hesitation.
Sasuke hadn’t protested verbally, but he’d accepted last, and he’d thought in terse silence for
quite some minutes before finally adding his blood to the Hatake contract. He’d had the
foresight to at least consider the consequences of his action before he’d committed.

Hinata had just done it. If she’d stopped to think, would she have arrived at a different
conclusion? Any hope she had of protecting Hanabi was dashed now, because she’d
essentially signed herself over to another clan. And yes, maybe Hiashi had been trying to
bring the last of the Hatake under Hyuuga authority for a long time now, but…

Did this count? Had she unwittingly handed Kakashi’s legacy over to her father, finally, or
had she simply defected? Simply. As if anything could ever be simple anymore.

A hand came down on her shoulder, applying almost no pressure but startling her all the
same. She squeaked, and then felt her shoulders draw up as everyone glanced towards her.
Sakura flashed her a reassuring but unconvincing smile, while Sasuke studied her intently for
a few seconds, his gaze dark.

“Whatever you’re thinking, try not to worry, Hinata,” Kakashi murmured to her, shortening
his stride to keep pace with her. Sakura kept the lead she now had, half a step behind Ūhei,
but Sasuke slowed slightly. Then, with a whack of their tail, Urushi pushed him forward to
prevent his eavesdropping. Not that it would be difficult to listen in if he really wanted to.

Hinata looked up, tried to read Kakashi’s expression. As close to blank as she’d ever seen
him, lacking both the soft warmth of recent days and the disdainful sneer he’d worn less and
less during their training. Not boredom, either, a faint but indeterminable concern that creased
his mask ever so slightly around his nose. The words stuck in Hinata’s throat as she
contemplated a response, tried to figure out how to articulate it, and then gave up with a
shake of her head.

His expression softening again, Kakashi gently squeezed her shoulder. “I know it’s
complicated. We can discuss it further later on today.”
Okay. That— Yeah, that was… good. Nodding again, Hinata reached up to touch his fingers,
relaxing a little when he didn’t immediately withdraw, and then focused back on walking.

The Hatake estate, it turned out, was enormous. Not as big as the Uchiha holdings, or (Sasuke
suspected) the Hyuuga, but surprisingly so for such a small clan. A clan of one.

Four? Twelve? Did the ninken count?

Sasuke shook off those musings; they’d wait. The trip from the manor gate through the
building to the enclosed courtyard Kakashi led them to was the shortest trip Sasuke had ever
taken – Kakashi sped up so much that he all but jogged after, while Sakura mimicked him
and Hinata fell a little behind.

The glance he’d exchanged with Sakura was unnervingly familiar, a silent conversation that
was normal, and so very wrong. She’d slowed a second later, leaving Sasuke to keep up with
Kakashi, and fallen back to Hinata’s side. The friend he knew, shrouding the murderer he
didn’t.

He was so caught up in his own head that when they arrived, he ran right into Kakashi. Felt
his balance fail, and leaned into the grip that caught him and pulled him steady again.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, but a flicker of amusement crossed Kakashi’s face, just for a second,
and his embarrassment vanished. Anything was better than the carefully controlled anxiety
Kakashi was wearing; the same faint little crease in his brow that Sasuke had seen on Itachi
this morning, that made his blood boil on their behalf.

“We might as well get started.” A little less begrudging than Sasuke had expected, so he took
it as a victory and followed close to the centre of the courtyard.

The weak morning sun shone down in refraction of a thousand colours, muted by the
glittering dome of coloured glass that capped the courtyard. Greens dominated the outer
edges of it, melting into an array of blues that grew so pale in the centre that they seemed
almost colourless. Punctuating that in abstract but pleasing patterns were splashes of other
colours – reds, purples, yellows, pinks – that reminded Sasuke of flowers. Threads of white,
more opaque than the rest, wove throughout the greens, occasionally piercing through to the
blues and bursting apart in a shower of tans and oranges. Sasuke couldn’t quite bring himself
to look away. For sure, the Uchihas had creations to their name that were equally as
impressive, and he rather assumed most clans did, but this was still mesmerising to look at.
He found himself trying to follow one of the white lines, catching on others and tripping
through flowers until he lost it.

Blinking on his Sharingan was almost automatic, a barely considered action, and he tried to
ignore the tiny voice in the back of his mind that noted that. Whispered how strange it was
that it felt so easy and natural when he’d only had the ability for a couple of weeks now.

Gods. It’d only been a couple of weeks.

With everything blazing ever so slightly red, the edges of it all outlined in shimmering light,
Sasuke traced one of the white paths from one side of the dome to the other, counting the
flowers it encountered. Five, six – eleven in total, four red, one borderline pink, three purples
and four yellows. The white finally broke near the far side, just above a closed set of double
doors, blooming into uncountable shades of orange.

“Sasuke.”

Kakashi’s voice was even and calm, but Sasuke reflexively dropped his gaze and a dozen
details he couldn’t normally see in Kakashi’s face jumped out under his Sharingan. He was…
struggling. A tension in him that Sasuke recognised too well, the pull of his clenched jaw and
hollow in his throat, tendons stark and larynx held low while he held tight control of his
breathing. His shoulders were too still, the motion of each inhale too regular and the pause
between inhale and exhale too long.

Scrunching his eyes shut, Sasuke snuffed out his Sharingan. “Sorry, Sensei.” It came out
strained, more-so than Sasuke would like, even as he blinked back into normal vision. The
adjustment was like being blind for a few seconds, disorienting and viciously unwelcome.
How did anyone go between Sharingan and not-Sharingan so quickly? Itachi did it all the
time.

Actually, fuck that; how did Kakashi tolerate the dissonance, when he physically couldn’t
deactivate his?

Kakashi sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and then waved Sasuke over. “It’s fine. We’ll
have some lessons about your Sharingan specifically once we’re back to our usual schedule.”
And he sounded tired, but the reassurance was still soothing. Itachi had told Sasuke a lot
about the Sharingan over the years, answered (or tried to) every question Sasuke had, but
he’d found it difficult to really explain what the Sharingan was truly like.

It’d always been frustrating for Sasuke, as if Itachi was being obtuse on purpose. Silently,
Sasuke scolded his younger self. Itachi was not infallible, and the Sharingan was impossible
to accurately describe.

The rest of the courtyard was less ostentatious, but no less elaborate. A small water feature
took the centre, a large, rough-hewn rock set into the ground that rose almost a metre before
splintering into smaller, squat spires that quietly overflowed with water. Running from the
water pooled at its base, in six symmetrical lines, were narrow channels that let the water
flow out into a series of four concentric rings, each thinner than the one before.

Stepping closer to the centre took Sasuke over the circles, and he went slow to study them.
Most of the surface of each channel was a smooth-looking aquamarine – ceramic or perhaps
more glass – but the bottom was covered in small black stones. He couldn’t immediately pick
out a pattern to their placement, but they couldn’t be random. Quite aside from the fact that
this had to be the summoning matrix Urushi had mentioned while in hospital, there was a
feeling to them that Sasuke could neither articulate nor shake off.

“Sasuke.”

Less strained this time, at least Sasuke thought it was, but a tacit command all the same.
Trying to visualise what the circles and the stones laid into them might look like from above,
Sasuke hurried over to Kakashi by the central rock. He was standing on the surface of the
pool around it, avoiding standing in the water despite it being only a few inches deep.

Ūhei’s voice drifted out behind them, announcing that Sakura and Hinata had caught up, and
Kakashi nodded when Sasuke stepped out onto the water next to him but didn’t continue on
yet, instead watching the archway through which they’d arrived.

Which left Sasuke with just enough attention spare from maintaining his waterwalking to
ponder. Clear enough, the Hatake estate was more than large enough to house Kakashi and all
his ninken, but the place didn’t seem lived in at all. There was dust lining all the halls they’d
walked through on their way here, enough coating the door handles to leave visible
handprints where they’d touched. And there was the smell – emptiness smelled a certain way,
the same as a lived space did, the same as people did. It wasn’t as if Sasuke expected the
manor to be bustling – Kakashi didn’t have much of a clan left, after all, even if Sasuke
counted the dogs – but the silence of it was almost… eerie.

Not to mention, of course, that he’d seemingly bought a house. That wasn’t something
someone did when they had a whole-ass clan estate to call home. So then… why wasn’t
Kakashi living here?

“S-Sensei?” Hinata’s voice was unsteady as Sakura helped her over the rings of water
between them and Kakashi, flighty and uncertain. Shiba was close at her side, helping
support her weight while Sakura held her good arm. Kakashi hummed. “What is this?” And
the awe in her voice was soft, but unmistakable. Hard to blame her, really. The courtyard –
cloister, perhaps – was impressive, even for a clan feature.

It was Pakkun who answered, a weary grumble in his voice. “This’s the summoning matrix.
Lets us key into this place so we don’t go popping back to Tsuki no Mori all the time.”

“And it is no small feat of fūinjutsu engineering,” Ūhei interrupted, ears pricked, “so we have
the time to allow your pups to admire it, Kakashi.”

Okay. Right. It was weird enough when Urushi called them pups to their faces – weird, but
weirdly logical since they were genin and all – but Kakashi’s pups was too weird. Even if it
made sense too, even if it was technically true, she didn’t have to actually say it.

The protest died on his tongue, though, as Sakura brightened up, and the gleam in her eyes
was almost painfully familiar. New knowledge, the prospect of getting the answer to a
question she’d just figured out how to articulate, an excitement that Sasuke hadn’t seen in a
long while. He’d missed it, he realised, watching it dawn in her face again.

Gods forsake him, why was it so fucking hard to find the line? Couldn’t Sakura just make it
easy for him and pick between being his friend and being a stranger?

“It’s fūinjutsu?” she asked, glancing back towards the concentric rings of water, and
internally Sasuke kicked himself. The little black stones – laid out in deliberate lines, like
brushstrokes. A seal that spanned the whole courtyard, pulled together by the constant flow
of the water. Something almost alive to give the seal strength.
Ūhei nodded. “An ancient seal, at that. And not its original incarnation; Tsuki no Mori has
been with the Hatakes for longer than Konoha has existed.”

It shouldn’t have been surprising – after all, the clans had been around longer than Konoha,
that was half the point of Konoha being founded in the first place – but it felt… humbling. To
know that the history of the matrix, of the legacy Kakashi was sharing with them, was longer
than even the allegiance of their hitai-ite. For the second time that day, Sasuke thought about
his mother. What would she say, when he had to tell her that he’d taken up loyalty to another
clan?

There was no reason to think that Kakashi would cause conflict between the two loyalties, of
course, and he was an honorary Uchiha himself, which made the whole issue even murkier,
but it was still something that Sasuke knew would worry at him until he finally got home.
Ancestral contracts were a big deal. That Kakashi-sensei had offered them his own was a big
fucking deal – but accepting it was just as big a deal, too. And Sasuke wasn’t even his clan’s
heir! Oh, for sure, he held a position of honour with the Uchiha clan, being the son of its
Head (both current and former), but the title and responsibility of heir went to Itachi.

After all this time spent with Hinata, Sasuke was starting to find himself more and more
grateful that he’d been spared that burden.

So all his own concerns and reservations about what this all could mean for his clan loyalties
went double for Hinata. She must be terrified – even more so for the fact that from what
Sasuke understood, Hiashi wasn’t half as just and compassionate a clan head as Mikoto was.

“Does it need a lot of maintenance?” Curiosity above caution, Sakura asked the question
eagerly, wordlessly making sure Hinata had found her footing before disengaging and
crouching by the smallest of the circles. A moment later she squeaked, pulling back sharply
from where she touched her fingers to the water.

Chuckling, showing all her teeth, Ūhei shook her head this time. “Some, but not a lot. Unless
the structure itself sustains damage, the seal only needs a little blood and chakra when it
starts to run thin.”

Sasuke swallowed the questions that rose in his throat. Theory homework was far from his
idea of fun or relaxation, but he’d lost track of the conversation, and he didn’t want to ask
Sakura to explain it. If he wanted to know more about how seals worked, especially vast and
complex ones like this, he was going to have to look it up. The thought was more melancholy
than he’d expected, that he no longer felt able to let Sakura teach him the theory of it. Would
he ever get that back?

“The water’s… fizzy.” Said almost gleefully while she dipped her fingers in it again, prepared
for whatever sensation it was that constituted fizzy water. “That can’t just be the— Oh! The
Hatakes. I understand.”

She didn’t elaborate, standing back up and flicking water droplets off her hand as she
returned to Hinata’s side. But she paused for a moment, almost stumbling as she stepped out
onto the water, glancing towards Sasuke like she was… expecting something.
The weight in Sasuke’s stomach was borderline painful. Before the Waves mission, he would
have asked.

Kakashi made a low noise, somewhere between affirmation and acknowledgement, and
reached over to the central rock. “You’ll need to attune to the matrix yourselves before we
can reverse-summon to Tsuki no Mori,” he explained. Slipped from somewhere in the rock,
Kakashi drew a small knife. The handle – a semi-circle, the blade set into its flat edge –
looked so similar to the rock itself that Sasuke wasn’t entirely certain that it wasn’t carved
from it. For a moment Kakashi contemplated the blade, running his thumb along the flat,
before sighing.

When he offered it to her, Sakura took the definitely-ceremonial knife without hesitation. She
pressed her index finger against the flat of it, following the rounded leafblade edge. “So I just
bleed into the water, right, Sensei?”

Kakashi nodded. “And expend some chakra into the seal, but only a little for now. You’re still
recovering.” A slightly harder note in his voice as he said it, an edge of command that made
Sasuke’s spine straighten and lifted his chin a fraction. Urushi leaned their head against
Sasuke’s calf, heavy enough to distract him. They didn’t look up to meet Sasuke’s gaze, but
their weight was deliberate and distracting, and Sasuke felt the sharp tension in his back relax
again.

“Okay.” Stepping up to the rock, Sakura considered the hand she’d signed the contract with,
and then used her free hand to roll up her sleeve. Held her arm out, selected an angle, and cut
a red line in her skin. She winced, but tilted her arm to bleed into the water flowing from the
rock, watching the blood mingle and disappear into the flow with an undefinable brightness
in her eyes. “Should I… say anything?”

With a faint twitch of his mask, almost-but-not-quite amused, Kakashi shook his head.
“There’ll be plenty to say once we get there.”

The strange gleam was still in Sakura’s eyes as she acknowledged that, but she rinsed the
blade in the water and then her chakra pulsed in the air, a narrow sheet that swept down the
ceremonial knife to make certain she’d cleaned her blood from it. Even as she offered it to
Sasuke, she set her fingertips against the rock and pushed more chakra into it.

Controlled, Sasuke was certain – Sakura had the best chakra control in their whole graduating
class – but still enough to cause Kakashi to snap his fingers. “That’s enough.”

Sakura flinched.

All at once, while Sasuke accepted the knife and copied her, the mood around them went
grim. More than grim; a stifling dark pressure that made Sasuke’s skin crawl. At least he
barely felt the cut for it, he supposed.

Kakashi didn’t make verbal comment this time, but his gaze was piercing while he watched
Sasuke key into the matrix. It was… a bizarre sensation. His chakra went easily into the rock
and water, absorbed entirely, and for the briefest moment he could sense the sprawl of the
seal across the whole courtyard, like the brush of moth wings against his skin. It was gone a
second later, but there remained a strange echo of connection, an almost-weight that settled
all around him.

That measure of chakra was probably enough, if the faint narrowing of Kakashi’s eye was
any indication, so Sasuke cut the flow, made sure the knife was clean, and then turned
slightly to give it to Hinata. Hand halfway held out, Sasuke paused to consider Hinata.
Lowered his voice – not because he stood a chance of stopping everyone else from hearing,
but so that it was obvious he was talking only to Hinata. “Do you want me to…?” He lifted
the knife a little.

Faintly pink in the face, Hinata offered him her good arm. “Yes please. Sorry.” As if she
needed to apologise. As delicately as he could, Sasuke put two fingers against Hinata’s wrist
to keep her arm stable, and then made the same cut he’d made on his own. She winced,
flexing her fingers to make the wound bleed more. Circumstance aside, it felt kind of fucked
up for Hinata to be apologising when Sasuke was the one literally cutting her.

A few moments of bleeding later, Hinata took the knife and sheeted her chakra down it,
ridding it of her blood and adding her chakra to the water. Watching it, Sasuke could see the
swirls and patterns as the water moved around it, a transparent echo like ripples below the
surface. Then Hinata gave the knife back to Kakashi, and the water kept flowing, erasing the
evidence of what they’d done.

Kakashi took the blade and set it back into the rock. It was invisible under the water flow.
Then, silently, he withdrew something small and white from a pouch in his flak. Bandages,
Sasuke realised, as he gently took Hinata’s arm.

It was fucking surreal to watch him work, actually, a careful gentleness in his movements that
was almost foreign – except for the hazy memory of lying on the riverside, Kakashi’s hands
moving over his back and chest. Even more so when Kakashi moved on to Sasuke and
repeated the action, kinesthetic flashes that lay somewhere between now and then prickling
across his skin.

But it was… comforting, somehow, even through the flickers of fear the memories brought
up, the way they made the sound of the water in the seal utterly deafening. The dissonance of
it all was distracting, Kakashi’s touch a reminder of safety and death at the same time;
Sasuke’s chakra slipped, and he heard the splash and felt the cold tingle before realising he’d
dropped through the surface.

Hinata took half a step closer, a concerned noise in her throat, and it was nice to feel worried
about in a normal way, as Kakashi caught him under one arm and pulled him up again – but
equally, inexplicably, it also felt good to hear Sakura snicker at him, even if she covered it up
a second later.

Wrong, still, in so many ways, but also somehow normal.

Mitskuni had told them he was just fine, but Chōji wasn’t at all sure whether they should
believe him. Whatever it was that ‘haunted’ the barn, it definitely wasn’t a ghost. Ghosts
couldn’t slash through jōnin flak the way this thing had. And the anxiety was made even
worse by the way Shikamaru was pacing, back and forth in the small room Goro-san had
given them, on the second floor of his farmhouse.

“Oh for gods’ sake, Shika, sit down.” Ino’s voice was harsh, but the glimmer in her eyes gave
away her own fears. Not a surprise. Chōji had never seen anything get the drop on Mitskuni-
sensei before; the sudden proof that he wasn’t infallible, that he did in fact bleed, was
unsettling. Unnerving.

Shikamaru paused for a few moments, fingers twitching, and then he resumed pacing.
Couldn’t keep his nervous energy bound for longer than a second or two. Letting out a
frustrated groan, Ino flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. She was doing her
best, Chōji was sure, but she’d lash out at them if they pushed her.

So Chōji followed Shikamaru with his eyes, working up the nerve to speak. He wasn’t sure it
would even be welcome. “It… It wasn’t your fault, Shikamaru.” Maybe a little too quiet – but
it was true. Even Mitskuni-sensei had said it wasn’t Shikamaru’s fault. If their jōnin-sensei
hadn’t sensed the presence in the barn before they’d entered, how could anyone expect a
genin to do better?

But it wouldn’t help, Chōji was sure. Even after some hastily administered medical ninjutsu –
and the brief mini-lesson that had accompanied it – Mitskuni had been limping when he’d bid
them stay and headed out.

“It’s nearly sunset,” Ino huffed out, changing the subject by force. “We still have to actually
clear the barn out, right? Mitskuni-sensei’s not just gonna do it himself?” She sounded
uncertain, and the question tore at something in Chōji’s chest. Surely that wasn’t the new
plan? Mitskuni wouldn’t just complete the mission without them… right?

Shikamaru snorted. “He’d have told us if he was.” That made sense. Yeah. Mitskuni-sensei
was always pretty transparent with his thoughts and intentions – even when they were
negative, and the shame that sometimes caused was worth not having to worry so much about
what he might really be thinking.

But Ino grumbled something wordlessly, and then scoffed when she felt the combined
attention of her teammates on her. “Yeah, normally. This is hardly normally.” The gesture she
gave was broad and violent, betraying her own knotted-up emotions on the matter. Chōji
could relate; the situation was… well, not exactly dire, all things considered, but they’d been
unprepared for it. He was shaken, despite the fact Mitskuni had seemed quite calm – or at
least, he’d successfully pretended to be. Chōji wasn’t sure either way. “And—”

She didn’t finish the thought, but she waved her hand again and Chōji didn’t need her to. A
glance towards Shikamaru showed that he didn’t either, his expression dark. Team Seven had
hung at the back of their minds the whole mission so far. How a simple escort had gone so
badly belly-up that they’d been rescued and hospitalised. And Mitskuni was a strong shinobi,
of that Chōji had no doubt, but Kakashi-sensei was Konoha’s de facto example of jōnin
strength.

“That’s not… That’s not likely, though. Right, Shikamaru?” Maybe appealing to Shikamaru’s
logical side – even if Chōji was scared to death of the exact same thing Ino was thinking –
would help to ease some of the bridled panic bleeding out of them. Anything to make the
wait a little less stifling.

Scowling, Shikamaru crossed his arms and came to a halt. “... The chances that we run into
something that bad on a C-rank are about as low as you can get. But that doesn’t mean we
won't.”

Chilled, Chōji hugged himself and tried to be reasonable. Just because Shikamaru was upset
right now, it didn’t mean that the worst outcome was actually any more likely than it would
be if he’d given reassurances. Of course he’d give a dire answer right now; he was freaked
out and blaming himself.

“It’ll be fine,” Ino sniped him back, an immediate turnaround. Not unusual for her, either –
she was contrary by nature, and being unsettled only made her more so, even to the point of
jumping between opposing opinions. “We weren’t chased or anything. Mitskuni-sensei is
probably just getting more intel, or negotiating, or something.”

Shikamaru rolled his eyes, sneered silently, but he didn’t argue with her. He knew better, after
all; right now was not the time to start a fight between them, not while they were so far from
home, on an official mission. And especially not in the second storey of their client’s rickety
farmhouse. Shinobi could destroy things almost casually, after all, if they didn’t check
themselves.

It took another hour or so of uncomfortable friction and near-silence before Mitskuni-sensei

finally came back. He was grim-faced, but he moved with an ease that soothed the gnawing
worry in Chōji’s gut; the injury must not be as bad as they’d thought when he first got it.
Chōji could see slivers of white through the holes slashed into Mitskuni’s flak and shirt, when
he turned around to carefully shut the door behind him. Despite himself, Chōji found himself
searching for reassurance from Shikamaru and Ino, but when he looked over at them, he
received none.

“Okay,” Mitskuni began, his voice low and laced with weariness. “Shikamaru, tell me where
we went wrong in our approach this morning.” More demanding an instruction that he
usually gave, pointed and targeted; Mitskuni didn’t even glance at Ino or Chōji, let alone
offer them a chance to respond.

Shikamaru’s expression was tight, his gaze just a few ticks off-centre instead of meeting their
sensei’s gaze directly. “We didn’t scout ahead. We should have gotten our own intel on the
objective, rather than taking our client’s word as true.” He was equally as off-sounding as
Mitskuni-sensei. But ‘true’ was a bit harsh, wasn’t it? Goro-san was a bit strange – daft, even,
if Chōji were feeling mean – but he seemed eager and honest. Surely any failing of his
information was ignorance rather than malice?

With a hum, Mitskuni acknowledged Shikamaru’s answer and turned his gaze on Chōji. The
air became rather suddenly too thick to breathe. “What do we know about it for sure?” His
eyes were sharp and piercing, and Chōji couldn’t figure out how to look away.

“I… Uhm. We know it’s fast. R-really fast. And it has claws, and it can, uh, climb the walls.”
Running frantically back through the morning’s encounter offered some snippets of insight,
but the memories also dragged out the shivering Chōji had barely been controlling, fear and
guilt curdling under his skin. Was that all that Mitskuni wanted? Surely there was more – if
Chōji was as sharp as Shikamaru or as quick as Ino, he was sure he’d have more observations
to offer, but he wasn’t. All the other fleeting, half-formed thoughts were guesses based on
their reactions. The way Shikamaru had frozen when he’d come face to face with it, the faint
crease of continued discomfort in Mitskuni’s brow.

After a few moments of awkward silence, Mitskuni-sensei sighed. “Use the resources at your
disposal, Chōji. You’re not an island – when you need more information, and you think your
teammates know it, use us.” The strain in his voice was minute, but unfamiliar. Wounded, in a
way that they’d never seen him before.

Feeling stupid, Chōji looked sideways at Shikamaru. He grimaced. “It’s not human. I see why
Goro-san thought it was a ghost – it’s white. Properly white.”

He offered nothing else, glancing over Mitskuni himself, so Chōji just nodded and murmured
a thanks. Turned his gaze on Ino. She seemed even more troubled, curled up on her futon,
refusing to meet their eyes. Twirling her ponytail between her fingers. “… Ino?” Chōji
eventually ventured, and her gaze flickered up to him briefly. “Did you notice anything else?”

“… It doesn’t… At least, I think it doesn’t have a mind. Not really. It was only a moment,
when it scratched Mitskuni-sensei, so maybe I was just too slow, but… I don’t know. Even
animals have minds.”

Mitskuni-sensei was scowling when Chōji turned back to him, but it didn’t seem directed at
them. Head cocked slightly, looking down, thinking. “From what I understand about your
family’s technique, Ino, a feral target should be easy prey.” Ino nodded, making a low sound,
and then got halfway through a whispered apology before Mitskuni waved his hand sharply,
cutting her off. “No. You three have done nothing wrong, am I clear?” Stronger this time,
studying them as he spoke. “I’m the responsible party; it’s my failing that we were caught off
guard.” A flash of uncomfortable silence went by, and then Mitskuni sighed again. Carded a
hand through his hair, nibbled on his lip ring. “Take it as an impromptu lesson; it doesn’t
matter how experienced or strong a shinobi is, we can always be caught out. Use that
knowledge to support your allies – and to defeat your enemies.

“As for our mission… We are going to be very careful, alright?” He shifted his weight, rolled
his shoulder. “Our typical approach didn’t work, and we don’t know enough about our
enemy. Moreso, it’s imperative that you three avoid being wounded by it.”

“What?” Shikamaru said it sharply, quicker than Chōji could jump on it. There was sweat
prickling against his palms, a clinging anxiety that Chōji knew he would have trouble
shaking until they got home. Mitskuni-sensei had said that with a worrying tone of finality.
Not just caution against potential injury, but something harder. Avoidance, like there was a
worse consequence than just the wound itself. After all, minor cuts and bruises (and laser
burns) were commonplace for shinobi, even amateur ones. Mitskuni never worried about
little injuries from training, so a statement like that got alarm bells ringing. If he’d meant
serious injuries specifically, he would have said that – but he’d just said ‘wounded’. And
imperative. Like even small scratches were too bad an injury.
Grimacing, Mitskuni chewed his lip ring and considered them. He was… arguing with
himself, if Chōji had to guess. Trying to decide. Decide what? Whether to explain? What
could be so bad that he was tempted to not even tell them about it?

“It has a chakra toxin in its claws.” Said reluctantly, and Chōji immediately understood why
because a jolt of fear shot down his spine and he stood a little straighter while around him,
Shikamaru took a step closer and Ino shot up off the futon. Mitskuni held up a hand,
commanding, and shook his head. “It’s mild, I can manage it myself, but you three are far
more vulnerable to it than I am. Chakra poisoning is… complicated.”

Chōji couldn't quite manage to stifle the flare of bewildered panic that came up at that.
Chakra poisoning? He wasn’t even entirely sure what that meant – and neither did Ino, if her
expression was anything to go by, hands half raised from her sides, unsure what to do.
Shikamaru was frowning, but he didn’t seem as freaked out as Chōji thought he probably
should be.

So he probably knew what chakra poisoning might entail, then. “… We can’t fight it directly.
We just tried that.”

Shouldn’t not being taken by surprise count for more? Although maybe whatever advantage
they’d have gained was counteracted by Mitskuni-sensei being poisoned. It chewed on the
inside of Chōji’s ribcage, that thought, a thousand blunt but relentless teeth that would never
stop gnawing. Sure, Mitskuni said it was mild, but what if it wasn’t? What if he was lying –
or just simply wrong? It could get significantly worse at any moment if Mitskuni was wrong,
and they were in the middle of nowhere. By the border! How were they supposed to—

“Chōji.” Mitskuni’s voice broke through the fog of rising fear, followed a moment later by
two hands firmly on Chōji’s shoulders. “Take a breath. I know it sounds scary, but I’m okay.”
Okay? There was no possible way that poisoning could be okay. “I’ll have to see the med-nin
when we get back to Konoha, but I’m not in mortal danger. I promise.”

For a minute, Chōji just stared at him. Mitskuni-sensei stared back, unblinking, the familiar,
firm certainty in his face. There were a lot of things about Mitskuni that were comforting, but
by far the thing that Chōji found the most comforting was his self-assurance. Even when he
admitted ignorance, he always did it in a way that came with direction, decision. Maybe one
day, if Chōji was really fucking lucky, he’d learn how to be like that. To never flail.

“... Okay.” It came out softer than Chōji would have liked, but Mitskuni nodded and took half
a step back, releasing his grip.

“Good. Now, do any of you have any ideas for how we should tackle this?” Asked with half a
smile and a gleam in his eyes, and Chōji found himself taking a slower, steadier breath and
relaxing. He was asking their opinions and thoughts the same way he always did; using this
to assess them and teach them even though it wasn’t on the training grounds, even though this
was real. Like he really did have it all under control.

Ino made a low noise, slowly sitting back down on her futon. “We can’t just barrel in again.”
She didn’t add the silent ‘right?’ at the end, but they all heard it. Mitskuni-sensei nodded.
“But we need more information.”
“We need to observe it,” Shikamaru finished the thought, and Mitskuni smiled at them.
Properly, this time.

“Exactly. And we need to do it in a way that doesn’t immediately attract its attention. Did any
of you notice what else was living in that barn with it?”

Chōji blinked. Even Shikamaru looked troubled by the question, silently admitting his
ignorance. They’d been so busy with the thing that attacked them – how were they supposed
to have noticed something like that? Wow. Jōnin really were something else.

After a moment more of collective silence, Mitskuni chuckled. “I didn’t expect you did, don’t
worry. Focusing on the threat is your foremost priority.” He waved a hand vaguely,
dismissing the anxiety that had gathered between the genin a moment ago. “Rats. Yes, rats
are common in barns,” he forestalled Ino’s question, “but this thing has been there for a
while, right? And the rats are still there – in quite high numbers, even.”

Shikamaru made a sound of dawning understanding. He didn’t even need encouragement to

share his thoughts anymore – it was expected of him to do so, and Chōji tried to swallow the
flash of admiration that Mitskuni-sensei had managed to foster that expectation without
making Shikamaru feel harried by it. Now wasn’t the time. “It’s not hunting them. If it was,
the rats would have fled.”

“Exactly. Well done, Shikamaru.” Grinning, Mitskuni picked his way across the room and sat
down on his own futon. There was just the faintest edge of stiffness in his movements; if
Chōji wasn’t so accustomed to watching him move, he was sure he would never have
noticed. A lingering sign of the injury on Mitskuni’s back, of the claws he’d jumped in front
of to protect Shikamaru. “Which means that…?” The pause dragged on, just long enough for
it to be apparent none of them was going to venture an idea. “It means that the rats are safe
there. They’re probably even protected, since the creature is defending the barn as its
territory.”

Ino tilted her head. “How does that help us?”

Grinning, Mitskuni sprawled out on his futon. “How much do you three know about henge
theory?”

Going first was the last thing he wanted to do, but Kakashi didn’t exactly have many other
options. He had to show his kids what was happening with a reverse-summoning before they
went through it. Pakkun shook himself off as they flashed through the breathless squished
moment of transportation and landed in Tsuki no Mori. Side-along reverse-summoning was a
strange sensation, a helpless pressure that he hadn’t experienced in years – but he was under
strict orders regarding use of his chakra, and performing the jutsu himself was an example he
didn’t want to set.

His kids would remember, if he showed them bad decisions. Anxiety weighed down
Kakashi’s chest, but he shoved it away and made himself wait a few moments.
Sasuke and Urushi came in first, a bubble of chakra as Urushi performed the jutsu and took
Sasuke with them. Summoning wasn’t a simple jutsu even when performed normally –
having never done it, or even experienced it, meant that Sasuke had to be side-alonged, or
risk getting it wrong. Incorrect summoning could go catastrophically, lethally wrong. Shaking
themself off, Urushi looked around with bright eyes; it’d been quite a while since they’d been
home. But they sat down at Sasuke’s side and waited.

It only took another minute or so for the girls to come through. Hinata and Shiba landed
together with a little warble, Hinata unsteady and only keeping her feet because of Shiba’s
support. Eyes wide, she took in their surroundings in a way that Sasuke wasn’t. Her
expression filtered through anxiety and into awe. “Oh. Wow.” Said quietly, involuntarily.

Despite himself, Kakashi glanced around. He’d gotten used to the almost eerie splendour of
Tsuki no Mori a long time ago, but it really was beautiful. They’d landed in a clearing, but
dark trees grew on all sides, and the beginnings of the pathways hanging between them were
visible. Ūhei’s chakra flickered a moment later, and she landed with Sakura at her side.
Sakura stumbled, knotting her hand in Ūhei’s vest for steady herself, but she was already
looking around, taking in the sight. Far above them, twinkling somewhere between blue and
purple, the sky swirled with its perpetual spray of stars, thick and spiralling and bright. “…
This place is… beautiful.” She said it wistfully, staring up past the trees, eyes shining like
starlit mirrors. There was a strange, longing sadness in her voice that Kakashi recognised but
couldn’t name, that clawed up the inside of his stomach and ripped at his diaphragm.

Was she so unused to beauty? Was she so like he’d been, that first time, when Tsuki no Mori
had felt like being freed from reality?

But that conversation would have to wait, because – just like that first time – a low voice
echoed out from the trees behind him, rumbling and vibrating the very air. It rushed across
the group of them, and the ninken all perked up and looked towards the source, ears forward,
panting happily, their tails lifted. As if he was one of them, Kakashi found himself
automatically turning and tilting his head respectfully, lowering his stance just slightly,
watching but not making direct eye contact.

“Welcome back, Hatake clan.”

‘As if’, he’d just thought, but the warmth bled through his skin like needles, relieving the
pressure building underneath it. He was one of them. He always had been – the Hatakes had
been bound to this forest and its denizens for generations beyond Konoha’s founding.

His kids all turned too, but their backs were ramrod straight (even Sasuke’s, who shouldn’t be
forcing such a posture through his dressings), their hair on end. Intimidated, and
understandably so as ; none of the Alphas were small, but Fenrir was easily the biggest. Even
with their head bowed, they stood almost half as tall as the gargantuan trees all around, their
white-dappled russet fur shining even in Tsuki no Mori’s permanent twilight shroud. The
dark grey stripe down their back looked even darker in contrast as they took a step into the
clearing and flicked their tail.

“Fenrir,” Kakashi greeted them, and he could hear the warmth in his own voice. Was it so
strange a tone? The way Sasuke glanced between him and Fenrir betrayed that maybe it was.
Hinata squeaked, frightened, staring up. She was almost looking directly skywards to see
them. “These are my kids.”

Fenrir came forward, and even when they folded their legs underneath them and lay on their
belly, their withers were thrice Sasuke’s height. Leaning forward, they met each of Kakashi’s
genin with their nose, breathing in their scent. “Hm… Sasuke. Sakura. Hinata.” The kids
were silent, staring with baited breaths as Fenrir made their judgement. After a few moments,
Fenrir snorted, ruffling their hair. “Welcome to Tsuki no Mori, pups,” they murmured, voice
vibrating in Kakashi’s bones.

“Hi,” Sakura breathed out, eyes wide and unblinking. She was staring at Fenrir like they were
the moon, something so far Beyond that the real world – her real world – just ceased to exist
in their presence. But there was no fear there, no shadow of anxiety in her face; whatever awe
she was feeling, it had overwhelmed everything else.

Fenrir made a low sound, deep in their chest, before standing back to their full height.
“Come. You must meet the other Alphas.” Their tail swept as they turned away, the breeze it
produced plucking at Kakashi’s hair with playful fingers. When he followed Fenrir into the
trees, his kids fell into line behind him.

Sasuke was the first to speak, murmuring questions to Urushi, but Kakashi left them be. The
first sight of Tsuki no Mori was something that would never leave them, and Kakashi
remembered the endless onslaught of questions he’d tried to swallow when it had been him.
Darkness closed in as they went deeper into the forest, but Kakashi resisted the urge to weave
chakra into his eye. A minute later, Fenrir led them through an archway of slender branches
and huge leaves like a tapestry, pushing the chakra-woven barrier aside.

Hints and edges of pathways woven from branches, carefully grown together, were visible
from the summoning point of Tsuki no Mori, but the whole forest came to life on the other
side of the archway. The trees were no longer single entities, each one knotting into the next
through branches and roots both; gnarled, natural staircases wound up the biggest trees in
spirals, blurring into the hanging walkways and the dwellings moulded between them. Lights
dotted the entire canopy in the form of bioluminescent flowers, glowing softly in every
colour Kakashi could imagine.

Ninken wandered the forest on all sides, some on the ground and some above their heads. For
all that nothing in sight was built by paw in the same way a human settlement was, Tsuki no
Mori was a functional city. The low buzz of voices and the occasional bark or bay hovered in
the air, a warm blanket of presence that fell heavy against Kakashi’s skin and felt like safety.
Konoha peeled away entirely from around him, a sense of freedom that was unfamiliar and
savoured.

There was no permanent escape from reality, from the inevitability of bloodshed, but for the
next few days, hidden away in Tsuki no Mori, they would be safe.

“This way,” Fenrir rumbled, flicking their ears and catching the eye of other ninken as they
walked; most of the Tsuki no Mori lineage were sized accurately to their human-world
counterparts, but not the Alphas. Even Inu – the smallest of the Alphas – was significantly
larger than her equivalent.
As always was the case when Kakashi came to Tsuki no Mori, it was actually Inu who
awaited them at the gate to the Alphas’ den, sitting calmly on her haunches beside the hooded
archway. It glimmered with the lightblooms that littered Tsuki no Mori’s perpetual twilight,
but it was impossible to see beyond. Experience told Kakashi that inside was brightly lit and
spacious, but whatever sagely techniques the Alphas had, they shrouded the interior from all
outside eyes. Even the Sharingan couldn’t penetrate it – Kakashi had tried once.

Inu stood as they approached, and her withers stood as tall as a large horse but she dipped her
head so her eyes were level with Kakashi’s and gently nosed him in the stomach. “Hello,
pup,” she murmured to him, and her voice was the same soft whisper it ever was, so gently
quiet and yet as clearly audible as a thundercrack, like she spoke straight into his mind.
Incredible warmth oozed out under Kakashi’s skin at the greeting, a deep, poignant relief, and
in spite of himself, Kakashi tipped his head forward and touched his forehead to hers. Inu
was cool to the touch, a reflection of the delicate, skeletal nature of her body – pale, bleached
gold fur that draped around her like a funerary gown, revealing the ridge of her every bone,
eyes that swirled somewhere between black and white but never quite touched grey – and she
hummed at the contact. “Welcome home.”

Only when Kakashi heard the voice of the third Alpha to greet them speaking to his kids did
he realise the display he’d just put on, and he broke away from Inu with a sharpness that he
rarely carried here. Inu briefly rested her muzzle atop Kakashi’s head, reassuring, and
Kakashi tried to make himself relax again. None of his kids were watching him, at least not
directly, though there was no way they hadn’t seen.

Maybe it was better that they had. That Kakashi took pains to really humanise himself.
Maybe it would help – or maybe it was too late for that, too late to hide the weakness that
underpinned his every strength. Their faith in him, their unwavering trust that had led them
here, beyond even the longest reach Konoha had, was misplaced.

But Kakashi wouldn’t stop working at that until, one day perhaps, it wasn’t.

Standing at least a metre taller than Inu, Sharvara had exchanged a word with Fenrir and
stepped forward to meet Kakashi’s kids herself. She was indistinct in the den’s entrance,
eldritch and vulpine while her short pelt shimmered with stars, her eyes like glowing silver
suns. “… a formality,” she was saying as Fenrir disappeared into the den, turning along her
own length and curling her long tail loosely behind the genin to usher them inside. The tuft of
long fur at the end shifted like heatless fire; a nebula, she’d once called it. “Your admittance
here already has our blessing, but you must still present yourselves to us first.”

Sasuke nodded as they crossed the threshold, and Kakashi heard him lift his voice in a
question but he chose not to pick out the words. This moment wasn’t about Kakashi, after all.
It was about keeping his kids safe, about making sure they felt safe when they’d come so
close to death. Hinata made a wordless noise, awe and fear and wonder all at once.
Something almost approaching veneration. Kakashi only caught a glimpse of Sakura’s face as
she glanced back at him, one hand in Ūhei’s scruff. She was crying.

“Quiet, now, pup,” Inu said, her voice barely an exhale, placing one paw in Kakashi’s path to
halt him. As fragile as she looked, like she was woven from golden thread and might dissolve
at any moment, Kakashi knew that she hid a ferocious strength. A moment later, Inu folded
 her forelegs down to her knees, bringing her withers low and her nose to the ground. “All
will be well. You need to rest.”

And it was a command, no matter that it came like an echo on the wind. No matter how
ethereal and benevolent as the Alphas were, they were still the highest authority of Tsuki no
Mori, and they rarely brooked defiance.

So Kakashi settled on Inu’s back, let himself cuddle into the soft fur between her shoulder
blades, and allowed her to carry him into the Alphas’ den, where Sasuke, Sakura, and Hinata
would introduce themselves to they who were, in all the ways that mattered, the true Heads of
the Hatake clan.

Chapter End Notes

STUFF. THINGS. There is no originality here:

|| Okay, so despite how they’re lining up in written format, the side-plot that Team Eight
(Ino-Shika-Chō) are doing right now is happening earlier than the stuff with Team
Seven; this is what they were doing while Team Seven were in hospital recovering.
Buuuut since it’s relevant it’s got to be written, so we’re sort of running at two slightly
different places in the overall timeline at once here.
|| But you bitches are smart, so I’m sure that you can keep track of it easily enough.
|| So yes, I did steal names and characteristics from everywhere to name and design the
Alphas of Tsuki no Mori and yes, I am entirely unapologetic about it. I love them okay,
they’re all excellent (and yes, Inu is the representation of a Inugami, which are
incredibly fucked up and also just flat incredible).
|| One of my wonderful betas pointed out that the stained glass dome above the Hatake
summoning matrix is essentially a recreation of Tsuki no Mori, and I would absolutely
love to claim conscious credit for that but I wrote the two scenes far enough apart (in
terms of real time) that all credit must go to my subconscious instead, and ain't that just
about a bitch? XD
|| I'll admit, I haven't done a read-through editing sweep of this chapter myself. I just
don't have the spoons for it, so I'm riding entirely on my betas for this one. Luckily, my
betas are excellent.

Next Chapter Due: 20th October 2021

 To Be A Guardian, Unbroken, Courageous
Chapter Summary

And to be a Ghost beneath the moon.

Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Henge was another skill that Mitskuni didn’t use an awful lot, and in the wrong hands it
wasn’t necessarily any less dangerous than shadow clones, but it was a lot harder to cock up
and the consequences of doing so were far less immediate. Used in the short-term, with
imperfect impersonations, it was largely harmless – though that had never completely
alleviated Mitskuni’s concern about teaching it to pre-genin. He knew firsthand, after all, the
potential risks of going too far without the proper understanding. Then again, it wasn’t a
problem that came up a whole lot, so maybe Mitskuni was the weird one in that regard.

“As you’d all better know by now, chakra is both physical and spiritual in nature,” he was
saying, only half-listening to himself. A part of his mind was on the wounds in his back, the
unpleasant stickiness of his chakra flow there, but for now it was, at least, merely unpleasant.
The spiel he was giving wasn’t his own anyway, mostly memorised from when Ryō-sensei
had given it to him. Gods, how many times? He couldn’t remember the number anymore.
“It’s the spiritual part that allows us to channel some powers, like the elements, and the
physical part that lets us do things like walk on water or move really fast.” All three of his
genin had a faint twitch to their expressions, somewhere between impatience and confusion.
This probably wasn’t information they hadn’t heard a hundred times before – Mitskuni’s own
time in the Academy had been notably rushed, with a strong focus on the practicalities of
using his chakra rather than the theory behind it, but with no war to chew up their soldiers
and Tsunade-sama in charge of Konoha, that was no longer the case. Ryō-sensei had picked
up that slack for him and his teammates, of course, but learning on the job was a far cry
different from learning it in a classroom.

Maybe this would be beneficial for them, in the end. For as terrible as the war had been, there
was something to be said about learning theory and practice hand in hand, when it mattered.
And it was safe for them to do it here, because Mitskuni was their fucking jōnin-sensei and
he’d make sure it was safe.

“Mm. Alright, Shikamaru, run us through what you know about henge.” In all likelihood, he
knew as much as the three of them did collectively, and he would articulate the most
succinctly. Maybe a little unfair to pick on him like that, and push Ino and Chōji aside for the
task, but Mitskuni needed to streamline everything as much as possible. While it wasn’t yet
threatening, the constant manual management of his chakra flow beneath the scratches was
distracting.
Shikamaru’s face formed an odd expression for a moment. “It’s a pretty simple technique to
perform. You mould your chakra around your body to force it into a new shape. How
convincing an imitation it is depends on how well you know the shape you’re mimicking. It’s
useful casually, but shinobi and other chakra-sensitive people can see through it right away
since it requires an active chakra flow.”

Well, that was pretty good, actually. Mitskuni offered him a smile. “Very good. And what are
the dangers of using henge?” He glanced across all of them, opening the question, and
(predictably) Shikamaru kept his mouth shut despite the fact he almost certainly had an
answer.

“I mean, Iruka-sensei always told us not to keep a henge for too long,” Ino piped up, giving
Shikamaru the stinkeye for a moment. “He said we could get stuck.”

Hmm. Well, the chakra theory of henge was rather a complicated thing, despite the jutsu
being pretty easy to perform practically. “That’s true, although it’s a bit more complicated
than that.” For a minute, Mitskuni studied them without really seeing them. He had options,
here – just telling them the details of henge theory was definitely an option, but it would stick
better if he gave them a practical route to figure it out. Especially for Ino and Chōji; Ino was
a proud girl, and she remembered her own accomplishments far clearer than she remembered
a lecture, and Chōji learned through doing. It was the matter of time that made Mitskuni
hesitate. But aside from the potential danger the creature in the barn posed, they had no real
reason to rush, and it had apparently been there for years without causing harm to the
residents of Yonoka. Delaying actually dealing with the thing was unlikely to be a big risk for
the civilians who lived here – unless their blunder that morning had agitated the creature.

Gods be cursed, what the fuck was it? Mitskuni had run through all the knowledge he had
while he’d been in the village this afternoon, and he only had half-similar comparisons and
guesses to work with.

“Alright. We’ve got plenty of time,” as long as the creature didn’t change its behaviour, “and
Goro-san has agreed to let us borrow one of his dogs.”

Chōji’s expression perked up for a moment at the mention of dogs, only to fall into confusion
a moment later. “What’re we doing with a dog?” Caution in his voice that spread instantly to
his teammates, a fear that it would somehow be something bad. One day, if Mitskuni was any
good at this job, Chōji would learn how to not catastrophise.

“Practicing henge.” Better to say it outright and explain afterwards, with this team. “There
are some things that I want you to understand about it before we go back to observe the
creature in the barn. Ino, would you go downstairs and get Shiro please?” The dog was one of
Goro-san’s smaller farm dogs, friendly and playful, and already waiting at the bottom of the
staircase. For all the dithering worries, Mitskuni had already decided on this course of action
several times over. “And bring her ball, too.”

She was obviously perplexed, but Ino sighed quietly and did as she was told. Shikamaru was
frowning, but he didn’t protest; they must be used to these sorts of lessons by now, after all.
Whether or not it counted as typical or eccentric, Mitskuni had found himself with a teaching
style not as similar to Ryō-sensei as he’d been trying to emulate, but… Well, it seemed to
work, at least. His genin were clever and capable, and even with their various ongoing
attitude problems, they’d made excellent progress over the last six months.

And they’re children, Mitskuni chided himself. Of course they had worse attitudes than adult,
fledged shinobi. They’d barely begun figuring out who they were. Gods, Mitskuni was
certain he and his teammates had been a right pain for Ryō-sensei, too.

A minute later, Ino came back with the little white dog in tow; she all but pranced in on Ino’s
heels, ears perked and tongue hanging from her jaws, her focus on the play ball in Ino’s
hands. Her tail wagged wildly as she took in the group of them, enthusiastic, and she watched
closely as Mitskuni held out a hand and took the ball from Ino. “Alright. Everybody watch
the ball.” Casually, Mitskuni tossed it to the other side of the room. As expected, Shiro bolted
after it, skidding on the floor and nearly crashing into the wall, chomping down on the ball
once she caught it with the kind of abandon that only animals experienced.

“… I don’t get it.” Ino’s tone came clipped, with a glance up at Mitskuni and a furrowed
brow. No doubt wondering, as she must often do, if her sensei had lost his mind.

With a chuckle, Mitskuni beckoned the three of them closer. “I want you three to henge into
Shiro. We’ll spend the evening resting.”

Chōji blinked. “As… a dog?”

“Yes, as a dog. You can have half an hour to study her if you need to, but I expect you all to
be henged by then, alright?”

The confusion they shared was expected, of course, but so was the obedience. After a
moment, Shikamaru leaned down to look Shiro in the eye, ignoring the way her tail stilled
and tongue retracted behind her teeth. Or, perhaps just not recognising canine body language.
Then he nodded, moved away, and formed the henge handsign. A shimmer of chakra brushed
across Mitskuni’s skin, the sound of a new moon’s whisper, as a second white dog sat calmly
on the floor.

He had some flaws, of course, after such a brief inspection. Impressively minor, for the most
part, aside from Shikamaru’s failure to take on a female dog’s form. But that was something
that he needn’t correct right now; it was irrelevant to the lesson being taught here, and
besides which there was so little chance that a creature like whatever it was in the barn would
notice such a detail that Mitskuni felt relatively comfortable leaving it alone. The grain of
Shikamaru’s fur was wrong where it whorled over the shoulders, and he’d opted for a form
that was completely white and pink, apparently not having noticed the spotted black paw pad
on Shiro’s left hindpaw and the accompanying three black claws, or the darker spots on her
tongue and gums.

Still, he’d pass inspection as a dog from any civilian, and most genin. Ensuring all correct
details was a lesson that would wait for another day. “Very good, Shikamaru.” Mitskuni
glanced towards Chōji and Ino, sighing when they wore exactly the expressions he expected.
Some day, if he was very lucky, and the universe particularly kind, Chōji would shed all his
anxiety and self-doubt. “You don’t need to rush. Take some time to study her first, try to
make sure you mimic her completely.”
Ino went next, to no surprise. Her henge was slightly off in different ways to Shikamaru’s;
she’d caught those little details that he had missed, but she’d built her temporary form
slightly out of proportion. Her ears and eyes a little too large, her muzzle a little too small,
legs and belly too slender for a healthy, working farm dog, her tail too long. Too idealised a
shape, informed by Ino’s own beauty standards rather than the form or function of the animal
she was copying.

Still, Mitskuni left it for now. The same logic applied to her as to Shikamaru, after all.

His half-hour time limit was cut fine when Chōji finally took a breath and henged, but he
made it on the right side of thirty minutes. As with his teammates, there were signs of
imitation; he’d kept too much of his own bulk, made his paws large and clumsy like a
puppy’s, and his eye colour was his own dark black, rather than Shiro’s light blue-grey. Just
minor things, not enough to betray a cursory inspection, but any ranked shinobi would see
through it. Still, their shapes were certainly all white dogs, and that would teach them well
enough.

“Good work. Now, once again,” while he got to his feet and took Shiro’s ball from between
her front paws, “watch the ball.” The real dog bolted to her feet when Mitskuni lifted the ball,
tail wagging, and he underhanded it the length of the room. Shiro shot after it, sliding on the
wooden floor, crumpling into a happy pile against the far wall.

Shikamaru’s ears perked up as he watched the ball’s arc, and Ino’s tail flopped back and forth
a few times, but the three genin kept their seats. Chōji had lain down, huffed softly, and he
seemed to be enjoying the unfamiliar bend of his limbs. At least, from what Mitskuni
remembered of canine body language (and he had a far better grasp of the negative than he
did the positive), he did. Mitskuni hoped he was – it would be nice for a lesson to be
genuinely enjoyable for once, without the constant weight of his anxiety and his own
expectations. Maybe having him take on an animal form more often was worth considering.

The evening dragged for the almost three hours Mitskuni had the genin keep their dog
henges. If anything, he wanted to take a nap, but he daren’t attempt it. It ached, the poison in
his back, stiffening his chakra coils and clogging the tenketsu; as long as he maintained a
steady and deliberate chakra flow, the wound wouldn’t petrify, but he had to be conscious to
do so. It was unfair to put the responsibility on his genin’s shoulders, and unsafe to give them
the task besides. They hadn’t touched on medical ninjutsu at all, yet, and beyond the basic
first aid pre-genin learned at the Academy – CPR, the fundamentals of controlling an external
bleed, clearing an airway, recovery positioning – they had no training in it.

He had a feeling that the stimulants hidden away in his jōnin flak were going to see use, this
mission. It was almost funny, if it wasn’t so terrifying. The idea that a simple C-rank might
require such a thing. Chakra poison. By the gods. And he was going to have to report on it,
too.

In his heart, Mitskuni lit a candle for Kazuko’s genin. The poor sods didn’t stand a chance of
getting their first C-rank in the foreseeable future after this.

By the time he decided they’d spent enough time in canine skin, dusk was truly upon them, a
grim purple-grey through the farmhouse windows. “Alright, sit up.” Mitskuni rose to his own
feet as he spoke, watching four white heads pop up from their assorted places lying on the
floor. “Watch the ball.” Picking it up took Shiro’s attention, of course, but – as Mitskuni
expected – it snatched the gazes of all three genin as well. With a little grin, he tossed it
towards the other side of the room.

Four dogs shot after it, colliding in a messy pile of paws and fur, their excited, involuntary
barks echoing in the wake of their movement. Shiro came out victorious, trotting back to
Mitskuni with the ball held proudly in her teeth, and he took it with no small amount of
laughter as the kids got to untangling themselves.

“Alright. You may cancel your henges now, if you’d like.” Though he fully expected they all
would, only Shikamaru and Ino burst into their natural forms with pale puffs of chakra and
smoke, the physicalised chakra vaporising. Shikamaru looked rather embarrassed, actually,
his face tinged ever so slightly pink.

Ino, on the other hand, seemed fascinated by her own reaction, her eyes shining. “Sensei,
what was that? Did you genjutsu us?” Her tone said she doubted it though; she wasn't the
most talented tactician in the room, but Mitskuni was more and more certain each day that
she was by far the most cunning. The girl carried a knack for manipulation that bordered on
prodigious.

“No,” Mitskuni confirmed, shaking his head. Chōji, still dog-shaped, trotted over to his futon
and curled up on top of it, watching with Shiro’s bright, black eyes. Moving a little slower
while they adjusted back to being bipedal, Ino and Shikamaru followed suit. “When you
henge into a shape that isn’t human, over time your thoughts start to mirror that shape. Spend
a few hours as a dog, and, well.” Mitskuni gestured around the room. “Suddenly it’s instinct
to chase the ball. Animals – especially intelligent animals – are the safest henges to hold long
term, barring other humans, because this effect takes place no matter what shape you choose.
For example, if you turn yourself into a shoe…?”

Wrinkling his nose, Shikamaru made a faintly irritated noise. “You start wanting to be
stepped on?”

Despite himself, Mitskuni laughed again. “I suppose you might, at that. But more dangerous,
you can eventually forget how to release the henge. It’s hard to pinpoint an exact standard,
because everyone is different, but it’s generally considered wise to spend no longer than a
few hours at a time in the shape of an object.”

Ino bit her lip. “How do you change back if that happens? Surely you’re not just… stuck until
you die?”

With a soft whine, Chōji indicated his backing of the question, and Mitskuni spared him a
smile. No harm in letting the boy stay as he was for a while longer. In all likelihood, it was
soothing for someone as anxious as Chōji was all the time to be not-human. “Another shinobi
can force you to drop a henge if you forget how, though the process isn’t pleasant.
Alternatively, you’ll eventually drop the henge when you run out of chakra, but that can take
a long time if you’ve adopted a simple henge, and it’s very dangerous to be that depleted. It
becomes easier to switch back and forth the more familiar you are with the henge in question,
though. That’s why you’ll find a lot of shinobi have one or two prefabricated human henges
to use as disguise, if need be.”

And they’d find every single jōnin in Konoha had two human henges and at least one animal
memorised as well, but that was irrelevant information right now. Though Mitskuni rather
suspected he was looking at the makings of at least two jōnin, they were still a long way off
from that path.

“Right. And you wanted us to practice henge because… we’re using it tomorrow?” Ino
frowned, one hand lifting as if to scratch under her chin and then curling into a fist as she
caught the urge.

Shikamaru made another faintly irritated noise. It was a familiar noise, coming from him.
“The rats. We’re going to sneak in as rats.”

It was only to be expected that Shikamaru would put that together, of course, but Mitskuni
tried not to expect constant brilliance from the boy. If he let that become the de facto norm,
then he’d stop praising Shikamaru’s whiplash-quick intellect – and there was no surer way to
see him stop bothering. “Exactly. Well done, Shikamaru.” And there it was, the brief little
flicker in his expression. Shikamaru had very little active ambition, if Mitskuni was honest,
but he thrived under praise and recognition. Was it simply the normal genin drive to impress
his jōnin-sensei, or had he never received enough of it before?

Mentally, Mitskuni made a note to speak with Shikaku again when they got home. The Nara
clan at large was known to be full of unusually intelligent individuals, so perhaps
Shikamaru’s nascent genius was merely normal at home. Either way, offering him praise (and
the occasional laser zap) was working better to motivate him than Mitskuni had initially
hoped.

“Alright. Tonight’s lesson is over.” Going back to his own futon, Mitskuni picked up the new
bag he’d come back with and pulled out three bento boxes. “Dinner and then sleep. Sorry,
Chōji, you’ll need to release your henge to eat.” As casually as he said it, Mitskuni did try to
sound a little apologetic. At some point, once they got home, he was going to have to talk to
Chōji about potential therapy henges. Gods knew that Mitskuni had spent a few hours as an
animal on bad days – almost every shinobi did at some point. It was one of those things that
was known, but never talked about.

If he was honest, Mitskuni didn’t like how little the various coping mechanisms common
between shinobi were talked about. It had gotten markedly better in the last five years, of
course – gods, it was almost six now – with Tsunade-sama’s taking power and the reforms
she’d relentlessly pushed through, but it was still… annoyingly unsaid. Even Ryō-sensei had
taught Mitskuni, Kaoru, and Asame in tangential lessons and hints. Some few things had
been told to them explicitly, but Ryō-sensei had rarely initiated such conversations.

A sign of the era he’d grown up in. For a searing moment, vicious loathing rose up in
Mitskuni’s chest like acid, thinking of the casual cruelty under which Konoha had once
operated. Perhaps it was common amongst the Great Villages, but that didn’t make it any less
barbaric. Mitskuni had told Shikamaru that there was no such thing as an untraumatised
shinobi, and it held true despite the improvements Tsunade had made (and was continuing to
make) to the regime, but Mitskuni’s peers were… Well. Safe to say that there was not a single
jōnin in Konoha that lacked unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Like an echo, Mitskuni tasted tequila on his tongue.

Not the time. And not the company in which to speak of it. If the genin’s generation never
understood the pain of their elders, then that was a sign that, just maybe, they’d succeeded in
their duties.

“Get to bed once you’ve eaten,” Mitskuni told them, trying to shake the line of thought.
“We’re up before dawn tomorrow.” And hopefully the pulled-back sleep schedule would
distract any of them from noticing Mitskuni’s lack of it.

It was going to be a long few days.

If they were anywhere else, Kakashi was sure he’d have panicked when his genin were
walked out of the Alphas’ den without him – but Tsuki no Mori was the safest place in the
world. If he could, if it wouldn’t make him a traitor to the people who mattered in Konoha, if
it wouldn’t gradually poison his chakra, Kakashi would stay here forever.

He still watched closely, as they were each claimed by an Alpha and led out into the endless
forest. Big enough to wrap his jaws around the entirety of Team Seven in one bite if he chose,
Raijin moved forward with steady, deliberate paws. Pale snow-white streaked through with
dark purple and blue-grey, his fur stood perpetually on-end, humming quietly with static
electricity. Harmless sparks popped from between his claws with each step, chakra blue and
casting him in a flickering, otherworldly glow. Approaching the genin, Raijin considered
them with electric eyes – one yellow and one blue – before lowering his head to Hinata.

“Gentle pup.” His voice rumbled like distant thunder, threads of lightning flashing between
his teeth like saliva as he spoke, touching his nose briefly to Hinata’s chest. She gasped,
feeling the constant tingle of Raijin’s presence, eyes wide. There was a flutter in her chakra,
momentary and weak, an even more fleeting tension in her temples that revealed – just for a
second – her pupils behind the hereditary lenses in her eyes, stretched thin by her Byakugan.
Curiosity burned in the back of Kakashi’s throat like bile. What did Raijin look like, he
couldn’t help but wonder, through the power of the Hyuuga clan?

Whatever the answer was, Hinata released it almost immediately and stared up at him, her
mouth open in a little ‘o’. Raijin lifted one of his paws – wider across than Hinata’s entire
armspan – and turned it over. His paw pads were pitch black. Without hesitation, Hinata set
her hand upon them. It was a pale spot amongst the dark.

Raijin bared his fangs in a grin, threatening and reassuring all at once, the lightning flashing
between them. “Falíí.” Kakashi shivered. “Koranó avz fa, véna.” Setting his paw back down,
Raijin put his nose behind Hinata’s legs and carefully picked her up, sitting her across his
muzzle as if she was riding a horse sidesaddle, letting her lean her weight quite comfortably
between his eyes. Aware, somehow, because of course he was, that she was healing from
such an injury that forcing her to straddle anything would be harmful.
Holding on with one hand in his fur, her own hair becoming fluffy with the static, Hinata’s
entire focus was on Raijin as he left, utterly taken. Raijin’s chakra flared from beyond the
den, the buzzing hiss of electricity, and Hinata’s shocked but delighted shriek, and there was
still a part of Kakashi that rallied and howled at the sound, even as Inu turned her head to
soothe him.

Hinata was in safe paws. Raijin would keep her safe, but he’d bring her joy.

Back along the walls of the den, in nests rising up asymmetrically around the hollow inside
the biggest tree in all of Tsuki no Mori, the other Alphas were silently settling the remaining
matters between them. Kakashi didn’t know if they were truly telepathic (well, except for
Theow, who was), or if they’d simply known each other for long enough millennia that words
were largely unnecessary, but he had no intention of ever asking. It was okay not to know. It
didn’t matter.

Inu had elected to remain on the ground with Kakashi on her back, so as not to overly
separate him from his genin before now, and to spare them the trip back down afterwards.
Her tail swished softly back and forth, a reassuring rustle that wove through the endless
whisper of the trees outside, but she wouldn’t claim either Sasuke or Sakura. It was the way
of the pack and had been for aeons – that each Hatake child would be somewhat unofficially
claimed by one of the Alphas. For Kakashi, it was Inu. She’d sensed something kindred
within him, that first time. Once Pakkun had talked him through the ordeal of introducing
himself, she’d stepped forward and bidden him to sit astride her shoulders, and he’d been
hers from that moment on.

There was the echo of death inside his skin, she’d told him. The light of the moon already in
his eyes. He was like her. Death didn’t seem so miserable when he was with Inu; when a
ninken died, their soul went to the moon, and Inu was the Alpha most strongly connected to
the moon even as she lived. Two paws in the sky, or so the pack said.

Komai came forward next, bounding from their nest to spring down the tree walls, landing
with pinpoint accuracy directly before Sakura, who stared up with wet eyes, unblinking. Half
wolf and half lion, Komai flicked their tail and lowered their head to stare right back, slitted
pupils and flared nostrils and softly waving auburn mane. Somehow, it wasn’t a surprise that
Komai would choose Sakura. Whilst all seven Alphas ruled and protected Tsuki no Mori as a
single collective, they each had their own role within that bound, and Komai, more so than
any of the others, was the Alpha warrior. If violence became necessary, they would be the
first at the front line, every single time.

They must sense it within Sakura, the violence she’d endured. The same way Inu had sensed
the moon at Kakashi’s fingertips, the same way Raijin must have sensed the cage Hinata so
desperately needed to break free of.

“Áé ato lissa slin, véna. Zlajú áér kavésa. Qé Únjekfa.”

The words washed over them, a language so old that none but the Alphas still spoke it,
meaning lost to time but still carrying so intense a feeling that Kakashi almost understood.
Sakura was a creature of battle and blood underneath a thin veneer of control – but she didn’t
have to be, here. She could let that go. She could be vulnerable.
“… I…”

Komai snorted when Sakura could find no other response, and tilted their head to fully
expose their thick, curling mane. “Climb.”

As if on autopilot, Sakura caught hold of Komai’s mane and pulled herself up, settling within
it on the back of Komai’s neck. She was only visible through the long fur from her shoulders
up. And there was a noise like shifting tides, crashing and distant at the same time; shaking
the air as Komai started to purr.

Just like that, they took off into the eternal twilight, a wave disappearing back into the sea,
and Komai was gone, Sakura astride them.

For the first time since arriving, Sasuke looked directly to Kakashi. There was a shadow in
his face, something between pain and fear. The silence stretched. Eventually, it dawned on
Kakashi what that look was, what Sasuke was afraid of.

Rejection.

Kakashi let his thoughts stray to the remaining Alphas. If he had to guess, right now, which
one was about to claim Sasuke… He couldn’t. Komai claiming Sakura was no surprise, but
while Raijin’s claim on Hinata made some sense in hindsight, Kakashi knew he wouldn’t
have predicted it.

Sharvara, perhaps? There was a dissonance between them that was reminiscent of the
differences between Raijin and Hinata – a potential yet currently unmet. But Sasuke wanted,
in no small way, to prove himself, an almost unavoidable consequence of being Itachi’s
younger brother, and Sharvara had never felt the need to prove herself to anyone or anything.
She was constant and inevitable as a constellation, simply present and undeniable. Would she
find challenge in Sasuke’s fear of inferiority, or would she find contempt?

So perhaps not Sharvara. And Kakashi doubted very much that it would be Theow. Xe never
spoke, and communicated rarely in small murmurs of telepathy, and Kakashi was fairly
certain that xe had never claimed a Hatake as xyr own in xyr life. Or, if xe had, it had been
many centuries since.

With a creak like a tree in the wind, Cú-síth rose to his paws. Sasuke’s head whipped back to
look up at him, and even two-thirds of the way up the tree, Kakashi saw their gazes connect.
A shiver went through Sasuke’s body.

Leaves whispered and bark hissed, and Cú-síth stepped back into the wood itself,
disappearing only to reappear moments later at the ground level, walking out of the tree as it
unmoulded around him and then settled back into its former shape. Each step Cú-síth took
forward was heavy, leaving ephemeral pawprints in the smooth wood beneath them, a
resonant thud that seemed to match Kakashi’s own heartbeat. Cú-síth’s fur was long and
rough and shaggy, hiding the specific shape of his body, painting a bear-like form in mottled
grey-green-browns. Cú-síth, even more so than his peers, was a creature of the earth, and
belonged to the forest in the same way that Sharvara belonged to the stars, or Inu the moon,
or Fenrir the pack.
“Fa íto Cú-síth,” he rumbled, deep and slow. “Ana Vjéqí na medan.”

Sasuke nodded. It wasn’t a motion of comprehension, not really, but Cú-síth’s voice punched
right through the ribcage, and there was no escaping it. He might not know the words, but
Sasuke recognised in Cú-síth whatever it was that Cú-síth saw in him.

“Good. Come.” Cú-síth began walking, and the wood floor seemed to melt and spiral up,
forming a staircase from Sasuke’s feet to Cú-síth’s back. In a flash, Sasuke had taken off to
chase it, flutters of his chakra coiling into the air in time with each step. He’d feel it, once he
stilled again, the impacts against the savage bruising still covering half his body, but he didn’t
seem to care. As he jumped from wood to fur, the impromptu staircase dissolved into
nothing.

And then they were gone too, Sasuke still standing between Cú-síth’s shoulders, holding
balance with chakra and will.

Inu made a soft noise, as if sound could shimmer through her coat like light, and twisted her
head around. “Things will still be warm when we wake, Shikan.” Her eyes blurred between
black and white, speckled and swirled and far beyond grey, and Kakashi let himself just gaze
back. Let everything else fall away, let his fears melt into the bottomless wells, like full
moons and new moons at the same time. “Let’s go for a walk. Let’s howl to the moon.”

Without even thinking, Kakashi felt himself relaxing into Inu’s fur. “Alright.”

In moments she’d left the Alpha den, running through the forest as if her paws need not even
touch the ground, an almost motionless floating. They streaked past the trees until they grew
a little smaller, a little thinner, leaving behind the centralised lived areas. There was no part of
Tsuki no Mori completely devoid of trees, of course, but the sky became a weave they could
follow rather than fragments between branches.

Carried on Inu’s back, Kakashi looked up to the moon – bigger and brighter and closer than
the moon he was used to. Silver threaded through with gold, the souls of infinite ninken freed
into the night. Beneath him Inu howled, her call to the departed like a wraith on the wind.

With only the other ghosts as witness, Kakashi joined in.

It was still dusk when Sasuke woke, as it had been when he’d fallen asleep. Cú-síth was
gone, and Urushi was nowhere to be found, but it wasn’t as worrisome as Sasuke expected. It
couldn’t be often that Kakashi-sensei’s ninken got to come home, after all. It was only to be
expected that Urushi had other dogs they wanted to catch up with.

The room that Sasuke was in barely felt like a room at all – more like a den, a comfortably-
sized nook that just happened to grow into the gnarled tree itself. Soft blankets and pillows
made of some fathomless material lay strewn about his den ( his den, Cú-síth had said), but
Sasuke found he didn’t feel the need to ask after them. It was enough, actually, that he had
them.
For a few minutes after he sat up, Sasuke just studied his bag, on the other side of the room.
Four days. Presumably, Kakashi-sensei’s packing instructions meant that he intended them to
stay in Tsuki no Mori for four days – although the definition of ‘days’ felt a bit murky given
that this place didn’t seem to have a sun, or a day-night cycle. How did the ninken measure
days, exactly?

There was a knock at his door. Although, door was a little too bold a word choice for the
entrance to his den; it opened up directly onto a walkway high in the trees, moulded (by Cú-
síth himself, Sasuke rather suspected) from the branches and leaving the forest connected and
unbroken. A shadow lay in the archway, some kind of jutsu that Sasuke had never seen
before. Even the Sharingan couldn’t quite parse it, seeing the gentle flow of captive chakra
like a shroud but unable to pierce it. Was the Byakugan any more effective? He’d have to ask
Hinata. There’d probably never been opportunity for the concealing technique to be tested by
the Byakugan – hells, before Kakashi, it’d probably never been tested by the Sharingan,
either. Until now, the only humans to walk this hallowed forest had been Hatake-born.

“I’m awake,” he called, and a moment later Kakashi-sensei walked through the arch.
“Morning, Sensei.” Sasuke paused, felt his own expression crinkle. “... Is it morning?”

Kakashi-sensei let out a brief, low chuckle. “In a manner of speaking. You may have noticed,
time doesn’t work quite the same way here as it does in Konoha.”

At home, Sasuke thought, and then glanced away. Kakashi wouldn’t appreciate the flash of
sadness if he saw it – the recognition of Konoha not being home. Was it here? Did Kakashi
feel more at home here than he did there?

Welcome home, Inu had said to him, when they’d arrived at the Alphas’ den. She’d meant it.

It was a fruitless attempt, of course. Sasuke was pretty sure Kakashi could see right through
him. When Sasuke looked back, Kakashi was studying him with a frown his mask failed to
hide, leaning against the far wall. “Did you sleep alright, Sasuke?”

Damn. Nodding, Sasuke tried to brush off the lingering unease. “Yeah. Did you?” And there
was that same little flicker Sasuke had seen before, in Tsunade-sama’s tower, something
wrong, an emotion that Sasuke didn’t have the name for but hung dark and heavy behind
Kakashi’s eye.

“Of course.”

It was a lie.

“How was your run with Cú-síth?” But that felt genuine all the same, and Sasuke couldn’t
help the smile that rose on his face as he thought back. Running with Cú-síth was… He
didn’t think he had the right words to explain it. It hadn’t been fun, not really, but it was wild
and freeing in a way that Sasuke had never felt before. Primal, perhaps – a savage
compassion that pulsed beneath the earth like a heartbeat, rising into the trees and clawing at
the sky. Something under his own skin like fur breaking through, itchy and wild and
tameless. Like he could feel Tsuki no Mori in his own blood, like the sprawling pack that
dwelt here were extensions of Sasuke’s own clan.
Maybe they were, now. Kakashi had placed a claim on him by inducting him to the Hatake
ancestral contract.

When, for several moments too long, Sasuke struggled to come up with words that made
sense – let alone any kind of cohesive sentence – Kakashi-sensei hummed softly, and the
frown became a smile, wrinkling the corner of his eye. “That’s good.” Warmth oozed out
under Sasuke’s skin, a relief of tension he hadn’t realised he’d been holding at Kakashi’s
clear approval.

“He said that name he called me – Vjéqí,” and the syllables fell unfamiliar and static from
Sasuke’s tongue, a struggle to pronounce despite how many times Cú-síth had run him
through it, “he said it was my… pack name?” Sasuke thought he’d understood, before (last
night?), when Cú-síth had explained it. A connection to the pack that ran deeper than his
blood or his contract, a mark of Tsuki no Mori and of the Alphas that he’d carry forever.
Somehow, it had seemed so simple – and now it seemed so complicated.

What was he going to tell his mother?

Kakashi hummed. “Yes. The Alpha who claims a new Hatake gives them a name in the
ancient Tsuki no Mori tongue. It connects you to them, and to here. Supposedly, when you
die, that connection will bring you safely to the moon.”

What? The moon? Oh, it made sense if the moon held some kind of significance to the Tsuki
no Mori lineage – of course it would, it all but had to – but… when he died?

Shaking his head briefly, Kakashi waved a hand. “You’re overthinking it, Sasuke. The moon
is, theoretically, where the souls of dead ninken go. A sort of… paradise, as reward for the
life they lived down here.”

Oh. Yeah, that made sense – Kakashi meant his death only in the abstract. Sasuke let out his
breath. Phantom fingers curled around his neck.

“Did he tell you what it means? Vjéqí?” Kakashi said it better than Sasuke had, but it still
hung a little sharp around the edges, an unfamiliarity that even Kakashi couldn’t shake.
Maybe it was simply that they weren’t ninken; Cú-síth’s and the other Alphas’ mouths
seemed to form around the sounds so much easier.

“Yeah.” For a moment, they just stared at each other, while Sasuke turned it over in his mind
for the hundredth time. Vjéqí. Was he even worthy of such a brand? “It means… Guardian.”

A beat of silence went by. Then, with a faint sigh, Kakashi-sensei pushed off the wall and
approached, sitting delicately on one of the moss-coloured cushions. The ceiling of Sasuke’s
den was woven with dozens of the glowing flowers that embraced all of Tsuki no Mori,
lighting the room with a soft orange light; it reflected faintly off Kakashi’s hair, casting him
in a hue that – if Sasuke thought too hard about – reminded him of… someone else.

“That’s a heavy task, even were you not a child,” he murmured, crossing his legs and leaning
his elbows on his knees. “Are you alright?”
The question whipped up Sasuke’s spine like a lash. Concern filled Kakashi’s visible face,
and within it hid a weariness that Sasuke wasn’t sure he could understand the depth of.
Something in his chest clicked together, and a certainty Sasuke had never felt before settled in
the back of his head.

He met Kakashi’s gaze directly. “I'm alright, Sensei. He’s right.” And of course Cú-síth was
right. How could he be anything but? Loving people came with the risk of losing them, of
watching them hurt – and if Sasuke was going to commit to loving people, no matter what
anyone else thought of it, then he was committing to that risk as well.

What else could he do, but everything in his power to keep them safe?

Kakashi stared back, scrutinising, before he eventually nodded. “Very well.” He didn’t quite
make eye contact again.

That same click in Sasuke’s chest cracked against his sternum. “Sensei?” Kakashi hummed.
“Can I ask about your pack name?”

Clearly, Inu had been the Alpha to claim Kakashi – if his moment with her outside the
Alphas’ den hadn’t been telling enough of their relationship, he’d spent the rest of the night
on her back. Presumably, they’d gone for a run the same as Sasuke had with Cú-síth, and
Hinata and Sakura with their Alphas, too. Maybe it was presumptuous for him to ask,
something personal that Kakashi wasn’t under the same obligation to share as Sasuke was,
but it didn’t stop him.

Kakashi made the declaration of family first, after all. Sasuke was just following up.

He sighed. “Shikan.” And that was definitely easier to say than Vjéqí – either that, or
Kakashi was just far more practiced at it. For a moment, Sasuke just watched him, waiting,
and when it became apparent he expected more, Kakashi sighed again. “It means Ghost.”

That echoed, just for a second. Ghost. It was… upsetting, somehow. Sasuke wasn’t entirely
sure why, exactly, but something wet and choking rose in his chest like seawater, and he felt
his own chin lifting in response.

As if Kakashi was a remnant. As if he was something left behind.

“Ghosts mean something a little different here than they do to humans, Sasuke,” came
Kakashi’s voice, a low but reassuring rumble, and Sasuke took in a sharp breath. Something
different…? “To the pack, a ghost is… a soul that resisted the call of the moon. Someone
both strong enough and brave enough to reject paradise in favour of watching over the
living.” There was a rehearsed edge to the explanation, as if Kakashi was quoting directly
something he didn’t fully believe – but he said it with steady surety, and Sasuke’s shoulders
relaxed again.

Strong and brave. Yeah. That was more appropriate for Kakashi-sensei.

“That makes sense.” The look Kakashi gave him was somewhere between curious and
disbelieving. Sasuke frowned back. Why was that strange to him? That Sasuke would accept
an explanation that – logically – must have come from Inu herself? The Alphas weren’t even
mortal; surely they knew what they were talking about. Did Kakashi really doubt them?

But the moment passed, and Sasuke held his tongue. That conversation was something that
would just have to wait. Maybe until Sasuke had more time to actually form some semblance
of a plan. He had the feeling that getting any kind of conversation on such a delicate, personal
matter was going to be like hunting for hen’s teeth.

Folding his hands in his lap, Kakashi definitively changed the feeling in the air. “I have to ask
you a few questions, Sasuke, and they’re not going to be easy.”

Oh gods. Sasuke braced. Anything that Kakashi felt the need to preface with a warning was
guaranteed to be unpleasant. Took a steadying breath, met Kakashi’s eye. Nodded.

“Mm. You’ve been friends with Sakura for some time before you graduated, yeah?” Gods
forsake him, Kakashi really meant it. Confronting the knotted up emotions he had about
Sakura and all the savagery in her that Sasuke had never seen before was a task so daunting
and monumental that Sasuke had spent the last week trying to ignore it.

And never mind all the other stuff that he didn’t recognise about her, the medical ninjutsu and
the shadow clones and the unbridled authority she’d picked up out of nowhere out there in
the field. Sakura was a stubborn person and always had been, underneath her shy veneer –
but that was just it, wasn't it? Since graduation, she’d been… shy no more. Confident in a
way that couldn’t be put down to bravery the same way Hinata tried to be, and definitely not
desperation no matter how keenly they’d all felt it in Waves. She just said things as if they
were absolute fact. Like she knew. Like she expected to be obeyed.

Well… and they had, really, hadn’t they? Done as she told them. Sasuke still didn’t know if it
was a good thing or not.

Kakashi was still waiting for an answer. Watching Sasuke think, no doubt making mental
notes about all he saw. Just how deeply did Kakashi see? Would he answer, if Sasuke asked?

“… Yeah. Ever since… since the Massacre.” The word caught against his teeth. It almost
sounded like another abstract when he called it that; the title gave no credit to the bloodshed
and the screaming and the terror. To the burn of chakra on all sides, to the terrible, piercing
silence when it was finally over.

Sasuke had always been able to confide in Sakura about that night, about all the moments
that were too overwhelming on his own. Even the bits Sasuke didn’t talk about with Itachi –
because Itachi had been scared for a very different reason, Sasuke knew now. He’d
experienced it from a position that Sasuke was only starting to appreciate, with a
responsibility that Sasuke had never realised. Itachi had been protecting him, after all.

And protecting Sakura and her parents, too, having brought the danger of the Uchiha heirs
into their house. Responsible for all of them.

Guarding them.
Once they were back in Konoha, Sasuke needed to ask Itachi about that. About why they’d
ended up there, of all places. Was it just coincidence? Fate smiling on them – or, perhaps,
spitting on them.

Kakashi didn't break the silence, this time. Had his gaze fixed on the far wall, as if he could
see through it. Looking at something that wasn’t there, maybe. That wasn’t there anymore?
There was so much about Kakashi that Sasuke simply didn’t know. He’d been involved in the
Massacre, of course; he’d sided with the Uchiha against the Anbu loyalists, once the kill-
order went out. Sasuke tried not to think about the slashed and bloodied Anbu tattoos that
had, combined with their decision to de-mask, distinguished the Anbu fighting to save his
clan from the ones fighting to slaughter them all.

And Kakashi-sensei had been one of the first, had sparked the revolt that, ultimately, became
a coup. Mikoto had officially declared him an honourary Uchiha afterwards – recognition of
his key role and apology for the clan’s prior mistreatment in one.

A reminder that he probably didn’t want.

“Sensei?” Kakashi twitched. Looked back to Sasuke, something shadowing his face. “Are…
you okay?” There was almost no way that the truthful answer was yes – but Kakashi wasn’t
the kind of person to open up, even when asked directly. Kakashi’s gaze flickered, like a wall
coming down.

He hummed. “I’m fine, Sasuke.” Like hell. “In the time you’ve known Sakura…” A pause,
rephrasing in his head. Being delicate. Dread crawled down Sasuke’s throat, curling icy
fingers around his lungs; Kakashi-sensei was usually blunt and, if not outright cruel, at the
least unconcerned about anyone’s feelings. What was he about to ask that was so terrible he
wasn’t even certain how to? Kakashi sighed. Carded a hand through his hair. “What do you
think of her parents?”

For a moment, Sasuke could only stare at him. Sakura's parents? Why? No, fuck that— How
was that so awful a question…?

“They’re… fine.” Ignorant of the reality of being a shinobi for sure, and always worried
about the wrong things, but they’d always been welcoming to Sasuke. “They’re civilians. I
don’t understand what you’re asking about.” Kakashi had to be after a specific issue, surely,
but… why even bring it up with Sasuke instead of Sakura herself? Whatever was going on
with her, she wouldn’t lie to their jōnin-sensei.

Surely.

But Kakashi was frowning. “What was the impression you got of Sakura’s home life? Her
relationship with her parents? Was there tension between them, were you welcome into their
house? Frequently?”

Something cold slipped down Sasuke’s spine, an incomplete intuition that he couldn’t
articulate even in his own head, but that nonetheless brought with it an icy dread that he
barely recognised. What, exactly, was Kakashi really asking him? Sakura’s home life? Her
parents had always seemed… well, fine. Nothing special, he supposed, but they’d always
been nice to Sasuke, even if they’d been reluctant to allow overnight visits in either direction.
He’d had dinner with them many times before graduation, and they’d never seemed off in any
way that Sasuke could recall. Itachi had never been hostile towards them, been willing to let
Sasuke spend his time around them, so surely they were fine. Itachi would have noticed if—

Would he? Itachi wasn’t perfect. He didn’t know all, see all. Was it possible he’d missed
something, that Sasuke had missed something? Why was Kakashi-sensei so intent on this line
of questioning?

“Sasuke.”

Grounded again, like being struck by a shuriken, and Sasuke shook himself. “I… They’ve
always been nice to me. I never… noticed anything wrong.” But that didn’t strictly mean
there was nothing wrong, and Kakashi’s deepening frown only made that clearer. “Sensei?”
A grunt. “Why are you asking me that?”

Kakashi sighed, a heavy, tired sound, and rose to his feet once more. Standing stiff and
straight, his characteristic half-slouch gone. Was he… anxious? Aggravated? Something was
clearly wrong. “ It’s not my place to say, Sasuke. You’ll have to ask Sakura – but… give her
some time before you do.” A flicker of hesitation – uncertainty? More than he’d like to admit.
Sometimes even Kakashi-sensei didn’t know. “She’s going to be… rattled.”

The cold unease crept out further from Sasuke’s spine, curling freezing fingers around his
ribs, spinning frosty spiderwebs in his lungs. “I… Is this why you told her and Hinata to pack
like you did?” It wasn’t properly slotting together in Sasuke’s head, the pieces of information
he had, but he knew they fitted. He just needed to figure out their configuration. Kakashi
hummed an affirmative, didn’t offer any additional information, ran a hand through his hair.
“… Did you talk to Ino?” He didn’t know her well – they were on amicable enough terms,
but they’d never had much of a vested interest in getting to know one another. As long as
she’d been a good friend to Sakura, Sasuke had never felt concerned with her, and she’d
assumedly felt the same about him. “She’s been Sakura’s friend practically since they started
at the Academy.”

And if there was something that Sasuke and Itachi both had somehow missed, something that
justified the way Kakashi was acting, surely Ino would have an inkling of it.

Another low noise. “She’s out on a C-rank with her team.” But the fact he knew that meant
he’d checked, at some point. “Don’t worry about it for now, alright? You’re here for yourself.
Get to know the pack, start talking to the pups. One of them is going to sign onto your
contract, after all.”

Kakashi said it with a smile, the tug on his mask and the crinkle of his eye, but the
reassurance fell rather flat. Hard for it not to, with the metaphorical kunai Kakashi had set
hanging above their heads. But Sasuke just nodded and tried to smile back. He wasn’t going
to get any answers no matter how hard he chased them; not here, not now. It would have to
wait until later, when he could talk to Sakura about it.

The thought was shockingly eager. The same thing from earlier clicked again in Sasuke’s
chest, the settling of a burden he’d not realised he was carrying. Sakura was weird, and
everything was sideways and fucked up and only half-recognisable, but at the end of the day,
Sakura was still his friend. His teammate. Practically his sister.

For some reason, the reminder was a relief.

She was still surrounded by warm fur and the increasingly familiar fizz of electricity when
she awoke. It tickled her nose, long white strands quivering with static, building into a sneeze
as she picked up her head.

“Warm wakings, Falíí,” came the rumble of Raijin’s voice, and memories slotted together in
Hinata’s thoughts as she looked around. Raijin was settled at the base of a tree – enormous
and winding as were all the trees of Tsuki no Mori – with his paws tucked beneath him,
shoulder blades elevated either side of her where she nestled between them. “Did you sleep
well?”

Softly, Hinata ran her hands through his fur. “Yes.” Quietly, but it was surprisingly true; it
wasn’t often that Hinata felt properly rested after sleeping. “Did you?”

Raijin chuckled, the sound a gentle whuff that rocked his entire body. “It has been many
hundreds of lives since I’ve needed to sleep so often as you mortals.” It came out playful,
almost teasing, and his tone almost succeeded in blinding Hinata to the meaning of his
response; the casual admission of immortality, the completely alien concept of forgoing sleep
on the basis of outright not needing it.

Lost for what to say, Hinata sat up and stretched, wincing as the motion pulled on her hips
and shoulder, sucked in a sharp breath as her ribs twinged. Raijin rumbled comfortingly
under her.

“It will soon be time for you to mingle with the ninken,” he said, twisting his head around
until his muzzle was within arm’s reach. “But I believe that your sire wishes to speak with
you first.” Raijin’s voice came with the regular puff of his breath, ruffling up Hinata’s hair
and sparkling with electricity; he smelled like ozone and lingering storms.

For a moment, Hinata frowned. Her sire? Who exactly was—

Glancing down as she wrapped her arms around Raijin’s muzzle – as much as she could,
since she didn’t have the reach to hold all the way around, supporting her weight with one
foot, toes pressed into the divot of one of Raijin’s whiskers – she spotted Kakashi-sensei
sitting on the tree’s exposed roots, talking quietly with Ūhei and several unfamiliar dogs. But
if Raijin meant Kakashi, why call him sire instead of sensei when—

Heat rose in Hinata’s face. She’d heard the ninken call her and her teammates Kakashi’s
‘pups’ before, of course, and it seemed appropriate despite being somewhat strange, but it felt
completely different to hear him blatantly referred to as her sire. “ Oh— N-no, I’m not— I
mean, he’s not—”

Raijin chuckled again, carefully setting her down on the ground and laying his head beside
her. “I am aware that he doesn’t originally share your blood, pup, but he’s your sire
nonetheless.” He winked, dark gold filigree spanning his electric yellow eye, as Kakashi-
sensei climbed to his feet and came to her side.

“Raijin,” he murmured, a polite incline of his head, and Raijin rumbled back wordlessly,
blew a breath over them as Kakashi took Hinata’s weight on her bad side, and then turned to
leave. A flicker of lightning later, like a stormcloud of chakra collapsing around them, and
he’d taken off into the permanent twilight. “Would you mind if I carried you up, Hinata?”
Kakashi asked, while the ninken he’d been talking to began to split up and go about their own
business. “Your crutch is up in your room already.”

Ah. Well, climbing up the grown-in spiral walkway would probably pose a challenge even if
she had it, so Hinata shook her head, lifting her good arm a little to make herself easier to
manhandle. “Did you want something, Sensei?” For some reason, it almost felt strange to call
him sensei, as if Raijin’s words were clinging on inside her head with moonlight claws.

Sire.

Kakashi hummed. “It’s time we discussed why I had you pack the way I did,” he said quietly,
even as he carefully picked her up and started up the tree. Something cold flashed in Hinata’s
chest, dread and anxiety freezing under her skin.

“Oh.” Her own voice was almost too quiet to hear, even in her own ears.

“You’ve done nothing wrong, Hinata,” Kakashi said, soothing, though he kept his gaze fixed
ahead. Still, it helped, the reassurance. Kakashi wasn’t a man to offer it falsely. “However…
This is going to be difficult for you, though I believe you'll be better off this way.” The dread
grew heavier. What way? What was he talking about?

They reached an arch grown into the tree’s enormous trunk, shimmery with chakra and
obscuring the room beyond it. Hinata had yet to see an actual door anywhere in Tsuki no
Mori, but whatever jutsu they applied to all the entryway arches seemed to do the job well
enough. Well, it made sense, really. How were the ninken supposed to open doors in the way
Hinata thought of them with no hands? She could hardly expect them to take human henges
in their own homes the way Kakashi’s pack did in Konoha.

There were blankets and soft pillows strewn about the little nook past the arch, and Hinata
spotted her crutch against the far wall. Kakashi-sensei half-knelt to set her down, placing her
within a nest of blankets with pillows on all sides, and Hinata felt herself relaxing again. Her
bag and suitcase were beside her crutch, seemingly untouched. Who’d even brought them
here – Shiba? Had she enlisted some of the other ninken? Somehow, it felt like warm fur
against her skin to consider it. Reassurance, or perhaps recognition; even away with Raijin,
there were clear signs that she continued to matter to them, a persistent consideration that she
existed outside of her own immediate presence. It was sweeter than the lingering
disappointment she trailed through the Hyuuga complex, dripping behind her like a shadow.

Shiba had never been disappointed by her. Kakashi-sensei wasn’t giving up on her despite the
chaos of Waves.

Should have been born in Kiri.

Maybe there was substance to that. Maybe she did have the core brute strength that Kiri
demanded of its shinobi hidden somewhere within her.

“Hinata,” Kakashi called her attention back, softly, and he was sitting against a pillow
himself, almost in arm’s reach. She felt heat flush her face – she’d forgotten herself so
quickly, wrapped up in her own head instead of paying Kakashi the attentiveness he deserved
from her. “Where’d you go just now?” Before she could even draw breath to apologise.
Concern lingered in his voice, a scrutiny in his gaze that precluded even the idea of lying or
avoiding the question.

She dropped her own gaze to her hands. “… Waves.” Quietly. Kakashi hummed softly –
somehow conveyed understanding without even opening his mouth, a sense of camaraderie
that made her want to cry. “We should have—” Should is a very dangerous word, Hinata,
Tsunade-sama’s declaration echoed in her head, stopped her in her tracks. As if he knew –
and there was every chance that he did – Kakashi watched her mentally backtrack in silence.
“… I’ve… been wondering if Zabuza was right.”

Maybe she shouldn’t admit that – but there it was again, that word, should, and it didn’t
matter anymore if she should or shouldn’t. It was too late; she already had. Wasn’t that the
whole point? Possible alternatives were meaningless when she’d already chosen.

“About?” Kakashi-sensei was frowning, slightly, but he didn’t seem angry. Troubled, perhaps
more apt, that she would think such a thing. Was it so troubling? Zabuza had nearly killed
them, but he’d held no apparent personal hostility towards them. The moment Sakura had
shown up with his employer’s head, Zabuza had left them alone.

Was that… honour, of a sort, or just pragmatism? Risking personal injury on behalf of a dead
man was pointless.

Biting her lip, Hinata lowered her gaze. Would Kakashi be upset with her? “He said… that
we should have been born in Kirigakure.” Should.

Tension rippled down Kakashi’s body. Anger in his gaze, but he averted it quickly, turned it
away from her. Upset, yes, but… maybe not with her. “Nobody should be born in Kirigakure,
the way it’s currently run,” Kakashi said, his voice a stiff growl. “He was… recognising your
strength, but you belong in Konoha.”

There was something in that, a strange shiver that undercut the anger, something more than
the raw absurdity of such a baseless accusation of Hinata’s strength. His hands curled at his
sides, but he took a breath and looked back to Hinata and he was steady again. An edge of
mournfulness in him like sharp teeth in her skin.

“… Are you happy, Hinata?”

Blinking at him, Hinata tried to parse that. Surely he wasn’t asking such a black and white
question, a yes or no that held so little nuance. Was she happy? Well… sometimes. Did he
mean in general, or right now? Hah, no nuance she’d just thought, and still she was paralysed
by the minutiae all the same. What constituted happy? It was nice to be here, certainly, and
Tsuki no Mori was impossibly beautiful. Being with Shiba and Raijin and Kakashi-sensei
made her feel safe in a way that was unfamiliar and welcome, but was that the same as
happy?

Happy. How was such a simple concept so difficult to articulate?

Kakashi hummed softly. “I see.” What? She hadn’t even said anything – or maybe that in
itself was an answer of a sort. Maybe he could read her mind. “I said we would discuss your
situation. We can do so here – Tsuki no Mori is safe.” Complete certainty, in that claim, and
Hinata heard herself exhale. It was strange to have the feeling of safety so bluntly validated,
but it helped. With the anxiety of the topic at hand; her situation. The instability of her
position within the Hyuuga clan was dangerous enough on its own, and now she’d thrown her
kunai into the ring of another clan entirely.

“I’m the heir,” Hinata forced out, thin and breathless. “I’ve… I’m sorry.” And she’d meant to
give her concerns in short, objective sentences, because there was no way Kakashi hadn’t
already thought of them, that he hadn’t run through the repercussions of bringing them onto
his ancestral contract, into his clan, but it broke apart in her chest and lanced through her
damaged rib like being stabbed as she gasped in a too-sharp breath. “My father’s been trying
to get your inheritance for so long, and I…” She’d given him the easiest opportunity in the
world. Maybe he wouldn’t be angry. Maybe it was worse than that.

“Stop that,” Kakashi broke in, his voice low, and when Hinata looked up she found that he
was leaning forward a little, holding her eyes with his own, his expression gentle and serious
at the same time. “You’ve done nothing wrong, Hinata. I know that this is hard for you, doing
this, but I knew what I was doing when I offered you the Hatake contract.” Of course he did,
she’d already told herself that he did, but to hear it said still soothed one of the clamouring
voices in the back of her mind. “… I’m sure you understand the implications of signing it,
right?” Silently, Hinata nodded.

And they were worse for her, as bad as she felt thinking such a thing. Sakura didn’t have a
clan, so the only familial obligations she had were social instead of legal or institutional.
Whilst there might well be an emotional burden for her to work through, her parents had no
power to dispute it, if they even wanted to. And while Sasuke was – on the surface – in a
similar position to Hinata, his clan was a lot less strict since Mikoto had taken leadership;
even if she hadn’t, Kakashi was an honorary Uchiha already. It made the details of Sasuke
joining the Hatake clan in return particularly muddy.

But Hinata… She couldn’t see a way for her to exist in two clans.

Kakashi tilted his head slightly, his eye crinkling in an apologetic frown. “As your jōnin-
sensei, I have certain… unique legal authority over you.” Slowly, Hinata nodded. Yes, of
course he did – as far as Konoha was concerned, Kakashi held power over her equal to that of
her legal guardians, her clan. At least until she became a chūnin and would be considered an
independent adult. “I’ve decided that it’s in your best interests that you do not return to the
Hyuuga clan estate.”

What?
“When we return to Konoha, you will live with me instead, for your physical and mental
safety. And because you are now, by rights, a Hatake.”

What?

The silence draped around them like fog and hung for far too long. Thick and choking and
blinding. Thoughts ran through Hinata’s head too fast to keep track of, analysis and hope and
fear all at once; could Kakashi-sensei even do that? Of course he could, he had the legal right
to – but— but still, was he crazy for actually daring to exercise that right? Kakashi was
publicly and scornfully spurning the Hyuuga power and pride, and doing so with any Hyuuga
at all was a huge risk that many of the stronger and more numerous clans wouldn’t even dare,
but he’d picked her. The heiress, and it didn’t actually matter at that point whether Hiashi
intended to strip her of that inheritance or not, because Kakashi had essentially made the
decision for him. Oh, of course, she would still legally be entitled to Hyuuga holdings, but…
if he couldn’t undo Kakashi’s authority (and Hinata couldn’t think of a single instance where
a jōnin-sensei’s rights over their genin had been revoked purely because a clan head was
angry with their methods), then his only logical recourse would be to disavow her.

Failing to do so would be perceived as weakness, if not from the other clans then from the
Hyuuga elders at least. Hiashi had built his entire reign over the clan on the appearance of
strength. Even with as hopeless as Hinata was, the issue of her inheritance had never been
discussed with anyone outside of the clan – heck, it hadn’t even been openly discussed within
the clan. And the branch families had never been given a voice in the matter of who would
lead them after Hiashi. Hanabi might already be destined to take Hinata’s place, even if
Kakashi hadn’t done this, but nobody outside the main family could say so with any degree
of certainty. Allowing Hinata to retain clanship as both Hyuuga and Hatake was turning the
other cheek to an insult that they wouldn’t take from anyone, let alone the last member of a
dead clan, no matter how desperately they wanted to assimilate the Hatake estate and its
council seat.

And of course, all of this had been true before, the moment Hinata had inscribed her blood on
the Hatake contract, but Kakashi wasn’t doing this tacitly. She was going to be living with
him – in the new house that he’d bought, that the ninken and Gai-sensei had been helping
him move into, with everything she owned of sentimental value. He wasn’t just claiming her,
he was taking her, and there was nothing that Hiashi could do about it.

The room blurred, the air stinging and wet, and a second later Hinata realised that she was
crying, a sticky heat that streaked down her cheeks like blood. She heard the sound escape
her, a strangled little sob, but it didn't quite seem real until Kakashi’s arms closed around her,
hesitant and light until she leaned into them. Collapsed against him.

Hiashi would be furious, but she wouldn’t have to see it. She’d be with Shiba and Kakashi
and her team. They didn’t demand skill from her that she didn’t have; they didn’t hate her
because of it.

“Hey, it’s alright,” Kakashi said, his voice distant in Hinata’s ears. “… Easy, Hinata, easy.”
One hand stroked Hinata’s hair, a rhythmic and repetitive motion, reassuring, while his other
arm tucked her close against him, a barrier that might – if she was lucky – keep her from
coming apart. “Are you okay with that?”
 Gods. Did her opinion even matter? Hiashi never would have cared, let alone asked.

Hinata couldn’t get her voice to work, so she just nodded and tried not to cry too loudly. It
was terrifying, of course it was, it always would be, and she had no doubt there were a
thousand ways the Hyuuga clan could find to punish her for her disloyalty – but Kakashi had
made her a Hatake. Normally, a disowned or clanless shinobi carried just their given name; or
in some cases, like Jiraiya-sama, distinguished themselves to become ‘of the Leaf’. But with
her commitment to the Hatake contract, once Hiashi stripped her of her Hyuuga name, she’d
become Hatake Hinata. The Tsuki no Mori lineage already considered Kakashi’s genin to be
his pups anyway; why would he think any different? Why should she?

Sire, Raijin had called him.

Maybe he was.

Chapter End Notes

New Year's Notes oh boi

|| So that little claiming ceremony got really away from me, but I kind of love it, and so
it stayed.
|| The Alphas’ language is Arcana – a language that I’ve spent many years creating! It’s
far from finished yet, language is hard and complicated, but it’s always growing.
Anyways, there is no Google Translate happening here.
|| The Alphas do this thing where they give new Hatakes a pack name, picked out by
whichever Alpha claims them. The pack name that Inu gave Kakashi – Shikan – means
‘ghost’.
-- That Raijin gave Hinata – Falíí – means ‘courage’.
-- That Komai gave Sakura – Únjekfa – means ‘unbroken’.
-- That Cú-síth gave Sasuke – Vjéqí – means ‘guardian’.
|| The moon thing is basically cultural Tsuki no Mori lore. Their belief of death is that
the soul is freed, becomes moonlight, and joins the moon in the sky. Theoretically, the
moon slowly gets bigger and bigger as time goes on – until eventually it will eclipse the
mortal world, and that’s how the universe ends in Tsuki no Mori belief. Given Inu is
based on an inugami, she’s considered the Alpha most in tune with the moon. And of
course she felt Kakashi’s intimacy with death XD
|| One of my betas pointed out that she’s fairly certain Sasuke has asked Kakashi if he’s
okay in every recorded conversation they’ve had since being in the hospital, and I
haven’t double checked this but it would not surprise me. There’s a reason Cú-síth chose
Guardian to be his pack name.
Addendum: she went and checked this, and it is very much true.
|| I definitely didn’t have to look up the terms 'sire' and 'dam' to make sure they were the
right ones >_> *shifty eyes*
|| I'm going to refrain from putting a due date on the next chapter; if you saw the other
part of this series that went up, you already know things have been pretty rough for me
the last few weeks, and I've got other stuff going on as well that I need to figure out, so
the pressure of a due date for this is something I can do without to be honest. But I enjoy
writing this, and it's a nice distraction, so I don't expect it will take TOO long.

Translations and Pronunciations:

“Falíí. Koranó avz fa, véna.” ~Raijin
- Courage. Come with me, child/pup.
- [fah-LEE-ee] [CAW-rah-no] [ah-v-ch] [fah] [VAY-na]
“Áé ato lissa slin, véna. Zlajú áér kavésa. Qé Únjekfa.” ~Komai
- You are safe here, child/pup. Sheathe your weapons. Be Unbroken.
- [eye-ee] [AH-taw] [lih-ss-SAH] [slinn] [VAY-na] [ch-LAH-yoo] [eye-eyr] [kah-VEY-
sah] [hkh-AY] [oon-YEK-fah]
- Sorry, the sound ‘q’ makes in Arcana is difficult to transliterate. Think, like, the hissy
German sound in the back of the throat.
“Fa íto Cú-síth. Ana Vjéqí na medan.” ~Cú-síth
- I am Cú-síth. One Guardian to another.”
- [fah] [EEE-taw] Cú-síth [AH-na] [v-yay-hkh-eee] [nah] [meh-DAHN]
- Cú-síth’s name isn’t Arcanan, so I’m not going to include a pronunciation guide here.
 What's Underneath the Underneath
Chapter Summary

In which they commit the sin of inaction.

Chapter Notes

Quote of the Chapter: “… hope was far too fragile a vessel in which to place their
futures.”
Warning for canon-typical body horror.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

“Oh, thank gods.”

Judging by the twitch in Neji’s expression and the way he stiffened where he stood, he hadn’t
intended to say that aloud, but Itachi just gave him a brief smile and let it pass. Being
restricted to D-ranks after most of a year of C-ranks hadn’t been fun for either of them, so he
understood Neji’s relief at finally picking up something with a little more substance. Still, it
didn’t stop the anxiety creeping under Itachi’s skin like a parasite. Logic and probability and
experience told him that the risks associated with a C-rank were minimal, but it was hard to
ignore this new, horrific precedent that Kakashi’s team had set.

That Sasuke had set.

Itachi couldn’t think about that. It paralysed him every time he did, the knowledge of how
close he’d come to losing Sasuke, after everything, and that he’d been entirely unable to do a
thing about it. Hadn’t even been there. Even if it was unreasonable to expect himself to be
there, on what should have been a simple escort mission, it didn’t stop the thought from
torturing him.

Besides, Sasuke was perfectly safe right now, off in the Hatake summoning lineage’s realm.
And Itachi had obligations to more than just his brother; he had genin of his own, the three of
them standing before him eagerly, excited at the prospect of progress. They deserved his
focus.

“Itachi-sensei?” came Ren’s voice, breaking him from his thoughts. They were perceptive,
particularly so for a genin with no real life experience yet. Perhaps Itachi would benefit from
looking a little deeper into their home life, if only to better understand them.
Humming an acknowledgement, Itachi looked between them. “I’m going to be taking a
backseat for this mission,” he told them, watching their reactions. Ren just looked surprised,
blinking at him with sapphire eyes, and Shino cocked his head ever so slightly to the left,
considering where that might be going. Neji, however, understood immediately, and a
shadow of trepidation crossed his face. Probably regretted his accidental outburst even more,
now. “I’ll be close by the whole time, to make sure everything goes smoothly, but for the
most part, Neji will take the lead.”

Ren blinked at him, surprised, and then turned their gaze on Neji. "So this is practice? For
when you become a jōnin, I mean?" Which of course got a strange grimace from Neji,
halfway between pride and dread, but Itachi felt the pride part resonate in his chest. Whether
or not Neji would one day become a jōnin was entirely his own decision, and not everyone
was prepared to take on the responsibility associated with the rank, but the fact remained that
Neji was so capable of doing so that even his young, inexperienced teammates could see it.
Even Ren, who despite their dedication still didn’t have the shinobi background that the rest
of their team did.

The pride was proven well-placed as Neji shook his head. “Jōnin aren’t the only shinobi to
lead missions. There just aren’t enough of them. Chūnin lead missions all the time.”

With a soft noise, as close to laughter as he ever got, Shino nodded. “That’s true. So why
Neji, when this is our first C-rank as a team? Unlike us, Neji has already got experience in
the field. A typical C-rank poses no novel challenge.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong, strictly speaking. Dangerous, however, to assume such placidity about
a mission purely based on its ranking – a reminder that was all too fresh within Konoha, right
now.

“It’s unwise to dismiss the potential danger,” Itachi told them, and was pleased to be met with
two thoughtful expressions and one apprehensive. Neji was skilled and clever, and had a rare
talent of observation even amongst the Hyuuga, but some risks simply couldn’t be averted,
and some threats remained so no matter one’s own strength. “Even a C-rank can go
catastrophically wrong.”

His expression flickering, Neji glanced across his teammates, taking in Shino’s sedulous
reconsideration and Ren’s anxiety. Itachi held his tongue, silencing his own thoughts while
the genin formed their own conclusions and opinions; his experience and knowledge was
valuable to them, certainly, or the jōnin wouldn’t be required to act as teachers and guardians
for the genin in the first place, but there was equal value in letting them parse these things in
their own ways first. Proven correct, a few moments later, when Neji looked back to Itachi
with something akin to fear in his eyes. He’d taken half a step closer to Shino and Ren,
shoulders back, chest lifted. It would be a new burden for him, the responsibility of his
team’s wellbeing. Leading a D-rank was all power and no consequence – botching those
instructions rarely resulted in significant danger.

But a C-rank took them out of village and stripped from them the advantage of familiarity.
Neji was going to be responsible for the other two in a way he’d never been before; all the C-
ranks in the world wouldn’t prepare him when he’d spent them all under Itachi’s command.
And of course, ultimately, Itachi would still be there to take the reins if anything did go
wrong, because it was an exercise in learning for all three of them, but the presence of a
safety net didn’t necessarily make the tightrope any less daunting.

Itachi spared Neji a slight smile and a nod, and after a moment Neji nodded back. If Ren or
Shino asked, of course, Itachi would lay it out more plainly, but that recognition wasn’t for
them. Neji understood, at least conceptually, what was really being asked of him.

“Alright,” he said quietly, catching Shino’s attention immediately. Ren tilted their head
towards him, but didn’t look up from their own thoughts, still focused on Itachi’s warning.
“What are the mission particulars?”

A hum, and Itachi shook his head. Perhaps it would be better to mete out duty in small doses
until it was better known to him, but Neji had never taken well to half-measures and a gentle
touch. If Itachi trod too carefully in this regard, Neji would only doubt Itachi’s faith in him.
After all, for as frightful a task as this was, especially the first time it was received, Itachi did
have faith he could complete it. Even if he hadn’t figured out how to articulate it yet, Neji
cared for his team. He would do his best to keep them efficient and safe.

“You and I will discuss that now, Neji. As mission lead, what you share with your team,”
Itachi gestured towards Shino and Ren, who was now fully paying attention, “is your choice.
You’re not obligated to tell them everything if you deem it necessary.” The frown from Shino
was expected, of course – it was hardly routine to keep mission details from one’s team, at
least not until the missions started to become classified – but Ren made a startled noise and
turned back to Itachi.

“We’re expected to go on missions without even knowing everything that could hurt us?”
they asked, indignant, but the shiver of fear in their voice rather undid the otherwise
righteous nature of their protest. “But…”

Stepping closer, Itachi put a hand on their head. It was still odd, really, letting himself interact
physically with them outside of sparring lessons, the way he did with Sasuke, but they
responded well to it. Unlike Neji and Shino, who both preferred not to be touched (even if it
was, in Shino’s case, the standard Aburame paranoia of not putting his kikaichu at risk for no
reason), Ren was an incredibly tactile person. Itachi was lucky, really, that they’d invited
Team Six to their family restaurant often enough to observe such interactions with their
parents and siblings.

Ren looked up past Itachi’s wrist, but they settled under the touch. “Sometimes, yes, you will
be. It’s rare at this level, but not unheard of – and, should you choose to take that path,
missions that are classified commonly operate on a strict need-to-know basis.” He removed
his hand, and Ren glanced towards Neji and Shino again, biting their lip uncertainly.

Shifting his weight, head tilted, Shino made a sound of acknowledgement. “This is why we
are to obey our mission lead, typically without question, even if we don’t understand the
orders. Yes, Sensei? Because they might know information that we don't.”

Cold slithered down Itachi’s spine, the taste of blood in his throat like rising bile. For just a
moment, he could hear the shouting and feel the endless crackle of chakra. As brief as he
could, Itachi flared his Sharingan, trying to ground himself; at this stage of their
development, he very much doubted Ren or Shino would notice. Neji might.

And did, if the narrowed eyes and searching look were anything to judge by. Or, at the least,
he’d noticed something and was trying to puzzle out what, exactly. But the snapshot settled in
Itachi’s mind, the fraction of a second imprinted by the Sharingan, his three genin standing
safely before him within the borders of a Konoha at peace, and the memories receded. He
wanted to shake himself, the impulse itching under his skin. Would it be too tacit an
admission of distraction, of— well, trauma? It still felt strange to label his experiences as
such so bluntly, but it had been enough years that he knew that strangeness intimately. If
Itachi showed his genin that he was human and far from invulnerable, would that do them a
service, or only serve to undermine their sense of safety under his command?

Now was far from the time to take that away from them, on the cusp of their first C-rank as a
team. Then again, maybe it was necessary; they might hold back, unconsciously or not, if
they thought Itachi could swoop in and save them from anything that went wrong.

Hm. He was assuming that things would go wrong, and they yet might not. After all, recent
example notwithstanding, C-ranks went off without a hitch all the time. It wasn’t as if
Tsunade had stopped giving them out in between catastrophes.

That particular disillusionment could wait, and Itachi held himself still except for the folding
of his arms. One at a time was more palatable.

“In theory, you’re correct, Shino. However, ‘obey without question’ is a far more dangerous
sentiment than you might think.” Despite himself, the cold slithered all the way back up
Itachi’s spine, and he felt his shoulders twitch and tighten. Control yourself. He exhaled
slowly, an even six seconds while all three genin watched. Sasuke’s voice was in the back of
his mind, complaining about Kakashi’s first day of training – a constant reminder that obey
can lead to bloody places. “Sometimes, your mission lead will give you orders that you don’t
understand, because they know things that you don’t. Sometimes, your mission lead will give
you orders that you don’t understand, because they’re the wrong orders.”

Ren studied him with liquid blue eyes while their teammates looked away. Clan children
compared to a civilian one. Maybe Kaede was right about that, after all. “But…” Ren
quavered. “But how do we know which is which?”

You don’t.

But Itachi swallowed that response. Hummed to buy himself time. “Learning how to is part
of what I hope to teach you.” Still worried, Ren bit their lip again and looked to Neji. It was a
strange thing, that they’d settled so easily into seeing Neji as a secondary teacher – not a bad
thing, certainly not, and it had proven helpful in the extreme, since Neji understood Itachi’s
lessons far more intuitively than either of his teammates and could serve as essentially a
translator – but still, it was strange. A personal failure on Itachi’s part, his inability to explain
things well enough that a translator wasn’t necessary. He was sure it would reflect in his
mission report and evaluation, once these genin all made chūnin, that shortcoming, but Itachi
could only face that as it came. Besides, he wouldn’t dare discourage them; it was good for
Neji, the repeated and positive interaction with his peers. He wouldn’t be able to stay so
disdainful and aloof forever, not if he hoped to advance his career and become stronger.

Frowning, Neji considered his words, immune to the steadily growing sense of awkwardness
Ren exuded as the silence stretched. They weren’t very good at silence, which made for a
somewhat uncomfortable team dynamic on occasion, given Itachi, Neji, and Shino all weren’t
particularly talkative people. On the other hand, it also allowed them to chatter to their heart’s
content, an opportunity that they often took full advantage of. This time, though – this time,
Ren was anxious and unsure, and remained silent while Neji thought.

Eventually, Neji sighed. “You still bear the consequences of what you do, even if you’re just
following orders. Is that it, Itachi-sensei?” Three pairs of eyes turned back to him, and Itachi
offered them a slight smile. Better for all of them if he didn’t show any of the anxiety in his
own chest – and besides, his pride in them was real enough.

“Exactly right, Neji.” With luck (and more accountable leadership), they’d never find
themselves in such a position as had their elders, but hope was far too fragile a vessel in
which to place their futures. “Your actions are your own, no matter the reason you took
them.”

Shino canted his head to the side, and that was enough to catch the attention of his team,
quiet while he constructed his sentences. Warmth crept into Itachi’s chest, familiar but
strange, the same kind of feeling that watching Sasuke grow elicited; his genin were still so
very young, but already they were harmonious enough to recognise these unspoken signs.
“Then it is of paramount importance that we trust our leaders. No?” For a moment, Ren’s
face scrunched up while they mouthed the word paramount to themself, and Itachi swallowed
the faint chuckle. Without missing a beat, Shino righted his head and added, “Of the highest
importance.”

“It is,” Itachi replied, hiding the amusement in his voice as Ren turned faintly pink. “There’s
a line, somewhere you will have to determine for yourselves, at which your personal ethics
might demand you disobey.” Should he stop there? For as bright as they were, and as jaded as
Neji considered himself to be, they were all still children. Some burdens were too heavy for
the young. But holding off might give the wrong impression – and Itachi knew better than to
consider his own position above the lesson he was teaching them. It was very possible that, at
some point, he might be the leader whose orders they refused to carry out. As much as Itachi
strived to never give those orders, there was never any guarantee that he wouldn’t; he could
only hope, if that time ever came, his kids would have the strength to refuse. “... If that time
ever comes, you should be prepared for the backlash. You’re unlikely to be lauded for your
moral boundaries. More often than not, insubordination – even when it isn’t so extreme as
treason – will be punished accordingly. In those moments, you have to decide if doing what
you think is right is worth it.”

And as desperately as Itachi wanted to tell them that it was, he couldn’t. Sometimes there
were no good choices.

“Well… I think we’ll be okay anyway, right, Sensei?” Ren interrupted Itachi’s thoughts with
their typical cheer, even if it was somewhat forced. There was sharp anxiety hidden behind
their eyes. “You’re a good leader. We can trust you.”
Could they? It was nice that Ren thought so, of course, because Itachi wanted to be worthy of
leading them, had spent far too many nights torturing himself with the question of whether he
was, but it wasn’t reassuring. They were too predisposed to trust their jōnin-sensei – all of
them were, every genin the Academy ever churned out. Gods knew that Itachi had been, for
however little that had lasted. Kakashi-senpai had been. Even Tsunade-sama, presumably,
when she’d toiled under Hiruzen’s command. Genin were rarely that good a judge of
character, and especially not when it came to their senseis.

But saying as much would be the same as saying they couldn’t trust him, or at least it would
be taken that way, and actively fostering mistrust might well be worse than simply failing to
be worthy of it. So Itachi forced another smile and didn’t meet their eyes. “I… do my best. It
is all that can be asked of you.”

Shino cleared his throat. “Should Ren and I spar, Itachi-sensei? I ask so that you have the
time to go over the mission details with Neji.” Thank the gods for Shino. He wasn’t quite as
good at picking things up from observation or understanding Itachi’s especially cryptic
lessons as Neji, but he was far less emotionally stifled. Despite his withdrawn demeanour,
Shino was surprisingly well-adjusted and empathetic, frequently able to act as an emotional
bridge between his teammates. It was no small source of shame that that too often included
Itachi himself, but he was still fortunate to have Shino here. Shame didn’t solve the problems
he had expressing himself clearly, and served absolutely nothing to his genin.

The smile was easier, this time. “Good idea, Shino. It shouldn't take long.”

Neji watched them head across the training grounds in silence, and Itachi didn’t push. It was
a rare moment that Neji spent frivolously, so whatever he was thinking while he watched Ren
and Shino square off, Itachi didn’t interrupt. Shino’s kikaichu flew out from his sleeves in a
small swarm, far less than he would use in real combat. Preserving his colony when there
were no stakes was an important aspect of his clan’s techniques; Itachi had learned more than
he’d expected to about how the Aburame operated. It was, if not entirely his business,
extremely interesting nonetheless. Ren’s chakra flared, and they struck the ground with both
hands, calling up soil and rock to protect their exposed hands and forearms from the
kikaichu’s bite. Even without Sharingan at this distance, Itachi could see the faint glint of
blue woven through Ren’s stone gauntlets. They were going to be an excellent doton user one
day.

“Sensei.”

Ah. Not a commendable example, getting lost in his own thoughts while supposedly allowing
Neji the time to think his, but there was no exasperation in Neji’s voice or expression when
Itachi focused on him, so the self-admonishment would wait. “Apologies. Now, this mission
will take us to one of our neighbouring villages, Katani, where we’ll be protecting an
honoured guest for their Red Soil Festival.”

Maybe Itachi should have reconsidered a guard detail. It had hardly gone well for the last
genin team who took one, and lightning notoriously struck more than once. But that was the
paranoia talking; the circumstances were completely different, and Katani village was a
known and (more importantly) nearby factor. It certainly wasn’t being financially annexed by
its own self-imposed leader.
So Itachi shook off the nagging anxiety and got to explaining the mission.

Henge was always a little strange, and it made more sense that it was, now Mitskuni-sensei
had explained more in-depth about how it functioned, but Ino’s experience with the
Yamanaka techniques had made it feel more familiar when she’d learned it in the Academy.
Henging into a rat, however, was far more disorienting. It was probably all the same reasons
that her father had discouraged her from stealing the minds of animals – at least, the reasons
that pertained to her safety. It sounded the same, the animal instincts clashing with her own,
the inhuman wiring of the brain she would be overtaking. Most animals couldn’t survive the
sudden influx of chakra for long anyway, so using Mind Body Switch on them unnecessarily
was just cruel. Ino had, of course, it was unavoidable in the course of learning the technique
at all, but it had been many years since she’d stolen the body and life of an animal.

This, as far as she could recall, wasn’t too different from that. Easier, truth be told, because
she did no harm to innocent creatures and she didn’t have the hovering anxiety of her own
body, left behind and vulnerable. On the other hand – paw? – Ino was distracted from the task
ahead of her by the maintenance of her henge. It didn’t expend a lot of chakra, exactly, but
the constant flow she needed to keep in the shape of a rat took concentration, and was just
close enough to that of Mind Body Switch for Ino to slip up if she let trained instinct take
over.

Still, she had enough free thought left to wonder at how new and big the whole world seemed
as she scurried after Mitskuni-sensei’s cream-coloured rat form towards the ‘haunted’ barn.
What few wildflowers dared bloom on the heels of winter looked wrong as they chased past,
colours oddly muted into primarily blues and greens, but with bright streaks and patterns in
colours Ino didn’t quite have the names for. There was an odd sense of… glowing, almost,
except that they clearly didn’t glow. And her depth perception was all out of whack with her
eyes on the sides of her head, stripping her of binocular vision and forcing her to rely on the
tingle of her team’s chakra signatures and the odd sensation of her whiskers, but part of her
rather suspected she was better off. With how wide her field of view had gotten, Ino was
pretty sure that she’d just be overwhelmed by her usual clarity; even with the blurriness and
neutered sense of distance, everything around her seemed more like a fishbowl than the world
she knew.

The brightly coloured metal chickens were odd shades of blue and green and unsaturated
purple, stuck into the dirt around the path to the barn as they approached. Some of them – the
ones Ino was fairly certain she remembered being red or pink or peach – were a weird,
unfamiliar colour that wasn’t quite grey or black, but that Ino didn’t have any word for
beyond dark. It was unnerving to be so much smaller than a bunch of neon sculptures that
had seemed so little yesterday. Even more so that she was unsettled by them at all. Ino rarely
felt her own youth when compared to her peers, given all the advantages of being clanborn
and especially the Yamanaka clan; being raised a shinobi from birth made her more
knowledgeable than the genin who weren’t of a clan, even those with one or more shinobi
parents, and being in the Ino-Shika-Chō triad meant she already had use of powerful
techniques and combat formations. It was, as her father had taken great care to teach her, a
double-edged sword. She was stronger and more educated than many of her fellow genin, but
that confidence could stab her in the back if she went too far with it. But even still keeping
that in mind, she had a self-assurance that wasn’t common at her age, and despite the dangers
it potentially posed, it was well-deserved.

This, then, being so out of her depth with something so trivial as henge, this was what she
imagined being civilian-born must feel like all the time. Was this why Sakura had always
been so shy and anxious?

Thinking of Sakura was like being punched in the gut. Was she okay? Would she be able to
continue being a shinobi, would she even survive?

Stop.

She couldn’t afford this kind of spiral, not right now. Besides, as cruel as it had felt, Mitskuni
had her best interests at heart. If Sakura had been in real danger of dying, he would have let
Ino go see her. Risk and pain happened all the time in their line of work, but death wasn’t
nearly as common. Or— Well, surely not now, at least, when the Great Villages were at
peace. Ino had never lost a classmate to shinobi violence, and Mitskuni-sensei knew that.
Hadn’t that been the whole point of finding a way to the treaties in the first place?

So surely if there was any chance Sakura wouldn’t be around to see Ino come home, surely
Mitskuni would have let her say goodbye.

Ino’s whiskers hit something yielding but solid in front of her, and she reflexively flinched
back, rearing up onto her back paws while bringing her front ones up defensively. It was
somehow both alien and natural, the way her spine curved so deeply and her ankles spread
her weight so much wider than her feet could in her own body. She was going to have to
practise henging into other animals.

Before her, Shikamaru had come to a stop, his black body like a strangely liquid shadow in
her current vision. Oddly appropriate, really. Maybe he’d chosen so on purpose, then.
Slinking up beside him, Ino tried to ask what was going on, only to hear a quiet squeak come
out of her own throat.

Oh. Right. Well, that could certainly pose a problem. How was she supposed to communicate
with them when she couldn’t speak, and neither could they? Presumably Mitskuni-sensei
knew whatever sign language Konoha commonly used, but Ino sure didn’t, and she doubted
Chōji did either. Shikamaru always might, of course, because the bastard only ever needed to
see or hear something once to remember it, but she very much expected he’d never put the
effort in to learn it on his own time.

Besides, even if she did know it, Ino wasn’t entirely convinced she’d be able to pick apart all
the necessary nuances from amidst the coloured streaks the world was currently blurred into,
or that Mitskuni would even be able to form the signs clearly enough with paws.

Further ahead of them, Mitskuni-sensei was still creeping closer to the barn, nosing about,
but Chōji was sitting up on his hindpaws, anxiously cleaning his whiskers. His henge was the
biggest, naturally, mostly pale with a dark head and broken stripe down his back; Ino had
never seen a wild rat with such markings, but she’d seen them in Konoha’s pet stores.
Hooded, she thought it was called.
For a few minutes, Ino just waited for Mitskuni to come back, settled on the side of the path
with Chōji and Shikamaru. She couldn’t tell what he was doing at this distance, but focusing
on how weird it was to be able to see behind her and in front of her at the same time was
more than enough to occupy her mind. As disorienting as it was, and as little detail as she
could pick out currently, the sheer scope of it could be very useful. She made a mental note to
ask about partial henges at some point; if she could figure out how to henge in the range of
vision without so severely compromising the precision of it, she’d be much better equipped
to see attacks incoming, given the right circumstance.

By the time Mitskuni came scurrying over again, Ino, too, had given in to the instinct to clean
her whiskers. It was harmless enough, an activity that required less conscious input than
actually resisting it, and behaving like a real rat as much as possible might be important. Hard
to imagine that the thing in the barn had enough presence of mind to observe such differences
when she was pretty sure it didn't even have a mind at all, but they were better safe than
sorry. It had already proven dangerous as all hells – she could pick out the wound on
Mitskuni’s back as he returned, even with how fuzzy everything was. Much more obvious
without his clothes and his own body to hide it, a dark sticky colour that wasn’t bleeding
exactly, but was still open and raw. It had to hurt, despite the fact Mitskuni-sensei had yet to
show any signs of pain.

He squeaked, standing up on his hindlegs to gesture towards the barn with one forepaw, ears
flattening against his head. After a moment, he twitched his whiskers and pressed a paw to
his own nose, dipping his muzzle for a second before dropping back to all fours. To her
surprise, Ino found she understood the message. Quiet. After they all nodded, Mitskuni
squeaked again, very softly, and beckoned them after as he took off back towards the barn.

There’d been an unpleasant smell to the place yesterday, too, but it was positively foul this
time. Something astringent, like bitter sap, as if someone had split daffodil stems but a
thousand times stronger, and now it was underlaid with something chemical. Formaldehyde,
maybe? It was almost an assault as they crept under the gaps in the barn wall to get inside,
making Ino’s fur stand on end while she made herself keep going forward. Every little string
of rat-thought in her brain was screaming at her to run away, to put distance between her and
whatever the thing living in here was.

But there were other rats here, and she could smell them, too. Warm scents that crisscrossed
the inside of the barn like invisible neons, and actual visible little shimmers that lined the
urine-markings where the sunlight struck them. If she wasn’t so consumed by everything
else, that would be a fascinating thing to follow up on. Maybe once she was back home.

It seemed like they’d managed to sneak in undetected. The thing was at the far end of the
barn, half-hanging over the edge of the loft with the stems of old hay splayed all around it
like a spiky halo. Ino could smell the hay better than she could see it, but she remembered
noticing it yesterday and thinking it odd; it made more sense, now. No way had Goro-san
been using or replacing the hay with the thing living here. And for years, apparently. Long
enough for the local rats to get accustomed to the thing’s existence.

It wasn’t even hostile, with only the rats for company. It watched them move back and forth
about their own business, tracking each movement with huge, solid black eyes that Ino could
pick out even now from the blur of ash white that constituted its body. She remembered them
as dark pools in its face, discernable from empty holes by the gleam of reflected light. Had it
only attacked them because they’d threatened it? By all accounts, it had been here for years
and not caused any more problems than haunting this one barn.

As they observed it, the thing reached down towards the rats, the movement languid and
curious. It stretched to the limit of its arm’s reach – and then it kept going anyway, its arm
elongating and narrowing until it could touch the floor, offering its fingertips to the rats that
stopped to inspect them. Something primal flipped a switch in Ino’s head, horror and dread at
the unnatural sight that mixed together into a burning urge to kill the thing. Bleed it, or burn
it, or something to make sure it could never fucking do that again.

It hadn’t taken any notice of them, four strange rats amidst the swarm, and it wasn’t hurting
the little animals at all, but that didn’t seem to matter. Ino wanted it dead.

The thing was just… wrong. It was all wrong.

From beside them came the faint sound of Mitskuni grinding his teeth, considering the
situation with his ears and whiskers flat in his fur. Equally as unsettled, although Ino couldn’t
exactly articulate how she knew that with such certainty. Shikamaru had gone very still – she
seemed to pick up movement far easier than she could shape – and Chōji was edging back,
trying to hide behind his team despite being twice as big as any of them.

A strange, eerie noise rippled out from the thing, dark shapes making their way up its terribly
stretched arm; rats climbing the new obstacle. It didn’t seem angry or pained. Despite how
utterly alien it was, reverberating in Ino’s bones, the rumble somehow seemed… pleased?
Curious. It seemed… childish. Was it… Was it… laughing?

It made the noise again as the rats got to its shoulder and sniffed at its face, exploring
whatever inhuman slope of a back it must have. The black spots of its eyes blinked once and
then a crackling filled the air as they grew further apart, like snapping flower stems. Its head
was splitting open, and if the thing even experienced pain then this was clearly painless
because the splitting continued until it withdrew its arm from below, tucking back into its
body.

There was a sharp squeak, and a nauseating crunch, and the rats scattered. This time, as it
was left alone to digest its meal, the thing let out a mournful sound, lingering and on the edge
of hearing, like an audible shiver.

Something twinged her whiskers, and Ino leapt back before she could think better of it, a
shrill scream escaping her, recognisable even twisted by her rat’s vocal chords. Or maybe rats
were just capable of screaming. She collided with Chōji behind her, heard him whimper,
before the cream-coloured blob registered in her head. Fuck. It was just Mitskuni-sensei, and
now she’d—

Oh gods. Had she attracted its attention?

She didn’t even need to turn around to see the thing, and that might be worse, actually, but at
least she knew immediately that it hadn't taken any notice of them, even with Ino's scream.
Mitskuni-sensei held up one paw again, and then tapped the floor in two deliberate motions.
Plan Two. It made sense now why he’d insisted on their planning session this morning before
they’d henged and set out; discussion of it now was all but impossible without releasing their
henges, and that was sure to elicit an attack. Instead, she just had to remember the specifics of
their second plan and not get it mixed up with the others. For a moment, Ino floundered. How
was she supposed to keep all those thoughts in line when the thing was crunching away on
one of the rats so leisurely? It so easily could have been one of them.

No, it couldn’t. That must be the rat shape speaking. The fear. None of them would have
climbed up the thing’s arm so trustingly.

Pull it together, Ino.

Plan Two. Of all the potential options they’d come up with, Two was one of the lethal
outcomes, which meant that Mitskuni had come to the conclusion that it was safe enough to
attempt to kill the thing. Either that, or it was dangerous enough that he felt they had to try
regardless. She had no idea what it was, specifically, that he’d been studying it for, or what
information he’d actually gotten from observing it – insofar as a rat’s poor vision could be
called observation – but it was ultimately irrelevant. He’d decided they were going to kill it,
and Ino was too relieved by the prospect to second guess it.

Mitskuni led the way towards the back of the barn, and then picked out a path to climb from
the ground to the loft, clambering old boxes and ropes. All of them had a slight chakra
presence already, given they were maintaining henges, but there was surprisingly little
fluctuation in them as Ino followed Shikamaru up the rope and felt it sway under her claws as
Chōji followed her in turn. It was almost a letdown that they were going with plan Two; she
and Chōji didn’t have much to do aside from just running interference. Which was a juvenile
outlook on the matter, Ino knew well enough – interference was going to be both risky and
important. Its prior reaction to their investigation had been swift and violent, and they had no
reason to think it would be any different this time once they revealed themselves or it picked
up on their chakra signatures. If Shikamaru was going to be able to hold it down long enough
for Mitskuni to kill it, then she and Chōji would need to make sure it couldn't reach him.

Strange, really, to be the one playing protector instead of the one needing her body protected.
Did Chōji and Shikamaru feel this nervous whenever she leapt into something else’s mind?
Ino was rarely this anxious when she was the one jumping into their opponent. She had
complete faith in their dedication to keeping her body safe. Maybe she should tell them that.

The thing was sitting up as they gathered at the edge of the loft, tilting its head and sniffing
the air. Alerted, perhaps, but not yet on the attack. Ino could still hear the faint crunching of
the now-dead rat inside the thing’s mouth, and the bitter-sap smell was overwhelming this
close, an almost solid weight in her lungs. The problem with their plans was that while they
could guess at what the thing would do in response, it was still entirely guesswork; the vast
majority of the plan itself was a network of possible outcomes and reactions they could take
in return. They had a loose structure of intent, and little else. Exactly how it would play out
wasn’t something they could nail down until after it had already happened.

Ino was starting to think that most fights were going to be this way.
It turned towards them, apparently having pinpointed their chakra signs, and a growl like
ripping paper rolled out from it. The plant-breaking noise filled the air and its head split all
the way open once more, still blurry, but this much closer Ino could pick out some details. It
had a large, egg-shaped head, and the split ran vertically from its crown to its neck, revealing
a mass of dark colours that Ino couldn’t properly identify right now but were sickeningly
reminiscent of the red-shaded metal chickens from outside.

Next to her, Chōji stumbled and then leapt forward towards it. Their reactions were already
laid out before them – interfere with it as much as they could. Draw its fire. Distract it and
corral it into the midday sunlight so that Shikamaru could catch its shadow. So Chōji leapt,
bursting out of his henge and back into his own shape, and then skidding past it. The loft
creaked. The thing turned to follow him, its focus entirely taken, and Ino forced back her
nerves and shot chakra through her legs to jump in as well. Dropping her henge was more
disorienting than she’d thought it would be, sounds and smells dimming instantly while the
barn came to life with colour and detail, and even her normal acuity was enough to feel sharp
all of a sudden, like every little edge was cutting into her eyes. The mass of black and red
inside the thing’s open head was cracked and smeared and dripping, caught up on layers of
hooked barbs that lined its inner walls. Its eyes, just as deep and dark as she’d remembered
them, held separate focus, one tracking Chōji on the other side of the loft where he was
balancing his weight precariously and reaching for a kunai, and the other watching Ino land
and whip out a handful of shuriken.

Part of her wanted to take control of its mind, whatever little of it there may be. Habit, more
than anything, and the nagging awareness of Shikamaru and Mitskuni-sensei behind her.
She’d be protecting them; if she took control of the thing and made it stand still while
Mitskuni took its fucking head off, then it couldn’t fight back. Couldn’t hurt him again.

But it didn’t have a mind, or at least little enough of one that Ino didn’t want to risk the
backlash a second time. For as straightforward as it was to cast the Mind Body Switch jutsu,
it was a complicated mechanism. When Ino took possession of someone else’s mind, she all
but surrendered her own to their infrastructure. She might remain in control, but her presence
relied on her target’s system to support her – which was why, of course, possessing animals
or civilians without the properly developed chakra network to sustain her usually ended in
catastrophe. If she threw her mind into a body that didn’t already support a mind of its own,
she opened herself up to the possibility of unravelling completely. Consciousness needed
proper mental scaffolding to be stable, and if she threw herself into a structure that didn’t
have it then she might not be able to find her way back.

So she edged sideways to better block its view of the other half of Team Eight and threw a
shuriken at it. Another growl gave her a second’s warning before its arm lifted and shot
towards her, cracking and spiralling around itself as it elongated far beyond its initial reach. It
looked more like vines than flesh, now she could see it clearly – a spindly twisting length,
knotted together like old tree branches, terminating in a spread of three fingers and a thumb
each tapered into seamless talons. A dark, viscous substance beaded at each tip, and Ino
found herself scrambling back to avoid being slashed. Even if the thing didn’t manage to
gouge her too deeply or clip a major blood vessel, Ino could only too clearly hear Mitskuni-
sensei’s admission from the day before.
Chakra poison. The thing was venomous.

From the other end of the loft, half-obscured by the writhing white mass of claws and
snapping limbs, Chōji let out a pained yelp.

Panic flooded out under Ino’s skin, sending her shuriken flying towards the thing, but she
didn’t get a chance to do much more. Shikamaru’s chakra flared up behind her, a gloomy
wave, and a moment later the thing went completely still, arms quivering in midair, winding
and inhuman and impossibly, horrifically long. Its talons were close enough to her face to
lick, if she tried. Then it twitched, a faint but noticeable jolt against Shikamaru’s jutsu, its
shadow sprawling long into his across the floor. He grunted, breath hissing out between his
teeth; the thing was fighting him. The Nara shadow techniques were easily the most chakra
intensive of the Ino-Shika-Chō triad, and maintaining them for more than maybe five minutes
was difficult and exhausting even with a single, cooperative target. This thing was far from
cooperative. Ino felt her voice rising in her throat like a bubble, a shout for Mitskuni to act.

She couldn’t do it herself. It was weak and pathetic, but the panic still simmered behind her
ribs, the thing’s chakra spilling haphazardly into the air as it fought Shikamaru’s hold. It was
like being strangled, chakra so thick and suffocating that she forgot how to fight, how to
ignore fear. So basic a shinobi tenet – to control one’s own emotions, to put them aside when
they got in the way of the job – but here she was, shivering and backing away from an enemy
who, right at this moment, wasn’t capable of fighting back.

Of course, it didn't matter that she couldn’t find her voice; Mitskuni-sensei didn’t need her
call to action. He flew by too fast for her to track, a blur of flak green and blond and
shimmering, sheer chakra, and a fraction of a second later the thing’s snarling warped into a
shriek and the sound of tearing cardboard and a slight, crackling snap. Mitskuni’s chakra
scorched through the barn like intangible lava. Something too dark and too thick to be blood
splattered across Mitskuni as he resolved in front of her with kunai in hand, a scintillating
rainbow light fading from its edge, spurting out onto the old wooden floor of the loft while
Shikamaru let go of the thing’s shadow and it collapsed. The sickly bitter smell that Ino had
been so aware of as a rat billowed out from its corpse as it bled whatever terrible ooze was
within it, and she tried to take shallow breaths so she couldn’t feel its weight in her lungs.
What the fuck? What the fuck, what the fuck? Sure there were plenty of things in the world
that weren’t human, and plenty of shinobi who’d sacrificed bits and pieces of their humanity
for power, but this…? This thing didn’t really seem to be any of those. It was just… wrong. It
was so wrong. There was no possible way it had come to exist naturally… right?

“Ino,” came Mitskuni's voice, sharp and commanding, and Ino felt her whole body jolt as if
she’d been woken from a dream. “You and Shikamaru get the body outside. Now.”

And then he had sunk his kunai into the thing where it lay and strode to Chōji’s side, and
Shikamaru was much, much closer than he’d been a moment before. When he took her
hands, she couldn’t tell if they were shaking or if it was him. Maybe it was both of them. “…
You good?” he asked quietly, voice low, glancing over his shoulder like he couldn’t help it.
Worried about Chōji. Well, of course. As he should be. Chōji had been—

Oh gods.
Chōji had been scratched.

“I…” What was she supposed to fucking say to that? There wasn’t any world in which she
was good, but she couldn’t do anything about it. Hells, she’d pretty much been unable to do
anything this entire mission, except weave wonderfully fucking graphic tales about why she
was useless. Was she truly so reliant on the Yamanaka techniques that she had nothing to
offer without them?

Whatever she should have said to him, Shikamaru seemed to get it anyway. “… Yeah. Let’s
get this body outside.” His voice was firm, but still too quiet, too flat even for him. Me too,
he didn't say. He didn't need to.

Mitskuni was talking to Chōji, giving him hushed, urgent instructions, and his chakra was
smudging away the lingering sensation of the thing’s chakra in the air, but Ino couldn’t make
out the words. Didn’t have the faintest clue if it was because Mitskuni intended them to be
just for Chōji, or if it was her own perception being too askew, but it didn't really matter.
She’d been given an order – a simple, straightforward task to get done without fucking about
in her own head. So she picked her way closer to the body, trying to push aside the hesitant
fear with every step. She still had to watch Shikamaru pick up the thing’s legs before she
could convince herself to touch it. Typical Shikamaru, leaving the messy end for her to
handle. The substance it was bleeding as she got a hold of its shoulders and lifted was, in
fact, more like sap than blood.

Its head lolled while she and Shikamaru considered the drop from the loft to the ground,
hanging on its neck by a thin length of connective tissue. It looked almost like folded petals
more than it did flesh. Mitskuni had nearly decapitated it entirely, in one strike.

“Just throw it,” Shikamaru decided, shifting his weight to secure his own position where he
stood. “It’s not like we need to be delicate.”

Ino couldn’t begin to come up with a counterargument, or even a reason why she’d need to,
so she just nodded and mimicked Shikamaru in pulling back slightly, lending some modicum
of momentum when they flung the body off the loft. A thick streak of sap-blood stained the
floorboards, leading from the edge back to where it had been felled, and the whole barn
seemed to shudder with the impact of its body hitting the ground. There was a squelch, and
Ino watched its head – still split open like some kind of nightmare venus fly trap – bounce
once as it detached fully on impact.

The rats, cautiously curious, scurried around to inspect it, some following its head and others
sniffing at the body. For an odd, hollow second, all Ino could think was that they couldn’t let
the rats try to eat this thing. Surely it would only poison them.

The thud of Shikamaru jumping down after it shook her loose from that thought, and she
followed him. Snatched up the head while trying not to look at it, flared her own chakra to try
and frighten off the rats. Between them, she and Shikamaru made surprisingly quick work of
getting the body outside after that, even with the boldest few of the rats poking around their
feet. A couple of them truly were bloody fearless; a result, perhaps, of cohabitating with the
monster for years.
Years. How had this thing been living out here for so long without something tragic
happening? Was it— Had it been really so content to stay placidly within the barn so long as
no one went inside?

“Ino.” She jumped, looking around for Mitskuni-sensei, wondering what she’d just been
staring at and for how long. The monster, right? Had to be. But meeting Mitskuni’s
unfamiliar grim gaze, she couldn’t recall any more detail about the thing than that it was
white, and weirdly plantlike, and hopefully very, very dead. “You’re the best sensor on this
team. Stay with Chōji and make sure he doesn’t stop circulating his chakra. His wound won’t
fester so long as he maintains an active flow.”

An active…? But she didn’t argue, not even about being the ‘best sensor’. Perhaps, if he was
only considering his genin, it might even be true, but Mitskuni was still a member of the team
and he was – as really he should be – better than them at pretty much everything.

She was still watching Mitskuni work some earth release and build a bank of dirt and rock
around the body as she crouched by Chōji. It felt too difficult to look away, like she’d been
glued in position somehow. “Are you okay?” Stupid question. But it slipped out all the same,
and Chōji leaned against her with a soft whimper. Automatically, Ino put an arm around his
shoulders and hugged him closer.

“S-Sensei says it’ll be ok-kay. As long as I—” A hiss, pain and something else, an uneasy
disquiet. “… As long as I don’t let my chakra go too still.” Ino heard herself offer a gentle
hum of acknowledgement, trying to parse that into actually helpful information. A constant
chakra flow sort of made sense, as long as whatever venom the thing had in its claws stayed
localised to the wound and didn’t somehow hijack that same flow to spread. But telling Chōji
to keep it up actively meant that his natural chakra flow wasn’t sufficient, which meant—

“Wait, do you have to do that… until we get home?” She finally managed to turn her head as
chakra and fire both sparked, getting a good look at Chōji while a whoomph and a wall of
heat blistered out and the body caught alight. He was unsettlingly pale, but that wasn’t all too
surprising, the circumstance considered. The wide lacerations through the sleeve of his shirt
were far more concerning, as was the staining of blood and black venom in the fabric. “Fuck,
Chō, how bad did it get you?” There was little thought in how she reached out, but Chōji
gave her his arm willingly enough, glancing away while she peeled back the sleeve. It wasn’t
as bad as she’d feared, underneath – faint dark lines around the edges of the cuts, visible even
through his blood, but they weren’t as deep or long as the damage to his shirt implied. He’d
need bandaging before they went anywhere for sure, but as far as Ino could tell, he wasn’t in
any danger of bleeding out.

The smell of the thing burning wafted around them as Ino pulled out her bandage roll from
her kunai holster. It wasn’t any more than standard kit dictated, just one small roll for
emergencies, but it would be good enough to help stop the bleeding until Mitskuni-sensei
could do a better job. And, far more selfishly, it was something that Ino could actually do,
something helpful and meaningful. Chōji and Shikamaru were practically her brothers. How
could she possibly do nothing? Dragging a body outside was an almost worthless
contribution on its own.
“Sorry, Chōji,” Ino muttered reflexively as she pulled his sleeve up past his elbow and he
winced. It was sticking to his skin, and there were broken threads and hay fragments trapped
in the wounds. For a moment, Ino hesitated. Should she try to pick those out first? Leaving
foreign bodies in the wounds was a terrible idea in general, but she might just make it worse
if she poked around that much. It wasn’t like they were sterile to begin with anyway, and the
thing was venomous to boot. A bit of hay wasn’t that bad, was it? Hay from a barn infested
with rats and untouched by humans for years. Fuck. But dithering about it wasn’t any more
helpful either, for anyone.

Chōji let her bandage him in silence, but the moment she was done he took her hands and
squeezed. The thing was popping like damp firewood as it burned, producing bursts of dark
smoke and a smell somewhere between smouldering pine and rotting timber. Wincing, Chōji
relaxed his right hand, the tension painful on the slashes in his forearm, but with the left he
kept a tight grip. “It… It’ll be okay, Ino. Right?” A reassurance and a request for reassurance
at the same time. And she took a breath to give it, but somewhere in her chest, her voice
failed.

“Yeah, it’ll be fine.” Shikamaru, from Choji's other side, and gods only knew when he’d
gotten there. All of the focus Ino could scrape together was on Chōji, feeling for the gentle
susurrus of his chakra. “We’re heading back for Konoha as soon as this thing’s finished
burning. Sensei's orders.”

It should be a relief, really, but Ino couldn’t find it in her. The trip out here had taken four
days, and even taking into account the fact Mitskuni had held an easy pace, it still meant at
least two more days to travel back. That was a long time to maintain conscious chakra flow.
Even if everything else went completely smoothly and they made their best possible time
(and they wouldn’t, with two injured team members), the next few days were going to be
hell.

“… Did Sensei say why we’re burning it?” How inane a question. But Ino still listened to
herself ask it, and didn’t bother trying to rein in whatever else might slip out. It just wasn’t
worth the concentration to control it; she had better things to focus on. “He took its head off.”
Good. “ It’s dead.”

Shikamaru’s expression was troubled, but he just wrinkled his nose and half-shrugged. “To
make sure it stays that way.”

It wasn’t their first C-rank, but it was the first one that would take them outside of the
Thunderous Range; excitement bubbled under Kiba’s skin while he waited for the last of their
team to show. Or maybe it was the thin film of chakra he’d carefully layered out and
converted from earth to fire. It still took more concentration from him to maintain than he’d
like to admit, but it kept him warm in the frigid Kumo winter. Even as they were approaching
spring, the clan grounds and central shinobi parts of the village remained mercilessly icy,
above the clouds.

Lea stood off to the side, almost on her own, with Sen-sensei between them. If he thought
about it too hard, Kiba wasn’t even sure, really, when she’d become the odd one out. He
stayed out of clan politics as much as he could – what politics the Inuzuka clan participated
in at all, and Hana had asserted more than once that it was far less than most big clans like
theirs – but it was impossible to escape it entirely. By and large, the Inuzuka were still
outsiders in Kumo, their children kept isolated amongst the genin teams, assigned to Kumo
jōnin who, for the most part, came from families or clans that had been with Kumo since its
beginning. The adults worked tirelessly, held at chūnin rank no matter their actual skills, held
in missions or in-village jobs that kept them busy but didn’t let them get too close to Kumo’s
essential running. It would be a long time, Kiba was sure, before any Inuzuka would be
trusted enough to be given a task where they could do real damage if they betrayed Kumo.

No Inuzuka ever would – one’s family, one’s pack, was everything, and to betray their village
would be like turning on themselves. Even if he didn’t know the details and doubted he ever
would, Kiba knew that was why they’d left Konoha in the first place – but Kumo couldn’t
know that. Until the Inuzuka exodus, Kumo had only ever known them as enemies. It still
wasn’t fair, not really, but as long as the clan kept going, kept trying, it would get better.

Always last, Iona clambered up from the climbing wall and into the training grounds, her
breath fogging in the air. “Sorry, Sensei!” she called breathlessly, trotting over to their group;
she took her position beside Kiba and flashed him a bright smile. “Hi, Kiba. Hi, Akamaru.”
Yipping a greeting in return, Akamaru snuffled into Kiba’s hair, tail wagging and tickling the
back of his neck.

Sen sighed. “Now that we’re all finally here,” with a roll of their eyes, “we can get started.
Our client is a nomadic merchant by the name of Kanzaki Masahiko. She’s bought our escort
into some underground ruin she wants to ransack. We aren’t expecting to encounter any
hostile parties, so tell me what we’ll be doing.” Their eyes moved between Kiba and Iona,
pausing for a moment on Akamaru, and then turned to Lea. Four months ago, Kiba would
have still resented the demand – he would have misunderstood it, because he didn’t know
Sen-sensei and couldn’t see what they were actually doing.

He knew better now, thankfully.

Still, Lea was quicker on the uptake than he was, as per usual. She flaunted it at every
opportunity, her advantages over her teammates; of course she had a wider knowledge of
stuff than Iona, whose family were civilians, and Kiba might be a clan kid but he’d still only
been in Kumo for five and a half years. It was still fucking annoying, just like Lea herself,
but Kiba tried to feel smug about it instead of angry. Her desperation to prove herself better
than them only exposed her weak spots. Well, that was what Iona said, anyway.

“Our not expecting any hostile parties doesn’t mean there’s guaranteed not to be any, so
we’re still providing the client protection.” She said it quickly, her chin lifted, keeping her
gaze fixed on Sen. “Also, there are all sorts of dangerous things that might happen in a ruin
even if there’s no living resistance. Or wild animals that have made their homes there.”

With a hum, Sen-sensei nodded. “Very good, Lea, that’s correct.” Now Lea smiled at them,
met Kiba’s gaze specifically, and Kiba felt his lip curling in response. He tried to put it all
aside when he was on mission – and credit where no credit was due, Lea did too – but Kiba
couldn’t wait to make chūnin and get around to never fucking talking to her again. “Have you
two got anything to add?” Akamaru barked, and an amused little smirk flitted across Sen-
sensei’s face. “Apologies; you three.”
Iona put her hand up. “If she’s ransacking a ruin, then she’s probably looking for stuff to sell,
right?” Sen nodded, holding their tongue even if the amusement lingered on their face.
“Then… she’s probably gonna want us to help ransack. Right, Sensei? We’re faster than
civilians, and we can see more.”

“We can carry more, too,” Kiba added with a snort, following Iona’s thread to where it
naturally went. “Though, shouldn’t we get to keep the stuff if we find it?” Given that
Masahiko was already making use of the ‘finders, keepers’ rule, it would only be fair.

Fluffing up like an angry cat, Lea scoffed. “You can’t just assume that. She might have
bought the land it’s on before exploring it, or she might have gotten a permit to salvage
whatever’s in there that we don’t have.” She took a breath to continue, but Sen-sensei put a
hand briefly on her shoulder, silencing her instantly.

“Which is why asking me about it beforehand is the correct course of action.” Not scolding,
Sen-sensei wasn’t really the sort of person who scolded them - at least, not since they’d
decided Kiba was trustworthy – but even then they’d been more likely to give laps than
verbal reprimands. But there was a tone in their voice halfway between placating and
warning, and Lea deflated entirely. “In this case, Kanzaki-san has included a stipulation in
her mission contract that obligates us to surrender any valuables we may discover while
acting as her escort.” Damn. “However, given the potential monetary loss if we find anything
especially valuable, she’s agreed to pay a heightened premium for our assistance.”

Kiba frowned while he considered that. It was nice, for sure, because Sen made sure to split
their D-rank and (for the two they’d already done within the mountains) C-rank pay equally
four ways between them, so whatever premium Masahiko had paid would be passed on
directly. On the other hand, Kiba rather hoped he didn’t find anything really special. Hunting
down relics to make some wandering merchant rich wasn’t exactly what he’d been looking
forward to when he’d finally graduated to genin.

Next to him, Iona let out a soft laugh. “She’s basically gambling, then.”

“Well, it would be best not to say as much to her,” Sen-sensei replied, a faint twinkle in their
eyes. “But essentially, yes. And Kiba – yes to you, as well. Shinobi labour is incredibly
efficient, so even with our premium, she’s far more likely to make a profit off our assistance
than if she hired civilian labourers for the same work.” They tilted their head slightly,
considering whether to ask them a follow-up question; of course, if they decided not to then it
would only come up later. Sen wasn’t the kind of person to forget a potential talking point.
After a moment, they hummed and shrugged. “Even the four of us can manage – fairly easily
– the work of twice as many civilian excavators.” Akamaru yipped another protest from
under Kiba’s hood, and both Sen and Iona laughed in response.

Reaching up, Iona tapped Akamaru gently on the nose. “Oh hush, you. You’re not going to be
carrying anything – you don’t even carry yourself.”

Arms folded, Lea huffed and looked away. She liked Akamaru too, really, and at first she’d
been just as willing to work with him as Iona, as long as she didn’t have to be nice to Kiba to
accomplish it. Now… well, Kiba didn’t feel the slightest bit sorry for her – she got what she
deserved, the bitch – but it was pretty fucking sad how much she isolated herself, just
because she didn’t want to accept the Inuzuka clan as true Kumo-nin.

Oh well. It was her own problem; even Sen had come around after a while, now believed that
Kiba was loyal. And of course he was. He might not really understand what happened with
Konoha, but it didn't really matter. They weren’t home any longer, weren’t allies, weren’t
pack.

Kumo was.

Part of him almost wished it had been harder to find Sakura; his own fault, really, letting
himself go on autopilot to follow her chakra signature through the winding wen woods. All
his kids were in different treeways, separated out across central Tsuki no Mori apparently
randomly, but giving tell as to which Alpha they fell under first. Normal citizens weren’t
claimed the same way that Hatake children were upon entering the lineage, but by and large
each individual ninken felt connected to one Alpha a little more strongly than they did the
others, and their dens clustered together accordingly.

Sakura didn’t respond immediately when he knocked at the entry to her den, so Kakashi just
stuck his head in to check on her rather than walking in wholesale. Blinking blearily, tangled
in her sprawl of blankets, Sakura was barely awake, looking around for what had woken her.

Oops.

It wasn’t as if Kakashi hadn’t been responsible for early mornings amongst his genin before;
he’d had them up and about by six am almost every day since they’d graduated, Waves and
since notwithstanding. He’d never really felt guilty about it until now. For a moment, he
considered retreating and leaving her be for a while longer – he’d waited for Hinata to wake
naturally, and there was no reason he couldn’t do the same for Sakura.

“Sen…” She yawned, licking dry lips and rubbing one eye. “Sensei?” Her voice was still
croaky with sleep, but even lulled out of her typical hyperalertness, it was unlikely she’d find
her way back into dreams now.

Humming to make sure she would know where he was before invading her space, Kakashi
stepped into her den. “Yeah, it’s me.” Sakura yawned again, but she turned to face him,
twisting around as she pushed herself up from where she lay. “Sorry for waking you.”

Sakura made a vague noise, running her hands through her hair. It was getting long again.
“‘t’s fine.” Shaking her sleepiness off, her eyes were bright and aware when she looked over
to him again. Not as wary as she’d been, but still too sharp for a genin who was completely
safe in Tsuki no Mori. “Did something happen?”

Of course. Because something must have happened for Kakashi to be waking her like this –
or perhaps that was just her default, that something was wrong, that she needed to brace or
fight or… help, maybe, given her ability in medical ninjutsu. She’d been pretty quick to jump
on everyone’s injuries during Waves, had known (or at least deduced) the venom in the Kiri
Demon Brothers’ claws. Kakashi didn’t want to think about whether she’d trialled her ability
to give intravenous injections for the first time on Hinata, with so much at stake, or if she’d
found a way to practice such a skill. Both options were bad, and frankly, they were just lucky
that she’d succeeded.

Shaking his head, Kakashi came further into Sakura’s den and took a seat on one of the
pillows. “It’s time we discuss your future, Sakura.” Which was probably a bad choice of
opening phrase, watching the way her eyes widened and her face paled. “Your future with
me.” He tried to say it reassuringly; she always seemed so afraid that he was letting her go,
rejecting her, but her eyes glazed over with unshed tears and she averted her gaze. Confusion
flickered across her features.

“I don't understand.” No, he supposed she wouldn’t. Kakashi was being far from succinct and
she had her own fears and paranoia to think through. Anger smouldered quietly in Kakashi’s
sternum, hatred for the people who had made her that way. She was a child, and she was his,
and she deserved better than uncertain anxiety and the constant expectation of punishment or
abandonment.

How many times had they threatened that, Kakashi found himself wondering. How many
times had they framed what bare minimum fucking parenting they had done as some
benevolent kind of gift? Kakashi’s hands clenched in his lap, and Sakura’s eyes flashed to
them for a moment. Looked back up to his face with a piercing wariness far beyond her
years.

“You won’t be returning to your parents when we get back to Konoha.” He said it as softly as
he could manage, but it still came out… wrong, somehow. Sakura blinked at him, taken
aback, mouth open but no words apparent. Even more confused, now. “We need to speak
about your parents, Sakura.” Another blink, slowly closing her mouth, the liquid haze in her
eyes morphing into dread. “You can be honest with me. You’re safe here.” And that was what
Kakashi wanted to make sure she understood, really, even if everything else was too much or
too scary.

She was safe here. And she was one of them now. One of the lineage. One of his clan. She
belonged to Tsuki no Mori as much as she belonged to Konoha; she would always be safe
here.

Unblinking now, Sakura studied him with uncertain, unsettled eyes. Concern layered over
oozing unease and growing disquiet. She wasn’t sure what he meant – or she refused to
believe he could possibly mean what he did. Maybe she thought of herself as a better actress
than she was; too harsh a judgement, Kakashi scolded himself a moment later. She was, given
her circumstances, an excellent liar. It wasn’t her fault that the world had spiralled so far out
of her control, that she was forced to try and endure what would be difficult even for a
completely healthy person while holding herself together with blood and will alone.

After a long minute of silence, Sakura swallowed. Blinked. Lowered her gaze to Kakashi’s
left, turning her head away and looking at him without looking at him, avoiding direct eye
contact. She was tilting her head to expose her throat, shifting around to settle more on her
side so her chest and belly were open to him. In many ways, human and canine body
language was very similar when it came to submissive and appeasement behaviour, and there
was no reason for him to assume her current methods were primarily canine, but it made
sense in a way that Kakashi couldn’t justify. Sakura hadn’t grown up with dogs, to the best of
Kakashi’s investigative skill, hadn’t interacted with any summons or shinobi animals before
Kakashi’s pack, but she carried an edge that seemed just enough not human instinct.

“I… know that, Sensei.”

Kakashi sighed. He’d frightened her – not entirely a surprise, given that he hadn’t figured out
how to have this conversation in all the time he’d had to prepare, and he was already tired
and frazzled this morning. Hinata’s tears hadn’t even finished drying in his shirt yet. “Do you
remember your first lesson?”

He felt guilty, thinking of it. The suspicion he’d regarded her with, the coldness. It hadn’t
even been unjustified, given what he’d known and what he hadn’t, but subjecting her to his
Sharingan without warning – when she’d spent a good ten minute stretch sobbing herself
hoarse only a few moments prior – was one of his crueller decisions. At the time, he’d been
trying to make them, all three, hate him. If they hated him, if they resented him, then they’d
have been protected from the inevitable misery of caring about him.

He’d have been spared the inevitable pain of losing them.

Too late, now. Kakashi couldn’t afford to waste his energy on that anymore, couldn’t afford to
lose himself in that dread. It was too late. They were his. For gods’ sakes, they were Hatake
now. The effort had been meaningless, in the end, except perhaps to wound them while they
were vulnerable.

Sakura nodded. “Never lie to you.” Her voice was tight.

“Good.” After a moment, Kakashi shuffled a little closer. “So you need to be honest with me
about your parents. About… how they’ve treated you.” Her brow furrowed, she glanced up to
his face for half a second, a flash fast enough to do a jōnin proud. “Sakura.” And she looked
up properly this time, fixed her gaze on his ear. “Don’t make me lay out the evidence.” Gods,
he didn’t want to do it, but he would.

Having her live with him, with Hinata, out of her parents’ reach, would be a half-measure at
best if she couldn’t admit it. She needed to accept it before she could confront it, and if she
never confronted it then she’d never grow past it.

(Hypocrite, whispered a voice in his head that sounded disconcertingly like Tsunade.)

“Wh… Sensei, I don’t understand.” Repeated with an edge more desperation, thoughts
visibly turning over like rabbits fleeing before a hound.

Kakashi felt himself sigh again. “I told you that, once you were ready, you’d tell me what
happened to you.” He could see the way her thoughts flew back, tracking through
conversations until she found the right one, the memory that informed this new line of
questioning. And it wasn’t entirely relevant anymore – he’d made the wrong assumption,
then, landed on the wrong conclusion. That a single, terrible event had befallen her and she
was simply struggling and failing to act like it hadn’t, that she was trying to be the little girl
who’d been in her file and just couldn’t anymore. But the sentiment remained, even if he was
taking that choice away from her. “It’s unfair, but we’re going to talk about it now, instead.”

Fear melted away all her other, floundering emotions. Her eyes went wide, pupils narrowing
to dark pinpricks in her pale irises, fixed on him directly as she forgot her submissive body
language. Nostrils flared, shrinking back into herself – Kakashi could only too clearly
imagine the way her ears would have flattened if she’d been a ninken.

“I—” She stammered, fell back onto her hands, caught her breath in her chest like catching
prey between her teeth. “Y-you— H-how do you…?”

Well. At least she wasn’t denying it anymore. “When we get back to Konoha, you’ll live with
me. And Hinata.” A flicker of understanding – realising why he’d been moving into a new
house – and then subsumed by terror again. “Easy. You won’t have to go back to your
parents, Sakura. They can’t hurt you anymore.” And laws and morals be damned, Kakashi
would make sure of it if they tried.

Sakura made a choked sound, incoherent disbelief, and dissolved into coughing. She didn’t
flinch when he approached, eyes watering, mouth covered by one hand. The med-nin would
be furious with him if they found out, even for such a small exertion, but Kakashi gently
patted Sakura on the back, infusing his touch with a tingle of chakra to help ease the
muscular spasms, the stick of saliva and emotions both in her chest.

After a few moments, the coughing died out, and Sakura turned her head to blink at him
through wet eyes, her expression fractured open and exposed. “Y-you think… my
parents…?” Whispered, her voice like a shiver in the air.

“I told you to be honest with me,” Kakashi heard himself chide her, but at least it came out
gentle. “You don’t have to protect them. You don’t owe them anything.” He was prepared for
the uphill battle that convincing her of that would be, undoing all the psychological and
emotional damage that they’d done to her, but it was important to start on that now. Even if
she didn’t believe him yet. “And you never have to go back to them.”

Shaking her head, but not pulling away, Sakura straightened up. “N-no— Sensei, they… I’m
not… They haven’t…” Couldn’t even get the whole protest out, not in three attempts, not
while she held his gaze. Couldn’t bring herself to complete the lie. “I…”

She hadn’t flinched from his hand still on her back, hadn’t shown any negative response to
the contact. It was oddly touching, that she had so much trust in him that his proximity didn’t
frighten her, didn’t bring out the same violent, thoughtless reflex he’d seen from her so often
over the months. Even as uncontrolled as those responses had been, reacting to sparring
attacks as if her very life was in danger, she felt safe enough with him to remain, if not
defenceless, then vulnerable.

So he took the chance he’d been afraid to before, and pulled her gently into a hug. Stupid, he
told himself as she collapsed into it, as her arms went too tight around his waist. Sakura had
hugged him the first time they’d met, practically jumped at him the moment he’d walked into
the Academy infirmary room. He should have known that it would comfort her.
He should have known she needed it.

Sakura was shaking against him, irregular little shudders that betrayed how desperately she
was trying not to cry. It was unavoidable, probably; as uncomfortable as it was, as much as
Kakashi would love to hide away and let the ninken or the Alphas handle this, because gods
knew he was in over his head, he was resigned to it. There’d been no chance of escaping
Hinata’s tears, and there’d be no chance to escape Sakura’s.

Maybe that was just what he was signing up for, taking them into his house on a permanent
basis. Spending most of every day with them was one thing, but it would be… different, he
knew, spending every night with them, too. For as much as slipped out in daylight hours,
Kakashi knew secondhand that there were nightmares and terrors that his kunoichi kept
hidden until it was dark. He should probably start getting used to this now.

“Sensei… My parents, they… They’re… good people. Really.” Sure. Good people who’d
abused their only daughter severely enough she behaved like she’d been in a war.

Kakashi couldn’t stop the angry growl that rumbled in his chest, and Sakura was certainly
close enough to hear it, but she dug her fingers into his back and didn’t comment on it. “You
don’t need to defend them, Sakura.” No doubt it was something he was going to need to
repeat for a long time coming, to dispute whatever lies they’d told her about how lucky she
might’ve been to have them as parents. How much like Hinata had her life been, really, when
he stripped out the clan politics?

If the universe was kinder to them than it was to him, and if he was very, very lucky, they’d
be able to help each other in the ways Kakashi didn’t think he could.

“Good people don’t hurt children, Sakura.” He was careful, this time, to ensure his voice
remained even. That belief generally held true in Kakashi’s experiences, but it did rather put a
damper on his judgement of himself and other adult shinobi. Hurting children did, after all,
sometimes come with the territory. And there was nuance somewhere in there, of course,
critical differences between a child as collateral and the long term, deliberate, and targeted
violence Sakura had endured, but… Well, nobody ever claimed that shinobi lived at the
height of morality. In their business, ethics were somewhat optional. “Especially not the way
they’ve hurt you.”

A twitch went through her. “You’re… not going to hurt them, are you?” Only fair that she
would ask, even if the question felt like a lance; it wasn’t even unjustified. Kakashi had
entertained the notion of vengeance on Mebuki and Kizashi more than once.

But, ultimately… “No. That would still be illegal.” He couldn’t exactly be their jōnin-sensei
from within a cell himself. “Whatever happens to them is up to Tsunade-sama and the
Konoha court.” Better that way, that Kakashi wasn’t involved in those proceedings. Better for
him and Sakura both to just keep their fucking distance.

Sakura nodded. She was still shaking, but she hadn’t broken down yet. Not fully. Maybe she
wouldn’t until Kakashi gave her some privacy – but that would have to wait until after she let
go of him.
“… I… I never thought I’d get to see Tsuki no Mori,” she quavered, scrambling for a
different path down which to divert her thoughts. And perhaps it was an odd one, given that
she’d only even met the pack a few weeks ago – gods almighty, how had it only been a few
weeks – and still Kakashi couldn't find it within himself to point that out. “Thank y-you.
For… For bringing me here.”

A thousand things she couldn’t say – could, perhaps, never say – but her gratitude eased
something noxious clinging on in Kakashi’s thoughts. Some of the tension in his chest faded,
let him breathe in as if the air wasn’t water. Merely the fact of her presence here mightn’t
truly deserve so deep and wounded a note in her voice, but it was all the other things that it
meant. Acceptance from Kakashi and the Alphas that was unconditional. She was pack, now;
she would always be pack. And freedom from her parents, the chance to relax and rest that
they had denied her, probably her entire life.

There was always a reason that civilian children chose to enter the Academy. Escape was a
powerful motivator.

“You’re welcome.” It felt too small a response, almost self-congratulatory somehow, as if

he’d done anything more than what he had to. “… They won’t ever hurt you again, Sakura.”
Softly. Reassurance, for as much as he could promise. It was a step too far to offer her total
safety – even in the absolute best of circumstances, safety was a rare and precious luxury in
the life of a shinobi – but he could offer her this. A home that wouldn’t torture her,
companionship in the form of a ninken who would always be at her side and Hinata, who
would be, for all intents and purposes, her sister.

Sakura’s fingers dug in harder, eight painful points in Kakashi’s back. Still shaking; as hard
as she’d tried to hold it together, she cracked. A shiver went through her, a wretched half-
gasp that drew her back, creating a gap between them for a moment that felt like an endless
chasm, for all that it was barely a few inches. An agonising little sound clawed free of her,
head tilting to the side as the shadow of despair overtook her eyes and she lost her grip on the
light normally therein. Burying her face in Kakashi’s chest again, she managed a shuddering,
tiny, “Y-yeah…”

Her voice broke, she drew a shallow, shrill breath, and she fell apart.

It wasn’t the same as the way Hinata had cried. As overwhelmed as she’d been, Hinata’s tears
had been primarily ones of relief. An edge of disbelief, maybe, that she’d found herself in
this situation, but whatever became the truth of it all, Hinata had deep-seated faith in him.

But this… This was like that first day, when she’d swayed on unsteady feet and wailed
herself silent. Sobbed until she couldn’t anymore. He’d stood back then, watched her cry
herself out. Pretending to be cold and distant – and, if he was honest, completely uncertain
what to even do. Kakashi had never been very good with tears, even the frivolous ones that
so frequently came with children, but Sakura’s… Sakura’s weeping always felt like the end
of the world. Like she was unstitching along her seams.

So for the second time today, Kakashi held tight while his shirt grew wet and dark.
Chapter End Notes

SURPRISE:
| Itachi is hard to write. I love the bastard, and I have a general idea of how he should
behave in this setting, but writing his perspective is difficult. As one of my lovely betas
put it, "Producing a consistent and emotionally coherent itachi is the character-
equivalent of trying to unfuck the senseis-generation timeline. multiple clashing
assertions that just do not fit neatly no matter how carefully you smash them together,
and need judicious and liberal applications of headcanon and handwaving to get it to slip
under the radar."
| So anyway, here's to liberal handwaving XD
| Took a bit longer in this one than I’d have liked, though I’ve been consumed by other
things lmao. Also threw in a long night of writing the second half of an au oneshot that’s
now the second chapter of my dumping ground Thoughts Like Sugar, Dreams Like
Time so that’s a thing.
| For the sake of clarity, and because I’m a massive nerd, the way henge works in
regards to the physical abilities of the form the user takes on – in this case, a rat – are
mixed with the capabilities of a human (and specifically, a chakra-capable human, which
are a bit more extreme than that of average humans). For example, real life rats have
dichromatic vision; they can see greens and blues, as well as slightly further up into
ultraviolet, but they’re red-green colourblind and generally can’t distinguish reds except
as ‘dark’. Also, while they have excellent bright-dark vision and have a huge field of
view because lateral eyes, they generally see things very blurry.
| Now, obviously most of that isn’t very helpful for a shinobi infiltrating enemy ground
on reconnaissance, except for the field of view. But because henge transformation is
applied to the shinobi’s real human body, the more internal and delicate changes tend to
stick a bit less. So a shinobi henged into a rat loses a lot of their direct binocular vision
and trades it out for a rat’s huge field of vision, because to be a convincing rat they have
to have their eyes placed in the same part of their skull that real rats do – but, the
internal mechanisms of their actual eyeballs don’t completely restructure to that of a
rat’s. So they don’t lose their red-detecting cones, the finicky bits that I’ve forgotten the
name of that mean rats see things super blurry aren’t all degraded from a human’s much
finer grain.
| Anyway, that’s how a shinobi henged into a rat retains a decent clarity of vision and the
ability to distinguish red (though not as clearly as they can in their native form), while
also gaining some ability to see ultraviolet and stuff.
| To quote one of my betas - the ever-illustrious Haethel - again on the subject of running
interference, because her meta commentary here speaks to me on a spiritual level:
“Interference is the most risky role. If the person flanking can't get a one-hit killshot
then the person who attracted the creature's attention is dead. I suspect that if Mitskuni
had any hope that either Ino or Choji had an offensive ability strong enough to take it
out in one hit then there's not a chance he would have let either of them run interference.
Mitskuni is only the flanker because he's the only one of them that can kill it fast
enough once they poke it.”
| This chapter was very interesting to read back; the final order of these scenes isn’t the
order in which I wrote them, which doesn’t happen very often. There are swaths of text
floating about the Team Eight fight that I have no recollection of writing, but I quite
enjoyed reading XD

Next Chapter Due: 5th April 2022

 Assembly Instructions Unclear, Additional Packmates Required
Chapter Summary

In which pack is chosen and family is found.

Chapter Notes

Quote of the Chapter: "Deja vu, like deep-fried moments."

Light references to child abuse.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Walking the treeways of Tsuki no Mori turned out to be oddly relaxing. Even if he only got a
few minutes to himself before the puppies started to follow him. There was a pair of adult
ninken to chaperone them, too, but they stayed a little further back and didn’t bother trying to
hide. The whispering reminded him of the Academy a little, the hushed rumours that had
overtaken his classmates for a while after the Massacre, but he didn’t feel the same seething
resentment that he had then. It was kind of cute, actually, the way the puppies thought they
were being sneaky.

Was that what being a jōnin-sensei was like? Watching fresh genin try to imitate skill. For a
moment, contemplating that thought, Sasuke paused and eyed the horde of fur scrambling to
hide. There was still a part of him that raised hackles at the idea that he was unskilled, that
took even his own idle wondering as an insult, as a challenge – but he did his best to quiet it.
Sasuke was hardly useless, even next to his peers, but there was a vast chasm of difference
between his abilities and those of older, more experienced shinobi. He could never close that
gap if he refused to acknowledge it existed, and it wasn’t like he could deny how badly he’d
been outclassed in Waves. Even with his Sharingan he’d been in over his head.

Almost too literally.

He should have known better than to think that the Sharingan would substitute his lack of
experience. Mother and Itachi had always warned him not to rely too much on it; the
Sharingan wasn’t some kind of innate superiority over shinobi who didn’t have it. It was just
a tool in Sasuke’s arsenal, and he didn’t know how to use it. A weapon he didn’t know how
to use was his enemy’s weapon.

Sasuke’s hands clenched around the narrow branch that formed a rail along the treeway. It
still stung to admit his flaws, but he couldn’t ignore them. He especially couldn’t ignore them
while fixating on his teammates’.
That last night in Waves had been… fucking awful, if he was blunt. Almost drowning after
being thrown around like a ragdoll was bad enough – injuries to both his body and his pride –
but there was a lingering sense of isolation that he didn’t know how to address. Hinata had
been delirious with pain, and Kakashi-sensei had gone down so hard he hadn’t woken for
days afterwards. He shouldn’t have been up in the first place, really, but he had – he’d come
to protect them, as much as he could, even when he’d been so exhausted he didn’t stand a
chance against Zabuza. And Sakura had gone to assassinate the heart of the problem and then
worked herself into unconsciousness as well.

If Zabuza had decided to come back, Sasuke would have been Team Seven’s only defence,
and he would have failed. Surrounded by his fallen teammates while still alert himself was
deeply terrifying in a way Sasuke had no words to explain. Until he’d heard Ūhei’s distant
barking, he’d thought they’d be stuck in Waves until they were recovered enough to drag
themselves back to Konoha. It would have been catastrophic. Kakashi-sensei could have
died.

No. Based on what Itachi had told him about chakra transfusions, Kakashi-sensei probably
would have died if Ūhei hadn’t brought the team who saved them. He would have died, and
Sakura likely with him, and Sasuke would have been not just unable to save them, but unable
to even understand how he could have. How would he have even begun to explain to Hinata,
when she’d woken up? How could he have faced Itachi?

For as angry as Sakura’s decisions had made him, Sasuke was beginning to think she’d been
right. Fighting Zabuza was an exercise in futility; even if she’d stayed behind to help, he still
would have defeated them. She should have told them, but she’d still been the one to actually
do something to save the situation. Even if he still couldn’t fathom how she so nonchalantly
killed so many people. She’d always been so… compassionate. What happened to that?

Maybe he’d been wrong to think of it as a betrayal. Sakura had been off since graduation.
Maybe she hadn’t been faking all their time as friends – maybe something had happened to
her.

A wet nose touched his hand, and Sasuke jumped back reflexively. Adrenaline crackled
through him like lightning, chakra rising, heat and white-edged clarity burning in his eyes as
his Sharingan activated. A second later, he felt incredibly stupid. The adult ninken moved in,
watching closely with their ears swivelled forward, as if Sasuke might become a threat.
Might he? It was stupid, and he knew better than to think that he was in danger here, but he
was still standing so stiffly, Sharingan blazing, a quiver in his breath that made him want to
hit himself.

He’d seen Sakura react like this. When she didn’t need to, when it was just sparring. He
hadn’t ever understood why she was being so weird and violent about it.

Oh, gods. It was this. Thought and fear and training that overrode good sense.

Something had happened to her.

“Are you alright, pup?” came a gravelled voice, and Sasuke made himself take a steady
breath and blink off his Sharingan. One of the ninken had come closer, lifted a forepaw. She
was a little bit smaller than Ūhei, long-furred and fluffy, black but for her white belly, and a
white stripe down the middle of her face.

“Y-yeah.” Was it a lie? He wasn’t even sure. Another step forward, and the ninken put her
paw lightly against Sasuke’s thigh. Let out a soft rumble.

“It’s alright. You’re safe here.” She sat down, hindlegs splayed to her left. “Sit down, pup.
Let yourself settle.” And she wasn’t a Konoha ninken, didn’t really have any authority over
him, but Sasuke still did as he was bid, tucking his legs underneath him. Did she really have
no authority over him? Sure, she had no jurisdiction in Konoha, but they weren’t in Konoha –
and Sasuke was part of the pack, now. She’d been part of the pack longer than him. There
was every chance she was older than him. “My name is Taya,” she said softly, canting her
head for a moment.

Flexing his hands to try and make the faint tingle go away, Sasuke nodded. “Sasuke.” Taya
flicked an ear, and the other adult ninken gave some unspoken signal. In a rush of thudding
paws and excited yips, the puppies came forward and pressed in around them.

Laughing, Taya allowed herself to be bowled over. “Easy, younglings, easy. He won’t bond
with any of you if you overwhelm him.” Her last words were muffled slightly by the pile of
puppies on top of her, but some of them calmed down a bit all the same. Most heeded
nothing, and continued to yip excitedly, frantically licking at Sasuke’s hands or neck. Despite
himself, Sasuke felt laughter bubble up and out of his chest, chasing away the ghostly taste of
seawater in his throat. “Sorry about this, Sasuke,” she told him, but there was an amused
twinkle in her eyes and the roll of swallowed laughter in her voice. “They’re still easily
excited.”

Sasuke shook his head – or tried to, craning away from the puppies, trying to avoid getting
puppy slobber in his mouth. “It’s okay.” Surprisingly, it really was. He was pretty sure this
would have annoyed him before, but now… well, it was nice. Seeing the puppies scurry
around and climb over one another without a care in the world. Their innocence. Would
choosing one of them destroy that? Surely it must, at some point. Life as a shinobi wasn’t
easy; it was relentless and demanding, and Sasuke wasn’t sure anymore that Sakura’s bloody
response to their mission had been too extreme. Violence was carved into them from the
outset. What else had the Academy trained them for, if not the inevitability of fighting? There
was no escape from bloodshed in battle.

“These are the pups who have an interest in contracting you,” the other adult ninken spoke
up. Their voice was quiet and eerily smooth, but still audible over the puppies. “Not all of
them, but a good portion. We thought this group might be numerous enough already.”

Giving up on keeping his face un-licked, Sasuke pushed one puppy gently down and nodded.
“Yeah. I appreciate it.” The puppy-pile was already heavy enough. Sasuke was pretty sure
he’d be smothered to death if it grew much bigger. For a moment, the thought dug into him
like icy splinters, but then there was fur in his face and paws on his chest and the feeling
receded. “So I have to make an individual contract with one of these guys?” It seemed a little
odd, the idea of making secondary contracts after already having signed his blood in the
Hatake records, but the whole setup of Tsuki no Mori was a little odd in comparison to the
summoning terms he was familiar with.
“Well, not strictly with them, but in general, yes. It’s not written in a big scroll like the
lineage contract,” Taya chuckled softly as she spoke, “but we consider it… a sacred bond.”

“Which means that so do you.” There was a touch more warning in the other ninken’s voice
than in Taya’s; Sasuke found himself dumbstruck for a few seconds. It hadn’t even occurred
to him to think otherwise, if he was honest, and it was naive and stupid to think that nobody
would ever break such a precept but the thought of betraying the ninken companion that he
didn’t even have yet made his skin crawl.

Clearly whichever ninken he did end up bonded to had to be a voluntary participant, had to
want to leave the safety of Tsuki no Mori, but Sasuke was still being entrusted with them.
The lineage was trusting him with the responsibility of being a good partner for one of their
pups. What kind of monster would he be to turn on them?

Pushing puppies down again – as vain an endeavour as that was – Sasuke met the ninken’s
eyes. They were different colours, dark brown and ice blue, set in a fluffy white face. He
wasn’t entirely sure what he should say. How did he properly convey the weight of the gift
he’d been given here? He knew well enough how deeply Kakashi-sensei was laying his claim
to them as his, and by extension Tsuki no Mori’s as well. The way this lineage interfaced with
the Hatake felt less like a business agreement and more like family. What were the right
words to convey that he knew that?

“Do you understand?”

Oh.

“I understand.”

The ninken snorted, and then rose to all four paws and shook themself out. “Good. My name
is Kanei. It’s a pleasure to meet you. We hoped, but we never expected Kakashi to bring pups
of his own.” A shrewd edge in Kanei’s voice and the slight baring of their teeth made Sasuke
think perhaps they still found it hard to believe. It made sense, at least a little. He was the last
Hatake left, by blood; rebuilding a clan from scratch was an intimidating undertaking. If he
were the last Uchiha, Sasuke caught himself wondering, would he have the resolve to start
them over, or would he let the Uchiha fade into memory? In any case, it had been pretty clear
that Kakashi-sensei was reluctant to have them, at least at first. He’d tried to make them hate
him.

Kanei let out a sharp bark, jolting Sasuke out of his own head, and the puppies went still, ears
swivelling towards them. With another soft laugh, Taya thumped her tail against the treeway
they were gathered upon. “Alright, time to settle down. You have to introduce yourselves,
remember?”

“And you’ll do it how we practised, so get control of yourselves,” Kanei added with a low
growl, and the puppies scrambled to obey. They were still all overflowing with energy, heavy
panting and tails in constant motion, but they managed to line up in something that might
resemble an organised order if Sasuke squinted. Tiny whines broke out amongst their ranks
as Kanei made them wait, paws shuffling and noses dipping, glancing between Sasuke and
the two adult ninken.
After a long second minute, Taya snickered. “Alright, alright. Now you’re just being mean,
Kanei.” Said good-naturedly, tipping her head up briefly. “Does everyone remember their
number?” A round of eager nods went through the puppies, accompanied with several
variations of Yes, their voices high-pitched and childlike. “Good. Start at one.” Several small
heads turned towards one puppy near the front of the group, a big-pawed bundle of golden
fur and floppy ears.

“Fiya!” she yipped, tail wagging frantically. “I Fiya! Uhm…” A quick glance to Kanei. “I
like carrots.”

Oh, gods. Sasuke wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not. The puppies were, no contest, the
cutest damn things Sasuke had ever seen, but whoever he contracted was going to be brought
into Konoha and all the terrible dangers outside its walls. Should he really take them from the
safety of their home?

Taya leaned in while Fiya hummed to herself and then announced it was two’s turn to talk.
“Whatever it is you’re worrying about, it’s alright. Not everyone here is suitable for the life
of a Hatake-bonded. We’ll make sure whoever you choose is ready. Remember, they’re not
all that different from you.”

Weren’t they? But Sasuke thought about all the times he’d bemoaned not having his
Sharingan, all the times Itachi had met his complaints with a sad smile Sasuke never had
understood. There really wasn’t much difference between that and the eagerness of all these
puppies to throw themselves into the dangers waiting for them. Sasuke had been chomping at
the bit to get his first C-rank, after all. Now he wished they’d never agreed to it.

“Come on, Sasuke. Enough drifting; you’ll have time for that later.” Taya nosed him gently,
nudging his shoulder, and then flicked her ear towards the puppies. “Hedou is going to
vibrate out of his fur any second now.”

That was fair enough, wasn’t it? Sasuke needed to get to know the puppies anyway. He was
supposed to choose a companion from amongst them – one who would be with him for the
rest of his life. Not a decision he could approach only half-paying attention. “Yeah. Sorry.”

Taya placed a paw on his knee. “It’s alright.” Soothingly. She didn’t sound anything like
Ūhei, really, but something in her cadence reminded Sasuke of the greyhound all the same.
“Let me know if you need to take a break.”

Then she nodded to one of the puppies, and the introductions continued.

There’d been a second group of puppies after the first, only a few pelts smaller, and a third
but much smaller group after that. It was the third group, Taya had murmured in Sasuke’s ear,
that she and Kanei thought the most likely to actually contain a suitable ninken partner for
him. They were a little older than the others, and better behaved – even if, ultimately, Sasuke
had still been dogpiled.

He kind of missed the feeling, actually. It was bizarrely weightless to walk the treeways back
towards his den with only his own body to hold him down. Maybe Tsuki no Mori gravity
wasn’t bound to the same laws he was used to, but he doubted it.

“Taya?” She hummed an acknowledgement from his side; Sasuke was only too happy for her
offer to walk him back. Quite aside from the fact that he wasn’t completely sure of his ability
to correctly navigate, her presence offered a sort of mental anchor that helped keep him from
wandering too far into his own thoughts. “… What kind of criteria am I supposed to use to
pick my ninken?”

All of the puppies who’d actually struck Sasuke as valid candidates were so different. Not
just in personality, but in breed and specialities. Sasuke hadn’t developed his skills enough
yet to be sure where his weaknesses would lie, or what kinds of things might be needed to
balance him out, which made picking on that basis hard if not outright fallacious. Maybe later
on, if he ever contracted with more ninken, he’d have a better idea of what he’d need in that
regard, but that didn’t help him now. And if he chose based on how well he got along with
them personally, he’d have to spend time getting to know them better. With only three days
left before Kakashi planned to take them home, the number of ninken he’d be able to spend
sufficient time with was pretty limited. He needed something else to narrow down the list
with.

Taya hummed again, one step ahead of Sasuke while she led. “Well, that really depends on
what you’re looking for. If you want a partner in battle, then complimentary strengths matter
more than a personality you find agreeable, but the reverse is true if you want a companion.”
A companion? Well, yeah, that was sort of a given, but surely all bonded ninken expected to
join their Hatake in battle? What else was an ancestral contract for, after all?

For a moment, Sasuke pictured Kakashi’s pack, curled up around him while he slept. Only
Pakkun had stayed the entire time in the hospital, but the others had swapped in and out on
rotation; Kakashi had been surrounded by at least three of them at all times until he’d woken
up. A companion. Surely, all Hatake expected to keep close their ninken for the rest of their
lives?

“I guess… Somewhere in between. I don’t really know what kinds of battle skills I’ll need.”
Pinning down exactly how he’d fallen short was an exercise that would just have to wait.
Thinking about Waves by choice felt like waterboarding himself.

Pausing in her stride, Taya leaned gently against Sasuke’s leg, pulling him up mid-step.
“Perhaps one of the slightly younger pups would match you well. Most haven’t refined their
talents yet either. Growing together will strengthen your bond.”

It was so saccharine that Sasuke thought he might be able to feel his teeth rotting in real time,
but something in his chest still came free at the reassurance. With help, Ūhei had said.
Solitude was fucking overrated. Why had he ever thought he had to do the bad parts alone? If
he was going to be so hellbent on loving people, and fuck what anyone else thought, didn’t
that mean he had to be equally as hellbent on letting people love him back?
Oh. Okay. Yeah. He really needed to talk to Sakura.

Absent-mindedly, Sasuke reached down to run his fingers over the shuriken clipped to his
kunai holster. He wasn’t wearing the actual weapons pouch – there was no cause to, and
being fully armed might offend the ninken – but he’d kept the two shuriken that were usually
clipped to the strap. They were like having Itachi with him, somehow, even if just a little.
Comforting. Except—

Stopping dead, Sasuke looked down. Two shuriken, except there was only one. “Wait.”
Slipped out too sharply, spinning on the spot to search back along the treeway. He couldn’t
have dropped it, right? The clip mechanism was chakra-activated, so it was unlikely
bordering on impossible that a shuriken could come off on its own, but then—?

Taya cocked her head at him curiously. “What is it?” she asked, looking him over, and then
she gave an annoyed bark. “You had two shuriken before, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I—” She sounded… exasperated. Not concerned, not curious or reassuring like she
had all day, but aggravated, as if she’d suddenly been presented with a task she didn’t want
to do. “… I have to find it.” He had to. Sasuke had no clue what Itachi paid for the custom set
of shuriken, but it must have been an extravagant expense. Chakra metal didn’t come cheap.

Grumbling, Taya turned and started down the set of spiralling stairs for the tree they were in.
“Come with me. I rather imagine I know what’s happened to it.”

For as long as the walk itself felt, as he kept barely half a step behind Taya, it was over in a
flash of wordless anxiety. What was he going to tell Itachi if they couldn’t find it? Gods, how
pathetic a shinobi he was, losing such a precious weapon because he’d been distracted by
puppies.

Taya stopped at the foot of a truly gargantuan tree, even amongst the many monoliths of
central Tsuki no Mori. Stairs wound up its trunk in spiralling layers, though they seemed
surprisingly narrow in comparison to the size of the tree. Craning his head upwards, Sasuke
could see balconies moulded from the branches, plenty of them, and half a dozen doors
shrouded by whatever jutsu the lineage used to seal them, but no treeways connected it to the
surrounding forest. “Just a moment, Sasuke. I’ll be right back.”

She vanished into the den, and for a minute that dragged so slowly he thought it might never
end, Sasuke waited for her to come back. When she did, he was so relieved that at first, he
didn’t notice the tiny black puppy that came on her heels. Her ears were swivelled slightly
back, her tail low and moving slowly side to side. Angry, perhaps? Sasuke really needed to
ask Urushi to teach him more about canine body language.

“Sasuke, this is Kokuyōseki.” That same irritated tone was still in Taya’s voice. “He’s a little
shit.” Startled, Sasuke laughed. She’d not cursed before.

Studying Kokuyōseki for a moment revealed two important things. Firstly, he was tiny.
Sasuke could probably pick him up with one hand. And secondly, he held a familiar shuriken
between his teeth.
Sasuke went down to one knee, holding out his hand. “Drop it.” It came out almost snarled,
and it was harder than it should be to remain angry at the little ball of blue-black fluff but
he’d manage. Kokuyōseki let go of Sasuke’s shuriken, now covered in drool, and let out a
giggle. “Where did you find this?” He seemed distantly familiar, so perhaps he’d been
amongst the puppies Sasuke met today, but if Taya hadn’t given Sasuke his name just now
Sasuke wouldn’t have a clue what it was.

Some part of Sasuke’s mind felt he’d asked a stupid question, but couldn’t articulate why.
The shuriken must have come detached at some point over the day, and Kokuyōseki picked it
up from amidst the puppy pile. But that didn’t entirely explain how Taya had known where to
—

“Nicked it,” Kokuyōseki said, a wicked glint in black eyes, jaws wide in a canine grin. A
second later his ears went back under the force of Taya’s growl, a dreadful rumbling in her
chest that set Sasuke’s hair on end. Kokuyōseki lowered himself to the ground. Whined. It
was piercing. “Sorry.” Mumbled into the dirt, and it was clearly not genuine remorse, merely
an attempt to placate Taya’s anger.

In spite of himself, Sasuke felt another laugh bubble out. Nicked it. Actively stolen from by a
gods-forsaken puppy. Ninken be damned, Sasuke should have noticed an application of
chakra that close to him. Hope perked up Kokuyōseki’s ears, turned towards Sasuke, that
maybe Sasuke’s amusement would spare him a punishment.

And Taya had known to come straight to him.

Huh.

“Taya?” She gave an acknowledging flick of her ears. “So he steals things a lot, then?”

Kokuyōseki lifted his muzzle slightly, risking a soft pant, and quickly cowered down again as
Taya snarled at him. “Yes.” It was biting. “I’m sorry for the distress he caused you. Brat
refuses to stop; we’re considering holding him back from training.” The deep whimper
Kokuyōseki gave suggested that maybe it was a threat he hadn’t heard before.

But Sasuke shook his head. The anger was still there, simmering quietly just above his
sternum, but it was being quickly eclipsed by amusement. No matter how upsetting the
prospect of losing one of Itachi’s shuriken, there was something incredibly funny about a
puppy the size of a kitten stealing something so dangerous and valuable. Hopefully he hadn’t
activated the chakra metal. “What’s your chakra affinity?” Sasuke found himself asking,
wiping puppy spit off the shuriken with his shirt.

Taya’s ears flicked again in surprise, her growling getting quieter, and Kokuyōseki picked his
head up. “Wind.” Good. That meant he wouldn’t have been able to activate the chakra metal
even if he’d tried. “… Why?” Kokuyōseki squinted at him.

Clipping the shuriken back into place, Sasuke stood up and considered the impulse sticking
on his tongue. Was it really a wise thing to do? He hadn’t even come up with a proper set of
criteria yet, let alone compared Kokuyōseki to them – and yet still the impulse remained,
swirling behind his ribs like water.
Bad thought. Sasuke almost choked on it.

The distraction of it was enough, though. “Do you want to contract with me?” It was like
hearing someone else say it, but Kokuyōseki stood up excitedly, and Taya broke into startled
coughing, and it felt… good. Having a ninken already capable of stealth like that could only
be a boon, even if he occasionally turned that skill on Sasuke. And it should be
complimentary with his own skillset, no matter what direction he ultimately took it in. Light
paws were always valuable.

Kokuyōseki bounced in place, bobbing up and down between jumping and bowing. “Yes!
Contract with me!” He still had a juvenile softness to his words, something uniquely childlike
in how they came out rounded at the edges, but that could work well in their favour as well.
Hadn’t Taya just been saying how their skills could be better developed together?

Letting out a defeated sigh, Taya put one paw over her own muzzle. “Are you sure about
this?” But there was an edge in her voice – somewhere between amusement and resignation –
that suggested she didn’t expect Sasuke to second-guess.

He studied Kokuyōseki for another moment, trying to think about the immensity of the
future, but in the end Sasuke set the whole thing aside. The future was too big and too
confusing to base every decision on. He had to make decisions based on now. And there was
something incredibly endearing about Kokuyōseki’s excitement. Hm. Probably just because
he was a puppy, but still. Maybe it was his audacity, the sheer chutzpah of introducing
himself by stealing a shuriken right off Sasuke’s person. Ignoring Taya’s orders. That
willingness to disobey was important.

It was the first lesson Kakashi had decided to teach him, after all.

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

It stayed quiet for a while, after Kakashi-sensei left. Hinata still couldn’t quite wrap her head
around the whole thing, and there was going to be vicious backlash when they returned.
But… somehow, even that thought wasn’t quite as cold as it had been yesterday.

She was going to be a Hatake.

Strange. It was so abstract in her own head that she almost couldn’t even understand it, like
she’d forgotten what the words meant, like she didn’t speak the language. The layers of
significance were endless. Adoption into a founding Konoha clan was outstanding on its own
– even honorary clan membership was a big enough deal that Hinata could name off all of
the recorded instances, Kakashi-sensei himself not excepted.

Moving from one clan to another (unless through marriage) was cause for scandal, never
mind gossip. And the clans involved made the whole debacle even bigger; the Hyuuga clan
was singularly prideful, and their elitism practically impossible to join from the outside. For
as badly as the branch family was treated, their non-Hyuuga spouses were thought even
lower. And the Hatake clan was illustrious and decorated, but almost extinct; Kakashi was the
only one left.
Well. Not anymore.

Rubbing her face, Hinata got to her feet. This train of thought felt like unconsciousness,
plucking at her until she fell into it. It was the same every time she succumbed, a spiral
downwards that began with her political position and ended with her father’s.

And Hanabi. Gods. She owed Hanabi better than an apology for what would happen to her,
but it was the only thing Hinata had to offer.

Stop it. There was nothing Hinata could do about it now. The decisions were made, and she
certainly couldn’t do anything from Tsuki no Mori. At the very least, she had another few
days of sanctuary.

The first thing she wanted to do right now was bathe. Running with Raijin had been oddly
tiring, and while she’d felt delightfully worn out afterwards, now she was just grimy. It didn’t
help how sticky her face still was from all the crying. Hinata winced. She probably needed to
apologise to Kakashi-sensei too, when she got the chance. She’d ruined his shirt this
morning.

It should have only taken a moment to dig out a change of clothes from her bags, but Hinata
found herself agonising over the choice. Walking around fully armed might offend the
ninken, but the thought of being completely unarmed set her teeth on edge and her heart
fluttering. Of course, ‘unarmed’ was a matter of opinion, really, when she was capable of
fighting with just her hands, but—

Well, was she? Right now, even that wasn’t a given. Hinata’s gaze lingered on her crutch.
Jūken was an art of movement and flexibility, but it required a balanced base to work from.
With her hip still healing, she was unbalanced and easily overturned.

She wasn’t in any danger, though, not here. Tsuki no Mori was safe. A soft sigh escaped her.
It was inevitable, she supposed; paranoia was the natural state of the shinobi. Her father was
never completely unarmed, not even in the heart of the Hyuuga complex, and Hinata had yet
to see Kakashi without a weapon nearby. Even in the hospital he’d always had a kunai on
hand.

Okay. She’d take just one kunai with her.

The prospect of having to ask her way to the baths filled her with an absurd anxiety that she
couldn’t quite figure out how to articulate – and it was ridiculous, truly, being so intimidated
by the idea of talking to a stranger for a few seconds when she’d looked certain death in the
face. How was asking for directions even a blip in her mind next to the thought she was about
to watch her team die? That they could exist side by side in her head was immensely bizarre.

But that knowledge didn’t stop the way her heart danced in her chest as she picked up her
crutch and used it to drag herself to her feet, didn’t ease the tension of her breath as she got it
back. Stupid. The anxiety would just have to bite it; Hinata was sticky and cried-out and she
needed to get clean far more than she needed to hide away. Maybe she’d be able to indulge
that later, but not now. Gods, she should have remembered to ask Kakashi-sensei before he
left.
Waiting for her just outside were two ninken. Hinata came up short barely a step past her
door, her hip twinging painfully as she put more weight on it than she should. One of them
was an adult, she was fairly sure, even though they were smaller than the puppy by their side.
Auburn-gold in colour, long fluffy fur and little triangle ears with a curly tail and narrow
muzzle. They seemed more fur than dog, their paws just visible beneath their pelt, as if they
didn’t have legs. Next to them, tail moving very slowly, was the biggest-pawed puppy she’d
ever seen, a bundle of thick black and auburn fuzz.

“Good waking,” the adult said, their voice high-pitched and lilting. “I’m Li. This is Dai. Did
you sleep well?”

Had Kakashi-sensei organised them, or was there a different reason they were here? Either
way, it actually soothed some of the nerves strung taut under her skin, that she might have a
guide specifically here to see her. She wouldn’t have to disrupt someone else with her own
ignorance. “Uhm… I slept alright, thank you,” Hinata answered automatically, not giving it a
thought, and Li gave her a slow, deliberate blink.

“I see.”

Dai whined softly and stood up, taking a step closer before carefully pawing at her leg,
making contact but being careful he didn’t exert enough force to risk knocking her over. “You
cried,” he said softly, looking up at her with big, deep red eyes. His voice was heavy in some
intangible way, akin to a weighted blanket. “Are you okay?” Comforting, rather than
crushing.

She felt a strained smile flicker across her own face; it made her cheeks tight. “I’m…” The
reflex died on her tongue. I’m fine. She wasn’t, though, not really. Quite aside from her
physical injuries, the massive paradigm shift that was about to happen was terrifying. Living
with Kakashi-sensei wasn’t daunting like going back home to the Hyuuga, but it was still a
drastic change. She couldn’t predict what would happen, not really. For the first time, Hinata
didn’t know what her longterm future was going to look like. “I… don’t know.”

Snuffling a moment and shaking his head, Dai touched her leg with one orange paw again
and then made a low sound. His chops hid his teeth, even when he spoke. “I can stay with
you? Things are better with someone.”

Warmth suffused Hinata’s chest, an oozing heat that wicked away the tight pain of her
healing rib. He wasn’t the same as Shiba – gods, she’d literally just met him a moment ago –
but Dai was gentle, and the thought of having his company was reassuring. Not just because
she didn’t know her way around, but because… he was right. Somehow, company made her
own thoughts easier to handle.

“I’d like that.”

Li snorted and got to their paws. “Very good. Now, is there anything that you need, pup?”
They had a much sharper air, something prim and strict, but they’d been waiting out here just
like Dai. Was it really just that they’d heard her crying? She didn’t deserve such compassion
– but she’d hoard it jealously for as long as they were willing to offer it.
“Uhm… Can you show me where the baths are?” Hinata lifted the bundle of clothes and
towel under her good arm a little to draw Li’s attention to them.

They nodded, once. “Of course. It will help you feel better.” In a quick, flitting motion, Li
turned on their heels and started trotting off along the treeway. They were small enough that
Hinata could keep pace even though they didn’t shorten their stride, and Dai lumbered along
beside her. His paws were clumsy, his steps heavier than any puppy had the right to, but he
was a comfort to have so close by. Like a swivel, he kept looking up to Hinata’s face and then
focusing back on where he was walking, up and down, up and down.

Li didn’t accompany her into the complex of interwoven trees once they arrived, but Dai did.
The system of trees here was notably different to the one Hinata was getting used to; many of
the individual trees were smaller than those around them, but grew so close together that it
was impossible to say where the branches or roots of one ended or began. There was one
great tree central to the knotted sprawl, and a few ninken entered or exited the big shadowy
veil that marked the doorway, but all the smaller ones had their own archways. A communal
bath with smaller, personal ones it turned out; Hinata followed Dai into one of the small trees
while Li lay down outside. Delicate vines covered the inside of the trunk from the ground up,
all the way to the domed ceiling, glowing with white and pale yellow luminous flowers. The
entire left side of the hollow was taken up by a pool of water sunken into the ground, with a
ledge around the far side for sitting and a gradual ramp leading into it. Hinata couldn’t even
begin to guess whether the floor was wood, or earth, or something else entirely. The right side
had a miniature waterfall spilling from the wall of the tree, splashing into a narrow canal that
ran into the pool. A series of protrusions littered the right wall to either side of the waterfall,
gnarls in the wood upon which grew a green-grey and faintly glittery moss.

“Wow…” It came out unbidden, and Hinata felt herself flush, but Dai simply whuffled at her
and then padded over towards the right.

Then he paused, looked back at her, cocked his head. “… I help.” Coming back, Dai
considered her and the clothes she was carrying, and then stared at her crutch. When he
turned his head the other way, his skyward ear flopped inside out. “How do I help?”

She couldn’t help it. Hinata giggled. He was so endearing, eager to help her even if he didn’t
quite know how. At the sound, his tail wagged. “It’s alright.” It was just going to be a bit of a
rough task. Dropping her clean clothes by the archway was easy enough, and Hinata balanced
her weight on her good leg to set her crutch against the trunk beside them. She could hold her
balance easily enough, but she knew she’d get sore if she overtaxed herself too long. Finding
a moment of hesitation as she made to remove her shirt, Hinata bit her lip. Dai might be a
dog, a puppy even, but he was still a sentient being. And a he, at that. It was a silly thing to
hesitate over, as if modesty of her body had a place in the life of a shinobi, but it still caught
her up for a second.

Lifting one forepaw, then setting it down and lifting the other, Dai whuffled again. “The
water is good.” He probably had no idea why Hinata was really hesitating. It wasn’t as if he
ever stripped off his fur; nakedness was a concept that the ninken probably didn’t ever think
about. “I show. See?”
He waded back towards the waterfall, walking directly into its flow without a second thought.
His fur was thick, and resisted the water for a few moments before it started to slick down.
Short, too, it turned out; most of Dai’s bulk underneath his pelt was real – rather than an
illusion of fluff, he was a squat, heavyset creature. Rolls of fat made his shoulders and neck
even broader.

Hinata was smiling at him before she even realised. It was so sweet a gesture. “I see,” she
assured him, and his tail began wagging again. “Thanks, Dai.” Getting her pants off was
harder than her shirt, but she cheated and supported herself against the tree wall with chakra,
keeping a sticky hold so that she didn’t fall over even for the moment she had to put her
weight on her bad leg. Once that was accomplished, she made her slow way over to Dai’s
side. It wasn’t impossible to walk without her crutch, but each step on her bad leg was a
fleeting flash of pain and a profound limp.

Still, it was better than it had been. The pain was tolerable, a bone-deep ache instead of the
searing pain that the injury had been at first. And even with the water underfoot, Hinata
found she didn’t need to use much chakra to steady herself; the floor (surely it had to be
wood) had gentle ridges and whorls that provided some textured friction and kept her from
slipping. All the same, she let out a soft, relieved noise when she reached the waterfall and
could sit down. The water wasn’t hot like she was used to, but it wasn’t cold either, just a
little bit warmer than tepid. It was noticeable by the pressure of it hitting her shoulders, but
Hinata could easily forget about the water around her butt and legs if not for the gentle
current towards the pool.

Dai spun in a tight circle, just once, and then shook himself. Water sprayed everywhere. “And
then scrub.” He went over to one of the mossy protrusions and rubbed up against it. A sharp,
almost minty smell filled the air, and a thin foam formed in Dai’s fur. It was more like
recreational bubbles than soap, a light rainbow sheen rather than suds, but its purpose was
pretty clear. Strange how different it was from what Hinata knew, and yet still the same in
some fundamental way.

Coming back to rinse under the waterfall, Dai considered her a moment. Dropped his head to
very carefully nose at Hinata’s hip. It was healing well, but dark bruises still covered the area,
dappled down her thigh and partially across her stomach. All her injuries were still visible,
still healing. The cuts down her arm that she’d got from that first fight, the poisoned, clawed
gauntlet – the innumerable pockmarks from where Haku’s senbon had struck her – the now-
murky yellow bruises across her ribs – paler bruising around her throat – the dressings still
covering the slashes on her shoulder. Dai whined softly.

“You hurt.”

Hinata bit her lip. She surely couldn’t just dump the whole truth on him. He was just a puppy,
for gods’ sakes. But the idea of lying to him was so distasteful it made her nose wrinkle.
“Yes. I was… in a fight.”

Dai blinked at her, slowly, with concerned crimson eyes. “You’ll get better?”

This time, she smiled at him. “I’ll get better.” If only all things were so easy to resolve as
Dai’s worries, but maybe… maybe there was yet resolution to be found. She’d be with
Kakashi-sensei when they got back to Konoha. She’d have a ninken with her, hopefully one
like Shiba or Dai. And she’d heal. Maybe things would be okay.

Dai nodded, concern morphing into determination. “Okay. I help.” He went back to the
mossy knot in the wall and reached up one paw to scrape some off. Once he had enough by
whatever metric he was using to judge, he scooped it up carefully in his teeth and came back
to give it to Hinata. “Scrub. Then the pool. I like the pool. You like too.”

And it wasn’t hard, somehow, to just let herself enjoy it. The moss didn’t quite feel as
cleansing as actual soap did on her skin, but it worked wonderfully on her hair, even if it took
a while with one hand to make sure she got all of it, with Dai’s enthusiastic but clumsy help.
By the time they got to the pool and she discovered that the flow led somewhere out of the
tree, Hinata was pretty sure Dai would stick with her for the rest of her stay in Tsuki no Mori.

And longer still, if she had any say in the matter.

Sakura wasn’t sure how long she’d been perched at the top of the tree. Kakashi-sensei was
going to be furious when he found out she’d climbed all the way up using chakra to make
sure she didn’t fall – and if not him, the med-nin – but she’d been sufficiently punished
already by the body-wide ache of her chakra network. Blasting foreign chakra into the system
was far from a harmless procedure, it was just much preferable to the alternative. A last
resort. As Sakura had learned the hard way, one couldn’t worry about a few cracked ribs
while trying to restart somebody’s heart.

The timeless feeling was easy to blame on the unchanging twilight on all sides, the purple
shadow of the sky and the low-hanging golden moon, but if she was honest, Sakura knew that
the sun wouldn’t have made a difference. There was a strange silkiness to dissociation that
Sakura could never get used to. Used to. As if she’d experienced it enough to become
desensitised. Until the war, she’d only understood it from an observer’s perspective. No
matter how often she’d gotten to observe it, there was no truly understanding the feeling
secondhand.

But she was clinging on to the oddly buoyant hollowness, the foggy disconnect, like her
lungs were spun sugar. As alien as it was, it was better than everything else. Some callous
part of her wanted to be happy, and that was perhaps the most egregious of her new sins.
Living with Kakashi would be a new experience, certainly, but it still felt something like what
she’d had the first time around, once she’d graduated Tsunade’s first several courses and
began to have some time for herself again. She’d spent as much of it as she could with
Kakashi. It had been too little, still, she thought now. That had been one of the lingering
thoughts she’d had when she’d watched him die. It was a pointless thought, a waste of
resources to even contemplate. The time was already spent, and it didn’t even matter next to
the insurmountable reality of his death. She couldn’t change the past.

Hah.

What a joke.
But maybe that was it. The reason she’d caved the way she had. One of the reasons – and
they were all tangled and tied up in each other, like a badly woven rope, the strands so
knotted up in all the other strands that she didn’t stand a rabbit’s chance in a wolf den of
picking them apart. There was a temptation to living with Kakashi-sensei that she couldn’t
deny.

As if she’d had a choice. Hadn’t she? Was it better if she hadn’t, or did failing to find the
right reaction mark her just as guilty as Kakashi thought her parents to be?

Gods.

She should have argued more. Should have at least managed to come up with a proper
protest, should have denied it in any way that mattered. Her parents had never laid a hand on
her or done anything but their best to love her, in this timeline and the last. They didn’t
deserve to lose their daughter, they didn’t deserve to be punished for cruelties they’d never
committed, they didn’t deserve Sakura’s betrayal.

But Kakashi thought they were abusing her, and she was going to let him think it.

It wasn’t too late. Not yet. Probably. It depended on how much other preparation Kakashi had
done, beyond buying and furnishing a house and (presumably) running his intentions by
Tsunade-sensei.

Oh, who the fuck was she kidding? It was Kakashi. There’d be no loose threads to trip him
up. Hells, her parents had probably been arrested the moment she’d left Konoha. The thought
was oddly… neutral. Like smoke in a bubble, like Sakura was observing it from the other
side of a mirror. She was a bad person. A worse daughter. And that clawed at her the same
way she expected it would normally, deep gouges down the inside of her ribcage, shearing
muscle and splitting cartilage, except that it didn’t quite hurt like it should. She felt the guilt
of it in the same way she could taste how something smelled. Or the way she could tell what
licking a surface would feel like just by looking at it.

Her emotions were real and measurable and identifiable, but they didn’t have a direct impact
on her. Not yet, at least. Or maybe they did, and it was so massive that she hadn’t figured out
how to comprehend it yet. And of course, Sakura knew what was actually going on,
understood the psychology of dissociation and the biochemistry and physiological
mechanisms, but it still… seemed different, somehow, from this side of it.

No wonder Kakashi-sensei was always late to everything. Time sounded like a practical joke.
It wasn’t real.

Just how long, Sakura heard her own thoughts ask, could she hide away at the bottom of her
mind before she finally had to surface?

She really didn’t know how long she’d been up here. It had been an age since she’d moved;
her joints were stiff, her tongue fuzzy in her mouth. One foot had gone numb a while ago.
Hells, Sakura couldn’t even describe what she was looking at. A forest, by default, but…
every time she noticed a detail about the forest before her, it felt like a new detail even
though deja vu dripped off every moment.
Dripped, like oil. Deja vu, like deep-fried moments.

Should that thought be funny?

And maybe, if Kakashi had been particularly flustered or dissociative himself, maybe it really
wasn’t too late to refute his claims and rescue her parents from Konoha’s justice. It was what
she should do. Leaving them to whatever fate awaited them in order to protect herself was
reprehensible.

They’d want that. The thought was quiet and smug, and chillingly logical. For all their flaws,
for how they’d fallen out with her in her prior life, Sakura’s parents loved her more than
anything. They’d happily sacrifice themselves to keep her safe – but did knowing that really
mean she should allow it to happen? Was it better or worse to betray them when the result
was the same either way? If she explained the whole truth to them… she was sure they’d
choose this path. They’d be devastated, of course, but they’d want to keep her out of the
Anbu Blue Vault. Was she a monster for skipping the explanation entirely?

It wasn’t as if she could actually explain it to them anyway. For as much as Sakura loved
them, she knew better than that. Civilians in general could rarely be trusted with restricted
information, but this… The magnitude of the secrets Sakura was keeping would be too much
for most shinobi, let alone a pair of civilians who had never managed to wrap their heads
around the life Sakura led in the first place. They hadn’t understood the reality of the shinobi
world before, and they wouldn’t now. Worse, they had no idea of the depths Konoha could
sink to in the name of protecting itself. Sakura wasn’t immune to that. Konoha would
sacrifice her too, if it came down to it.

Sakura couldn’t afford to be taken off the playing field. For all the swaths of information she
just didn’t have, and for everything that had changed thanks to her meddling already, she was
still the only one who really knew what was coming. Maybe, if she was lucky, Tsunade
would listen to her if she confessed. Maybe Konoha was in a state in this timeline that meant
she could actually collaborate with its leaders safely.

But if it wasn’t, then she threw away everything. Everyone who’d died. What her most
precious people had given to create the opportunity she had, to save them.

She didn’t get a second shot at this. If she fucked it up, then the world was doomed.

And… And no matter how much they mattered to her, Kizashi and Mebuki were only two
people. Two souls stacked against millions. Could she really justify the risk it would take to
save them when one reckless move could consign the whole damn world to death?

She wanted to.

She couldn’t.

It was a circular argument anyway, a snake eating its own tail. At the end of the day, every
single thought was nothing but conjecture. She couldn’t know for sure any of it, what
Tsunade would do if Sakura confessed – if they’d even believe her. What if she dared to trust
them, to give Konoha the power to help her mission or to end it, and they didn’t even believe
her? She’d lose all hope of stopping the war and the Juubi, and Konoha wouldn’t even be
using her knowledge for its own ends. She couldn’t even know for sure what was going to
happen to her parents if she didn’t intervene. Or if she did.

Sakura hadn’t even meant to admit it. ‘Admit’, as if there was any wrongdoing to admit to.
Agree, perhaps. Kakashi was a suspicious person by nature, and it was only more apparent in
this timeline’s version of him. She’d already known that he was hunting for an explanation
for how Sakura had changed overnight, but… Good gods, she’d never expected him to land
on this. It had never occurred to her even as a possibility. The idea of her parents hurting her
on purpose was so outlandish that even thinking it was like reading a language she didn’t
know. Except she was here, now, and it was too late (it wasn’t) and she didn’t know how to
fix it.

In the moment, the overwhelming rush of terror when she’d thought Kakashi had somehow
figured her out for real and the thundering relief when she’d realised he hadn’t, she hadn’t
been able to consider it properly. Anything was better than Kakashi knowing the truth, she’d
thought, and then she’d understood what he was saying and— Anything, she’d thought, like a
fucking idiot, and what was she supposed to do about it? What was the fucking point of
saving her parents if it meant they’d just ultimately die with everyone else because of it?

That might be the worst part, Sakura was pretty sure. The fact she had no way of knowing.
All her knowledge, and she didn’t have the first fucking clue. The risk of forfeiting her
freedom and throwing away the entire reason she was even here, at the behest of death and
war and a secret technique that the Bijuu themselves had given to Naruto— The risk wasn’t
absolute, but if she took it and lost, then it was too fucking late. There was no salvaging it.
Even if the chance was tiny (and it wasn’t), she wouldn’t bet her own life on such odds. It
was like playing boomtag roulette. Nine times out of ten she’d be fine – but that one time, she
would blow herself up.

And if she did, she’d take the whole world down with her.

There was no way out that didn’t hurt. She didn’t have a good option. No matter what she did
next, Sakura was hurting someone, sacrificing something, risking everything. Even denying
Kakashi’s accusations wasn’t a safe path, because if she proved that this conclusion was
wrong, he’d go searching for another.

From the moment she’d failed to conceal her trauma and her knowledge, she’d set this in
motion. Kakashi wouldn’t stop until he was satisfied he understood.

And that he’d saved her. That should be comforting, the knowledge Kakashi cared so deeply
about her again, but she couldn’t quite hold that emotion either. It slipped through her hands
like smoke.

She’d never see them again. If she let it happen. Once convicted, her parents would never be
allowed to see her again, and she’d never be able to approach them herself. Not if she wanted
to keep the cover she was sacrificing them for. Oh gods. Was she sacrificing them? Had she
made that decision?

It was too late.

Was it?

In some grim way, it made sense that Kakashi had concluded that she was being abused.
Longterm abuse inflicted a lot of the same traumas Sakura knew she carried – protracted
periods of trauma frequently looked the same from the other side. He couldn’t know that
she’d been through a war and all the turmoil that came before one; she’d not even been alive
for the Third War. There were cracks in the logic, of course, but without the knowledge of
time travel there weren’t a lot of viable alternatives. And his interactions with them had been
far from cordial. Sakura could even see how the things they’d said to one another could be
misconstrued, the same way her parents thought Kakashi was some kind of callous tyrant.

They’d think it even truer, when they found out that Sakura had supported Kakashi’s
accusation. Not properly refuting it was tantamount to supporting.

But it was strikingly clear that something had happened to her. She’d known she wasn’t
hiding it from the get-go, watched the friendship her native self had cultivated with Sasuke
suffer as a result. How had she failed to notice Kakashi’s new line of thought?

Stupid. If Kakashi wanted to hide something like that, she’d have to look very hard to find it.
Of course he wouldn’t advertise his plan of attack, let alone to Sakura herself. He must be
paranoid about what her parents might do to her if they suspected Kakashi was planning to
take her away. It would have taken a miracle for her to forestall this – and Waves never
happening. She’d thought Kakashi still believed some tragic but isolated event had happened
to her. Eventually, she was sure she’d have been able to fabricate something, but now…

Well. Now it was her mother and father who would pay the price.

She couldn’t just let it happen. There had to be something she could do short of confessing to
bloody time travel. Gods, she’d have to convince them first, even if she did confess. It was
ludicrous, and she was the one who’d actually done it.

Confession was out of the question. Even now, with her thoughts so detached from her
feelings that her body seemed like someone else’s, the thought of being caught – of ending up
in the Anbu Blues’ clutches – was enough to freeze her breath in her lungs. The terror she’d
felt when she thought Kakashi had caught her was eclipsed only by the relief that had
replaced it when she’d realised he hadn’t. Maybe it was selfish and maybe it was necessary,
Sakura couldn’t tell anymore, but she’d give almost anything if it meant not getting caught.

Apparently, her parents were in that category.

But what else could she do? Confessing might not even be enough. It was still more
believable that her parents had tricked her or broken her, that she was either brainwashed into
thinking she was from the future or that her mind had given way under the abuse and created
a fantasy future in which it was a war that made her this way. Children could be broken in
ways that adults couldn’t.

Sakura was trapped. Stinging, tears welled up in her eyes again, and she dabbed at them
curiously with two fingers. It was strange the way human biochemistry worked; that a
rending grief she wasn’t even cognitively enduring right now would still result in the
physiological overload of crying. Had her own tears always burned this much, or was
something wonky about their pH right now? And if it was the latter, what was causing it?
Could be anything from something in her diet to a reaction to chakra exhaustion and
transfusion to simply her emotions bouncing from one extreme to another and back so much
recently.

She’d been overjoyed when she’d realised they were coming to Tsuki no Mori. For all that
her first Kakashi had loved and trusted her, this was still a part of his life that she’d never
gotten to share. Ancestral contracts were a sacred thing – she’d learned that from Tsunade,
when she’d passed along Katsuyu’s contract. Kakashi’s ninken were his no matter that she
was part of the pack, and she’d never ended up in such a position as she was now. He never
had managed to shake the belief that he was cursed, and bringing her into his family like this
– officially, proactively – meant that he thought she needed his protection more than she
needed protecting from him. Kakashi had told her about Tsuki no Mori, of course, and the
ninken all had their fair share to say about it, and she’d been shown the summoning matrix
and the glass artwork that stretched above it, so she’d known the forest was beautiful, but…

Well, it was different. Being here. Seeing it for herself, the way the endless forest was alive
with rainbow light from the bioluminescent flowers. The sky dusted purple with permanent
dusk and the golden moon so big and so close that Sakura could almost touch it, if she just
reached far enough.

Her own hand looked strange against the twilit clouds. Like a stranger’s.

Tsuki no Mori was something she could share with this Kakashi, something they would have
that she and her first Kakashi hadn’t. It was important for some reason. That they could both
mean so much in unique ways. They weren’t the same person, not exactly, and she couldn’t
think of them like they were, like they could be. They didn’t need to be.

“I thought I might find you here.”

The voice was light but commanding, a perfectly balanced blade, and jolted Sakura out of her
head so jarringly that she nearly fell. Heart racing, her mind a confusing whirlwind while she
struggled between startle and dissociation, Sakura looked towards the source.

Komai was several branches below, their narrow body wrapped easily around their four-point
perch, claws dug deep into the bark. They weren’t using any chakra to keep their position,
unlike Sakura. Komai’s tail twitched back and forth around the tree, the tuft at its end the
same molten colour as their mane. Something deep orange was nestled between their ears.

The tree creaked as Komai ascended another branch and stretched up, bringing their head
level with Sakura. “You should not be here alone, Únjekfa.” Unbroken. The pack name
Komai had given her, in a language that resonated so deeply Sakura thought it might cut
straight to her soul.

It felt undeserved. How could she claim to be unbroken when she was leaving her parents to
their terrible, unjust fate?
“I won’t fall,” she heard herself respond, only to gasp and tense up as a low growl ripped
through the air. Komai didn’t take kindly to backtalk.

Teeth bared, their pupils razor thin slits in shining gold eyes, Komai climbed one more
branch and brought their head close enough for Sakura to touch. “Come. You are not a
squirrel; you do not belong at the top of a tree.” It was a command, and Sakura didn’t even
entertain the thought of disobeying. Everything was starting to feel jagged, coming back to
herself at Komai’s beck, the whole world painfully real, even so beautiful and peaceful a
world as Tsuki no Mori.

Climbing Komai’s mane was more challenging than it had any right to be, but the long
strands of fur were so silken that they could slip right through Sakura’s fingers if she wasn’t
careful. It took the touch of chakra for her to feel secure doing so, especially as Komai began
descending the tree as soon as Sakura’s feet left it.

The orange spot, it turned out, was another ninken already astride them. Big, rounded ears
swivelled towards her, atop a wedge-shaped head and a black nose, and solid gold eyes that
matched Komai’s watched her settle, unblinking.

“Meet Adzuki,” Komai said as they made their way down. “It is very unusual for one such as
myself to interfere with a Hatake choosing their bonded, but I felt it… justified, in this case.”
Sakura processed that in silence, gripping onto Komai’s mane as they jumped the rest of the
way to the ground, each point of contact fleeting and precise. They moved through the forest
like the wind. “You are under no obligation to agree, but I believe xe will be a good match for
you.” Komai shook themself and began walking, taking them to gods-knew-where. As
strange as it was, Sakura couldn’t bring herself to be suspicious. Komai was a creature of
action, and there was potential violence etched beneath their fur like a tattoo, but they were
safe in a way that Sakura had never felt before. Like no harm could befall her unless they
willed it.

Adzuki studied Sakura for a moment longer before snorting. “Meeting you is good.” There
was a shivery lilt to xyr cadence that was fleetingly mesmerising, an utterly alien accent that
Sakura had never heard before and doubted she’d ever hear from anyone else. “I am told that
your soul bleeds. I understand.”

A good minute went by before Sakura could remember how to speak. It was so… brusque,
almost, curt and blunt, and yet sympathetic at the same time. Xe was indelicate, apparently,
and yet Sakura got no sense of judgement or shame from xem. My soul bleeds. Somehow,
that metaphor felt harsh and poignant all at once.

“I… I suppose. Yes.” Trauma was a kind of wound. Why shouldn’t it bleed? “Does this mean
you… want to contract with me?” That was how it worked, right? The ninken in question
would have to want the bond, too, surely. Sakura couldn’t imagine the Alphas allowing any
ninken to be forced into leaving Tsuki no Mori.

A soft rumble went through Adzuki’s chest, and xe flicked an ear. “Correct.”

Komai came to a stop, acknowledging the respectful murmurs of passing ninken with
twitches of their tail, and bent their forelegs to the ground. “Time to depart. Adzuki, make
sure she eats.” The instinct to protest flashed through Sakura’s head even as she slid from
Komai’s back to follow Adzuki, but she restrained it. The Alphas had true and complete
command of this lineage, and Sakura was now bound to that authority. She was, bar
extraordinary circumstance, obliged to obey.

“Certainly.” Xe waited for Sakura to land, xyr ears still flicking back and forth, tracking the
ninken around xem, and then turned. “Come.” Seeing xem in full form rather than hidden by
Komai’s mane was almost unsettling, actually. Xe was tall, ears up to Sakura’s shoulders; on
Kakashi, xe would be at eye-level with his sternum, and most of that height was in xyr legs.
They were so long in comparison to Adzuki’s lean body that there was something… almost
eldritch about xem. Like xe’d been stretched out just a little more than should be possible.
White streaks marked out xyr muzzle, matched by the white underside of xyr tail, and xyr
legs were black from the ankles down.

With a flash of chakra – delicate and sharp, the touch of weightless steel – Komai took off
amongst the trees, their paws making the briefest of contact as they went. On their back it felt
almost like flying; despite herself, Sakura watched them go and wished she could go with
them.

Adzuki brushed xyr tail against Sakura’s leg, snatching her attention like a pickpocket. “I
believe you may prefer to eat away from others, yes?” Xe watched Sakura nod, and then
turned to start walking. Every step was fastidiously delicate, xyr disproportionately little
paws leaving no imprints on the dirt. “You may wait outside for me, so long as you remain
for my return.”

Part of Sakura still wanted to tell xem to fuck off. If xe wanted to contract with her, their
relationship would be one of equality, not command. The logical part of her knew that this
behaviour was out of concern, that xe was just trying to look after her, and xe was right when
it came down to it, even if Komai hadn’t explicitly said to make sure she ate. Sakura wasn’t
even certain when the last time she ate was; time didn’t feel real, and there was no sun with
which to track its passing. She could have been at the top of the tree all day, for all she knew.
Eating something was important.

Gratitude curled softly in Sakura’s chest, a sweetly stifling sensation. The idea of going
inside what surely must be some kind of canteen made her throat close. She’d be surrounded,
the noise of many people enjoying their meals and the prickling of all eyes on her. Any group
of shinobi would take notice of the entrance of another, but she was distinct here in the same
way the ninken were distinct in Konoha. It was difficult not to pay attention to an outlier.

It didn’t take long for Adzuki to come back, xyr pace so measured it was almost a strut, with
the handle of an open basket held between xyr teeth. Xe didn’t stop when xe reached Sakura,
but xe gave a flick of an ear to indicate Sakura should follow, so she did. They didn’t go far,
making their way up one of the nearby trees to settle in one of the many unshrouded alcoves
built into the treeways. Far from complete privacy, but those ninken who did pass by usually
paid them no more mind than a brief nod. Sakura still caught their attention, but it didn’t feel
so much like being smothered when they didn’t linger.

Adzuki placed the basket down and then lay down on the soft rug that lined the alcove.
Somewhere between grass and fur, a muddy dark colour, but it provided enough cushioning
that settling beside xem was comfortable, even with the floor being treebark. It shouldn’t be
surprising, really – the dens were functionally identical, besides being slightly bigger and
having ’doors’, and they offered what might be the most restful sleep Sakura had ever
experienced. All of Tsuki no Mori was built like that. Practical luxury and beauty
overflowing from every structure.

Was built the right word for it? Had Tsuki no Mori’s fantastical architecture naturally
occurred, a landscape of chakra and magic, or had the Alphas crafted it from scratch
themselves? If the latter was true, where had the Alphas come from? Sakura wasn’t sure it
was a question that could even be answered. She might as well demand to know the origin of
the gods. Maybe it was a mixture of the two, the Alphas so attuned to the magic of their
realm that they could manipulate it at will.

Hm. It felt juvenile to put anything down to magic, when she’d felt the power of the Alphas’
chakra, but… there was an overwhelming sense of awe that they inspired that Sakura
couldn’t quite wrap her head around it being so mundane as chakra. Anyone could learn to do
the incredible with chakra, given enough time and motivation, but the Alphas… The Alphas
were otherworldly in a way that went beyond their literal otherworld. There was no such
thing as perfection, but if Sakura had to pick what was closest, she’d pick the Alphas of Tsuki
no Mori.

“Eat.” Imperious, pushing the basket closer to her. Sakura wasn’t hungry, really, but she
wasn’t not hungry, and she couldn’t deny a certain curiosity. What was it that ninken ate in
the comfort of their own home? “Once you eat, we may discuss.”

Ominous, actually, but Sakura felt a distant echo of mirth nonetheless. Xe was prim, sort of,
in an alien way, but it was refreshingly straightforward. Existing as a shinobi was an exercise
in duplicity most of the time, but Sakura rather suspected that Adzuki would have none of it.
Perhaps… Perhaps she could be honest with xem. Not a confession, not ever, not if secrecy
was so important she was willing to give up her parents for it, but— Well, admission of truths
she couldn’t give was a form of confession, wasn’t it? Not one she could give Kakashi, or
Sasuke – they would pursue a hidden truth like that relentlessly if she outright told them it
existed – but to Adzuki? Xe might just be the type of person to let that lie undisturbed.

The food turned out to be more familiar than she’d expected. Whole roasted carrots with
honey and sesame seeds, smashed potatoes slathered in what looked and smelled like butter
(and Sakura chose not to ponder where the ninken might source butter within Tsuki no Mori),
and big, tender chunks of meat. They tasted a little bit like beef, but not quite. Whatever it
was, it was delicious.

“Good,” Adzuki rumbled as Sakura started eating. She couldn’t help but wonder how the
ninken chefs cooked. Did they henge into a form with hands, or had they developed tools and
techniques that didn’t require them? “You have questions. Ask them.”

Chewing a carrot, Sakura started to organise her thoughts into a coherent list. It was easier
than she’d expected, and far easier than it had been at the top of the tree by herself.
Something about Adzuki’s presence helped, provided some kind of anchoring effect. Maybe
it was as simple as xyr presence at all. Interacting with other, real people made it harder to
stay dissociated. “Most ninken contract as puppies.” Start with the easy questions. Simple
answers were easier to process. “Do I need to know anything special since you’re an adult?”

Adzuki made a low sound. If Sakura were hopeful, it might have been approval. “No. We still
must learn one another and grow together.”

Ah. That was an interesting point, actually. A puppy didn’t necessarily know yet where their
strengths or preferences lay, and came with a malleability that Adzuki just wouldn’t. With
Sakura still a genin – and uncertain if she wanted to continue on with the path she’d chosen
before – there was a definite skill difference between them. Adzuki was an adult and
established.

“It won’t bother you to work with a genin?” Did they even have genin here? Sakura had no
idea what kind of ranking system Tsuki no Mori used.

But Adzuki snorted and flicked xyr ears. “When I enter your world, I will be a genin also.
Age is irrelevant; I remain a stranger to your forest and its ways.”

Some of the tension in Sakura’s chest eased. It was hard to argue xyr point. And it was
reassuring that xe wouldn’t be leagues ahead of her, or get frustrated with her development
when it had probably been a long time since Adzuki was last a student. Was it intimidating to
be contracting xemself into a completely foreign world? Xe had to be nervous, right?

“Well,” Sakura murmured between bites. “Why do you want to contract with me at all?” Xe
didn’t seem especially eager to get out of Tsuki no Mori. There was a sense of adventure in
the puppies that Adzuki didn’t share, whether because of experience or nature. “Do you want
to leave Tsuki no Mori?”

This time, xe hummed. Xyr tail twitched. “No. Nor am I afraid to do so.” Damn. Were her
thoughts that obvious on her face? “Komai sees in you a spirit kindred to mine.” Adzuki
lowered xyr voice, meeting Sakura’s gaze directly. “They have never been mistaken in this.”

Kindred. Perhaps. Komai was… If Sakura was honest with herself, Komai was feral, with a
thin veneer of civility. Not aggressive, or at least not exclusively so, but everything they did
was done with ferality. Komai ran like the wild and fought like a storm, they wanted with
abandon, they loved with no thought for consequence. And maybe Komai was right, maybe
Sakura belonged there – but Adzuki watched her with golden eyes like steel traps, and she
wasn’t quite sure what lay behind them.

“… What about battle? Do you want to fight with me, or be more of a social companion?”
After all, whilst Kakashi could summon any of his ninken in combat, some of them preferred
to avoid it where possible. Bull was a competent shinobi, but he was far more comfortable
helping Kakashi with domestic matters than he was with violent ones.

Sakura didn’t know what answer she wanted. Maybe it didn’t matter. Regardless of what her
opinion was, she wasn’t sure Adzuki would be able to stomach her if xe was averse to
bloodshed. Somewhere along the way, Sakura had gone feral too.

Like metal against glass, Adzuki let out a single bark of laughter. There was no humour in it.
 “Kindred of mine, when come those who would harm you, I will cut my teeth on their
bones.”

Chapter End Notes

The Author's Novella Notes:

| Sasuke began this chapter being introspective again, so I suppose this is just what he
does now XD
| Kokuyōseki is a black Schipperke puppy, Dai is a Tibetan mastiff, and Adzuki is a
maned wolf. Shinju is a samoyed, and Kakashi is about to spend and immense amount
of time brushing her XD
| In that vein, Taya is a border collie, Kanei is a husky, and Li is a pomeranian.
| In light of my own runaway thoughts, I thought I should probably make a point here
for the sake of clarity: I'm not exactly a benevolent author. Bad things are going to
happen to people who don't deserve them in this story. Characters will make the wrong
decision for the right reason. I don't really do happy endings or karmic justice. That's not
to say everything is always angst – it's important for there to be good things and
happiness as well, both for a characters and the readers, but they're bitterly won from
amidst the rest. In my story, being good does not absolve you and being innocent does
not protect you. It's probably important for you, the reader, to understand that.
| Yes, Adzuki's pronouns are xe/xem. No, I do not accept criticism.
| On the topic of pronouns, I know that technically speaking, the characters should
ask/be told/otherwise have to actively find out what everyone’s pronouns are before they
know which ones to use in their own internal monologue, but I am the omniscient author
and I’ve decided that writing that in all the time would just be aggravating for everyone
involved, so the Narutoverse comes with inbuilt pronoun detection and nobody can tell
me otherwise.
| I’m doing my editing sweep, and it occurs to me how fucking upset Itachi must have
been on Team Seven’s return. I mean, obviously, since Waves is a hell mission, but in a
more specific manner – imagine him knowing that Sasuke doesn’t really understand the
Sharingan yet, and how important it is that he doesn’t, because it means he’s never had
to face the kind of trauma and emotional turmoil that the Sharingan is built on. It’s
almost inevitable, but he’s still just a kid and Itachi would give anything to protect him
from that. Itachi wants, more than almost anything, to make sure Sasuke never has to
feel his Mangekyō awaken. And then he comes back from his first C-rank ever, a
mission that’s supposed to be introductory and safe, his first taste of life outside Konoha,
and he comes back with his team half-dead and his Sharingan active.
| I’m just saying, all I can think about is how heartbroken Itachi was when he saw
Sasuke’s Sharingan. How he must have imagined all the possible ways it might have
happened, how guilty he felt for not being there. All the times he’s tried not to think
about it, when Sasuke expressed his desire for the Sharingan, all the times he’s dreaded
the moment, and reality strikes and Itachi’s not there to protect him. And then Kakashi
apologises to him, because Kakashi blames himself, and Itachi knows all too well how
that argument goes, because he was in Anbu with Kakashi, he served under Kakashi, he
knows that it’s a fruitless endeavour to try and convince Kakashi that he couldn’t have
known what would happen, that he did everything he could and it’s foolish to expect
anything more of himself – Itachi knows he won’t succeed, but he tells Kakashi anyway,
that it wasn’t his fault, and tries to smother the voice in his head that calls him a
hypocrite.
| Okay, this got away from me, but it lives in my head rent-free.
| On a very similar note, I’m so proud of Sasuke in this timeline. I know I’m the author,
but still XD He’s coming to conclusions that it took me a very long time to realise – and
conclusions that many of the characters around him still haven’t.
| Y’all owe Haethel a thank you – she’s spared you the drag of Hinata’s internal
monologue about her political position and what’s waiting for her back home for the
upteenth time. Yes, it was far worse than it is XD
| Thank you all for being patient with this chapter ^-^ I’ve had some dental issues
recently (wisdom teeth are a waste of calcium), so I’ve been a bit behind on everything.
| The Anbu Blues. The Anblues. I regret nothing.
| Honourable mention for the quote of the chapter: “… paranoia was the natural state of
the shinobi.”
| Second honourable mention, that has foregone selection purely by virtue of being the
closing line: “Kindred of mine, when come those who would harm you, I will cut my
teeth on their bones.”
| Final honourable mention that cannot be selected because it’s part of my own damn
notes and not the actual chapter: “Being good does not absolve you, and being innocent
does not protect you.”

Next Chapter Due: 16th May 2022

 With Red in Their Eyes
Chapter Summary

So split them open.

Chapter Notes

Quote of the Chapter: "If they didn’t stop dancing around each other, they were going
to trip."
Content warning: Especially graphic violence.

Y’all better buckle the fuck up for these Author’s Notes, because I’m not even sure Ao3
will let me have all the ones I’ve written up for this chapter.
The Direct Result of my Inability to Shut Up:
-Yes, I’ve used the spelling ‘vapourise’ instead of ‘vaporise’ and I’m aware that the
former is incorrect but also I refuse to accept it. I’m the author, I make the rules, all my
homies hate ‘vaporise’.
-Because it hasn’t really come up yet, and I spent a not insignificant amount of time
sorting more thoroughly through my Ninja Handbook and more strictly defining certain
aspects of this timeline (and Sakura’s original timeline), I’m going to reiterate right here:
-The core timeline and general Narutoverse history as they stand in my fic are different
from canon. Not just a little bit – I’ve gone through and retooled almost every
significant aspect of canon, because I love these characters and the setting is cognitively
interesting but canon as presented is (in my opinion) absolutely batshit and nonsensical.
All that to say, most of what you think you know doesn’t apply here. Tenzō’s backstory?
Different. (Similar, but different in several critical places). The Akatsuki’s ultimate
endgoal? Different. (Again, and this applies to most everything, similar but different).
How exactly the Bijuu work? Different. The upper echelon specifics of the Sharingan,
the Byakugan, and the Rinnegan? Different. Drastically so, in the Rinnegan’s case. The
Sage of Six Paths? Distantly recognisable, but very, very different.
-Hells, even the basic founding of Konoha. In canon, the Great Villages are within one
living generation old; Tsunade is 50 in canon when she takes the Hokage hat, and she
has clear memory of the First Hokage. Given that they’ve already conducted three wars
and the moral standards of Konoha (and likely the other Villages, Kiri for sure) at the
time of the Massacre are unrecognisable from those of the founding generation, I reject
this entirely. The Great Villages have been around for at least 200 years in the Starlight
Canon.
-Basically, please remember that canon is an impossible shitshow and I’ve retooled
almost all of it, so keep the spirit of canon’s presented ideas but don’t apply the letter of
the lore to For All Those because it just won’t work.
-Also letter of the lore – pun absolutely intended. :)
-Somewhat tangentially related: it’s canonically listed that Gaara’s blood type is AB and
 Kankurō’s is B, whilst Temari’s is O. This is, genetically speaking, fucking impossible
unless Temari is adopted or (perhaps) only shares one parent with her brothers. Now,
while I would easily believe their father fucking around and finding out, I’m pretty
damn sure that Kishimoto intended them to be full siblings and just doesn’t know the
first thing about genetics. So Temari is blood type A now and there is not mortal nor
deity who can stop me.
-It turns out that I am in fact the idiot here! XD But I'm petty by nature, so I'm keeping
Temari as an A blood type.
-As another aside, as I work on the logistical side of this fic, the Narutoverse now has, in
addition to inbuilt pronoun detection, a complete absence of transphobia. Why, might
you ask, have I made this decision when I don’t shy away from almost any other form of
negative interaction or experience? Well you see, it’s because I’m the author and I in fact
do make the rules. Or, in a less haughty tone, mostly because I just can’t be bothered
writing it. Transphobia is aggravating and boring and eh, I have more interesting things
to do with this shitshow. Similarly, there's no homophobia. Basically, queerphobia of
any kind is dead here.
-Am I taking advantage of this setting to use my general scientific and biological
knowledge? Yes, yes I am. Also taking advantage of my betas, who have between them
a much broader knowledge of psychology and in-depth chemistry acumen. Nerds for
president or whatever, idk.
-Are you used to my note-novellas yet? Because they are not gonna stop.
-On that note, in the process of very thoroughly nailing down exactly where a certain
subset of characters are and what they’re doing right now, I’ve had to peruse once again
the official Naruto wiki. This, my excellent bitches, is what we in the biz call a fucking
mistake.
WHY DOES MECHA-NARUTO EXIST. WHY DOES HE WEAR MECHA-
KURAMA LIKE A SUIT.
-These motherfuckers made Bijuu chakra skittles.
-I literally cannot emphasise enough how batshit fucking off the walls canon is, jesus
shitting dragon cocks christ.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

The trip home was… stressful.

Early mornings were nothing new, of course, but days of early mornings and late nights took
their toll when Mitskuni-sensei was holding them to a relentless pace. The first two nights
Mitskuni kept watch on his own – he couldn’t safely sleep anyway, and he had to make sure
Chōji stayed up with him. There was a deep sense of guilt that Ino couldn’t quite explain
when she curled up to sleep, those first nights, but Shikamaru had logicked her through it
easily enough. Chōji and Mitskuni were compromised, forced to forgo rest, so she and
Shikamaru would need to be at their best if anything else went wrong.

Though she kept it to herself, Ino wasn’t really sure if it mattered. The jōnin always seemed
to be capable of anything – if they came across a threat that Mitskuni couldn’t handle, even
sleep-deprived as he was, Ino didn’t think they’d be able to handle it either. Even at their
best.

And they weren’t, after the first two days. Chōji was practically delirious, plodding along at
Mitskuni’s side, their fingers laced to ensure Chōji didn’t fall behind. Mitskuni seemed to be
lucid, but there was a faint edge in his voice, almost a slur around the corners of each word
that would have given away his state if the twitchy paranoia hadn’t already. He was jumping
at any sound, his chakra signature bright and flickering like a flame in the wind. Completely
unhidden. Ino couldn’t tell if it was involuntary, born from exhaustion and anxiety, or if it
was a warning.

Anyone who might approach wasn’t welcome.

The third night, Mitskuni produced a vial of small, navy blue pills and gave one to Chōji. It
took a direct order to make him swallow it against the fatigued nausea, and a minute later he
was once more alert. There was a weirdness to it though, something almost… fervish and
unsettled. An unnatural alertness, echoed in Mitskuni’s sharp gaze after he swallowed one
too. Ino took first watch and let Shikamaru rest – even Mitskuni-sensei claimed that he and
Chōji both could no longer be fully trusted to guard them – and tried to push away the quiet
dread that swirled around her feet like quicksand. If she thought about it too much, she knew,
it would consume her.

They’d make it home. They had to.

On the fourth day, as Konoha proper came into sight, Mitskuni took another of the pills. He
hesitated afterwards, slowly blinking at Chōji until whatever stimulant it was took effect, and
then sighed reluctantly. Hiding the bottle away again, his chakra sparked and he hoisted Chōji
into his arms. It was almost comical; Mitskuni was markedly smaller than most adults, both
in stature and build, and Chōji was barely any littler. The gentle churning of Mitskuni’s
chakra in the air got stronger, supplying strength with which to safely carry Chōji, and he
took a steadying breath.

“I need you to keep your arm like this, okay?” he murmured, removing Chōji’s wounded arm
from around his neck where it’d gone automatically and folding it against his chest. Chōji
made a low, incoherent sound. “It’s alright. You can get some rest.”

Shikamaru was quicker than Ino – “Sensei—!” – but she got out an opening protest before
Mitskuni spoke over them both.

Cutting, more so than it needed to be, but without anger. “Quiet. I can manually stimulate his
chakra flow until we get home. We’re close enough now.” And the followup question died on
Ino’s tongue, why he hadn’t done that already if it was an option. Close enough meant it
would only be effective in the short-term.

Stupid, Ino chided herself as Mitskuni rubbed little circles on Chōji’s arm with his thumb,
first one side of the scratches then the other, back and forth in a steady rhythm. His focus on
their path visibly clouded, one distraction too many as he managed both Chōji’s chakra flow
and his own; of course he couldn’t have done this the whole trip. Too much effort, too taxing
on top of everything else. Jōnin or not, Mitskuni was only human.
“Ino, take point,” he said a moment later, curt but soft. Confirmation, as if he could read her
mind – even this close to home, he wanted someone with relatively fresh senses in front.
“Shikamaru, watch our back.” And behind.

It didn’t take long to reach the west gate, after that. Mitskuni pushed them even harder,
despite not having lead, but nobody complained. They’d be able to rest once they got home.

They just had to get home.

Ino had never been so sore before.

Three kilometres out from the gate, two chūnin met them. Ino couldn’t name them, but the
sight of their Konoha hitai-ite triggered a relief in her chest that she didn’t recognise; it swept
through her entire body like a tide. A quivering gripped her in its wake that made her bones
liquid.

One of the chūnin went straight past her, and Mitskuni’s voice came up like a shroud, a low
murmur as he reported back the vital information. Mission complete, chakra coagulation, one
dose of wakeful on board. The words seemed to sort of… hum together, almost more
vibration than sound. The other chūnin – deep tan with long, black hair wound around itself
in a plait that hung over their shoulder and murky hazel eyes – stopped half a step from Ino
and then caught her as she stumbled. “Whoa— Easy, kiddo. I gotchu.” They swept her up off
her feet, embarrassingly easily, and Ino didn’t fight it. In a moment they were back past
Mitskuni-sensei and Chōji and the second chūnin, focused on the faint glow of green chakra
in his hands. Shikamaru watched Ino be carried towards him, an unusual sharp wariness in
his gaze. “Are you hurt?” the chūnin asked, looking between Ino and Shikamaru.

Dark eyes flashed towards the other half of their team. “Not us.” His voice was low. The
chūnin sighed in relief and nodded.

“Good. Name’s Koshiro. Don’t worry, we’ll getcha all to the docs.” They winked, almost
cheerful, and Ino closed her eyes. She wasn’t sure if Koshiro’s tone was reassuring or
insulting. It probably didn’t matter; she was too tired to bother figuring it out. “Are either of
you okay to give a preliminary report?” they asked while starting to walk again. When Ino
opened her eyes, they’d paused directly next to Mitskuni and Chōji, the freckled chūnin in
the midst of casting some kind of jutsu.

Shikamaru grunted, his gaze glued to Chōji. “I can. After we get to the hospital.”

A shiver went through Ino like she’d bitten down on ice. The hospital. It was a sick twist of
fuckery that they would end up there after all. Maybe Sakura would still be there. Ino was
going to end up staying for a while anyway; she could kill two birds with one shuriken.

The chūnin’s jutsu went off, and he opened his hands to reveal a fluttering triangle of chakra,
paper thin and… folded, almost origami. “Two chakra poisonings. One genin. Doctor Tanna.
Wakeful taken.” He spoke softly to the thing in his palm, and it pulsed once before lifting into
the air with a faint buzzing noise. The chūnin clicked his fingers, the little chakra construct
darkened several shades, and a second later it zipped off towards Konoha. He turned back to
Mitskuni. “Alright. Let me set a block for you, Kuni, and we can move to meet Doctor
Tanna.”

“Thank you, Kaoru,” Mitskuni replied, barely above an exhale, offering him an exhausted
smile while he moved to Mitskuni’s back. Kuni? They were clearly acquainted. “Ino,
Shikamaru, this is Kuromizu Kaoru. Ru, my other genin.” He held still while he introduced
them, Kaoru’s hands set against his back where he’d been scratched.

Shikamaru was still watching Chōji, but when he spoke it was directed at Kaoru. “What kind
of ‘block’ are you setting?” Suspicious. Kaoru’s Konoha hitai-ite glinted from his neck. Why
was Shikamaru being so hostile to another Konoha-nin? Maybe it was just his own
exhaustion, rearing its head as paranoia.

Koshiro gave a sharp noise. “Chakra block. It’s only temporary – it’ll degrade on its own
after about ten minutes – but it’ll make it easier for ya team. Let ‘em relax a little.”

And Mitskuni-sensei did seem slightly more comfortable when Kaoru stepped back, some of
the tension in his shoulders easing, just a little. “Easy, Shikamaru.” Not exactly chiding but
Ino could sense it underneath the soothing tone, a warning to back off his current attitude.
“Ru’s a med-nin, he knows what he’s doing.”

Whether or not that was sufficient for Shikamaru remained to be seen, but he held his tongue
as they started walking again. Slower, now, the merciless pace of before dissolved entirely,
but they still made good time to reach the gate. Kaoru broke away when they passed the
threshold to talk with the two chūnin on gate duty, distant blurs of meaningless colour. There
was something… Some reason that should be important. Ino was pretty sure she should pay
attention to that, but it was too difficult to see past Koshiro’s hands, holding her secure
against their chest. They wore a delicate silver ring on their left. A few moments (aeons)
later, further into Konoha, Kaoru came jogging back.

There was a small team waiting for them when they reached the hospital. Presumably from
the message that Kaoru had sent ahead, but Ino still felt the last of the tension melt from her
shoulders as they were met.

They were home.

They were safe.

Kaoru spoke in low tones as Mitskuni-sensei set Chōji gently down in a wheelchair and then
gratefully took one himself, a constant hum that Ino could only pick out occasional words
from. He was informing the doctor of their condition, she was pretty sure. Tall and imposing,
the doctor had slate grey hair tied back in stern braids and piercing eyes like sea holly leaves.
She let Kaoru speak as they made their way through the halls, nodding while she walked. Her
grip on Chōji’s wheelchair was firm but very calm, a familiarity that made the whole thing
seem… almost normal, a lack of urgency that permeated the choking anxiety of the last few
days. Even Kaoru held on a little too tight, his knuckles white around the handles on
Mitskuni’s chair.
The room they came to was small, with an opaque cabinet on one wall and a narrow bed on
another; the third wall was completely clear save for a series of hooks against which the
wheelchairs were set, brakes engaged so absent-mindedly that it was obvious how often
Kaoru and the doctor did this. In the far corner was the single chair, a shiny vinyl but
surprisingly cushy, and Shikamaru flopped into it with a sigh, closing his eyes and tipping his
head back. Very gently, Koshiro laid Ino down on the bed.

“I gotta go report, Kaoru – ya coming?”

Looking up from his conversation with the doctor, Kaoru blinked at them once. “Ah— No.
Let reception know I’m swapping with Yukio.” Koshiro gave a grunt of acknowledgement
before taking their leave, and Kaoru turned back to study Mitskuni.

Sweeping across the room to the cabinet, the doctor hummed. “I'm Doctor Tanna,” she
introduced herself, her voice a clipped soprano. “Kuromizu, take their bloods will you?” She
passed him a plastic bowl, irregularly shaped, containing several tubes with different
coloured tops and cotton swabs wrapped in transparent, blue plastic. “Now, I’m to understand
that Akimichi-kun has a wakeful dose on board?” she asked Mitskuni while gathering
together some more equipment from the cabinet.

“Yes,” Mitskuni replied, looking away. There was a worried glitter in his eyes that made Ino’s
chest tight. “Yesterday, around half twenty-one hundred. He was poisoned four days ago.
Direct infection, on his arm.” Tanna already knew that bit, she’d given the wound a brief
inspection, but Mitskuni-sensei was starting to slip, his words a little slurred. “I’ve no idea
what the creature was. It’s a chakra coagulant.”

“Hm, and you? Wakeful on board?”

Mitskuni grimaced. “Yes. Two doses, one yesterday at the same time and one this morning, a
few hours ago.”

While they spoke, Kaoru fetched a needle attached to a short tube and an elastic tourniquet
that went tight around Chōji’s upper arm. The uninjured one. Chōji made a soft noise of
complaint when the needle went in, but he didn’t move away or open his eyes. In seconds,
Kaoru had loosed the band and drawn two vials of blood, one with a purple cap and one with
a yellow, inverting them several times before setting them back down and carefully opening
the pack of cotton balls. One went over the needle and pressed down while Kaoru pulled it
out, and there was a flicker of his chakra.

Ino only realised she’d blinked when she noticed her vision had gone dark. Opening her eyes
again proved to be far harder than it had any right, but she took a deep breath and made it
happen. Kaoru was taking Mitskuni’s blood. Across the room, eyes sharp and alert despite
the dark smudges beneath them, Shikamaru watched Kaoru and Tanna work. How was that
fair? He’d been put through his paces just like she had, but Ino knew she would fall asleep if
she let herself, and Shikamaru seemed immune to it.

Was it because he’d slept better than her on the trip home? Maybe he was just more
accustomed to sleep deprivation than she was. Tension flashed up her jaw as her teeth gritted.
Of course she wasn’t as tough or as experienced as Mitskuni-sensei, but it was… worse,
somehow, to be outperformed by Shikamaru. Stupid, because Shikamaru could outsmart
anyone if he put any effort into it, but Ino couldn’t help the sliver of anger that slid under her
skin, like a blade beneath her fingernails. Anger? Maybe it was jealousy. Maybe it was guilt.
Some combination of the three.

It was the barn fight all over again. That sense of ineptitude that tasted like bitter iron.
Traditionally proven formations and creative problem-solving were all well and good, but if
those were her only strengths then she would fail as a shinobi. Her inheritance as a
Yamanaka wasn’t good enough to justify her future. If there was no chance for her to simplify
a fight by possessing their enemy, she needed something else to offer. Genin-level
competence in taijutsu and basic weaponry wasn’t good enough.

But she had time. Surely. They’d all made it home safe, so she had time. To come up with
something else, to ask Mitskuni-sensei for help. That was the whole point, wasn’t it?

She’d forgotten to open her eyes again. For a few minutes Ino just let herself linger in the
artificial darkness, listening to Tanna and Kaoru whisper about the details of treatment and
observation. It kept flickering in and out as her thoughts circled around what she could ask to
learn from Mitskuni, the possibilities before her. Theoretically they were all but endless,
although she knew well enough that some would prove unrealistic. What else was she good
at? She didn’t even know; she’d never thought beyond the clan jutsu.

Had her father had to face this realisation? Had all the Yamanaka before him?

“Ino,” came a soft voice, a light touch on her shoulder jolting her— awake? She couldn’t tell
if she’d been asleep or just drifting, or how much time had passed. Was Tanna still talking?
Wait— She still hadn’t opened her eyes.

The voice waited for her to respond, a low noise of acknowledgement while Ino struggled
with her eyelids. When finally she overcame their weight, she was met with a pair of
concerned, copper-coloured eyes. Who…? Framed by wavy locks of strawberry blond hair,
set in a deeply tanned face and even darker freckles—

Kaoru.

“Hey,” he murmured, offering her a smile. It was… sad, somehow. “Mitskuni said you’re not
injured. Is that right?” For a moment, Ino just tried to take stock of her own body, and then a
strange sense of guilt smothered that internal inventory. What kind of sense did that make?
Why should she be ashamed? Her voice refused to work, trapped somewhere in her chest, so
she just nodded. As exhausted as she was, as much as the fatigued ache was creeping into her
muscles, she wasn’t injured. “Okay, good. I’m just going to give you a quick check before we
move you to another room, alright?”

Green chakra lit up in his palm, held in Ino’s line of vision, but he waited until she nodded
again. It tingled a little, hovering over her chest before moving up her throat, over her eyes,
lingering at her temples a moment and then sweeping down her back. Kaoru paused again at
her side – her kidneys maybe? – and then made another soft moue. The tingle vanished.
“You’ll be just fine after some rest and some water,” he reassured her. “Do you want me to
carry you?”

Ino wanted to say yes, but the earlier nagging shame reared its head again, and she forced out
an even breath. “No. I can walk.” Which turned out to only be partially true, but somehow it
felt far more dignified for Kaoru to simply give her an arm of support rather than to carry her.
Hm. She hadn’t felt undignified in the moment, though, when Koshiro had carried her in.
Maybe that was something she’d need to think about.

The room Kaoru led her to was larger than the examination room, but not by a lot. There
were four beds, bigger and comfier than the one Ino had been on, and entirely separate from
the wall. Mitskuni and Chōji were in two of them, Chōji curled against his own pillow in the
scrunched up ball he always slept in. His forearm was tucked over the thin blanket, bandaged
up. Conversely, Mitskuni was still awake despite looking drained, and he gave them a pale
smile as they came in.

As she let Kaoru help her up onto one of the empty beds, Ino did another quick sweep of the
room. “Where’s Shikamaru?”

“Giving a report,” Kaoru murmured, pulling a blanket up from the foot of her bed. “Just a
preliminary one, he’ll be back soon. You and him hopefully only need to stay for today, so we
can make sure you’re both okay to go home.” Oh. That probably should have occurred to her,
really, but it hadn’t. “And some fluids. I’m just going to give you a cannula real quick, and
then you can get some rest, alright?”

Ino felt herself hum an agreement, but there was something else she wanted to ask, she
thought. Chakra fluttered against her skin, cool and pale, and then something sharp snagged
in her arm, followed by flickers of pain and movement. “Kaoru, is…?” she forced out,
hearing the slur in her own voice. Fuck. What was— Sakura. “Is… Is Sakura still here?”

There was a long moment of silence, and then Mitskuni spoke up. “Haruno Sakura. She’s one
of the Team Seven genin.” Another beat of silence, and more odd movement in her arm.
Mitskuni’s voice was very quiet. “The Waves mission.”

“Ah.” A strange tension hovered in the air, tangible even though Ino had her eyes closed. A
brief tug on her arm, and then a strange warmth under her skin. “No, they were discharged
several days ago. But as far as I know, they’re all healing well.”

Okay. That was good. She could meet up with Sakura later, that meant. Later, once… once
Chōji was okay. Once she’d had some sleep. How did they even treat chakra poisoning?
Mitskuni had said something about a coagulant – did that mean there were multiple kinds of
chakra poison?

She hadn’t heard Kaoru leave, but Ino could sense the emptiness of the room when she next
paid attention to it. Even with her eyes closed, she was sure it was only her team in here. Was
Shikamaru back yet? The only sure way to know was to open her eyes, but Ino only struggled
with that for a few minutes before giving up. He’d be okay. They were home – they were
safe.
They’d be okay.

Finding Sakura turned out to be harder than Sasuke had expected. It wasn’t just finding the
nerve – though that, too, was harder than Sasuke hoped – but once he actually started looking
around, he’d realised they weren’t housed in dens nearby one another. At least it was a little
easier to wander around with Kokuyōseki perched on his shoulder; for as much of a cheeky
brat as he was (and he truly was), Kokuyōseki knew his way around central Tsuki no Mori
and proved quite an adept navigator.

Sasuke found it easy not to be upset, though. Even with all the fruitless Sakura-searching,
there was plenty to occupy his mind with. He had no idea just how vast Tsuki no Mori might
be in its entirety, and neither did Kokuyōseki, but even just the central parts were huge and
sprawling, filled with hidden treeways and dens. Without a day-night cycle there was no
external regulation of time, and it resulted in a social lack of time that was… well, if not
unsettling then certainly alien.

And that was a lie, actually. It was unsettling.

But it was the sort of unsettling that Sasuke thought he’d be able to get used to, a wholly self-
regulated schedule that seemed like it should fall apart under the weight of a living populace,
and yet simply… didn’t. The concept of time as a measurement was something that
Kokuyōseki recognised easily enough, but time as an independent factor made him blink at
Sasuke as if they were speaking different languages. Adjusting to Konoha would probably
take a while.

So it wasn’t exactly at the end of the day that they finally found Sakura, because days didn’t
really exist here, and thus Sasuke certainly couldn’t be at the end of one, but he and
Kokuyōseki had eaten several meals and bathed between the beginning and end of the search.
She was high in a tree that Kokuyōseki said was part of Komai’s grove, curled up in a nest of
blankets and leaning against a large, orange-red ninken with black ears and muzzle. There
was something uncanny about xem that was apparent even lying down, but xe set a golden
gaze on Sasuke as he approached and he found himself reassured by xem.

Xe murmured something to Sakura, and she twitched around to face him. She had a flower in
her hair, tucked behind one ear, and it still glowed a subtle red despite being cut from the
vines that hung amongst the leaves. The light cast eerie shadows across the right half of her
face.

“Sasuke?” she said, slow, her voice oddly hoarse. There were tear tracks visible down her
cheeks. “Do you… need something?” And maybe, if Sasuke still knew her after all, there was
a trace of hope in her voice, too.

Soft fur touched Sasuke’s fingers while he struggled for the right words to say back, and only
when he glanced sideways did Sasuke realise he’d reached up to touch Kokuyōseki on his
shoulder. The puppy gave a huff and nosed Sasuke’s hand, cold and wet. A soft noise
rumbled in Sasuke’s ear, more of a vibration than anything. It seemed… encouraging.
Sakura’s brow had drawn down as she waited for a response, averting her gaze and leaning
closer to the ninken at her side. Sad and guilty. Hurt. Sasuke was hurting her.

Guardian, he was meant to be.

“Yeah,” he blurted, taking a step closer before hesitating again. She flinched.

Like she expected an attack.

Gods, had she always been so… whatever it was that had its hands around their throats now,
whatever it was that squeezed any chance of relaxation from them? She’d always been
anxious, but she hadn’t… flinched like this all the time. Had she? Sasuke wasn’t sure
anymore; thinking about how she’d been in the Academy was getting difficult. Memory was
always overtaken by the flickering present. She had been shy. Had Sasuke simply been too
naive to distinguish shy from afraid?

He wasn’t entirely sure where the impulse came from, but Sasuke found himself sitting down
at the edge of the nest, rocking forward a little as he tried to figure out how to keep his
distance and get closer at the same time. It had been easy, really, to get Sakura to be his friend
after the Massacre. Any small kindness, any positive attention, and she’d practically hoarded
it once he’d shown he was willing to give it.

Had that been it, too? Whatever made her… like this?

Guardian, Cú-síth had called him. Was he really so blind?

She watched him sit, one hand buried in her ninken’s fur. Anxiety glittered in her eyes. “…
We should… talk.” It was pathetic, really, wasn’t it? So banal an opening statement for a
conversation that Sasuke knew wasn’t going to be easy, but that mattered so much. But
something about her softened, an edge Sasuke only noticed in its absence, and she pulled
together a tiny smile.

“Okay. Uh, this is Adzuki. Adzuki, Sasuke. My… My teammate.” For some reason, that
stung. Being introduced as a teammate instead of as a friend. Brother, even. But maybe that
was his own fault.

Adzuki gave him a searching look, holding his gaze for several, infinite moments, before xe
got to xyr paws. “We shall have time for acquainting later. I will fetch us dinner, Sakura, to
give you time now.” Xe had a strange lilt that reminded Sasuke a little bit of the Alphas; an
air of mystique, an unmeasurable, unquantifiable otherness that made xem seem more than
human.

More than canine? Huh. He was going to have to get used to that.

“Oh— This is Kokuyōseki.” Babbled, almost, spoken too quickly as he realised Adzuki was
about to walk away. “Would it be okay if he went with you, Adzuki?” After all, xe was giving
him and Sakura privacy, and keeping Kokuyōseki on his shoulder for the entire conversation
was counterproductive to that end.
Adzuki’s nose twitched, cocking xyr head slightly while xe considered Kokuyōseki. A
glimmer in xyr eyes revealed no small amount of trepidation at the idea, and that sense of
other vanished in an instant. Xe was just a mortal ninken – a person – the same as everyone
else. Before Sasuke could retract the question, xe snorted. “Very well. Come with me, pup.
Leave our kin to themselves.”

Kokuyōseki gave a whine in protest, but he scrambled gracelessly down from Sasuke’s
shoulder and bounced over to Adzuki’s side. When he stepped a little too close to Adzuki’s
black paw, xe picked it up as if in recoil, toes curling inwards. They kept walking away
together, Kokuyōseki bouncing too close for Adzuki’s comfort, visible in the way xe twitched
away from contact and audible in the brief snapping at him. Somehow, Kokuyōseki seemed
completely unaffected by xyr discomfort with him.

Maybe it was a puppy thing. Adzuki certainly looked like an adult. Was it normal to contract
with an adult ninken? Sasuke had rather gotten the impression from Taya that he was
expected to bond with a puppy, but it was clear that Adzuki had chosen to contract with
Sakura. Should he ask about that? Could he?

“Sasuke?” Sakura’s voice was unsteady. Uncertain, like she didn’t know why Sasuke had
come looking for her, or what he wanted to talk about. It felt… wrong. Like he was a
stranger, somehow – like they had no idea who the other was.

Did they? Wasn’t that the whole point?

She wouldn’t meet his gaze when he looked at her. “We should… talk.” Again. Banal and
repetitive. It came out weaker than Sasuke thought it would, an echo of that same uncertainty.
A mirror image. If they didn’t stop dancing around each other, they were going to trip.
“Look, I—”

“I’m sorry,” Sakura forced out, a hiss between her teeth that sounded painful, still looking
down at her own hands. “I didn’t think he’d show up so quickly, I just—” Wet spots appeared
on her skin, flecks of tears that scattered outwards like dew. “No, that’s— That doesn’t
matter. I shouldn’t have snuck away. I—” And she stopped, again, caught as if her own voice
was a blade in her throat. Like someone had their hands around it. Shoulders hunched, Sakura
drew into herself a little more, making herself smaller, pulling away to create more space
between them. “… I’m sorry.”

For a moment, everything seemed to invert. Fast and slow at the same time, the whole world
pulsing around them like they were trapped in a bubble, but could only see it in flickering
snapshots. It was… unnerving. A weight that settled calmly over Sasuke’s shoulders like a
heavy cloak, but also a luminous crack in his ribcage that felt like coming undone, like
emotion unwinding into threads of colour that Sasuke could pluck at as if playing a guitar.
Things made sense, and nothing made sense, and ultimately… maybe it didn’t really matter.

He’d taken her hands before he could consciously consider it, reached out to close the
distance. Her fingers were cold against his, faintly damp, and she went stiff at the touch, her
head lifting and her shoulders squaring, a sharp flutter of chakra and tension like she might
recoil or lash out. For a brief second, she gripped back, and it hurt. She’d gotten so strong.
“Stop it,” Sasuke heard himself say, and he couldn’t articulate any of the reasons why, but the
tremor in his voice was gone. Blinking wide, eyes wet, Sakura finally looked at him. “…”
She waited. Oh, fuck it. “I know it’s all fucked up, but I… I’ve been thinking about it. A lot.”
As if that wasn’t obvious. “You’re right, you should have told us. I— When your clone
popped, I thought… I dunno, I thought you’d abandoned us. Maybe you knew we could
never win.” He felt the twitch in her hands first, even before she took a breath, and he knew it
was going to be another apology, another scramble all over herself to try and explain her
actions, knew that she’d try to cancel that out as if she was trying to justify them. It wasn’t a
cognitive thing, not really; he didn’t know because of logic, or even conscious prediction. He
just… knew.

He knew her.

So he squeezed back, harder, stopping her in her tracks. “But I think you saved our lives.”
Because even when she’d gotten it wrong, Sakura had been trying to protect them. Because
she was human, and fallible, and loved them. “So… I’m… I’m sorry, too.” Which, despite
the conviction he’d had a second ago, was absurdly hard to say. It shouldn’t be. Sakura had
said it so many times, it should be easier. How could she do it so much when it felt like a
barb in his throat?

Maybe it was hard for her, too. Maybe that, too, was the point.

Another twitch went through her hands, but it was weaker this time, a looser motion that
didn’t carry any intent. She pulled one back, reaching up to wipe at her tears. “It’s okay,” she
hiccupped, shaking her head. “It’s… I know it’s hard. You haven’t— We haven’t had to fight
like that before.”

You.

Her expression twitched, a shiver of fear that narrowed her pupils to pinpricks. Her breath
caught, saltwater in her chest. No. That was Sasuke’s problem, not hers, and it wasn’t what
they were talking about. But still, she pulled away again, took a deep, shaky breath, scrubbed
more thoroughly at her face to try and dry the tears.

“… You know, Ūhei made me get lunch with her, the day you and Hinata were doing sign
language lessons in the library.” This time, there was confused trepidation in her expression
when Sakura looked back at him, but she didn’t speak. Surprise at the mention; she must
have never found out he’d even shown up that day. “She told me I was being stupid.”
Something sparked in Sakura’s eyes, somewhere between anger and defensiveness, a strength
that she’d used to show only on behalf of her friends. But Sasuke waved a hand, a quick
back-forth motion, and she held her tongue. “I was. I was trying to… figure it all out on my
own. I hadn’t even thought about why you might have done what you did. Ūhei was right,
about a lot of things.” When he shifted closer, settling in the nest beside her, Sakura didn’t
move away. She didn’t flinch this time. “So you should listen to her, too. Don’t try to do
things on your own.”

For a few moments, they just stared at each other. The ghost of a smile threatened on
Sakura’s lips, quivering and twisted by the anguish behind it, tiny and wan, and then her self-
control slipped and she burst into tears. All at once she was hugging him, arms tight around
his waist, and Sasuke found himself hugging her back. It was too easy, he thought idly. After
everything, returning to any sort of normal should be impossible – but it felt normal all the
same, comforting Sakura while she cried.

Except now, it wasn’t about some trivial insult from another kid, or a mistake in sparring, or
pre-test anxiety. She wasn’t upset because she’d missed the shuriken target one too many
times, or because Sasuke had lapped her again around the Academy training field, or because
she hadn’t aced an exam. This was something bigger than that. Something that mattered.

But still, it was familiar. Normal. She trusted him to comfort her, even though he could hurt
her.

Did he trust her back? Not to hurt him on purpose? Even though, Sasuke was sure now, that
she definitely could.

It had always been easy to answer yes to that question, before. It had barely even been a
question. Not now – now, it would be something he had to think about. To decide. It wasn’t
friendship in the same way it had been before, but it was still friendship, wasn’t it? Shouldn’t
it mean more when it was a choice?

Minutes went by, fleeting and lingering both, while Sasuke rubbed Sakura’s back and let her
cry. It pricked at his own eyes, and he’d always been upset when Sakura cried but there was
no target for the dim anger this time. No simple trace back to a direct source. It was just…
everything. It made his chest hurt. Saltwater in his lungs.

“It’s all f-fucked up,” Sakura eventually sobbed, her voice muffled by Sasuke’s shoulder. “I
wanted to…. I want everything to be— be okay, but it’s not. And I don’t know how t-to fix
it.” As tightly as she was still clinging, there was a broken note in her voice. It tasted like a
katon.

Sasuke squeezed her tighter. “You can’t fix it on your own. Right?” Nobody could do it
alone. Ūhei was older and wiser than him, and even she hadn’t been able to. “So let us h—”

“You can’t help.” Too sharp, lifting her head so she could meet his gaze. Then she bit her lip,
glanced away briefly, and shook her head. “No, I mean… You can, you have to, but I… I
don’t know how to explain.”

“Just try.” Sasuke didn’t pull her back, but he didn’t release her either. It was okay if she
couldn’t find exactly the right words, but she had to try. That was part of being friends,
wasn’t it? Part of loving someone. It meant trying. “I won’t get upset.” A beat of silence.
“Okay, I’ll try not to get upset.” He couldn’t exactly promise full control of his emotions like
that – but he could promise to control himself.

Sakura bit her lip, studying him with a fearful frown. Trying to find the words. Which meant
that Sasuke could wait, had to, because there was no point in her trying if he didn’t give her
the chance to. More minutes, while Sakura thought, her face going sticky as the tears dried
and left behind flaky salt-marks. Eventually, she let out a sigh and her shoulders slumped.
“… Kakashi-sensei said I’m… going to live with him.”
It took a few seconds for that to mean anything. Whatever Sasuke had thought she was trying
to say, it certainly wasn’t that. What did that even mean? Obviously, in a literal way, Sasuke
understood, but… why? That definitely wasn’t normal jōnin-genin etiquette, and Sakura had
parents that she lived w—

“What do you think of her parents?”

Kakashi-sensei’s line of questioning hadn’t made sense, and he’d refused to explain himself.
Told Sasuke to ask Sakura about it.

“Give her some time,” Kakashi had said. “She’s going to be rattled.”

It all fitted together, everything that was weird and different, and Sasuke could almost see it.
Puzzle pieces that slotted into place but that Sasuke still couldn’t quite appreciate as a
cohesive image. He had all the pieces. Sakura had parents – parents that Kakashi-sensei
didn’t like – parents that he was taking her away from. Parents he’d wanted Sasuke’s opinion
of, because he’d known Sakura for longer than Kakashi had, because he’d interacted with
them more. Kakashi had even sought after Ino on the matter.

“Why… Why is he taking you away from your parents?” She knew the answer, Sasuke was
sure even before her expression fell, but the way she caved in on herself only confirmed it.
She withdrew her arms, hugged herself tightly.

“He…” Her voice was a ragged whisper. “He thinks… they’ve been… that they… abuse
me.”

She sounded tiny.

A moment went by when Sasuke couldn’t see, everything in him coming to a screaming halt,
like his mind turned to glass. That they abuse her. It sounded… obscene, almost, a conclusion
as ludicrous as it was chilling. They’d always been so nice to him. Warm and welcoming; in
the wake of the Massacre, while Mikoto had been so busy trying to bring the clan back into
line and Itachi had spent so much time somewhere out on his own, the Haruno home had
become a haven for him. They’d always been happy to let him stay for the afternoon, after
classes ended. He’d eaten countless meals there.

“That’s ridiculous,” he heard in his own voice, barely feeling the vibration of it in his chest.
“They…” But Sakura was quiet. Didn’t agree with him, didn’t refute it. The idea that Mebuki
would hurt her daughter was alien, but the idea that Kizashi would hurt Sakura was
laughable. He’d always been so cheerful and watchful. Never taken his eye off Sakura as
long as he could help it. He hadn’t known how to hurt a fly, let alone his own child.

… Right?

“That’s… wrong. Isn’t it?” Sasuke didn’t sound like himself.

Sakura said nothing.

“… But…”

He’d never been allowed to stay the night, despite everything. Sakura had never slept over at
the Uchiha residence. They’d just stopped asking after a while – adults were weird, parents
even moreso. Sasuke hadn’t ever questioned their motive for refusing such a thing. Had never
looked deeper into it. Civilians had strange rules and values, always had.

Had he missed so terrible a thing happening to his best friend?

Had he ignored it?

“Sakura?”

She sniffled. Made a noise like she was trying to speak, fumbled her own voice and dropped
it like a mishandled kunai. Drew in a sharp, wet breath and choked on it. When Sasuke forced
his vision to work properly, her face was awash with razor clarity and a shimmering white
afterimage with every motion. Tsuki no Mori stretched out behind her, infinite and dazzling,
awash with the flower lights, and Sakura’s eyes looked like reflections of them in pale jade
green. Liquid gathered along her lower eyelids like glittering oceans.

The way her expression crumpled seemed to happen in slow motion, the corners of her eyes
crinkling, and then her nose, the way her upper lip pulled back to reveal her teeth, her jaw
tight while she struggled to breathe. Like watching ice shatter.

With a shudder and a quiet, jagged keen, Sakura broke down again. She didn’t lean into it this
time, but she didn’t resist when Sasuke pulled her in close against his chest, didn’t protest as
he held on far too tight. There was a trembling under his skin that felt like his insides were
turning to fluid, his eyes burning as he stared down at Sakura, a memory in perfect clarity
that his blazing Sharingan would never let him forget.

He hadn’t meant to activate it. He couldn’t remember how to turn it off.

His own breath felt like fire, as if he’d breathed in a katon. Scorching and angry, hatred
searing hot and cold against his ribs like a molten tide. He’d never noticed. Never seen. But
Sakura would speak up if Kakashi was wrong – she wouldn’t let him take her away from
them entirely if they hadn’t hurt her.

They’d hurt her.

Sakura whined when Sasuke dug his fingers into her back, but she didn’t try to move or
loosen his grip. The whole thing was too immense to fully make sense yet, an admission of
such horror that he knew it would take time to acclimate to – but that didn’t matter. Not now,
not yet. What mattered was that Sakura was hurt, had been hurt, and he hadn’t known. Maybe
that wasn’t his fault, but he knew now. Had it always been this way? Was that why Sakura
had been so anxious her whole life, or was it new? She’d changed when they’d graduated.
Less shy, but more…

Traumatised. Lashing out when she was startled, seemingly forgetting that a friendly spar
posed no threat to her. Violent and defensive. Bloody. Like reacting to a friendly nudge with
Sharingan.

She’d killed people, and hadn’t even blinked.

Was it that bad? Kakashi hadn’t been fazed by the bloodshed either, but he was a fully
fledged jōnin with years of experience behind him. And a war, to boot. Sasuke didn’t know a
lot about the Third Shinobi War, but the Academy taught the basic outline of it. If shinobi-on-
shinobi combat was always as brutal as Waves had been, then a whole war must have been
devastating.

What if she was capable of such violence because she was already familiar with it?

Closing his eyes did nothing to ease the warm pulse of chakra or the way even that darkness
flickered and spun with phantom images, but it was better than keeping them open. It was too
much input, dizzying in combination with the rage flooding up from the pit of his stomach.
The tree seemed unstable beneath them, but Sakura was a shivering anchor in his arms,
reminding him to breathe air instead of fire. She sounded like she was breathing water with
every sob.

He couldn’t think of anything to say. Everything that came to mind was angry and shouted, a
betrayed fury that he didn’t know how to articulate. He’d eaten with them. Trusted them in an
implicit, childish way that he’d never thought to question. He’d thought they were good
people. That they were the kind of parents Sakura deserved.

Guardian, Cú-síth had named him.

He couldn’t think of anything to say, so he said nothing. Just held onto Sakura while she
wept, wishing he could make it okay, and vowed to himself he wouldn’t let something like
this happen to his pack again.

Sasuke would guard them.

The sky was still dark when he was woken, but it only took a shiver of the parasite’s chakra
to peer through it, warmth pulsing across his face like a spray of blood. Quietly, in the depths
of his mind, the parasite growled – but it didn’t resist. It did, sometimes, know better. It was
almost a disappointment, if he was honest, that he didn’t have to drag its power out. There
were few activities more joyous than reminding the parasite of its place.

But right now, it was better that he didn’t need to wander his inner halls. The little settlement
was slumbering right now, but it would come awake once they made a move. Their prey was
strong, after all. Strong enough that he needed to act with care. Raw power was good, and
sufficient for most battles – but Her voice echoed in his head with that thought, the reminder
that relying solely on the parasite’s strength was a pit of quicksand, ready to pull him down if
he let it. The only way to come out victorious every time was to think.

“Do you sense him?” asked the voice in his ear, pitched high and excited despite its minimal
volume. “He’s supposed to be here.”
He let out a low growl, cocking his head and taking a deep breath. Reached out with senses
he didn’t have a name for, fluttering red and grey that ran deeper than sight or sound,
burrowing so deep that it reached the parasite. Louder now, a vibration in his bones, the
parasite snarled with recognition.

“He’s here.” His fangs caught a little on his lips as he spoke, but the pinpricks of blood were
fleeting, and the pain even more so. “I can take him.”

A hand gripped tight the collar of his cloak, scrunching the red and black together, obscuring
the trace of white. “Calm, Naruto. You know the rules.” It didn’t let go, so he turned to look
up at the man standing with him. The mask, at least. “Do you remember the plan?”

Of course. The plan. Exhaling, Naruto lowered his gaze and mentally ran through the plan.
“Locate him. Ambush him. Destroy anything that gets in our way.”

“And?”

This time, Naruto made sure his scowl was clearly visible. Tobi’s Sharingan saw through the
dark almost as clearly as the parasite’s eyes. “Try to take him down quietly.” Even the
parasite rumbled with discontent at the prospect.

“Because…?”

Naruto grit his teeth. Sure, this was all important, and She would have his tails if he threw
away their advantage for no reason. None of that made the prospect of sneaking around like
frightened mice any more appealing. “Because if we let him fight, we might lose.” It stung to
say. Doubly so because he didn’t truly believe it. His was the strongest parasite, after all.
Victory was all but owed to him – but thinking like that was dangerous. Overconfidence was
how he’d meet his defeat. If he assumed triumph, he wouldn’t properly prepare for it.

Tobi chuckled softly, releasing the collar of Naruto’s cloak and briefly combing his fingers
through Naruto’s hair. “Good. Don’t pout; even I can’t promise to take him down with one
ambush. If it comes to a fight, you’ll have your fun.” Straightening up, Tobi looked towards
the town. Grey dawn was starting to glimmer faintly on the horizon. “Remember, this town is
meaningless.”

A howl built in Naruto’s chest, but he swallowed it. Revelry would wait. Sitting back on his
haunches, Naruto held up one hand. His claws gleamed in the dimness. “I’m ready.”

“Are you?” But Tobi took his hand.

Of course, but Naruto held his tongue. Tobi appreciated action more than words, and so he
simply yanked on the parasite’s chain, feeling the heat as his eyes glowed softly. Once more,
Tobi chuckled.

The sensation of travelling through Kamui was always vaguely unpleasant, almost like losing
a chakra tug-of-war, but it was familiar and mercifully transient. He caught glimpses of the
interior, walls and other structures following impossible slopes, a vast array of curious
objects. There was no telling what treasures and dangers lurked in Tobi’s domain. Even She
likely didn’t know the full extent.

When they rematerialised, they were in the town square. One person was up and about
already, carrying a covered basket. At the sight of them, she jolted back and gasped, and the
basket clattered to the ground. In shades of rich purple and deep blue, the contents shattered
and ceramic shards sprayed out across the gravel. Did she recognise their cloaks? Or were
they just that awful to look at? Hm. Maybe it was the appearing out of thin air thing.

“Silence her.”

The command was quiet but firm, and felt like a collar coming off.

She didn’t get the chance to scream. Chakra flooded under Naruto’s skin, hot and crimson
and laced with an edge of the parasite’s loathing, as if anything it felt could possibly matter.
Its only purpose was to supply its power on command – and this, molten and throbbing, was
the perfect use for it.

First came the blood. It burst around his claws as he pounced on the prey, warmth that stained
his fingers and slipped down his wrists. Again as he collided fully and took her to ground,
digging his hind claws into her belly. Her clothes parted easily between them, and her skin
even easier after that. He could feel the split and squirm of her insides against his claws as
they went down, the reaving of organs and the pop of fluid sacs and the squelch of her
intestines coming open and leaking their contents into her abdomen.

Next came her voice, a rush of air as her throat ruptured between his fangs and he tasted her
breath. Shock and terror made her limp, and blood loss and pain kept her there when Naruto
tore back, chewing on her larynx. Most of it. There were pieces left in her neck, showing
through in flaps of murky white amongst the pulsing red. A wet gurgle escaped between
blood spurts, her light grey eyes bloodshot and rolling as she tried desperately to focus on
him.

Finally came her life, a pathetic fragmented moan as Naruto raised one hand and lit it up with
the parasite’s chakra. Made visible, it boiled around his skin, a translucent glove, and he
plunged it into her chest. Ribs cracked apart and sternum crumpled, and for the briefest
moment Naruto could feel the slick muscle of her heart spasm against his fingertips, her final
heartbeats as she choked on her own death.

Somewhere deep that didn’t entirely exist, as if Naruto had taken her heartbeat for himself,
the parasite rumbled a wordless pleasure. Rage, yes, always, but even the parasite couldn’t
deny its simple joy in bloodshed. The dead couldn’t hurt them, after all.

“Naruto.” Tobi spoke softly, still, but his voice dragged Naruto back from the scarlet haze,
drawing his gaze. The corpse smelled like iron and acid and shit. When Naruto looked at
him, Tobi sighed. “It’s my fault. No point in hiding the body, so come. Quickly.” Oh. Right. It
wasn’t much of a surprise if they left mangled prey lying about; not for long, anyway. They’d
need to move fast if they wanted any chance of catching Rōshi off guard.
Bounding back to Tobi’s side, Naruto reached back into the darkness within and yanked again
on the parasite’s chain. It didn’t resist him this time either, despite the resentment that
billowed off it like invisible fog. Seek, Naruto hissed at it, and it snarled at him but
nonetheless lowered its head obediently and allowed him to take hold of the metal spike
driven into its nose. When Naruto shook it, the snarl became laced with a whimper.

“This way.” The nameless traces led them, winding, through the town as it began to wake for
the day, culminating at an opulent bathhouse and the small inn attached to it. Craning his
head, following the simmering scent like molten rock, Naruto tried to decide which of the
upper windows their target lay behind. Tobi followed his gaze.

“Are you sure?”

The hiss was involuntary. Of course he was sure – after so long, did Tobi really still think that
the parasite was capable of deceiving him?

Chuckling, Tobi once more threaded a lock of Naruto’s hair between his fingers, heedless of
the blood spray, the contact only momentary. “Very good. Heel, Naruto.”

Expected, given the danger of this hunt, but Naruto still felt the hungry itch under his skin as
he followed Tobi inside. The lock on the door became meaningless with a flash of Tobi’s
katon. His chakra was slick and viscous, like honey about to ignite. Twitching at the sound of
scrambling on the stairs, Naruto dug his claws into the floor and welcomed the resistance of
the polished wood. Witnesses weren’t allowed – not before they’d found Rōshi, anyway – but
that didn’t mean Tobi would give Naruto the go-ahead to silence all of them. He was, most of
the time, generous with Naruto, but his benevolence wasn’t endless.

With a flick of cloak and wrist, and another whisper of chakra, a kunai zipped through the air
and struck the person on the stairs. One of their eyes collapsed as the kunai pierced it, spilling
jelly down their face like forbidden tears, and blood followed with the faint sound of blade on
bone. Steel won, cutting through their eye socket and scrambling their brain. Tobi body
flickered across the room, catching them before they tumbled. Setting them down silently
against the wall, he beckoned Naruto after him with a jerk of his head and led the way
upstairs.

On the highest floor, behind the second door, Rōshi met them.

He must have sensed their approach, because he attacked the moment Tobi came close to the
door. Heedless of the building itself, a torrent of lava erupted from the room and blew straight
through him, splattering against the wall and causing small fires to break out, the smoke and
sizzle of wood starting to smoulder under the sudden extreme heat. Some of it caught on
Naruto’s right shoulder and arm, searing through his cloak and melting his skin.

It hurt. Of course it did. His own fat sizzling around the lava smelled divine.

Still intangible, Tobi sighed again. “Bring him down.”

The parasite’s chakra surged as Naruto took those inner chains and pulled them tight,
releasing the seal that kept it separate from Naruto’s chakra. A transparent red shroud blazed
to life around him, vapourising the lava sticking to his arm and cauterising the wounds.
Blood and saliva both drooled from his fangs as an answering snarl met him, glee and threat
at once, and Naruto leapt through Tobi’s form to meet their prey head-on.

They made direct contact and rolled, a gnarl of monstrous chakra and claws and furious
bellows, broke through the far wall, went cascading to the ground as the screams started to
pick up around them. The first body had been found, no doubt, and the townsfolk were just
now realising the barely contained catastrophe that had been lurking among them.

Jinchūriki were a danger on their best days. Unleashed like this, battling each other, they
were death incarnate.

Rōshi’s shroud echoed his parasite’s horns, rising in false glory from each temple, two
indistinct tails weaving in the air behind him. One shroud met another and threw sparks,
Naruto’s claws catching on the bone spurs beginning to protrude from Rōshi’s skull. Rōshi
took the chance to loop an arm around Naruto’s chest, ignoring the screech of their shrouds
repelling. A moment later that sound died as Rōshi heaved and sent Naruto flying in an arc
through the air, clean sailing, and no doubt an impressive display of brute strength.

But Naruto grinned, eyes red and wild, as he spun the tails of his own shroud to correct his
trajectory, tracking Rōshi’s followup movement while angling for a safe landing. They’d
expected as much of the Four Jinchūriki, untrained as he was, that his only grace was broad
application of unrefined strength. Rinse and repeat as needed. And sure, that was enough for
most enemies – but Naruto was not most enemies. He could count on one hand the number of
people who could match him in raw power. His weaknesses – She was always quick to
remind him – lay in subterfuge and agile cunning, and lacking those there was no amount of
animal strength Rōshi could bring to bear that would lead to victory.

Not here. Not against Naruto.

So he took the impact against the side of a building, a four-point vertical landing that sent
visible sheets of chakra rippling out around him, absorbing his momentum and dissipating it.
The windows shattered as Naruto’s chakra crossed them, but the wall under his paws hands
and feet didn’t even crack. Rōshi came at him a second later, his human shape distorted by
the partially transformed muscles swelling around it, all four shroud tails snapping in the
wind of his movement, one engorged fist reared back.

Wait.

Show patience. Strike properly. Don’t waste an attack out of misplaced pride.

Now.

Standing up, Naruto swept his shroud into two extending chakra arms, laced their ephemeral
fingers together, and brought them down on Rōshi’s head. Now, as they made contact again,
the building Naruto was braced against cracked, a single syllable of thunder. He jumped, and
it crumbled in time with Naruto’s descent.
A shrill hiss was all the warning Naruto got before a dome of more opaque chakra ballooned
out from the crater where Rōshi landed, pushing a thin wall of compressed air before it and
knocking Naruto out of his attack. The impact with the ground stripped cloth and skin and
muscle as he skidded, ruining his cloak for good and revealing the shredded remains of the
blacksuit he wore underneath it. Rude. At least replacements for the uniform weren’t hard to
get hold of.

On the heels of his chakra, Rōshi came barrelling down the street on all fours, mouth agape
and glowing brilliant orange-white with an outpouring of lava. Stage two, his body a
blistering red-black entirely encased by compressed chakra, four long tails whipping about in
his slipstream.

Widening his stance, claws dug into the rocky ground, Naruto anchored himself. Reaching
into stage two felt like flaying himself alive, a singularly excruciating moment that had, at
first, seemed to last an eternity. The parasite was closer to him in this state, a constant low
rumble that lingered in his bones, those inner chains snaking from its body to the internal
representation of his own, binding them together. He could see through its eyes when they
were entwined like this, the whole world taking on a strange shimmery lucidity that fell
somewhere between drowning and dreaming. Sound was sensation, colours were ghostly
flavours on his tongue, intuition was like music in his mind.

At first, he’d lost himself in the parasite’s overwhelming presence. Torn himself open to
transform and then let the parasite bleed out and steal initiative and control. It had taken black
hell to master, a descent into madness that only She and Tobi could help him claw his way
back from. At first, everything had seemed impossible. The Liar Hokage had kept him so
ignorant, kept him weak.

But now, the transition from shroud to stage two was over in an instant, bursting free of his
skin so painfully it was almost pleasure, and no matter how close the parasite became it still
slunk down at Naruto’s command – still knew its place. The way his body boiled within the
liquid-solid chakra shell hurt, of course it did, but it was a focusing pain. There was Naruto’s
power as a Jinchūriki, and there was his prey, and that was all. He could feel the parasite’s
tails— his tails, five of them, billowing around him like victory flags.

Rōshi bulldozed through the shockwave caused by Naruto’s transformation, horns leading,
writhing with chakra as Naruto’s steamed from his form, head lowered while he charged.
Trying to ram him – stupid. If he wanted to, Naruto was sure that he could meet Rōshi’s force
pound for pound, could dig his hindpaws in the ground and grapple those fucking horns he
was so proud of, but that was the path of stagnation. Tobi was always telling him to practice
new strategies. If it came to it, he could always fall back on that.

So Naruto drew himself tighter, curling his tails together and laying his long ears flat against
his head, lowering his muzzle. The ground quaked under Rōshi’s movement, wide feet and
curled fists slamming into it with each lumbering step. He was far from slow, but next to Tobi
or Her, he was molasses. Exercise patience. It was easier, with Her voice in his head like the
taste of wildberries. The parasite whined.

At the last moment, when Rōshi was too committed to swerve away, Naruto dove between
his arms, coil and flex of muscle and chakra in tandem, rotating as he went. For the most
fleeting fraction of a second, while he passed the threshold of dripping lava, halfway twisted
onto his back, Naruto met Rōshi’s gaze directly. There was a spark of shock in his eyes, and –
ever so faintly behind it – a glimmer of fear.

Good.

Claws extended, Naruto caught hold of Rōshi from the underbelly. One forep— One hand
snagged in Rōshi’s side, his chakra skin squealing and smoking as Naruto’s broke through,
digging deep through flesh and organ alike. The other went slightly further around, piercing
five new wounds around Rōshi’s lumbar, and together these contact points gave Naruto a
solid anchor.

They went spinning out of control, conflicting momentums backed up by demonic powers,
but Naruto couldn’t tell which direction they tumbled in, or even what was up or down.
Those things didn’t matter. From the anchor points of his hands, Naruto swung his feet up
and slashed as devastating a wound as he could. Arteries and tendons and cartilage cleaved
from belly to throat under his claws, searing and strengthened by the roiling, condensed
chakra, and cauterised in their wake. One of Naruto’s feet came clean at the end of the
lacerations, kicking out into the air, but the other snagged against Rōshi’s jaw and the chakra
within, and held.

Rōshi was shaking as they came to a stop, destruction following their path like a trail in the
forest, but he wasn’t quite down. Unsteady, heaving for breath in hissing, wet gasps, Rōshi
lurched to his feet and reached up to grab Naruto’s ankle. The grip was painful, a
compressive pressure that forced up the density of Naruto’s chakra and threatened to collapse
the bones beneath it. Reflex took charge. Kicked his free foot towards Rōshi’s hands, trying
to slice his wrist or his fingers and damned if he clipped his own leg in the process, and Rōshi
snarled but did not let go.

Teeth aching, Naruto heard himself yelp. It was a shuddering sound. Twisting only drove his
own claws deeper into Rōshi’s body – but he had another option. Turning his head, Naruto
opened his mouth as widely as his jaw permitted, lunged, and then snapped it shut. Chakra
and blood gushed down his throat, like choking on acid, and somewhere above him Rōshi
howled, but Naruto held his breath and bit down harder. He’d bitten Rōshi’s thigh, very close
to his crotch, and it didn’t much matter that Rōshi’s leg was currently thicker around than
Naruto’s whole head when a major artery still followed the inner side of it.

Snarling, his tails lashing, Naruto ripped his fangs out of Rōshi’s leg. He shook his head side
to side on sheer instinct, prey filling his mouth, leaking out between his teeth. His ankle was
released, but those hands went around his ribcage a second later and pushed. Breathless,
Naruto struggled to tighten his grip, but after a long moment of stalemate his claws slipped,
then tore, and he came free of Rōshi entirely.

Rōshi threw him, and this time Naruto slammed into the ground without an ounce of grace.
The parasite vibrated in his mind, a soundless, ceaseless thunder, pushing at the edge of
control. A sharp whip of the chains stilled it again, but the layer of malice remained in its
hiss.
The damage Naruto had inflicted on Rōshi was already starting to heal, the bleeding slowing
from wild spurts to a steady dribble, Rōshi’s chakra sealing over the bone-deep gashes in his
sides and chest and neck – but it was too late. On any normal shinobi, the wounds would be
lethal, of course, but Rōshi was no normal shinobi. And a good thing, Naruto begrudgingly
admitted to himself, because killing the Jinchūriki would just free the parasite to spawn
somewhere else in the world. Quite aside from the hassle of tracking down a freed Bijuu, the
thing didn’t deserve freedom.

Another shudder went through Rōshi, a half-formed growl, and his chakra skin flickered.
Then it dimmed, whorled into misshapen spirals like water draining, and dissolved entirely as
Rōshi shrank back to his normal human shape and proportions and collapsed with a final
thud.

The victorious howl was all but out of Naruto’s control, and nearby windows shattered as it
dwindled out. Behind Rōshi’s unconscious form, bloody and broken, Tobi appeared. One
Sharingan eye peered down at Rōshi disdainfully.

“Excellent work, Naruto,” Tobi called, cocking his head to the side. Phantom space swirled
around his eye, distorting the already distorted mask, and in a flash of confused motion Rōshi
vanished altogether. Tucked away in Kamui, where he would pose no more threat. Then Tobi
looked up, fixing his gaze on Naruto directly. “Heel.”

Letting go of his stage two transformation was harder than engaging it. It always had been –
but at least it wasn’t a conflict of wills, anymore, he no longer had to force his way through
the parasite to try and seal the chakra away again. Now it was… reluctance that stood
opposing him, the bubbling thrill of boiling alive in the power his parasite didn’t have the
strength to keep from him. He was strong. Why should he surrender that?

But Tobi stared him down, calm and unmoved, and Naruto shook himself off. It wasn’t a
surrender. He had to remember that. The parasite would still be there, at Naruto’s mercy,
whenever he needed it. He was simply shelving a weapon until next he used it.

Peeling off the chakra skin hurt just as much as drawing it out, but Naruto loosed the inner
chains and kicked the parasite away, and taking a breath free of it was like being dunked in
ice water. He gasped, staggered to his feet, allowed himself a few more moments to adjust
while his body kept healing. Out of stage two transformation, and having won the battle, he
had the chance to actually finish healing now.

His ankle was tender when he put weight on it but the limp would ease in minutes so he
ignored it and made his way to Tobi’s side. Heedless of the blood saturating him head to toe
or Naruto’s state of near-nakedness, Tobi gently curled a lock of hair out of Naruto’s face.

Then he gave a short hum, and nodded. “Good.” Shrugging off his cloak, revealing the loose
navy pants and mesh-covered long-sleeve and the various weapons he wore under it, Tobi
slung it around Naruto’s shoulders and fastened the clips. It was too long for Naruto,
dragging on the ground and threatening to trip him – but once clipped shut, Tobi leaned down
and picked Naruto up. “Rest. Nier will want a report once we’re home.”
 Naruto felt his shoulders relax. The adrenaline of battle lingered in his veins, and the high of
victory sung across his nerves, but there was no danger to be had while resting in Tobi’s
arms. He’d had his fun and done his job.

Tobi would take care of the rest.

Chapter End Notes

The Author's Novella, Cont.:

-Are y’all ready for another mini-essay? Because I’ve been working on the Jinchūriki
mechanics – for… obvious reasons – and I’ve split down the terminology a bit more. By
and large the scope of their abilities is much the same (granted I’ve tweaked what all of
the individual Jinchūriki are capable of controlling at this stage), but the terms don’t line
up with canon 100%
-So in the interest of clarity: Initial transformation refers to minor physical changes only.
Naruto’s red eyes, fangs, claws, wilder hair, and thicker whisker marks. Rōshi’s
increased musculature and horn buds and shift in eye colour, probably. Stuff like that.
This doesn’t include any visible manifestation of Bijuu chakra, unlike the canon term.
-Shroud transformation advances these physical changes and creates that formless
shroud of red chakra; this is also when the Jinchūriki gets access to their special physical
chakra nonsense, like the shockwaves Naruto creates in canon by roaring at people.
Rawr. As soon as the shroud coalesces into shape and starts showing traits of the Bijuu –
ears, tails, horns, etc. etc. – that’s a stage one transformation, not simply a shroud
transformation. Confusingly, because I have decided not to bother fixing it, the visible
Bijuu chakra is called a ‘shroud’ no matter which of these transformations it’s in.
-Stage two transformation is when they get that solid red-black chakra second skin that
harms their own bodies, and comes with a bunch of its own power-ups that I’m not
going to list here and vary between Bijuu. This stage always shows physical traits of the
relevant Bijuu and is usually where Jinchūriki lose control. Key note to make here, a
stage two Jinchūriki can show any number of tails up to their Bijuu’s maximum.
-Stage three – which does not exist in canon – takes that chakra second skin and
condenses it into a sort of glassine casing around their bodies. Yes, you can see their
insides through it, and it’s both malleable and hard armour, look it’s Bijuu chakra
bullshit, I might make the rules but I don’t have to understand them. In stage three
transformation, the Jinchūriki always displays their Bijuu’s maximum number of tails.
-And then you get full beast transformation after that, which is… self-explanatory. And
partial transformations somewhere in there, but partials are actually more difficult than
full beast mode and require a whole heck of a lot more control and/or unity with their
Bijuu.

much more punishment than everyone else. 😈

-Also good gods but it's FUN to play with the Jinchūriki. Little bastards can take so

-Yes, I had to split my notes up because I wrote too much. Ao3 is a coward, let me write
an entire oneshot in my notes gods damn it.
-Listen, look, I know it’s a tired boring joke but I just realised. In this Narutoverse, you
CAN assume a stranger’s gender.
-Okay, I’ll see myself out.

Next Chapter Due: 22nd July 2022

 Return
Chapter Summary

"Come," he said. "Let's go home."

Chapter Notes

Quote of the Chapter: He couldn't remedy ignorance with shame.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

There were still several hours before Team Seven was due to meet, but Kakashi knew better
than to seek any additional sleep. He’d gotten more than a few hours, at least, and that was an
improvement from his last few days in Konoha. Organising the exodus of two genin from
their parents was a lot more time intensive than he’d expected. Not that he’d expected it to be
easy, of course, especially not with Hinata, but there’d been a lot more arguing his case than
he’d thought there would be. Still, Shizune made sure he knew how many shortcuts he’d
been granted on the basis of being their jōnin-sensei; as murky as shinobi law could be at
times, it was even more so when it interacted with civilian law. It was a rare stroke of luck
that as a jōnin-sensei, he had borderline stronger legal claim as his genin’s legal guardian
than their parents did.

And now, for Sakura and Hinata, he had the only claim.

The responsibility felt like ice in his lungs. Being responsible for them at all was a task all
too daunting, and one he’d already failed once. If leaving his girls to the mercies of their
abusive households didn’t also feel like failing, Kakashi wouldn’t have even considered it.
But it didn’t matter anymore whether he thought he was up to the job; he had to be. There
was no other choice.

“Quiet your fears, my Shikan.” It was so soft that if Kakashi didn’t know better, he’d have
thought she spoke the words directly into his mind. Instead, Inu gently nosed Kakashi’s face
as if she could banish those fears herself with just the motion alone. Her nose was soft but
dry, even after she licked it, and then she settled her head back on her forepaws. “It will be
alright.”

She wasn’t so blithe as to attach a promise to that sentiment, but the reassurance was
somehow soothing all the same. The fear of failing in his responsibilities didn’t ease, but it
was easier to deal with knowing he had Inu’s unconditional support. Not that he’d thought
otherwise, but it was still nice to hear aloud. Lying against Inu’s belly, Kakashi kept his eye
on the drifting clouds, at once grey and purple in the endless dusk, rolling along at a pleasant
crawl. The moon gleamed between them like a golden halo.

“Besides, you ain’t gotta look after them alone, Boss,” Pakkun added from his perch between
Inu’s shoulder blades. “Ain’t nothing gonna happen to them if the pack can help it. We got
your back no matter what.”

It wasn’t anything that Pakkun hadn’t expressed before, but it still prickled on the inside of
Kakashi’s ribs like gentle insects. No matter what was an extreme qualifier – and all the more
perilous for how sincerely Pakkun meant it. There was always an edge to knowing that his
ninken would throw in everything for him, even to their own deaths. The very real possibility
that may happen one day was nauseating – but at the same time, it was warm and heavy
around his shoulders. The way the pack loved him wasn’t something that could be so easily
quantified, a devotion that Kakashi couldn’t ever earn. He wasn’t sure that anyone could earn
that type of love. The pack would kill and die for him, and he for them, and there was no debt
between them for it.

Deserve wasn’t a factor that could be applied. Kakashi could do nothing with the pack’s love
but accept it.

Kakashi didn’t say anything back, but Pakkun didn’t need him to. They’d long since said
everything that needed saying; even this reassurance was unnecessary, no matter that it eased
some of the pressure in Kakashi’s chest.

Huh. Maybe he should say the things that didn’t need saying. At least sometimes, maybe.

Inu rumbled softly, licking her nose again. “The hours grow long, pups,” she murmured, her
tail swishing against the canopy beneath them. “I fear I must attend my duties.” She didn’t
move immediately, but Kakashi’s chest delicately caved in at the announcement. Inu was a
busy person, as were all the Alphas, and even her desire to carve out time for Kakashi could
rarely keep her for more than a few hours apiece.

With a thud, Pakkun jumped down from Inu’s shoulders, stretching out before climbing into
Kakashi’s lap and settling down again. Automatic, Kakashi’s hand went to his ear and
scritched lightly.

“I will return to see you away.” Softer even than before, Inu’s voice, as Kakashi sat up and
she got to her paws. Lowering her head, she let Kakashi put a hand on her muzzle. Her exhale
ruffled his hair. “Idle in peace, Kakashi. You will raise your pups well.”

As if putting it that way was any less daunting. The task ahead of him was scarier than any
enemy he’d ever faced – and had Kakashi fought the Konoha Massacre. Making sure his kids
lived good lives was something he suspected he would never finish doing. But… it was a
worthwhile endeavour to spend his own life on.

Kakashi lay back down as Inu turned and descended; they were on the crown of the Alphas’
den, the single largest tree in all of Tsuki no Mori, the heart of the forest. The whole world
was nothing more complicated than an ocean of rolling greens, dotted through with the
endless rainbow twinkling of the lightblooms that illuminated the city below. Kakashi could
smell them on the breeze, a delicate sweetness like the aftertaste of sake.

Would that he could exist in this moment forever. Even with all that lay ahead, it was so
peaceful up here, isolated and serene, and it would be all too easy to lose himself to it. Time
was already a shaky concept in Tsuki no Mori, everything only existing in direct tangents
with the present; what would one more lifetime be stacked against the enduring, eternal now?

But that lifetime flitted by far too quickly, even as no time seemed to pass at all.

“She’s right, y’know.” Kakashi looked down from the sky, focusing on the pug in his lap,
who watched back with liquid brown eyes the shade of molten chocolate. “About ya kids.
Ain’t a damn parent out there that’s perfect, but you don’t gotta be perfect, Kakashi. Just do
ya best.”

For a long moment, they just stared at one another. Sincere emotion wasn’t something that
Kakashi handled well, most of the time, and it was even harder here, in the quiet canopy, with
the gentle whorls of the Alphas’ chakra below them, when it was just Kakashi and Pakkun. It
felt like being transported back in time, back to when he was a little kid and Pakkun was the
only thing that didn’t feel too fragile to survive. When it was just him, and a distraught
ninken, and the bloodstains.

“…Yeah. Whatever that looks like.” Hard to say. Was his best simply better than abuse?
Could he be better than that, even? Maybe it was just not leaving them.

Pakkun lifted a paw and put it against Kakashi’s chest. It soothed some of the ache therein.
“Can’t know that ‘til we try, Boss.”

‘We’, he said. Like Kakashi wasn’t alone in the endeavour – like it was a task the whole pack
was taking on.

…Wasn’t it?

With one hand, Kakashi ruffled the top of Pakkun’s head, making his ears flop. His tail
wagged. The thanks didn’t need to be said aloud – Pakkun already knew, the whole pack
knew. They were all so closely tied together; everything they did, they did as a unit. Maybe
that was the point. Maybe that was all it took to be a family.

“Thank you, Pakkun.” It didn’t need to be said, but Pakkun’s ears perked up and he made a
rumbling sound deep in his chest, and Kakashi thought that perhaps he should get used to
saying it more often.

...

Even having observed them from a distance over the last few hours, Kakashi was still
relieved when Sakura and Sasuke arrived at the departure point together. Urushi and Ūhei
were leading, exchanging quiet words as they went, while two new ninken tagged along at
his kids’ sides. Well, one of them did – a maned fox who was already an adult, xyr every step
silent and deliberate, xyr focus on Sakura – whilst Sasuke’s puppy rode on his shoulder. He
almost blended in with Sasuke’s hair, if it were just a shade darker black.

Sakura must have admitted the truth to Sasuke. She was cowed in a way that finally
resembled the girl Kakashi had first read about in her profile, her gaze on the ground and her
shoulders hunched in. Still very pale. But Sasuke walked with a purpose that he hadn’t
before, jaw clenched and chin lifted combatively, and he held tight to one of Sakura’s hands.
Anger quietly smouldered in his eyes, a deep, restless thing that Kakashi wasn’t sure would
ever go out. Was some of it directed at Sasuke himself, or was he wise enough to save it for
those who deserved it?

From where she rested on Raijin’s paw, leaning comfortably against his chest, Hinata made a
soft sound. Surprised, but… pleased, Kakashi thought. Despite how shaken up she was in her
own right, watching her teammates clash – even if it had largely been by omission – was a
source of pain for her that Kakashi didn’t quite think he could entirely appreciate.

Shiba got to her paws and trotted over to Ūhei and Urushi as the group got close, greeting
them with low whuffle and wagging tail. Pakkun stayed by Kakashi, but he cocked his head a
moment when they glanced his way. Raijin rumbled quietly, for whatever value ‘quietly’ had
when even wordless Raijin’s voice made the leaves above them tremble. There was no sign
of Komai or Cú-síth, so presumably they’d said their goodbyes already, as Inu had.

Even knowing he had the option of returning to visit Tsuki no Mori with greater frequency –
and likely would now that his kids had an attachment to it too – didn’t make the dull ache of
separation any less heavy in his chest. He really should visit more. He always enjoyed his
time here, and Inu understood him in an unspoken, soul-deep kind of way that only Gai ever
came close to matching. For a moment – just a moment – Kakashi closed his eye and let
himself miss Inu.

Then he refocused on his kids as they came up beside him, and Hinata carefully slid down
from Raijin’s paw. “Are you all ready to go?” It was so innocent a question, on its own, when
there was so much waiting for them back in Konoha. And they all seemed to understand that,
when they nodded in return. Sakura was still staring at the ground, the hand not in Sasuke’s
buried in her ninken’s fur, rubbing xyr shoulder with one thumb in anxious, rhythmic
motions. Fear glittered in Hinata’s eyes as she limped to Kakashi’s side, but there was a faint
underglow of determination that made pride boil in his gut like magma.

Whatever Sasuke had found within him during their stay in Tsuki no Mori, it was on full
display. Anger was a blade in his eyes, conviction a shield. Kakashi couldn’t put words to
whatever it was without having that conversation with Sasuke directly, and it should make
him indescribably proud – but unbridled fear lingered underneath it, a bitter aftertaste that
Kakashi couldn’t wash away. Sasuke was similar to Itachi in all the ways that terrified him –
a streak of absolute dedication that didn’t care about the personal cost – but where Itachi
would resort to violence last, Sasuke had no such qualms. Kakashi was pretty sure that
Sasuke would fight the gods themselves if he thought they’d slighted his precious people.

It was a mercy that Sasuke would never interact with any gods; they had it out for Kakashi,
after all.
“I will leave you, then,” Raijin spoke up, standing. Hinata turned around to say goodbye as
Raijin lowered his head, touching his nose to the ground. Reaching out with her good arm,
Hinata hugged his muzzle. Raijin rumbled a soft, affectionate sound. “Until next time, Falíí,”
he murmured, closing his eyes for a moment. “Enlathú xantha, fán véna.”

There was no way to know if Hinata understood the Alphas’ ancient tongue any more than
Kakashi did, but the words reverberated in their bones and the nameless feeling they evoked
was warm and soothing. With one more rumble, Raijin broke away and then leapt over their
heads, a flicker of wind and electricity crackling through the air in his wake. In a second, he
was gone. Hinata looked after him with longing eyes, but the tension she always carried in
her shoulders was eased; at least for now. In Raijin’s absence, Shiba fell into line at Hinata’s
side.

Kakashi tried to ignore the strange little hook in his sternum as he looked them over. His
genin. His kids. Maybe it had only been a few days since he last had them gathered together,
but everything before Tsuki no Mori felt like a lifetime ago. He was probably just tired, and
he could see the weariness reflected in their faces. As shinobi, it was a feeling they were
doomed to know intimately.

“You didn’t leave anything behind?” Pakkun was faster than Kakashi; even as well as he
knew the pug, Kakashi was hard-pressed to say whether Pakkun wasn’t as affected by their
impending return to Konoha or if he simply pulled his shit together quicker. Either way,
Kakashi was grateful for Pakkun’s presence. If he got Team Seven moving, then Kakashi
didn’t have to.

While Shiba went to pick up Hinata’s bags, Ūhei gave one more look over Sakura’s, split
between them with the smallest bag on Adzuki’s shoulders. Sasuke carried his own, just one
compared to the kunoichi’s several. “Pretty sure we got everything,” Urushi chimed in,
shaking themself out; one hind leg and then the other, arching their back down and lifting
their muzzle in the air. There was something enviable about it, really, that dragged a half-
smile to Kakashi’s face. Even as difficult as the upcoming days were going to be, Urushi was
approaching them with a deliberate calm, hard won over their years at Kakashi’s side.

The days were always difficult. At some point, the pack got used to it.

And as a pack, they all turned away from central Tsuki no Mori and started to walk towards
the summoning point. Urushi picked up Hinata’s last bag on their way past, the smallest one,
but they still fell back to Sasuke’s side. The walk was slow, partially a reluctance on
Kakashi’s part that bled into everyone else like ink through old parchment, and partially so
that no one got too far ahead of Hinata. It was quiet, the sounds of the trees rustling around
them like a twilight shroud, muting their footsteps in the soft grasses and mosses that spread
throughout the forest floor.

Kakashi didn’t need to put any thought into leading the way, the path to their destination
lined with lightblooms in dazzling rainbow, and it left more than enough spare to wonder
how wide the ripples of his decisions were going to spread. He didn’t believe it likely that
Hiashi would publicly confront him, or even go so far as to start a fight with him – but it
wasn’t impossible. The statement Kakashi was making left little room for interpretation.
It was better not to think about it. Of course it was. He couldn’t change anything now. He was
already committed.

Sasuke’s voice lingered in the air behind him as they walked, and Kakashi spared a glance
back to place it. He’d slowed a little to fall into line beside Hinata, and Sakura – still bound
to him by the grip of their laced fingers – followed suit. He was murmuring to Hinata, a
serious expression sharpening his features, and she tilted her head to pay attention.

“How are you doing?” he asked, earning a soft smile from Hinata.

“I’m okay,” she said, and Kakashi couldn’t tell how much of it was a lie. Apparently Sasuke
shared that opinion because Hinata let out a little sigh. “Still sore, but I’m getting better.”
There was a smile in her voice that belied the quiet whisper she spoke with. “Um… Sakura?”
And the hesitation she’d left the Academy with was still there, the anxiety of allowing herself
to take up space, physical or metaphorical, but she pushed through now. Spoke up despite it.
Let herself call for her teammate’s attention.

“Yes?” came Sakura’s voice, low and hoarse. She was rough, broken open by everything
happening, but she was still here. Holding onto Sasuke and the silent ninken at her side,
reaching out to Hinata when called for. She’d be okay. There was no other future that
Kakashi could let himself consider.

For a moment, there was no follow-up. And then, with an audible inhale, Hinata pressed
forward. “Are you… coming to live with Kakashi-sensei, too?”

It was only a logical conclusion; Sakura had been given the same orders regarding packing as
Hinata, after all, and each of them knew independently that they were headed home to a new
domicile. Still, something like pride echoed the shudder of relief in Kakashi’s chest. Even a
small triumph of deduction like this was enough to trigger the vapourous heat under his skin,
getting ever more familiar.

Sakura choked down what sounded suspiciously like a sob. “I-I… Yes.” And she said nothing
more, but Hinata didn’t seem to need her to. She made a soft sound.

“I’m sorry.”

The three of them were quiet for the remainder of their walk, marinating in their own
thoughts, and Kakashi left them to it. In some tiny, irrational way, it almost… stung. Absurd,
he knew well enough, and of course they were stressed and nervous about their lives being
upheaved so deeply, no matter if they would be better off afterwards. Change was rarely easy
even in the best of circumstances, and this was sharp on the heels of trauma.

When they reached the summoning clearing, the gentle sound of flowing water broke their
silence. The tiny streams spiralled out from the central feature, vines and rock and
lightblooms that grew in tandem and spilled crystal clear water from somewhere deep within.

“We go first,” Shiba spoke up, touching her nose briefly to Hinata’s hand and leading her
across the clearing towards the centre. “Time to go home,” she added, a soft affection in her
voice that clashed with the tension in Kakashi’s chest.
Home.

Strange, even if familiar, that Shiba should consider Konoha her home over Tsuki no Mori
when Kakashi – neither canine nor born here – felt so much more at home in the forest. Like
maybe he should trade places with his ninken.

Maybe it was meant to be that way.

Shiba’s cinnamon chakra fluttered up like butterfly wings, brushing across Kakashi’s every
sense like an ethereal breath, and the lightblooms flashed. The pup at Hinata’s side whined
quietly, shifting his paws at the unfamiliar sensation, and cuddled close against Hinata’s good
leg. A second later, the three of them were gone.

Sakura went next, and she held tight to Sasuke’s hand just a moment too long before letting
go, but Ūhei didn't rush her. They picked their way over the water and the ornate layering of
white stone and glowing lichen, and Sakura kept her eyes on the ground the whole time.
Didn’t look up when Ūhei lifted a paw and placed it on Sakura’s leg, didn’t look up when
Ūhei’s chakra billowed around them like a gale wind. Adzuki remained steadfast at Sakura’s
side, not protesting the tight grip of xyr mane. Xe was tense under Ūhei’s chakra, but xe
didn’t fight it, xyr tail swishing low and slow.

Once they, too, vanished, Sasuke took a step forward and paused. “Sensei?” Kakashi
hummed back, inviting the follow-up. “It’s okay for me to do it myself this time, right?”

Taking a moment to consider, Kakashi tilted his head. The impulse to say no was there,
already halfway up his throat, but he swallowed it; there was no reason that Sasuke shouldn’t
try. He’d gotten the chance to feel how it was done on their way in, and he wasn’t under
chakra house arrest like Sakura and Kakashi were. He hadn’t run himself dry. It didn’t negate
the possibility of Sasuke doing it wrong and hurting himself, but he’d never learn if he was
never afforded the opportunity.

With a gesture, Kakashi gave him the go-ahead. “Urushi will go with you to make sure you
do it right.” Tandem unsummoning instead of side-along, and that in itself carried a unique
risk, but Urushi knew what they were doing. They'd make sure it went right.

Sasuke gave a determined nod and strode towards the middle of the clearing. He hesitated a
little, brow furrowing, a spark of chakra like red in his eyes. Urushi nipped his ankle, flicking
an ear, and the little black puppy climbed down from Sasuke’s shoulder to settle between
Urushi’s withers. Something unspoken passed between them and Sasuke grimaced, but a
deep breath later and his chakra ignited properly. He vanished. Despite himself, Kakashi let
out his breath, and Pakkun chuckled low at his side.

“Pretty sure he did it cleaner than you did,” he teased as they finally made their own way to
the centre of the clearing.

With a grunt, Kakashi offered Pakkun his middle finger. “There’s not exactly degrees of
success, here.” It was rather a binary option of getting it right, and getting it wrong.
Pakkun laughed again, jumping up Kakashi’s back to settle on his shoulder. “Ya didn’t worry
so much when you were the one recklessly summoning yerself back and forth.” But he said it
with a grin, ears perked forward, and Kakashi sighed. He couldn’t even well argue the point.
He’d been many things as a child, and reckless wasn’t the least amongst them. “Good thing
ya know better now, huh?”

Motherfucker. Not that Kakashi had any intentions of disregarding his med-nin-imposed
chakra directives this time, no matter how invalid they made him feel. Kakashi knew his own
limits intimately, knew exactly how close to them he could push before doing himself harm,
but his kids did not. If he gave them the precedent for ignoring the med-nin, they’d use it.

And Kakashi had no doubt that they’d find the worst possible moment to do it.

“Let’s just go,” Kakashi responded instead of voicing that, and Pakkun showed all his teeth in
a wide grin.

Pakkun’s chakra rose, slow and narrow – a stalagmite, unfaltering – and Kakashi braced
himself for the faintly unpleasant sensation of being side-along summoned. It was over in a
moment, but the inexorable pressure was allayed only by the comforting familiarity of
Pakkun’s chakra.

And then dashed, a second later, as Kakashi beheld the Hatake summoning matrix.

It was unfair, probably, and even more so now that his kids had a legally defensible claim on
the place too, but Kakashi loathed the estate. Despite that the matrix was beautiful, and the
heady smell of the lightblooms lingered from their passage between here and Tsuki no Mori,
Kakashi’s skin crawled just being here.

There were too many shadows and too many corners to house them, memories crawling
through the halls like an infestation. Blood on the walls.

“Wow!” Kokuyōseki bolted from one side of the courtyard to the other, ears perked up and
tail wagging wildly. “This is so cool! Why is your sky so bright?” Even diluted through the
glass, Konoha’s sunlight was almost blinding after so long in Tsuki no Mori’s comfortable
twilight; it had to be even worse for the ninken who’d never left the forest before. From his
spot at Hinata’s ankle, Dai was squinting up at the dome and swishing his tail slowly. Adzuki
was gazing around the courtyard itself, xyr eyes narrow as xe took in the seal.

Sasuke watched Kokuyōseki with a little smile. Already bonded, a glimmer of affection in his
gaze. Something eased in Kakashi’s chest. “It’s daytime,” Sasuke explained, crouching down
and offering an arm. Kokuyōseki came bounding back to him and scrambled up to Sasuke’s
shoulder, a flicker of chakra like ash in the air. One black ear perked as Kokuyōseki cocked
his head to the side, the silent question obvious. “We have day and night here, not like Tsuki
no Mori. It’ll make more sense when you see it.”

“Hmm. Okay!”

Hinata giggled. Excited by the reaction, Dai hopped in place, head tilted up while he focused
entirely on Hinata, tongue lolling. When her attention caught on him, she gave him that same
affectionate smile, warmth in her eyes. “Tsuki no Mori is very different from Konoha,” she
added softly.

“Alright, alright. Pups, come here. You too, Adzuki,” Ūhei tacked on with a little nod
towards xem. Dai and Kokuyōseki came bounding over immediately, accustomed to obeying
the elder ninken – and a good thing, since Ūhei was likely to land the job of jōnin-sensei –
but Adzuki hesitated. Lifted xyr head to meet Sakura’s gaze, gently set a paw on her foot to
ensure her attention. Something unspoken passed between them, and a fragile smile broke
through Sakura’s features. She briefly rubbed one of Adzuki’s ears.

With a flick of xyr tail, Adzuki flitted across the courtyard and joined the others. Ūhei studied
xem for a moment, head tilted, internally considering something. It was almost funny that she
was going to end up in the same position Kakashi now found himself in; she’d often taken on
a similar role for Kakashi. Not that he’d ever asked for it, of course, even if all of his pack
had tried it on at some point, but Ūhei had an unwavering nature that made it much harder to
ignore. For as calm and gentle as she was, Ūhei was a creature of resolve that few could rival.
If there were ever such a thing within the pack as a pecking order, she shared the top spot
with Pakkun and Kakashi himself.

He thought that, perhaps, she might need that steadfastness to shape the new ninken-genin
into proper shinobi. Pups were excitable and naive, and a ninken like Adzuki was unlikely to
have learned teamwork in the way that Konoha (and Ūhei) would require of xem.

Was that how they’d felt, watching Kakashi take on his kids? He knew they loved and
believed in him, of course, and he never needed them to say it – but the question remained,
lingering in the back of his mind, of the words those emotions would transform into if
articulated.

So sometimes, maybe they should all say the things that didn’t need saying.

“Before we add your blood to the scroll, you need to key into the summoning matrix here,”
Ūhei told them. “Konoha is your home now – when you unsummon from your Hatake’s side,
this is where you'll end up.”

A tangible shiver went through Team Seven. For just a moment, Kakashi thought (or hoped,
perhaps) that it was only his own, but the three genin exchanged glances and then looked to
him. Hard to imagine that Ūhei hadn’t known the implications of what she was saying. And it
shouldn’t matter, really, when everything else already announced that Kakashi considered
them his, but hearing it spoken aloud so bluntly made it real in a way it hadn’t been a minute
ago.

They were Hatake now. If not by name, then by claim. By choice – by blood. Their blood
would forever be recorded in the Hatake contract.

Ūhei continued speaking to the new ninken, directing them to synchronise their chakra with
the matrix and add their blood to the seal, but Kakashi was only half-listening. He’d seen it
eight times before, after all. Instead he nodded slightly, acknowledged his genin’s gazes, and
watched their reactions. Sasuke nodded back, his expression somewhere between relief and
resolution, his shoulders squared and chin lifted. There would be the least change in their
relationship, and that of their clans. Kakashi had been made an honourary Uchiha years ago,
and Mikoto had been perhaps a little too delighted by the prospect of Sasuke becoming an
honourary Hatake in turn.

Hinata looked down, afraid. She’d lived so much of her life in fear already. For a second,
Kakashi faltered. If doing this was only going to introduce new fears, was it really worth
doing? But she glanced up a moment later, and there was hope buried somewhere beneath it
all. It was horribly unfamiliar on her face.

It was worth it; Kakashi had to hold onto that. No matter how badly his curse might come
down on them, if he made sure they would be able to bear the weight of living, then it was
worth it.

Sakura, her face still stained with dry salt-tracks, burst into tears. Adzuki turned away from
Ūhei instantly, looking over xyr shoulder to assess the situation, xyr pupils pinprick narrow,
xyr fur rising along xyr spine. As quietly as Sakura cried, she wasn’t completely silent and
the fractured expression that accompanied it felt like being punched in the chest. She was so
young. No child should have to shoulder that much pain.

When Sakura shifted her weight to run, Kakashi saw it coming but did nothing to stop it. She
came hurtling over to him, shaking violently, and latched her arms around his waist. Sobbed
into his shirt. For a second, Kakashi could see the echo of their first meeting. She’d done this
then, too, jumped at him and hugged him hard enough to hurt. He’d seen it coming then just
as he had now, and similarly chosen not to knock her aside or avoid it. For as uncomfortable
as the contact was, he’d been more interested then in getting a gauge of them. If Sakura
wanted to hug a complete stranger, so be it.

But this time, he didn’t stand stiff or lean back. This time, he put his arms around her
shoulders and tried to make himself relax. She squeezed even harder, enough to drag a low
noise out of him; she’d gotten so much stronger since then.

The tension in the air eased a little, and Ūhei got her soon-to-be genin back on task. Reluctant
but choosing obedience, Adzuki flicked an ear and faced Ūhei again.

Quietly, Sasuke and Hinata both picked their way over to Kakashi and Sakura. Sasuke made
it first, and laid a hand on Sakura’s back. Murmured softly. “It’s going to be okay, ‘kura.”

Hinata was equally as quiet, but she spoke to Kakashi instead. “Thank you, Sensei.”

Thanks.

It didn’t feel deserved. But at the same time, it was what Hinata felt needed to be said, right
now in this moment. Did it matter if Kakashi felt he deserved it or not? Surely he had a
responsibility to accept the weight of it.

“Come,” he said instead, trying to ride the line between gentle and commanding. “Let’s go
home.”
Itachi-sensei was doing an acceptable job of hiding it, but he was anxious. Neji could see it in
the stiffness of his spine – not hidden thoroughly enough by his Uchiha-emblemed cloak –
and the almost imperceptible flickers of red in his eyes at every distant sound. Itachi-sensei
always was freer with his use of Sharingan than most of his kin, an accomplishment of
chakra control and dōjutsu mastery that Neji could only hope to one day match, but he rarely
made use of it within Konoha itself and even though they were now outside its walls, they
were still close enough to make his readiness with it noteworthy.

If he was generous, Neji thought that Shino might have noticed as well; he walked with his
usual clipped stride and comfortable silence, and Neji couldn’t see his eyes behind his dark
glasses, but he cocked his head to track each noise he heard all the same. Only natural to be
on edge when their sensei was so, and Neji couldn’t help but activate his Byakugan whenever
he noticed Itachi-sensei using his Sharingan, but there was nothing around them to be found.

Ren hadn’t noticed yet, of course, but they were quieter than usual. Part of it surely had to be
the mission itself – Ren had never been outside the village before, after all, and didn’t have
Shino’s clan upbringing to prepare them for their first C-rank – but normal nervousness
typically made them even chattier. They might not have picked up the evidence of it, but they
could feel the tension in the air.

“Uhm… Sensei?” they finally spoke up as noon approached, a welcome warmth that was
unbroken by the forest sprawling out from either side of the road. There were some benefits
to taking the oft-travelled path, after all.

“Yes, Ren?” Itachi-sensei replied, sparing them a glance before returning his gaze to their
surroundings. His voice was deceptively calm, and Itachi-sensei was always calm but he was
also usually relaxed.

Ren bit their lip. “What’s the Red Soil Festival for?”

Fuck.

Internally, Neji kicked himself. He’d chosen not to withhold anything from their mission
detail – there was no reason to, the mission was a C-rank and about as far from classified as
an out-of-village mission could get, so making sure that everyone knew as much as possible
about what they were doing could only help them get it done better. But explaining the
cultural purpose of the Festival—

It hadn’t even occurred to him, despite Itachi-sensei taking the time to tell him about it during
his debrief. That sort of background information was just that, background, and Neji had
barely even taken conscious note of all the times Itachi-sensei had included it. But he had,
now that Neji thought back across the C-ranks they’d taken when it had been just the two of
them. Itachi-sensei had always made the effort to include contextual information like that.

The question managed to draw a soft chuckle out of Itachi-sensei, and Ren relaxed
immediately. Trusting, too willing to believe whatever front was put up. Or maybe Neji was
just being paranoid, now. Hard to tell. “Any questions you have that pertain to the mission
should go to Neji,” he told them with a little smile in his voice, and Ren turned a gentle pink.
They did that frequently.
“Oh. Right. Uhm, Neji-senpai?” At least they didn’t waste everyone’s time by repeating the
question verbatim as if Neji wasn’t around to hear it. When they’d first graduated, Neji was
sure they would have.

Trying to remember the exact words Itachi-sensei had used, Neji nodded. “Katani is a small
village, but they’re proportionally quite wealthy thanks to their orchards. A significant
percentage of Fire Country’s fruit trade comes from Katani village.” Well, maybe he
wouldn’t be able to quote Itachi-sensei word-for-word, but a passable paraphrasing would be
good enough. Hopefully. “They’ve got a few festivals they hold around harvest times
depending on which orchard is ready for harvest, but the Red Soil Festival is primarily for
their blood oranges.”

“Oh!” This time, there was an edge of excitement in Ren’s voice. “Yeah, we buy blood
oranges from them! I forgot it was nearly harvest time.” Sheepishly tacked on the end, but it
didn’t stop Ren’s smile from widening. “Sensei, we’ll be able to buy some, right? That’s
allowed?” Even though they were on mission, which meant their time wasn’t their own – but
Itachi-sensei glanced at Ren again, his shoulders softening a little.

“I believe we will find the time to make some purchases, if you wish.” They’d have time
once their mission officially ended, if nothing else. That said, Neji wasn’t really expecting it
to be all that difficult a task. Bodyguard missions were dangerous if anything did happen,
because unlike many others, such missions required them to step directly in the way and get
hurt to protect their client if need be, but it was still a C-rank. And Katani was a peaceful and
small settlement, filled with civilians and precious little else. Honoured guest aside, there
wasn’t anything all so terribly exciting about the place. Excepting the ability to buy fresh
blood oranges, apparently, if the delighted yip that Ren let out was any indication.

Grinning, Ren skipped around so they could look Neji and Shino right in the eye, walking
backwards as they did. “I’m going to make you the best panna cotta when we get home. Trust
me, blood oranges are the best.” They said it with such certainty that for a moment, Neji
almost believed them. Ren might be short on a lot of critical shinobi qualities, but conviction
was not one of them.

Shino tilted his head thoughtfully. “I believe I will look forward to that,” he eventually settled
on, and Ren gave another little noise of delight. “In the meantime, Ren, it would be best if
you remained focused on where you are walking.”

“Huh?” Too slow on the draw, allocating their mental resources to a verbal response instead
of their surroundings, Ren’s heel clipped a rock in the road on their back step, and they went
tumbling to the ground in a flurry of flailing limbs.

There was a moment of silence as Team Six came to a stop, and then Ren burst into laughter.
Despite himself, Neji could feel the smirk on his own face, and Shino chuckled softly beside
him.

“Are you alright?” Itachi-sensei asked, his expression neutral but with warmth in his voice. It
was… strange, somehow, that Itachi-sensei seemed to care so genuinely for them. Neji
couldn’t see the point – what purpose could affection possibly serve him? In their world,
caring about people was a trap at best. Shinobi died, often at one another's hand, and there
was no sense in wasting the energy on mourning one another, especially when that distraction
could serve as the line between winning and dying.

Besides, there was no justice. Itachi-sensei wouldn’t be rewarded for caring. It was in his best
interest to ensure that his genin were as skilled as possible before setting them loose in the
Konoha workforce, because at some point his life might depend on them – not that Neji
really thought that mattered a whole lot in Itachi-sensei’s case. Itachi-sensei was one of the
strongest and most prodigious shinobi Konoha had ever produced. He had no need of genin
to help him succeed in life.

Of course it helped that he was the son of the Uchiha clan head. Even with the ban on the
Caged Bird seal (not that Hiashi didn’t skirt that law as much as possible), and Tsunade-
sama’s decree of freedom for the branch family, Neji still had to fight tooth and nail just for a
chance at the techniques owed him as a Hyuuga. The techniques that the main branch
children wasted so flagrantly.

“Neji?” Shino’s voice broke into his thoughts, shattering the bitter spiral, and Neji looked at
him sharply. Ren was getting back to their feet, assisted by Itachi-sensei. “Your focus drifted
elsewhere.”

Right. Half a year’s worth of D-ranks was taking its toll, apparently; he knew better than to
get lost in his own head while outside Konoha. A pathetic showing – he was supposed to be
leading this mission. “Yes. It won’t happen again.”

“…nks, Itachi-sensei,” Ren was mumbling, brushing themself off. “Um… that won’t go in
the mission report, will it?” They were blushing, a deep pink dust across olive cheeks,
averting their gaze. Appropriately embarrassed, perhaps, but Neji couldn’t find satisfaction in
it when Itachi-sensei tilted his head and looked to Neji for an answer. Right. He was mission
lead.

Perhaps it should. Proof of Ren’s distractible nature, a lack of refined focus that showed they
weren’t ready for more dangerous missions and a failure of spatial awareness that betrayed
how much more training they needed. But… Neji thought about the way he’d write, how
scathing a detail it would be, and it felt… pointless. Caring was for fools, but making a big
deal of every mistake, no matter how meaningless, felt like a different kind of caring.

So Neji shrugged. “Mission reports are for mission details, not minor personal failures.”

It should remind Ren that they’d blundered, but instead a relieved smile broke out on their
face. “Thanks, Neji-senpai.”

Neji could feel the furrow of his brow, but he didn’t reply. What had Ren taken away from his
response that warranted gratitude, when Neji had been trying to reinforce a mistake? As they
all started walking again – Ren keeping their eyes on the road – Shino chuckled quietly to
himself. Did he get it? Whatever it was? Not understanding whatever it was crawled under
Neji’s skin, an inadequacy that clung to the inside of his ribs like tar. But was he supposed to
just ask? It wasn’t mission-critical so having to ask just revealed his own weaknesses. His
team might be allies, and he might be bound to protect them as well as manage them in his
position as leader, but that was no guarantee that they’d never be enemies. They already
knew his combat weaknesses, there was no need to advertise his interpersonal ones, too.

Even with the absurd sense of affection Itachi-sensei seemed to have for them, at least he
made sense. Why couldn’t everyone be as logical as he was?

“Our client, then, Kujaku-san. He doesn’t attend every festival, despite owning the orchard
land? I ask because surely they would be more familiar with hiring shinobi were that the
case.” And even at C-rank, shinobi didn’t come cheap. Small wealthy towns tended to hoard
their riches jealously.

For a moment, everyone was silent, waiting for a response. Itachi-sensei tilted his head,
caught Neji’s eye. Right. Shino made a good point – it was one of the details Itachi-sensei
had passed on, an odd but specific note that Tsunade-sama had in turn made sure to mention
when she’d passed the mission to him. The client was unfamiliar with shinobi terminology
that regular clients considered common knowledge, and entirely ignorant of Konoha-specific
shorthand. Neji didn’t know a lot about Katani itself, but the impression they had of its
customs didn’t exactly align with a client who frequently contracted shinobi protection.

The problem being, Neji didn’t have an answer. Shino had clearly made the same inference
from the information they had, but there wasn’t much more to glean without asking questions
of the client himself. But Neji was supposed to be in the leadership position. He needed a
better answer than I don’t know, he was supposed to know more than—

“That’s information that we don't have yet,” Itachi-sensei finally said. Neji’s silence had
grown too long. “Kujaku-san isn’t a regular Konoha client and didn’t put in his mission
purchase personally. It’s something we’ll have to ask him when we arrive tomorrow.”

He said it like it was inconsequential. Just a note to remember for later. But it— It was just I
don’t know presented with more words.

Skipping a step, Itachi-sensei fell in line with Neji, tilting his head and lowering his voice.
“Even when you’re in charge, you cannot know everything, Neji.” Softly. Reassuring.
Reading Neji’s damn mind like he always somehow managed to do.

“… I understand, Sensei.” Itachi-sensei was saying that I don’t know was an acceptable
answer, even if it felt like failure. Stupid. Neji should know better; his feelings weren’t
relevant. He couldn’t remedy ignorance with shame.

Itachi-sensei nodded. “Your team is relying on you to make the right decisions, Neji. You
cannot make a decision with knowledge you don’t have.” Oh. But risking a glance up to meet
Itachi-sensei’s gaze revealed no anger or disappointment, even though he might have put
them in danger had the question been more critical.

“Yes, Sensei.” Shouldn’t he be angry? They were barely a kunai’s throw from Konoha and
Neji was already fucking up. “It won’t happen again.”

With a quiet hum, Itachi-sensei tapped two fingers to Neji’s shoulder, just for a moment.
“You can be kinder to yourself. This is a learning exercise – if I expected you to get
everything right on your first attempt, there would be no point in giving you the opportunity
to practice.”

Itachi-sensei fell back into place before Neji could figure out how to answer that, keeping
pace with Shino and Ren while Neji walked point. It was… strange to be in front while
Itachi-sensei walked behind him. Intimidating, certainly, but that was only to be expected; no,
the greyscale anxiety buzzing at the edges of Neji’s thoughts like static was well within the
bounds of what he’d prepared for. After all, even with Itachi-sensei there to provide a safety
net if he fell (or if he dropped either of his teammates), it would still be Neji’s fault if Itachi-
sensei had to catch them. It would be because he wasn’t ready – because he wasn’t good
enough.

But… it was lonely. Neji would flay himself before he’d admit it to them, but having empty
space at his flanks was disorienting after half a year of Ren and Shino at his sides. It felt
wrong.

How pathetic. As if he hadn’t had to claw his way to his place on Itachi-sensei’s team on his
own. Everyone was alone, ultimately. What difference should it make if he knew the people
he worked with or not?

They were talking amongst themselves as they walked. Ren was, at least – chatting away
while Shino and Itachi-sensei listened and offered occasional comments. It wasn’t anything
of consequence, some little anecdote about their elder sister, but Neji pretended not to listen.
They weren’t talking to him, after all – he wasn’t a conversation partner right now. He was in
charge. Separate from the banter, isolated from the air of relaxation trailing along behind him.
Even so close to home, they were still outside of Konoha, and they still had to be on guard.
Neji did, at least.

Responsibility for other people was a suffocating cloak that hung heavy and invisible on
Neji’s shoulders, and suddenly he wasn’t sure he wanted to wear it. Was this how Itachi-
sensei felt all the time? Surely not. He was a reticent person, as intense as he was gentle, but
he never showed any signs of the gnawing trepidation. He never seemed as on edge as Neji
felt.

Maybe Neji just wasn’t cut out for this. The thought tasted like cold ashes.

“Neji-senpai?” Ren’s voice broke once more through his thoughts like an animal through a
fence, horns first. They waited for Neji to glance back, giving them his attention, cheerfully
unaware of his inner struggle, and offered a bright grin in response. The sunlight glowed
sapphire in their eyes. “Neji-senpai, do you like lemon?”

Of course. He wasn't really sure what else he’d expected. Something mission critical?
Something they’d somehow, miraculously noticed that Neji had missed? But they didn’t
worry about stuff like that. Ren’s world was a blissfully simple one.

Neji couldn’t find the right words to shatter it. “Not on its own.” Which he was sure wasn’t
what Ren was actually asking – with all the cooking that they did, and the legacy of their
family, it was a rare day that they would offer something so unappealing as a raw,
unaccompanied lemon – but Neji didn’t exactly have the right context to assume the specifics
of what they meant.

Their nose wrinkled for a moment. “No, no, I mean in desserts. I know you don’t eat a lot of
desserts, but my favourite blood orange dish we make has lemon in it, so if you don’t like
lemons then I’ll have to think of something else to compliment it, and there’s lots of things
that I could use but it kind of depends on—”

“Ren,” Shino tried to break in, laughing quietly.

“—like, so if you don’t like lemon, is it because citrus is acidic or is it the actual sourness,
because I can use a sweeter citrus instead, or just make a special lemon mixture to neutralise
the sourness a bit—”

“Ren.”

“—huh?” They blinked at Shino in confusion, taking in his amused smile, and then turned
their gaze to Neji. He’d have killed, he was pretty sure, to know what his own face looked
like right now. Ren turned the same shade of red as blood orange flesh. “O-oh, uhm… Sorry,
Neji-senpai. It can wait until after the mission.”

Neji stamped down on the impulse to dismiss their apology. They should be apologising – no
matter how close to Konoha they were, or that Itachi-sensei would pick up on any threats
long before any of the genin could, Ren couldn’t get used to whiling away travel time on
whatever whimsy crossed their mind instead of focusing on their surroundings. Sure, once
they could hold a conversation at the same time as remaining vigilant, like Itachi-sensei
could, then they’d be welcome to talk to their heart’s content, but right now they were just a
distraction for everyone involved.

It was their aura of naive innocence, that was all. They projected such a cheerful demeanour
that it was hard to properly rebuke them. Like it was hard to kick a small animal. All too
easily achievable but laden with lingering guilt.

Hm. There would be a time to teach them how to weaponise that aura. If they could learn
how to wear it as a mask instead of a vulnerability, they’d be a formidable spy.

“Focus on your surroundings,” Neji told them instead of indulging them in reassurance.
“We’re outside of Konoha now; even if Fire Country is our territory, our safety out here isn’t
guaranteed.” And frankly, their safety inside Konoha wasn’t as guaranteed as everyone
seemed to assume, but that was a subject for another time. Probably. Maybe. Even Itachi-
sensei was reticent to discuss such a matter, so Neji couldn’t imagine many of the other
shinobi would be any more eager. None of the respectable shinobi, at any rate.

Nodding, Ren took a deep breath and visibly tried to quiet their mind. “Yes, Neji-senpai.”
They fell into step beside Shino, and their fingers tapped out an endless, rhythmless staccato
against their kunai holster as they scanned the trees around them. Well, it was still distracting,
but not unbearably so. Improvement. It’d have to do for now, in any case. Expecting too
much change too quickly was not only ineffective, but potentially detrimental.
Itachi-sensei came back to Neji’s side as they walked and leaned slightly closer. Words meant
just for him, then. “You handled that well,” he murmured, glancing at Neji between steps.
Well? Maybe it was just one of Itachi-sensei’s eccentricisms that he considered such a soft
correction well. Neji was almost certain that he’d have to remind Ren again; harsh rebukes
stuck quicker. Returning Itachi-sensei’s glance, Neji could see distant thought in his eyes. He
was looking just past Neji instead of directly at him. “You seem sceptical.”

Damn. Sighing, Neji listened to Ren and Shino’s footsteps, out of sync with one another.
“They’ll forget. If I’m meant to be leading them, I should be stricter.” And why wasn’t he?
The impulse to scold Ren had been so immediately followed by restraint, and neither were
really conscious decisions on Neji’s part. He needed to wrangle that habit – instinct was
important, but only after it was trained.

“Leadership does not equate to total obedience, Neji.” Soft. The same restrained chiding.
Fuck. Had Neji picked it up from Itachi-sensei, then? Even after only a year as his genin,
despite all the lessons Neji learned from the Hyuuga. “Harsh lessons are learned quickly, but
kind lessons are never forgotten.”

And Itachi-sensei fell back, and left Neji to grapple with that.

Sakura wasn’t at home. She was meant to have gotten back to Konoha yesterday – and Ino
was starting to think the universe had it out for their friendship. Both of their missions had
gone so wrong, and yet they’d been forced to miss each other’s return. Mitskuni’s reasoning
made sense, and Ino really did understand the lesson he’d been trying to teach her by making
her leave on schedule, but not being there when Sakura woke up still clung on to the back of
her sternum like guilt.

Finding out that Sakura was gone again when Ino finally woke up rested was some sick
cosmic joke. It was made easier when one of Kakashi-sensei’s ninken caught her walking
away from Sakura’s house and told her that all of Team Seven were in the dogs’ summoning
realm (Tsuki no something), because at least it meant that Sakura was safe, but the several
days wait for her expected return was still several days too many.

She was meant to be home by now. Ino had even waited until mid-morning, to give her the
chance to sleep in, but she still wasn’t anywhere in her house. Neither were her parents, and
while it had been strange for the house to be empty the first time, it wasn’t unreasonable that
Kizashi and Mebuki both might be out doing whatever it was civilians did while Sakura was
out of Konoha. This time, though… This time, they should have been there. Sakura was
supposed to be there.

So why the fuck was her house still completely empty?

“You came back.”

The shriek that Ino let out was absolutely shameful for a shinobi; sure enough, when she
turned around, the same ninken that’d caught her last time was laughing at her silently, mouth
open in a menacing grin and sides vibrating. Bad enough that Ino had been snuck up on so
easily in the first place.
“What the hells is wrong with you?!” The answer to which was no doubt ‘a lot’, but in this
particular instance might well be ‘nothing’. Ino was the one who let her senses slip. She was
safe in Konoha, but it was still poor form to be snuck up on, even if it was by a shinobi of
Bisuke’s calibre. Rightly, Bisuke didn’t respond beyond blinking and flicking one ear. “…
Alright, that never happened. Why shouldn’t I have come back? Sakura’s supposed to be
home by now.”

Whatever disappointed edge had been in Bisuke’s voice was gone when she spoke again, her
laughter quieting in a moment. “Kakashi expected you. Come.” Without another word,
Bisuke turned and took off towards the rooftops, and training kicked in before Ino could
think better of it, breaking into a sprint to give chase. Four legs was cheating, damn it, and
Bisuke had experience on her side. For a horrible moment, Ino thought she’d lost Bisuke
immediately.

Then there was a flash of movement between the buildings on Ino’s right, and Bisuke cocked
her head where she was waiting, one forepaw lifted. She didn’t speak as Ino climbed, and
turned away to start running again as soon as Ino clambered over the lip of the roof. Part of
Ino wanted to call her bitch – but the rest of her recognised the absurdity of the impulse, so
she focused on keeping pace. It was so easy to forget that the dogs were trained shinobi.

Hm. It would probably be less weird if Ino interacted more with the ancestral Yamanaka
contract. Maybe she should ask Inoichi about it.

The chase took Ino all the way across Konoha, passing several other shinobi in the rooftops
with whom Ino exchanged nodded recognition. She couldn’t help but wonder how many of
them knew Bisuke by sight; her vest and hitai-ite made it obvious what she was, but just how
many of Konoha’s rank and file knew Kakashi-sensei’s ninken well enough to recognise
them? If she wasn’t a Yamanaka, Ino would have been hard-pressed to guess who the dogs
were even contracted to, let alone know their names. Did they interact with Konoha at large
outside of their direct loyalty to Kakashi?

“Halt.” The call was sharp, and Ino caught herself against the rooftop of an apartment
building, low and sprawling where the urban residential area bled into the bigger, suburban
rows of single households, dotted with colourful gardens. Her chakra stung where she used it
to kill her own momentum, but it brought her to a sudden and immediate stop, and Bisuke let
out an approving snort. Well, Ino would like to think it was approving.

After a few seconds of silence, it became apparent that Bisuke wasn’t intending to say
anything more. “What are we doing here?”

“Ground rules.” As if Ino hadn’t even spoken. It took more self-control than Ino felt she
should admit not to snap – and never mind that Bisuke could probably kick her ass with three
paws tied behind her back. “No gossip. No nagging. You can’t see the scroll. Clear?” Spoken
in a low monotone, almost soft if not for the cold edge to Bisuke’s voice, but she didn't
seem… hostile. It was more matter-of-fact than that. She wasn’t threatening Ino, she was
simply telling her how it was going to be.

Fuck it. One day, Ino would learn how to do that.

“Sure, whatever. Why are we here?” This time, Bisuke smiled at Ino. Her mouth was full of
sharp, white teeth. Instead of answering, she jumped down to street level, waited the few
seconds it took for Ino to follow her down, and started off down the road. Ugh. Was she
always this fucking insufferable?

Bisuke led Ino to a house near the end of the lane, walked up to the front door, and sat down
on the porch. It wasn’t obvious that she kept attention on Ino – she almost made it seem like
she’d forgotten Ino’s presence entirely, focused on the road – but the prickling feeling of
being watched didn’t fade. Maybe she was just uneasy with the situation. The only logical
conclusion was that Sakura was here, but that didn’t make any sense. She already had a
house. Why would she be out here? And where were Mebuki and Kizashi?

Before Ino could knock, the door swung open. Another ninken met her, fluffy tan with a
white muzzle, wearing a Konoha hitai-ite around his neck and sunglasses. Indoors. He
cocked his head. “Ino, I presume?”

“… Yeah.” So Bisuke wasn’t the only one expecting her. It sort of made sense, really,
because jōnin were supposed to be this organised, they were supposed to be so on the ball
that they seemed like mind readers, but it was still unnerving to be on the receiving end.
Mitskuni-sensei knew a lot, but he always made sure to explain his line of reasoning
whenever he came to a deduction that wasn’t obvious at first glance. Was that just because he
was their sensei? Were other people's senseis always like this?

The ninken snorted. “Welcome in. Sakura’s in her room. I’m Akino.” He moved out of the
doorway to let her in, but the prospect of taking a step was suddenly impossible, as if she’d
stood in quicksand and couldn’t get herself out.

Sakura’s in her room.

But this wasn’t her house. It wasn’t her house, and these weren’t her ninken.

Why was she here? This wasn’t her house.

“Ino.”

The world snapped into clarity, and Ino realised only in its absence that the colour had
blurred into blues and yellows and she’d lost sight of the house for—

Kakashi-sensei was standing in front of her, and Akino was… gone? No, he was sitting
further back in the hall, talking to someone hidden behind a half-open door. When had
Kakashi gotten here? What…? The world was tilting in a way Ino didn’t recognise.

Kakashi sighed. “Come in.” Oh. That was the second time she’d been invited in; it almost felt
like walking into a trap, somehow, even though Ino knew better. There was an instability
under her feet that Ino couldn’t shake, a jiggling sensation like her muscles had turned to
jelly, a slow whispering dread that licked up her spine in cold sweeps.

Kakashi herded her into the main room of the house, a spacious lounge with a pair of two-
seater couches and littered with dog beds. The sheer number of them made the room feel
cluttered, despite being arranged very carefully to ensure there were still paths of free space
to move about. A short half-wall marked the line between the living area and the kitchen
beyond. Almost automatically, Ino took a seat on the first couch, following Kakashi’s gesture.
He sat down opposite her, on the second.

For a long moment, they just stared at each other. Kakashi-sensei was leaning forward,
elbows on his knees with his hands hanging between them. Watching her. Studying.
Scrutinising. It almost felt… invasive.

“… I have to ask you, Ino.” Ask her? Ask her what? But getting the response out was like
breathing honey, and after a few seconds of thick silence, Kakashi just nodded slightly. “Did
you know Sakura was being abused?”

Everything went silent as that registered, like someone had turned off the sound switch in
Ino’s brain. Her eyes stung – how long had it been since she last blinked? Thoughts swirled
around each other like a maelstrom, incredulity chasing denial and horror in a sickening
dance.

“She… What?” Ino’s own voice sounded like a distant echo. She was pretty sure that Kakashi
was still talking, but it didn’t pierce the haze of disbelief overtaking Ino’s mind. What in the
world was Kakashi even talking about? Sakura wasn’t… Was he talking about the Academy?
She’d attracted perhaps more than her fair share of bullying over the years – all the civilian-
born students did – and being incredibly shy by nature had only made her an easier target, but
it was a problem that Ino (and later, Sasuke) had largely taken care of as they’d made friends
with her. And Sakura herself had contributed to putting a stop to it by virtue of outperforming
a lot of the clanborn students in their class.

But if he wasn’t talking about the Academy, then… did he mean at home? Except Ino
rejected the conclusion immediately, because if considering Sakura’s experiences at the
Academy as abuse seemed excessive, then the idea that her home life was abusive was
outright ludicrous. Sakura’s parents were wonderful people. Naive, perhaps, as most civilians
were, but very sweet. They’d never done anything to deserve being called abusive, not in all
the years that Ino had known them.

A sharp snap broke Ino’s train of thought, and she blinked back into focus. Kakashi had
clicked his fingers. “I know it’s upsetting, but try to focus.” There was a strange edge in his
voice. “I’m to assume from your reaction that you knew nothing?”

The accusation stung in a way that was very different from the shock or incredulity. Knew
nothing. Granted, there were still uncounted things in Konoha that Ino didn’t know about –
but information was her forte, and she would know if something so awful was happening to
her best friend. So Ino shook her head, and heard the hostility in her own voice when she
spoke. “No. That’s not possible. I’d have known.”

Kakashi-sensei sighed. “Abusers can be very good at covering their tracks, Ino. Sakura’s
parents are very good acto—”

“No!” She didn’t mean to shout, but Ino had already interrupted before she could reconsider
it, finding herself on her feet. “Her parents would never do that. Ask her! She’d never—”
Something in the way Kakashi looked at her killed her voice partway through. It wasn’t cold,
exactly, but… there was a weary, angry sadness in his one, black eye. “Of course I asked
her.”

It was like being stabbed. The certainty with which Kakashi spoke, the pity in his voice as
Ino denied the conclusion he’d come to. And they were in a different house – Akino had said
Sakura had her own room here, her parents were nowhere to be found. Her home was empty.
Kakashi hadn’t simply concluded that Mebuki and Kizashi were abusive, he’d acted on that
conclusion. He’d asked Sakura about it. He’d taken her to live with him.

Had he just decided that Sakura was lying when she’d denied it? Surely he needed more
proof than just his own suspicions in order to do something like this? Upending her whole
life, destabilising her family when there was already unavoidable friction just from Sakura
being a shinobi when they weren’t.

“Then why didn’t you believe her?!” And Ino didn’t mean to shout, gods she didn’t mean to,
it was such a lapse in control and almost disgraceful to her legacy, but—

“I-Ino?”

Sakura was in the hallway, looking into the living room. Standing just half a step behind her
was Hinata, wearing a matching expression of concern. That almost made more sense – if any
of Ino’s peers were being abused at home, it was almost certainly Hinata – but then the
implications clicked together and Ino choked on her own words.

Sakura took a step closer. Shoulders down, arms crossed over her own stomach, hugging
herself. Gaze down. Eyes bloodshot and damp. The teartracks down her face were obvious.
She seemed almost like her five year old self, the fearful little creature that Ino had adopted.
Back then, Sakura had never spoken up to defend herself – but surely, surely she would never
hold her silence when her parents faced such grave accusations. “Sakura, tell him!” Kakashi
didn’t react to being pointed at.

A beat of silence hung between them, suffocating, and then Sakura looked away. Her brow
knotted together, she bit her lip. A tremor went through her. But she remained silent.

Maybe she just… didn’t understand what Ino meant? She was clearly in a bad mental state.
“Sakura, tell him. Your parents would never—”

“Enough.” This time, when Kakashi spoke, it was with a hard authority that reached right
past Ino’s higher thinking and brought her up short. A cold reminder that he significantly
outranked her, sliding between her ribs with icy fingers. “Take some time to get your
thoughts in order, Ino.” What? Was she… being dismissed right now? “Come back when
you’re calm.”

She was being kicked out.

It almost made sense, in the most detached part of her brain, because Sakura had shrunk even
further into herself, and fresh tears were welling over in her eyes. Grief, for sure, and the
strange, endless sorrow that sometimes showed in her face when her mood went weird.
Something so searingly pure and unfamiliar that Ino had tried not to think about it whenever
Sakura had gotten like that. But more than that, this time – overshadowed by a deep remorse.

Guilt.

Had… Had she… confirmed the accusation? Even the thought tasted like absurdity and acid.
It wasn’t something that Sakura would ever do. It wasn’t something she could ever do. Ino
loved Sakura dearly, but of all the aspects of being a shinobi that she fell short in, lying was a
big one. There was no way that she’d have been believable if she’d told such a catastrophic
lie.

Was there?

“You didn’t…” One of the ninken came up beside Ino, tall and slender, nosing her hand.
“Sakura, what did you—”

“Come on.” The ninken’s voice was placating, but very firm. When for another moment Ino
didn’t respond, she opened her mouth and took gentle hold of Ino’s wrist. Even though she
knew, rationally, that the ninken were allies and quite capable of higher thinking, there was
something about the feeling of animal teeth on her skin that sent a shock up Ino’s spine, and
she found herself jerking away as if she’d been attacked. Amber eyes watched her without
judgement. “It’s alright. Come with me, Ino.”

She was softer than Kakashi-sensei, but she still carried the same sense of authority and
command, and Ino turned her back to Sakura and followed the ninken outside while static
buzzed inside her skin. It wasn’t possible that Sakura would throw her parents to the wolves,
but Ino was having trouble finding viable alternatives. Sure, Kakashi probably had the power
to force the issue if he believed it, even if Sakura protested, but the question of if he would
wasn’t one Ino knew how to answer. If he had, surely Sakura would have continued to
protest.

Following the ninken down the road was an automatic action, and felt eerily similar to the
way she’d followed her team on the way home. “Are you alright?”

Response happened without Ino’s conscious input. “It’s not true.” The ninken hummed. “It’s
not! Her parents are really nice! I’ve known them for years.”

“If you’re right, why wouldn’t Sakura fight the accusation?” For a second, Ino wanted to lash
out. She didn’t need to be condescended to— except her tone wasn’t condescending, it was
sincere. The ninken was really asking.

But Ino didn’t have an answer. “… I don’t know. I don’t understand why she…”

The ninken stopped, and licked Ino’s hand. For a second, she’d forgotten that a ninken was
still a dog, and Ino blinked at her. “Sometimes, even the people we love the most hide
important things from us.” Did she mean the alleged abuse? Or was she talking about
whatever reason Sakura might have not to deny it?
“But…”

Starting to walk again, the ninken shook her head. “Sasuke says that she used to have strange
episodes of personality.” Ino nodded. “Did she ever tell you why?”

“She doesn’t… know…” Or at least, that’s what she’d always told Ino when asked.

The ninken hummed again. “Let’s get something to eat. We can talk about it, if you’d like.”
And Ino wasn’t really hungry, but it didn’t quite sound like an offer, so she just agreed quietly
and followed. “My name’s Ūhei, by the way.” Oh. No wonder she had such an air of
authority; Ūhei was one of the ninken jōnin.

“It’s not true.” But even to her own ears, Ino’s protest this time sounded more like a plea.
“I’ve never even seen her parents raise their voice. They’d never hurt her on purpose.” It
wasn’t common in the Yamanaka clan, but corporeal punishment wasn’t unheard of. They
were shinobi – at some point, even just as natural consequence, all shinobi kids learned
things the painful way. But the Haruno – the Haruno were just a civilian couple who loved
their only child more than anything. Of course there was friction sometimes, all families had
some friction, and they were afraid of the life Sakura had chosen to live. But abuse was
just… “It’s not true.”

Ūhei made a soft noise, shortening her stride so that they were walking side by side and then
leaning against her leg for a moment. “It’s not a perfect solution.” Something in the faintest
hesitance gave Ino pause, a hint that perhaps Ūhei had more complex opinions than simply
believing Kakashi or not. Maybe that shouldn’t be surprising. “But no solution is ever
perfect.”

“Did her parents deny it?” Gods, she was stupid. Ino should have led with that; Sakura had
inherited her lying talent from Kizashi, and he was lousy at it.

“Yes.” And Ūhei didn’t insult her by adding of course. Ino was starting to think she might
like the ninken.

“Then there’ll be an investigation.” But Ino thought about their empty house, and the days
that Team Seven had spent away in Tsuki no Mori, and something dreadful bled into her
sternum like ice melting. “Or…”

“I believe the investigation has already taken place, yes,” Ūhei confirmed. “I’m not privy to
the results, but I trust Tsunade-sama’s judgement in the matter.”

Ino bit her lip. If Kizashi and Mebuki were shinobi, it would have been a simple matter of
delving into their minds for the answers. It was hardly an unusual use of her family’s
techniques – and in his position, Inoichi had been called upon to do such a thing many times.
But they weren’t shinobi, and they didn’t have developed chakra networks. Putting another
person’s mind into their bodies was essentially a death sentence.

Would Tsunade-sama have ordered such a thing, knowing that?

Was the truth of the matter more important than their lives?
Chapter End Notes

An Authorial Note:
- So like. You know that thing that we all do, where we write a side project and then
suddenly it's 2023 and your main project is six months late? You know, that thing we all
do. Everyone does this. For sure.
- Anyway, this is 100% a universal experience and not just some accident I've stumbled
into XD Welcome to the six month hellatus end if you know, say nothing
- The next chapter or two are going to focus outside of Team Seven, heads up - we've
got to cover Team Six's first C-rank and I might write some more about Team SILK's C-
rank beyond the borders of Kumo as well. After all, C-ranks are universally cursed.
- Speaking of that side project, it's 100% spite and fully published! It's called In the
Dead of Night because I think I'm punny and I'm right. Title is clickable! ^-^

Translation:
Enlathú xantha, fán véna.
- “Remain brave, my pup.”
‘Véna’ technically transliterates as ‘child’ but it’s not a species-specific term and Arcana
doesn’t have a lot of synonyms, so in use from the Alphas, ‘pup’ is a more accurate
translation.

Next Chapter Due: 24th March 2023 24th April 2023 Due Dates are on hold because
clearly I cannot meet them lmao
Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!