Colors

by GloryLocks

Summary:

Sakura experiments with chakra control at the age of 6 and accidentally saves Shisui. Danzo puts a kill on sight order out for the girl. By the time they let her leave ANBU Headquarters she has a silver haired friend. Kakashi wonders how a pink haired girl can so heavily disrupt his life. KakaSaku

Chapter 1: Genjutsu

Deep within Fire Country's forest the largest ninja village of the Elemental Nations bustled in the sunshine. She watched her mom playfully shove the man beside her, urging him on and to, "stop gawking at the same trinkets we saw last time". Sakura watched him protest and point out the new sparkling hues being sold from his favorite jewelry stall. He liked bright things as much as Sakura, his hair just as distinguishable as her own. The two of them couldn't hide in the crowd even if they wanted to.

To most people's eyes her dad's dull pink hair shone against the village full of duller shades. They couldn't sense how his hair laced with chakra and stood up in points around his face. However, Sakura knew Haruno Kizashi shown vibrant and strong compared to the civilians and lower ranked ninja around them. His cheeks widened with his grin as her mother looked back, disapproving yet amused. As if she couldn't help but smile. Not when the man beside her goofed and made even their walk through the village a silly adventure.

They were enjoying their retirement. "Sometimes too much," Sakura overheard the Haruno's gossiping neighbors complain. The same neighbors who said the Haruno ninja should have advanced as far and long as they could. That two such promising Chūnin should have become ANBU, not wasted away their good years. Yet Sakura was always secretly pleased they did. She loved her family's outings. She loved how her mom's sometimes stressed face relaxed in the onsen. How they spent late nights dancing in Suna with a small cup of alcohol passed back and forth between the adults. She liked how easily her dad laughed, how easily he swung her mom around and kissed her. They were the cutest, happiest people she knew, even as they squabbled and passed her dad's favorite jewelry without buying anything.

Her parents led the way from the village's front gates and for the first time after a year away Sakura got a good look at the people moving about in between the buildings and trees. The market stalls and pavers sat around massive roots, leaving everything slightly crooked. It was a rain forest and inside the village both trees and wildlife sprung up as if the forest itself would take over. If only the buildings would let them.

Some of the trees were so old it was said the first village leader Senju Hashirama had tended to them, helping them grow even stronger and taller. Just like how the sands in Suna sometimes glowed and moved on their own without wind. The Senju trees and the Suna sands were her favorite. That chakra in them, so tangible and tough, brushed against her when she walked near. Once in Suna she'd even touched a finger of sand drifting through her pink hair and when it flew away, she ran after it, laughing and joyous with the discovery. Leaving Sunagakure was sad, but returning home was equally fun. Konohagakure no Sato is where everyone knew them, where all the best ramen and noodle shops were, where her dad claimed he could walk the street blind-folded. He said this while walking backwards through a busy street with ox pulled carts rolling along.

Haruno Mebuki squawked, "Kizashi!"

To which he laughed and neatly side-stepped a 400 kg animal. Sakura grinned. One day she wanted to be as good at Sensing as her dad. To her mom, a non-sensor, these little feats still sent the woman's heart-racing and chakra pumping frantically. Sakura could feel it increase with a moment of anxiety and smooth out again seconds later when all turned out well.

"I can't take you anywhere," Mebuki complained.

"So you take me everywhere. Some day you'll find somewhere which works," He winked down at the blonde.

There was some truth in it. Her parents, who said at one point in their lives they'd been completing 10 A and B rank missions a month outside the village, they still had the energy and behavior patterns from years and years of work. Patterns ingrained in them since the age of 12. Small things they continued to do even though neither had missions any more. They still moved about. Her parents still completed tasks despite no pay. How many times had she seen her mom knock out a thief along the road? How many times had her dad reported criminal activity to the local authorities? Sakura thought they didn't even realize it.

When she asked where they were going and why, they always had a new reason. Often stating, "We want you to see the world while you're young."

Sakura might only be 6 years old, but she observed the undertones and grief when they spoke like that. Noticed how they didn't have many shinobi friends left from their graduating class. Knew they'd been through a war they never talked about when she was around. Sakura might be 6 and might be tiny, but she never wanted her parents to lose people again. If it meant she had to be like the Kage level fighters they sometimes spoke of then she'd do it. She'd be smarter and stronger than the rest and the Haruno's neighbors could be quiet because Sakura would take care of all of them.

Being able to sense what happened around her, she realized, would only help her and it was so, so pretty. What her mom called "Your sensory skills have started to develop". Whatever it was let her truly see and feel the things around her, it was breathtaking.

Her world was full of colors. She saw chakra pathways shift and flow. Sometimes the colors were faded and sluggish as they moved through plants, lethargic and not at all in a hurry to get where they needed to go. Plants were like that, too relaxed to be rushed. Completely different than those chakra pathways which flickered and pulsed in animals as they ran. Yet the times they were most intense was when she watched the warriors training or running. Ninja were the brightest of them all. They held so much color in them it swirled and stormed, barely contained by their bodies and they just wanted to be released. Ninja walking together with their flickering dots, millions of them, their chakra shifting like pieces of sand shifted in the desert dunes. They were so numerous and bright.

Her world was vibrant even in the early dawn of the rainy season. Even during the sudden summer rains which drenched the streets and made her mom squawk and rush to cover their luggage with a tarp. Even when the skies were grey and with the crowd huddling under doorways and awnings, all were full of chakra in a way Sakura was only just beginning to understand. Those colors she saw inside people could be fostered, she could make them grow. The ones inside herself were weak and flickering, but they didn't have to stay this way. She could be like those Kage level fighters, like her parents could have been if they hadn't retired when they had her.

Wouldn't it be nice to do something so grand? To be so fast civilians couldn't see the movement, to look at her own arms and be able to see a brilliant thrumming of potential? She wanted that. Sakura's fingers may be thin and her muscles might be slim, but that didn't mean she couldn't become someone great. If she used her head, she wagered she might even be able to work her way up and join that top academy class. The one the old men in the market always gossiped about with all the clan kids, the ones born with kekkei genkai.

They'd arrived in Konoha later than they would have liked, rushing through intermittent weather along the road and only with a portion of their luggage to arrive in time for the first day of the academy. They hadn't thought she'd be able to get in this year, the spots were all full, but when a messenger bird arrived for them stating a spot had opened up for one Haruno Sakura they gathered up the most immediate possessions, paid a movers service, and took the first cart rental they could find. And it was finally here. The day she'd been waiting for. She didn't have any of the larger school things they'd been ordered but wouldn't arrive for a few weeks. But they'd gotten here with an hour to spare and Sakura, still wearing the red qipao her mom bought at a Wind festival, was being dropped off.

In front of them a crowd of civilian and ninja parents lingered. The academy building in the shadow of the tower next to it. The building and the various young Sensei standing around it looked equally fresh, and it made Sakura skip higher and run to hug her dad from behind.

"I can't believe we made it," Her mother muttered.

Her dad grinned, "Told you the cart would survive."

Sakura glanced to the side at the rickety cart which her parents had taken turns running with. Her on one of their backs and the other pulling the cart so fast along the road one of the wheels had cracked when it hit a bump.

"Barely," Her mom rolled her eyes, clearly not too bothered that they'd have to scrap the creaking cart for someone's firewood.

It was with this her dad pushed her towards the youngest Sensei with a cheery, "Good luck! We'll pick you up here at the end!"

The push wasn't very hard, but there were so many kids crowded around the young man in the Chūnin vest, that she had to shuffle sideways to get near enough to hear his quiet voice above the ruckus.

"This way, this way, come along," the young Sensei looked green around his edges. Nervousness seeped into his chakra pathways and flooded his face with heat when he realized not just kids looked up at his words.

"Ah, Nara-san, sir..." He stumbled when he met the gaze of a tall, tan man slouched to the side. An equally slouched child standing next to him like a miniature doll. Neither looked enthused about being packed in with the crowd of screaming children and balling civilian parents.

In contrast, the man unceremoniously stepped back and let his son be swept up with a horde of children suddenly running towards the academy doors as they swung open. Sakura, the youngest Sensei, and the other kids in her class got caught up in the wave. She grinned, riding it and dodging just before sharp little elbows and thin shoulders would have hit her.

Her first day in the academy the instructor with a thick scar across his nose, he said chakra was the power ninjas used which ran through all of them. Sakura had always been quick to put things together. He didn't say it explicitly, but Sakura arrived at the conclusion of his "powering jutsu" speech. They'd all have to work if they were going to grow their chakra reserves. To control it and power the jutsu which made ninja so invaluable protecting cargo lines against thieves and territorial gangs. Even an 11 year old Genin could fend off grown attackers. 6 wasn't so young compared to that.

Sakura sat in that class with the youngest, least experienced teacher and the other non kekkei genkai children. They didn't even take their names. By the end of the first week three girls had already dropped out. Sakura, noticing the discrepancy between boys and girls remaining frowned to herself and sat next to a quiet boy with spikey hair. It made him look like a sleepy pineapple. He had a tendency to stare at whatever low level Chūnin they gave them in the morning, wait through whatever introduction they gave, then burry his head in his arms.

If it weren't for his squinted eyes, the calculating gleam in them when he observed the young teachers getting flustered, Sakura wouldn't have thought the boy any brighter than the rest of their classmates. However, at the first week's test he scored in the top, second only to herself and he'd slept through every single lesson the teachers hadn't been paying attention to their row in the very back. The various young Sensei sent to their low level class always seemed easily flustered. Worse, they were easier to distract and so far no one said a thing when one boy in the back started laying his head on the desk during long, stammering lectures.

She saw him at lunch, looking utterly bored and exhausted after sitting in a class of other 6 year olds for hours and she wondered if he simply needed something more... Just more. Like her, was he bored and overwhelmed? She wasn't sure what courage made her walk forward, but knew she wanted to at least try.

"Hey you, Shikamaru isn't it?"

She spoke down to his fake-sleeping form. As if anyone could sleep with the high pitched shrieks of the other children running around them. His form huddled next to the tree, trying to pretend to relax, but his shoulders and arms had been tense ever since he exited the building. She watched him choose the strategic high ground of the only hill with trees in the yard, huddling close to it as if it could fend off all the others. Then she glanced at the stone shogi set across the training rings. The kids hadn't gone over there, all avoiding it. Too close of a proximity to the academy's dozens of Sensei, Sakura guessed. The shogi set was stationed there for the Sensei Lounge, not meant for students, but it was technically in the training yard and she didn't see any harm in using it.

The boy grunted in response to her question, neither confirming nor prompting further conversation. She plowed on, feeling she needed some sanity just as much as he did and latched to the idea.

"No one's going near the Sensei Lounge. It's quiet over there. I bet that would be better at keeping them all away, loads easier and without any effort. The Sensei are already doing all the work for us. If you want to go."

He cracked an eye open. Balefully assessing her. She felt the heat rise up her cheeks. Sometimes she hated being so bold. If the noise wasn't driving her crazy she might have tried to speak to someone less intimidating. Not this boy who so clearly didn't belong in the lowest level class and who nearly outscored her while not even trying. She held her expression level, trying to convince herself it didn't matter if he accepted or not. She could go sit over there all by herself. She'd be fine. Probably. Hopefully.

In her nervousness she added, "They have a shogi set."

He moved so fast, she hadn't thought him capable of such a thing. She backed up, instantly wary now her suspicions were proven true. He wasn't unfit. He wasn't dumb or sleepy like the other kids all whispered when they thought no one could hear. She'd been right to keep quiet and watchful, and he still scared her a little bit, the way he watched for a bit too long or a bit too close.

That's how Sakura found herself at the shogi set, playing for the first time ever, the rules explained to her anytime she needed a reminder. There were so many pieces and strategies and Sakura quickly found herself outmatched. The sort of outmatched which would have utterly discouraged her if the very next day he hadn't grabbed her arm and fled from the shouting kids screaming about the lunch break. An entire week passed like this. Her boredom in class outweighed by the mental stretching and frantic strategizing she had to perform at lunch.

No, the boy was smart, way, way smart. So smart in fact, that when they completed their physical exams at the end of the second week the two of them were the only ones the Sensei took notes on. She felt the chakra observing them, stirring when she or Shikamaru ran passed at the end of the long line of kids jogging laps. It may have only been two weeks since classes started and one week of attempting to out think the genius boy's mind, but she hadn't been the only one analyzing their shogi games. Apparently they'd become quite the spectacle for a crowd of Sensei hidden by a genjutsu on the other side of the Lounge window. So it didn't matter that Shikamaru hardly tried during their two week physical exam, or that Sakura was winded so easily, Iruka Sensei watched them and held up his hand when they tried to follow the other kids going to grab their lunch.

"Nara Shikamaru and Haruno Sakura, stay behind."

She looked at her silent, sleepy acquaintance. When the Chūnin called his name the boy's shoulders slumped.

"Come here."

The Nara dragged his feet, but he trudged forwards regardless. Sakura, hiding her smile behind a cascade of pastel hair, followed in his wake. She swore she heard him mumble something under his breath. Her smile grew wider.

"My name is Iruka."

Shikamaru, hands in pockets, drawled in a high pitched voice completely unfitting of the attitude, "We know."

The young Chūnin's face tinged red, "Ah, right, of course. You're a Nara, you would know that."

Said Nara looked supremely unimpressed.

"Look I know your class was slotted for the latest ones to sign up, but I really think you'd do better with one of the other classes. Heck, I think you both could jump up a year, but I don't want you pressured into it."

That was how they found themselves being escorted to a classroom full of clan heirs. Or where the clan heirs would be if it weren't already halfway into the lunch break. The two kids just came from the academy office and still carried all their things. Sakura clutched her father's home made bento in her hand, something he'd gotten up extra early this morning to prepare, and found herself looking around at all the seats. Every desk seemed to already be occupied. Almost every single seat had a jacket draped across it. Coats and bags with stitched crests declaring these were children of the village's most prestigious ninja clans.

She swallowed. Hadn't she wanted to be here? What if she wasn't good enough and they tossed her out? To distract her from the worry she turned to the one familiar thing in the room. The boy didn't seem to care which class they were placed in. She bet he'd be bored in any of them. His slumped shoulders indicated he was ready to be done with the hassle of moving their things.

"Didn't your parents want to sign you up early too?"

"Hmmm, what?" Shikamaru dragged himself back into the present. Turning slightly towards her, seriously listening to her this time. It was a sliver of respect she hadn't had before their first shogi game.

She repeated herself.

"Oh, well ya, dad was supposed to. Only then he didn't and I honestly think he forgot. It wasn't until the night before classes started that my mom was yelling at him and that he went to drop the entrance forms off. Apparently the Uchiha Head forgot too, and had been bribing the desk Chūnin to get his son in the top class."

"But your dad didn't," She followed him to the empty seats in the classroom's back row. They were the only ones left.

The Nara heir snorted, dropping his coat and bag into a messy pile on the desk, "He's way too lazy for that."

Sakura hid her smile again. After placing her own coat down she remembered her lukewarm bento. She wouldn't be able to eat it all herself, not with only a few minutes left.

"Want some onigiri?"

"Choji is going to love you."

Choji it turned out was a sweet, soft-spoken boy who blushed when she held out her half-eaten bento to him. Her and the Nara hadn't gotten very far, most of the onigiri sat untouched. Her dad was convinced she needed to eat more if she wanted to be a serious shinobi, and after hearing she'd been playing shogi with the Nara boy had started preparing her food himself, saying she wasn't doing it right and not to worry, he'd help her. Sakura had been miffed she no longer had control over her lunches, but liked being able to sleep in later so let him fuss as he wanted.

Choji seemed to approve of her dad's hard work. After a minute of everyone grabbing another onigiri, she looked up to see both boys' cheeks full of the wrapped rice triangles. She chewed, her own lips tilting. Choji gave her a great big smile and grabbed another one. His chakra seemed extremely low, so she gave him the last of hers. He smiled, clearly grateful, then to her astonishment not five minutes after drinking some juice and finishing off her bento he was glowing almost brighter than anyone else in class.

"Woah, you're really strong."

"Choji? What do you mean?" That was the pretty blonde girl who sat on the Nara's other side.

"His chakra. It's huge."

Choji's face flushed with the attention, but gave a gentle, happy look around at them, "I'm not supposed to tell anyone, but my dad's been training me in our clan technique. He said I'll have to eat as much as I can, but that by the time I'm 13 I'll be able to pull off the first major stage of the jutsu."

"That'll be useful," Nara side eyed him. Then nudged the other boy with his shoulder. Choji's face flushed brighter, chakra pooling his cheeks when he smiled. As if the jovial mood was fueling how his chakra swirled and stored. Sakura, who'd seen a lot of people, had never seen a chakra network do that.

Without thinking about it she grabbed the leaf off her desk and stuck it to his cheek. It held fast.

Blondie gasped, "He's doing it!"

"Ya well he's happy, his chakra's reacting." Yet Sakura couldn't help but smile. They weren't even supposed to do anything with their leaves till tomorrow, but she'd had a theory and she'd been right. Concentration of chakra to an area affected things outside the skin.

Even as she said it an idea began forming in her mind. It wasn't anywhere discussed in her books, but they had referenced it. And now she'd seen chakra control in action she needed to know more. When class let out that day she hurried to pack up her things.

"Ug, why so fast?"

She'd jostled the table in her packing and the Nara snapped upwards in his seat.

"End of class. Do you want to go to the library? I have something I want to read."

"Nah, my mom's expecting me to pick up groceries on the way home. The Yamanakas and Akimichis are coming over tonight."

She paused in her packing, it was only a moment, then she forced herself to act like everything was normal. She'd almost forgotten the three of them had known each other since they were small. While he called Ino and Choji by their given names, he called her Haruno-san. She was thankful the sleepy boy had once again buried his face in his folded jacket. The makeshift pillow hid her reaction from his too sharp eyes.

She raised her hand to wave at the other two, but they were so engrossed in whatever was happening at the front of the class with a loud blonde and the Uchiha heir that they didn't see her. Her gesture froze, then her hand moved to clench her backpack. Choji said something under his breath and Ino giggled. Shikamaru continued to nap beside them as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Her throat flexed, that loneliness she'd felt so often traveling with her parents lodging itself there, made her mute. Sakura wondered if she stayed long enough, if these ones would become her friends. She hoped so. If she were going to become a ninja it'd be nice to have friends who worked just as hard, who were just as smart and sneaky. Maybe tomorrow she'd sit next to Ino. Blondie giggled and played with words in a way which appealed to her. Sakura thought they could get along if she put in some effort.

With that buoying her mood she skipped out of the academy, down the road, passed the Hokage's tower and paused in front of the massive concrete building with a single word painted above the reinforced glass window and locked door. The man sitting behind the counter, his chakra stirred as she came near but he acted as if he hadn't noticed. She cleared her throat.

He didn't stop sharpening his katana. She jumped a bit, making his head finally tilt up. The man sitting under the "LIBRARY" sign eyed her.

"Library's for nin. Scram."

"And academy students," She added imperiously with the sort of tone which said she'd heard this straight from the mouth of a retired Chūnin and he better let her in. Her dad said the academy didn't really teach anything for the first year anyways, that it was ok her books hadn't arrived yet, but that she could go to the Shinobi Library if she was worried about it. He'd said this in his teasing way, knowing she would of course go to the library. Because duh, who wouldn't want to read about cool jutsu and earth shattering punches of blonde goddesses? Really now. The Chūnin behind the library desk, still blocking her entrance with a locked door, seemed just as lax about this as Haruno Kizashi. She wasn't to be deterred.

"How old are you shrimp?"

From down below the counter she beamed at him, looking from his resigned and drawn expression, to the name tag stitched on his vest, and back to his face.

"Hello Hayate-san. I'm 6. How old are you?"

He snorted, "Kid, not the point."

She rocked back and forth on her heals, chakra leaking from her. In a leak Sakura only marginally noticed, but she was so happy to be saying her next statement, she wanted the teenager to be happy too, "I passed my first academy tests, that means I can use the library now right?"

She looked at the locked doors beside him, then back at him. The feeling of happiness increased and washed over him. This time she did notice it leaking from her, but wasn't quite sure what it was, didn't know how odd it was for a 6 year old.

"I'm 16 and you know what? Come on in. You're right anyways."

"Thanks Hayate-san!"

He coughed a little in his hand, "What'd you want to learn anyways?"

"Chakra control! How to control it, reinforce my muscles and make me stronger. Do you know anything about that?"

"Sure, but it's a pretty high level skill. In the Genin section," His tilting smile let onto some sort of joke she didn't quite catch.

"Ah, well thanks anyways Hayate-san."

"Kid-san," His ironic drawl softened by the hint of a smile and how his hands hadn't once stopped sharpening the long, thin sword in front of him. When she stood on her tip toes she could see it glinting in the afternoon sun.

"I'll behave," She lied. It slipped out so fast and easy.

He smirked and she half wondered if he'd laid the information out in front of her on purpose. He lifted a hand, pressing the red button beside the desk. The thick doors buzzed and she jumped forwards to grasp and haul the heavy wood open.

"See-ya!" She dropped the heavy door and bounced on in. Her giddiness of this first infiltration mission making her chakra flare. Excitement built as she walked past the academy student section, up, up, up the stairs to the section marked Genin.

She passed another Chūnin putting away books. His leg, clearly recovering from a break and encased in a cast, hobbled next to a cart of scrolls. He looked miserable as he put them one by one onto a shelf. He didn't even look up when she passed. She felt bad for him. Her desire to share her happiness flared again and his spine stiffened, straightening. The boy blinked, turned around, but her happiness only leaked faster, rushing out around him. The side of his mouth quirked up at her. He went back to his shelving, clearly ignoring that someone so small and missing a headband shouldn't be up here.

What she didn't know is every section was monitored. Every unauthorized entrance noted and recorded. A genjutsu of overconfidence laced in the section entrances, triggered to drop on anyone not wearing a leaf forehead protector and a rank badge with the appropriate clearance. Oh and when her feet crossed the barrier under the Genin sign her head swam, her overwhelming elation turned dizzying. She was so sensitive to chakra she immediately knew something was wrong.

"Kai," she whispered.

It's what Iruka-Sensei had hollered when he thought the orange paint covering his desk was a trick. Only to realize his desk had been physically painted during afternoon break and was dripping copious amounts of paint into the floor.

The feeling immediately eased. What elation she'd been feeling replaced with dread. If this was a trap, she had to hurry. Her borderline eidetic memory scanned the shelves, processed the image it saw, and she jumped to the section she wanted. Chakra molding, tree climbing, water walking... What was this? She opened each book, read, flipped through the first few chapters before putting them back. They seemed to be getting more bizarre before she found a simple, slim book with a Senju written on the side of it. She'd just picked it up, read the first page when a voice from behind her spoke.

"That was quick."

She whirled around. A meter away a man lounged.

He had a scattered pile of books before him. Her mind processed the titles: Sealing Weapons and Supplies on the Body, 50 Advanced Earth Hiding Techniques, History of Stone: The Village of Earth, Blood, and Bone. Then she glanced up, she'd apparently walked all the way through the Genin section and wrapped around to the open room of tables.

She held the Senju book as she'd opened it. Snapping it shut would only make her look guilty. Like when her mom came into the kitchen at night to find her dad sneaking food. If he would just wise up and pretend to belong there it'd all be fine, but he blubbered and stammered and hid the food behind his back. She was sneakier than that, she was.

His eye glanced down at her book, "I didn't know they were still letting kids graduate early."

Her book drooped.

"The kids are really getting good at hiding their headbands these days."

She backed away. Besides the fact he'd caught her, besides the facts he slouched, had a single droopy eye, and an orange book sticking out of his pocket, the ninja was the single brightest person she'd ever seen. His pure white chakra blended in with his hair, so strong it physically stuck it up and to the side. His forearms and shoulders laced with muscles, the flow of chakra tight and sinuous with them. If the young Chūnins teaching her classes were capable then this boy almost man was dangerous.

Her eyes flitted back to his books. Her curiosity warred with her unease before it won out, "What are you reading about Stone for? Are you going there?"

"A holiday, they're giving me some time off." He answered so smoothly she didn't question the sincerity or lack thereof.

She tilted her chin, "My mom says Mamiucho is pedantic and hasn't ever been anywhere. She says Akimichi's history is better."

As she talked the brow above his single eye rose. He maintained the droopy gaze, but it was too steady, too unblinking. It began to unnerve her. In combination with his raging, swirling colors, it held her still to the spot.

He looked between her and the clearly marked sign above her head, proclaiming the section for graduated and contracted Genin.

His single eye met hers just as she was about to bolt back into the section for real ninja. Just then a man in an athletic suit barged forwards, "My rival!"

If she hadn't seen his swirling colors of honey gold coming this way, blazing just as bright as the man whom she'd been speaking with, well it would have scared her. Still did if she was honest.

"If you get any better at jutsu I will have to increase my mastery of taijutsu! We must spar again tonight before you leave!" As he spoke he got louder and louder.

The two of them standing together, she had to blink. These two ninja glowed so bright with chakra, she couldn't help but stop and watch it move through the single eye man's body. Then, suddenly and without explanation, his chakra dimmed as if it'd been snuffed out or hidden under a blanket. Sakura's eyes went wide. The colors could be hidden. Woah. She glanced up shyly to see the single eye observing her reaction. Sakura clasped her hands, wove her fingers together, and her chakra flared with an illusion of happy ignorance. She wasn't cataloging their skills. She wasn't an academy student reading well above her class, definitely not.

The man and his not at all quiet training partner began to speak and since no one had come to kick her out yet, she snuck back into the Genin section to continue her reading. The first three books she found with chakra control in the title all mentioned tree climbing, listing exercises from trunk walking to branch jumping. Ah, she thought. So that's what those other books meant. This one actually explained why some people started out running at the trees, attempting to go straight up on the first go. Yet, it claimed, this was hard for those who weren't naturally good at control. A much easier way was to start on a low branch and just try getting used to sticking your feet to it, then walking forwards. The same amount of chakra to keep feet from slipping off a branch was similar if not equivalent to what those feet would need when walking or running up a tree.

Ideas already swirled in her head, the chakra pooling there, making her brain buzz fast and on point through the possibilities. Yes, she could do this. Sakura's cheeks got big with her smile. There was a forest near their apartment building.

Chapter 2: Shunshin no Shisui

The man in front of him was the one who sent his father on a suicide mission. He was the one who let Danzo operate underhanded missions in foreign lands. The leader strong enough to quell infighting and end two wars before they could cripple all sides. The man who'd mentored the greatest Hokage ever, then took up the hat again when that one had died, and no one else was willing to pull long hours with little thanks. Kakashi had once hated this man, but that had worn away under the weight of his respect. Sarutobi Hiruzen, the kami no Shinobi, who still looked hard and ready to slit someone's throat if they be foolish enough to attack the village.

When he kneeled in the man's office and Sarutobi informed, "I'm going to train you to take the hat."

Kakashi opened his mouth, closed it, then tried again, "Hokage-sama?"

"Hokage, you will be trained."

"Why?"

Kakashi couldn't fathom it. It shocked him into speaking out of turn, quite rudely too. Yet the kami among men sat behind the desk and simply looked back mockingly amused. 忍の神, the third to be given the title kami, Kakashi often wondered if it was something about this seat and the types of people it drew to it. He'd loved Minato like an older brother, but the man was diabolical. He'd envisioned a tool to kill thousands in an afternoon, he'd constructed it, then he'd killed thousands and thousands until they started running at the sight of him.

Kakashi had always wanted to be good, he'd always wanted to protect people who couldn't protect themselves, but he couldn't imagine wanting that. He refused to do sage training with Jiraiya for this very reason. He didn't want to be a kami among men. He wouldn't be, not unless they forced him.

"I will train three others alongside yourself. In several years the Council of Elders will decide."

"If it is what you wish, Hokage-sama."

The corner of the old man's mouth tilted.

"Funny, that's exactly what Maito Taichou said."

Kakashi's stomach twisted. The reality of their predicament fell heavy in him. He suddenly felt nauseous. The two of them, Gai and himself, had been training together for years. The sort of training you didn't bring your team to as it involved beating the shit out of each other. They weren't friendly, so much as companionably competitive. Kakashi thought maybe they shouldn't have pushed themselves so hard. Maybe then they wouldn't have been noticed. He didn't want this fate for his training partner anymore than himself.

"I'm assuming you have tasks for us."

"Yes, you're both prominent and have enough attention on you from the bingo books. I'll need you to seem close to retirement. You will need to be less obviously significant. To appear like a lackadaisical jōnin who rarely takes missions."

When the ANBU Captain heard this he just stared at the man. Sarutobi puffed from his pipe and stared back.

When he failed to respond the old man assured, "Inu you're not being taken off the roster. Your current and old team Ro are still assigned to Uchiha surveillance. It's just your public appearance which needs to dip. Aim to be less noticeable, less threatening."

"Hokage-sama please explain what you expect. I'm not sure I understand."

"A low level genjutsu to appear slouched and less fit. Show up late to meetings. Maybe pick a book and get caught sleeping in public. That sort of thing. It'll be circulated you're thinking of retiring early, but your team Ro will be scheduled as always. Just tell them not to loosely spread it around. Inu and Sharingan no Kakashi are still two separate people and I'd like to keep it that way."

So he needed an Obito appearance, well what Obito might have become if he'd lived past the age of 11. Instead the boy had given his life for Kakashi, the friend who'd never valued him enough in life. The Hokage just wanted an elaborate illusion.

"As you wish Hokage-Sama."

Leaving the office he'd picked up the first obnoxious book series he'd seen in the store and made a point to read it as he walked through the market. Perhaps Sarutobi hadn't thought him audacious enough to select porn, but Kakashi had given his entire life to the village and he wasn't going to willingly make himself into a perfect candidate. It was backhanded, it was just twisted enough to make his decisions seem questionable without being something they could reprimand him for.

When he found Gai, he was wearing something in an eye watering shade of green. They locked gazes and for the first time in a long while he knew someone else was completely and utterly on his level. Gai didn't want this either and they'd chosen a similar route to get themselves out of it.

The first time Maito Gai, fellow Elite ANBU captain, had suggested they go clothing shopping Kakashi convinced himself the man must be joking. At least he thought so until they'd ended up in a workout store on the civilian end of the village, because no self-respecting ninja family would purchase something in such eye catching hues. Yet the man was one of the best and Kakashi had to give it to him.

If he hadn't known Gai so well he wouldn't have thought it anything more than an eccentric personality getting less controllable with age. If he hadn't known how utterly driven the man was to stay free and unburdened he'd never have suspected ulterior motives. He doubted the Council would catch on either. The power hungry cronies from a team trained by the controlling Second Hokage, no those elders wouldn't suspect someone so talented would sabotage their career. If anything they'd peg Maito Gai as socially inept.

Which of course is exactly the line they were both aiming for. It wasn't even exactly untrue, which is why no one could blame them if they took their orders just this far. Sarutobi, for all the man liked to play affable estranged relative to himself and the other talented orphans, didn't talk to him like a human, didn't have a grasp of his true personality, and frankly gave much too vague of orders. He respected the man, but he wasn't going to blindly follow instructions which would give his life or the life of his colleagues. Kakashi had always had a flare for completing a task to his own standards. It's frankly how he'd survived the death of everyone he cared about. A body had to reconcile that if it was going to move on.

Kakashi appreciated Gai's creativity. Appreciated how whacked and believable the unfolding personality was becoming. Enjoyed it enough he didn't even begrudge him when the man occasionally ditched their early morning spars to buy replacement green workout suits. How he began running around the village on his hands. In part because he could. It was a flex on all the other jōnin who didn't train as long, as hard, or as early as he and Kakashi did. Kakashi knew the man truly appreciated the creative workouts. Loved meticulously putting together the area genjutsus to back his more outrageous quotes on hard work. There was one to make his teeth shine bright and give him a bowl haircut. It was eye watering.

It was one of the first days after Gai bought his new, skimpy jumpsuit, before he'd tailored his new persona, when Kakashi still felt it safe to drag his training partner into the library. There he'd seen the girl with pink hair. A little sensor testing genjutsu of her own to connive her way past the desk chūnin and into the off limits books for ranked shinobi. He'd been so amused by her first genjutsu sloshing a feeling of happiness onto the chūnin guarding the doors, Kakashi then followed to watch what she'd do.

He'd even delayed the outgoing alert to ANBU that someone was sneaking information. It was just a kid who smelled strongly of the desk polish they used on the academy tables. She was just a student, a kid wanting to read. Not even read anything bad. As if tree climbing were a Konoha secret. He snorted. Oh and it was worth it. The little monkey in the making couldn't be more than 7 and she'd told him off for his choice of pre-mission research. She couldn't have known he knew Mamiucho is a fraud who'd been stealing from one of Iwa's Lords and ANBU had been hired to deal with it without anyone knowing Konoha had taken an interest in their affairs. She might not be very sneaky yet, but if she kept nurturing that talent for genjutsu she'd give a Uchiha a run for their money. She was certainly smart enough for it, and had the sensor skills to back it up, untrained as she was.

---

Weeks passed and she could now jump from branches stretching the distance between her apartment building and the Naka River. The Naka no Kawa was huge and raging during the rainy season. All the trees around it towered high, strong, and thick amidst the watery air. Their branches sturdy and solid as Sakura learned to jump through the river's mist, toes pressing just right off one branch and launching herself to the next. It was hard muscle building work. So hard she found herself eating twice as much as usual if she didn't want to tire out after only a few jumps. Traveling between trees was a whole new level of exercise her puny limbs had never dreamed of accomplishing, but when she followed the books' instructions the color surged through her and she felt alive.

Each session still left her out of breath and limbs shaking, but she'd realized the flickering chakra always present in her limbs, if she focused hard on the idea of grabbing and guiding it, then she could make it flow and help her muscles till they got stronger on their own. Even once she got scratched up with leaves and twigs the scratches went away faster if she concentrated chakra on the area. Sometimes, if she focused it on her hand and held it to a scratch it'd flicker green for the briefest moment. Those were the times the scratches went away quickest.

That green glow fascinated her, made her wonder under what circumstances it would work. Once she'd seen it and figured out how to mold her chakra for that sort of purpose, she'd admit to being a bit reckless just to test its limits. So far she'd healed a long gash on her arm, a particularly ill-thought out idea as then she had to tell her mom she didn't want to wear the short sleeved battle-style qipao, but wanted a long sleeved dress instead.

Her mom looked like she'd grown a second head, but two days later she woke up to find her mom had attempted to make her a new dress in her favorite color. She'd smiled so wide. Her mom's thoughtfulness touching her deeper than normal, soothing her after the chaos which had become her past few weeks in the top academy class. Training advanced her quickly, but upended her life in ways she'd never expected. If she'd known doing this well too quickly would have gotten this amount of attention, she probably would have taken Shikamaru's strategy and hid her ability. Only she hadn't known what kind of attention doing well would get her. How could she?

After only a few days sitting in class with the clan heirs it soon became apparent Sakura's extra studying and training had placed her ahead of her peers. At first it'd been met with shock and bewilderment, but when she kept out scoring them in unofficial progress reports the feelings had turned less friendly.

Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if she'd been in the class from the start. Only she and Shikamaru had shown up late. In only a short time the two of them blew past most of the other students in tests as easily as they'd done with their previous class. While everyone expected it of a Nara he still came in second to her on tests and practicals largely because he wasn't even trying. Then didn't it cause a stir when she outscored the Uchiha boy, the sulking one whose brother was some prodigy. Kids asked their parents and came to class the next day to share the information they'd gathered.

Their new star pupil came from a family of first generation nin. Neither of whom attempted for Jōnin status. Her parents retired early, they whispered, both of them from foreign civilian merchant clans. The whispers about her parents grew harsher. Drop outs. Practically civilian themselves now. Who was this girl from a civilian family? Who cares if her cousins are merchants? What use is somebody pushing a fruit cart?

Sakura's cheeks flamed red at that. She kept her face tilted down, her eyes trained on the worksheet the veteran Chūnin Sensei had handed out. The figures swam in front of her and she clenched her pencil tight. Her parents had rented a cart from their Suna cousins, who were fruit merchants, to get their luggage home in time for the academy. They both came from merchant families, but what did that matter? Her mom was strong and brilliant with taijutsu. Her dad was one of the best sensors who used to get requested on scouting missions during the war. No kekkei genkai. Civilian family. The whispers swirled around her and she focused more and more on her work. Spent almost every evening after the library closed going to the forest to practice, as she couldn't let her mom or dad see her bothered.

It was after four weeks of academy classes when it got bad. A girl named Ami screeched, audibly upset when she beat everyone in the leaf challenge, outpacing the next highest kid by ten leaves rotating around her arms. Ami became even more indignant when their test scores posted Sakura's name at the top of the class list. Even the nice girl Ino had made a face at that. Under the pressure of their glares and after Ami and Fuki sneered out derogatory snippets about her looks, Sakura had hidden away in the trees during lunch. It was up there, hiding in her tree when she saw Shikamaru and Choji sitting below.

Sakura nearly jumped down to ask for a game of shogi. Games which she'd missed ever since they arrived in this new, competitive class and Shikamaru seemed content to let his clan's allies be a social buffer and sleep the lunch away. Right then she would have happily fed Choji all her food just to get his company. The two boys hadn't changed their attitude towards her, even if she hadn't been dragged off for anymore shogi. Even if Choji now brought his own large bento and extra chip bags. She had almost decided to jump down and offer him food, just to have Choji's kind smile. Then she saw the blonde girl storming over with her face contorted into something unpleasant. Sakura clung to her branch, frozen.

It was the lunch after their test scores had been released and Ino stomped over complaining, "Big foreheads know everything don't they?"

Sakura sat in the leaves, hidden from view above their heads and her eyes got so watery and squished she couldn't see. The wet coated her face and she had to use the long sleeves of the red dress her mom had sewn to stop it from dripping. Her mom, who had gotten bored after a month of being home and had started three sewing projects which turned out horribly before the woman began musing about starting a bakery to stem the boredom. Sakura clutched the uneven hem with its knotted thread and sideways stitches. She clutched it like her mom's gift might make it all better.

Sakura wished she'd worn the battle-style qipao her mom bought at the wind festival. She wished they'd never left Suna. That she could still talk to the lonely boy with equally bright hair as hers, with eyes soft green, and sand he was always willing to let her chase. The boy in the Suna park never thought her too smart. He never questioned the legitimacy or lineage of her parents.

After all this time Shikamaru still called her Haruno-San. Now, after everything, she realized the distance was likely intentional. She wasn't an ally or a friend, just another person in class. She cried harder. The dress pressed to her face muffled the sound.

That afternoon she didn't move when the other kids went back inside. She sat on her tree branch and didn't want anyone to see her. Sakura thought of the peace near the Naka River and with a sputtering burst of chakra to her legs she jumped to the tree far across the academy yard. As she leapt from it she had color pooled in her fist and when she smacked the bark it exploded beneath her.

Sakura ran faster, jumped farther, till she felt she was just a streak of red dress and pink hair sparking between trees. It was easier now after weeks of practice. In her anger it was easier to make the chakra flow at a greater rate. She let it build, pooling down her arms till it fortified her wrists and fingers. If she didn't have such great control she wouldn't have been able to sense this or guide it, but she did and she could. It was empowering. She felt so strong and she wanted to hold onto that.

The colors swirled along her muscles and hardened along the knuckles of her hands. She didn't have a large chakra reserve, hardly more than the wildlife itself, but she was near perfect in controlling it. A moderate force shoved behind a tiny concentrated point, like the surface at the very tip of her knuckle, that was powerful enough to punch holes in trees.

Part of her thought she should contain herself. That she'd be better off pretending. To act like a proper little girl who'd wear her mother's hand made dresses and not get them dirty, but she was so hurt and angry she didn't want to do what the other girls in class did. Not when they got upset with her high scores. Not when they were so obsessed with looks and broody boys. Not when they cared more about flower arranging than the poisons a wise kunoichi could dose tea leaves with. She didn't want to do anything like them. If they kept making fun of her big head because she scored higher than them, well that was their problem.

Sakura smacked another tree. Her fist splintered bark and she had to close her eyes to avoid the flying debris. If only her forms were better she'd be able to land punches in class spars without hurting anyone. It's a trick she'd yet to figure out. Each time she punched an object it was too hard. She didn't dare punch a person like this.

Sakura came to a particularly large tree overlooking a canyon of reddish rock. It was a good view. The tears streaming down her face slowed and her hiccupping sobs quieted. Sakura didn't need friends, but she wanted them, she wanted them desperately. She'd been so focused on tuning the flow of colors within her, she hadn't realized by making herself stick out she was just putting a target on her back. The other kids didn't like it when someone stuck out, especially some nobody girl with civilians for family. The name Haruno didn't bring respect like the bigger clans, it was notable for how many trade routes her cousins completed, but this was all they were known for. Her okaasan was the friendly woman who traveled a lot and talked about volunteering for the Allied Mother's League. Her otousan was often away buying jewelry and trying exotic hair oils he'd found visiting other cities. Sakura's chakra dimmed with her emotions, calming down and slowing with her breath to a flicker. Right now she didn't feel bright, but hollow as if the colors were hidden away inside her like the crags of this red rock valley hid light.

Her academy student level chakra flickered till it looked no larger than the squirrels settling in the tree above her. She let the silence settle around her and her tears from earlier dried. Her new red dress had a few torn hems and some threads hanging loose. She'd have to ask her okaasan how to fix it.

She saw Uchiha Shisui walking below, stopping under the lowest branch of the tree she'd landed on. The teenager looked lost in thought, completely unaware he wasn't alone but with a slip of an academy student sitting above him. She only recognized him because the Uchiha in her class always spoke of his aniki and his cousin. Had been showing off pictures last week and while Uchiha Itachi had long sleek hair, Uchiha Shisui had hair which stuck up like ruffled feathers.

Just like the teenager walking below her tree. The book she'd read in the library noted the shunshin as something all leaf genin should learn. It was simple, but could save lives. It stated with this simple tool Shunshin no Shisui became perhaps the most famous Uchiha after Madara himself. A technique when paired with his "visual prowess" made him influential during the third war and in the rebuild after. The library book was vague on what that meant, but looking at him now she could see Shisui was perhaps 17 years old. He'd fought a war at her age. He was a hero.

When another man appeared below Sakura tensed. For an old man he was huge. His broad shoulders and face half wrapped in bandages. The sight was foreboding. Instinctively, she pulled her colors deeper into herself as if it could hide her from view. She didn't want that man's attention on her. She didn't like how he looked at Shisui, how his colors changed with his focus and proximity to the Uchiha hero.

The man felt wrong. His colors were distorted around the bandages. As if the colors were in flux and fighting against themselves, as if some pieces were invading. Everything about his chakra was unsettling. Sakura stiffened the closer he got and the more he spoke. The way he looked at Shunshin no Shisui held malicious hunger.

"Shisui, I hear what you and your cousin are saying. I think we can find a solution for you, outside your Clan, outside ANBU, free from their influence. You could work as much or as little as you like. If you come back with us I'll show you what we have setup."

"Back where?"

"To one of our root homes."

She saw Shisui look from left to right. He seemed to notice the swarm of chakra presses which had shown up. The boy began to back up.

"Danzo-sama?" He questioned, suddenly uncertain.

"Come back with us Shisui. We'll take care of you."

"No, I'm not interested in that. I need to help my father."

"We can do that. My people are the best, nearly as well trained as Tsunade herself."

Shisui, distracted by the offer, didn't expect the chakra coiling in the man's body. Yet Sakura did. She saw it building up in his arm, the same way Iruka Sensei did when he wanted to strike exceptionally fast. Oh no. She felt her heart was in her throat. Not this. Then it happened, but so much worse than she'd predicted. When the man punched Shisui, she didn't even think, she let go of the tiniest flickering chakra holding her to her perch.

Chapter 3: Councilmen and White Masks

She saved Shisui on accident, though if it'd been presented to her as an option she would have made a better plan. Any plan really that didn't include an untrained six year old practicing chakra control in the forest above a council members' clandestine organ extraction.

She hadn't known at the time he was a councilman. Nor did Sakura know he was attempting to tear out the teenager's right eye, his hand getting so far as to pop the eye partly out of the socket when she startled them both. Shisui, who was already reeling back from the attack, was having his eye pulled out.

Sakura saw this just as she landed between them and it made her so angry. This was the Uchiha hero who'd saved so many of his comrades with his shunshin. The anger and frustration which had been building up in her since lunch flooded back. Bringing chakra with it the colors burst forth with a vengeance. Their flows coalesced into the chakra network of her muscles. With an inarticulate scream she threw herself at the man trying to nab the hero's eye. In this moment he didn't seem like a person. He was something worse. She lunged at him. Sakura's tiny chakra laden fist smashed into his stomach, the highest part on him that she could reach.

Only when she hit him it wasn't like punching a hole through wood. She felt her fist connect and puncture tissue, her knuckles separated muscles, they sunk in and disappeared beneath and ruptured a hole straight into the stomach. It was wet. Blood, bile, and the contents of his colon erupted on her. It coated her arm and splattered on her screaming face. The man let go of Shisui's eyeball and reached to grab her. Sakura's vision blurred and stung with the gross liquid squirting in her eyes, but through all this she could still see. Even with her hand in his stomach he was angry and reaching for her.

Her quick brain finally caught up with her stupid body. It concluded she was going to die. If she didn't move she was going to die. Quicker than she'd ever done anything, fueled and sped up by the chakra still flowing through her muscles, she yanked her hand out and stumbled back. Back till she was pressed against Shisui. The old man in front of her stumbled with her but remained standing. He shouted a command, his words harsh and full of venom.

The white masks descended on them. Eight of them, their blank and white masked faces eerie in the red valley's setting sun. The figures ran close and reached towards them. Sakura screamed again. The one who got to her first bent down as if to snatch her. Only she was tiny and by doing so he put himself within her reach. She punched him too. His armored mask cracked under the pressure, revealing the face and broken nose beneath, and he went flying into and through a tree. This, however, seemed to be her limit of control. Inside her limbs the chakra sputtered. That flow she'd so meticulously maintained then faltered. Sakura felt her muscles quake as the flood released and sent the man flying. Like a puppet unable to hold herself up without the support her legs collapsed under her. Tired from her run through the trees and her first two attempts at punching real people. Chakra or no her muscles weren't strong enough to support this and she dropped. Her long pink hair fell on the ground before her face hit the dirt. It dug into her left temple and she stared up at the figures looming above.

The fight around her flurried in a movement of hand signs, jutsu, and taijutsu. Shisui the Uchiha hero moved so fast, flickering out of one place only for his body to appear nearby with his sword unsheathed. He killed one, then two. Or she guessed he did. He moved faster than she could track, only leaving a flash of color and a dead body before he flickered away again. From the undignified sprawl in the red dirt she watched it happen in approximately two seconds. So fast, she had only a single moment to be amazed before registering someone's hand had just gripped the back of her dress.

Her body was slung up and then whoever held her was moving through the trees. She blinked down the shoulder she'd been slung across. Across the back was Shisui's sword. Like the hero he was he'd put it away before grabbing her up. However much she admired him, she realized he had been injured. He ran with a limp and he sometimes ran into the tree branches instead of perfectly landing. The masks behind them, though some had died, now numbered nine people. They were chasing them and they were fast, just as fast as the injured Uchiha hero. Sakura reached for the academy standard hip pouch and fumbled for a kunai. She threw it at the ninja leading the chase. He dodged it as if she'd thrown a leaf. Not slowing in the slightest. She grabbed another one and some of the ninja wire Iruka Sensei had handed out the other day. Wrapped it first around one hilt and then the next. Her fingers shook as she twisted and wrapped the academy standard wire around the hilts. Sakura twisted them as tight as she could, slicing herself twice on the sharp wire when she mishandled it.

This time she didn't throw immediately. Sakura watched the foliage coming up and waited for the cover of the next big tree. As Shisui landed next to it she slammed one kunai into the bark then leaned sideways to throw its pair against a neighboring tree. The wire stretched between them, not as tight as she'd like, but the sharp edge nicely hid amongst the shadows.

Then they were off to another perch. Sakura didn't see it, but a garbled voice rose out from behind them. When the pursuers next appeared from a cluster of trees the leader's pants had been slashed, the red soaking through. The man met her eyes across the five meters separating them and snarled. Sakura felt cold, the blood drained from her face. This was bad. This was really bad.

Her untrained eyes had a hard time keeping up. Though focusing chakra to them helped, if giving her a headache immediately after. When Shisui's body tensed and made a much bigger jump, she realized the increasingly sparse trees meant they'd gotten away from the forest and had closed in on the Village's apartments near the edge of Konoha's protective wall. Shisui scrambled up the huge wall, running flat out up its massive surface. Sakura looked at the ground and apartments disappear below them and her throat went dry.

Her awareness of the colors circulating within another person's body had never been so great as it was in this moment. Shisui's chakra control was the only thing keeping her body from plunging a hundred meters to her death. When his chakra flared and flickered her breath shuttered, sure they were going to fall. Yet the flaring chakra burst out of him in a pattern. This pattern kept repeating. It wasn't even a high level code, but the simplest of distress signals Iruka Sensei had only this week introduced to their academy class.

It blared the single word, "Help. Help. Help." To anyone and everyone who could sense such strong flares. The chakra inside of him burst like an erupting bon fire each time it shot out. His mix of colors so unique and interesting she wasn't sure she'd ever forget them. At least she wouldn't if she survived and got off this wall, a possibility Sakura really doubted just then.

At Shisui's broadcast of trouble the pursuing ninja lost all sense of discretion. One lifted their mask above lips, and with fingers held before those lips Sakura saw him power up a surge of colors and out of his mouth he formed fire. It glowed, built hotter and larger, and then shot forwards. It formed a massive fireball and roared through the air, shot up the wall and straight at her face.

Sakura had just enough time to realize, "Ah this is why you went up the wall. Can't have the apartments burning."

She hadn't thought she'd spoken aloud until the teenager sprinting with her chuckled. The sound was scratchy and derogatory. Sakura felt his weight shift as he dove away from the fireball and launched them atop the wall. His laugh shouldn't sound so bitter. The sound made her sad. If he survived she thought she should try and make him happy. A child who helped win a war shouldn't have to be so sad when they grow up.

His bitter chuckle continued, as if he couldn't stop now he'd begun. Then his scratchy voice informed, "They weren't going to draw attention to themselves if they could help it. It would have been better for them if they'd gotten us quietly in the forest. You notice they didn't attack with anything flashy back there, ya?"

"Ya," She understood immediately. Sakura thought he'd make a good sensei. "It's better for us if we get everyone's attention. So they were sneaky."

"Hmm." He went on, "Girl, can you run?"

Run? Could she run? Sakura's dry throat tried to swallow, tried to speak, but the thought of trying to run left her terrified. Another huge fireball shot towards them and it singed the tips of her hair before Shisui could get them out of the way. The heated air blazed by, feeling extremely hot wafting against the skin of her head and neck. Her hair left smoke as Shisui jumped and sprinted. Run? Could she run?

Her voice was dry and quiet when it squeaked out, "I don't know. I can try."

In the distance Sakura saw colors of shinobi jumping across the rooftops. She'd seen them a moment ago, but they were quickly drawing closer. Near enough she could see their bright bursts as their chakra sped them faster and faster. She just hoped they weren't the bad sort running to assist the blank masked attackers.

Worried this is exactly what it was Sakura licked her lips with a dry tongue, stammering out a warning, "There's more ninja coming from the southwest. They're coming fast. Four of them. No, three. One broke off and is running towards the administration tower."

"When they get here, if they're friendly, I'm going to set you down and you're going to run. Run atop the wall and run as fast and as far as you can. If you have to you're going to concentrate chakra in your fists again and you're going to break anyone's leg who tries to grab you. Got that?"

Sakura's legs and arms were still trembling from their last exertion, but she thought she could do that. Probably. If she didn't pass out first. The rush of adrenaline had begun to make her feel sick. It hurt her tummy and she'd been bouncing around long enough she really thought she might soon be sick. But Shisui thought she could do it. She would do it.

"Okay."

They ran over the wall. Those blank, featureless, white masked shinobi followed. Shisui's distress signal continued to flare. Ninja flocked them. What happened next was so fast and full of people she saw it happen in snippets of time and moments of killing blows. Severed heads flying and bouncing off the wall, parries of kunai, flashes of lightning and fire jutsu encircling the rescuers.

The blank masks, who kept getting more and more numerous and the three non-blank masks destroyed this section of the wall. When Danzo-sama showed up wanting the eye he'd only partially been able to extract, it turned into a bloodbath.

A streak of white chakra flared brighter than anything she'd ever seen from a single ninja. The white chakra rescuer moved so fast Sakura only saw the streak of color they left behind, then their hand plunged in the councilman's chest with a crackling fist of lightning. The rescuer's hand went through the chest cavity before dropping the councilman and then assassinating another six people in the same way. One clear shot and their organs were fried, their hearts removed.

By then Shisui had put her on the wall and Sakura ran. Her trembling, stumbling legs nearly toppled her over the edge, but she calmed her breathing and focus enough to hang on with her toes. They barely caught her and she teetered, but then she got her legs under her and found she could run just like Shisui said. His words went through her head. She repeated them again and again to keep calm. Run. Concentrate your chakra. Break their legs. A man did reach her. He had the same bleeding leg she'd injured with her wire and this time when he snarled at her it was much louder and more scary. When he grabbed her by her long pink hair she whirled around, chakra in her fist and smacked his knee just like Shisui said. She didn't stop to watch as he toppled over the wall, she turned and kept running. Behind her she heard an explosion and the wall beneath her feet trembled. Sakura ran.

---

The current team Ro had been assigned to patrol that night. Their armored uniforms hid the identities of Kakashi, Tenzo, Yūgao, and Genma. Kakashi had been leading them on a route circling the residence of Minato's son when he felt that familiar signature. It'd been several years since he'd trained the pair of Uchiha prodigies, but he'd know either of their chakra signatures anywhere. Shisui's always felt unique, unforgettable. Kakashi was used to it feeling happy or joking, but now it felt panicked. It mixed with the Hatake's famous white chakra, conveying a deeper emotional connection than any other clan would be able to sense. It tracked location as well as emotions of the person expulsing chakra.

Hatake Kakashi launched himself on the roof, a barked order left for the patrol team swiftly following, as he sprinted toward the panicked signal. Shisui didn't panic. The teenager had been in the war from the same age Kakashi had himself. Shisui handled himself under all but the worst situations. If he was panicking it meant he'd very nearly died. Kakashi saw the fireball, his left eye opening to expose the sharingan red and clarifying details even at this distance.

Shisui ran, a girl on his shoulder, an injury bleeding on his leg, and an eye half hanging out of its socket. The younger boy kept reaching up to hold it to his face. The pair of his arms occupied and leaving him clumsy as he dodged the second fireball jutsu. No. Kakashi sweated, running faster. He saw Shisui with his eye bleeding and hanging halfway out of his head. No. Clutching a little pink haired girl with shaking hands. A horde of root ANBU on their heels. No.

"Tenzo, alert the Hokage."

Tenzo had the root seal under his tongue, and while Kakashi got the boy out of Root itself and recruited into ANBU, he didn't want to test the loyalty compulsion in the tongue seal. If Root was active en masse and in the open like this it meant Danzo-sama himself was nearby. The old War Hawk liked to get his hands in everything.

"Aim to kill."

Behind him Genma and Yūgao drew their weapons, "Hai Taichou."

With hand signs and minimal waste he blasted the three of them forward. Their bodies lifted and pushed like sails under the wind jutsu he'd named, "Mina". A way to remember his older brother figure. The idea his mentor unintentionally inspired while drunk over ramen. A sloshed Minato used to boast to his little silver haired student and the affable stand owner Teuchi. The man was too kind to throw them out despite how late it might be. Minato drunk and happy to tell them how he always wanted to sail and damn it all if he wouldn't do it in the middle of a forest someday.

This probably isn't what Minato had been thinking, but the man was so drunk when he claimed it Kakashi doubted he would have remembered the original idea. Regardless, Kakashi thought up the Mina jutsu when he and Itachi had been chasing the large group of Kumo nin who rigged a civilian street with explosives. It targeted wind vectors to the exact points specified, would pick them up and launch them as far and as long as desired, or until he depleted himself.

He once convinced his team to test its limits during a practice. Then preceded to blow them across the village and back three times before he collapsed with chakra exhaustion. This time the wind vectors picked Genma, Yūgao, and him up only to launch them a short half kilometer. Carried them faster above the dozens of roofs, faster than the alternatives of 15 consecutive shunshins or sprinting hard. He cut the vectors to drop them right behind the pursuing squads.

He chose the root member running at the back of the pursuing group. Kakashi, from his new position at the rear of the root ninja, picked off one member. Precisely executed just as team Ro practiced. If Shisui wasn't so fast he would have placed himself at the front of the group to block their advancement, but Shisui's speed (even while injured) should be relied on.

From the rear he and his team took out half the pursuers before the other root squads realized they were flanked. The beauty of perspective, few know you're there if they're facing the other way. If root weren't full of brainwashed members single mindedly following orders it would have been much harder to take out so many. That's the problem with removing free will. Your operators are only as good as your orders for them.

A chakra presence flared nearby. A large familiar presence often found kneeling to speak in the Hokage's office. If Kakashi hadn't been working so closely with Sarutobi he wouldn't have suspected so much was wrong about this situation. Clearly, the War Hawk hadn't been following the Hokage's plan to subdue the Uchiha Coup. It rather seemed he wanted to take advantage of the bad situation. Kakashi felt that little bit of empathy in himself dwindle.

"Danzo-sama."

"Go back to patrolling boy. This is above your clearance."

The old man just saw three ANBU uniforms and bodies in the ops standard henge to change their appearance. Today they all had dark hair and feline masks. He didn't know this was the elite unit Ro. Otherwise he probably wouldn't have attempted to order the Hokage's personal team.

"Your actions are not sanctioned by the Hokage. Order your men to stand down."

Behind the War Hawk another twelve signatures appeared, their chakra cloaked, but Kakashi was sensitive enough to catch the flux of their entry just below the War Hawk on the other side of the wall. Only one of the new root members stepped forwards. As if speaking only to the one Danzo-sama ignored Kakashi's warning and ordered loud and clear, "Kill the pink haired girl. Extract the eyes. Lock down the base until I or my replacement orders you otherwise."

Kakashi's fist moved, the lightning chakra of the chidori powered him forward and in the next flash his hand was through the old commander's chest, heart ripped from its place and the rest of the torso fried. Kakashi didn't pause. He moved again and again, trying to take out the nearest squad before they could follow through on their orders. He only got six of them. Three used the shunshin to travel away. Three went after the girl. Kakashi flickered in front of them, killing two with his tantō and the other got halfway to the running girl before being impaled by Kakashi's earth spike.

The girl herself wasn't helpless. A bleeding root almost caught her, but she must have sensed him. The tiny, ridiculously pink head of hair spun around, her fist raised and coated with chakra and she smashed the root's knee. The kneecap shattered, the femur pierced skin and by the spurt of blood Kakashi estimated that one would be dead within five minutes. Just in case, Kakashi made the hand signs for a Kage Bunshin clone and sent it to finish the root now clinging to the side of the wall. Another sent to guard the girl from the shadows. It wouldn't approach her.

Yūgao stood in front of Shisui's pale form as he leaned against a blown up chunk of the wall. The woman sliced an arm off the last remaining root still attacking the injured kid. Then her katana swung and stabbed up through the bottom of the rib cage. When the root member went limp against her she pushed the body off the end of her blade and immediately pulled a rag out to clean the expensive metal. Yūgao was a perfectionist. Her blade work surpassed his own.

With his team standing watch he went to Shisui. This kid wasn't a kid anymore, but Kakashi had never been able to separate his feelings from his mission, not like the ninja rules said he should. Just like his father he'd forever give everything for his comrades and this kid he'd practically raised. Shisui was his otōto in everything but Hatake blood. Shisui, the kid who's head was only just reaching above his shoulder and who still had gangly limbs. Limbs that were shaking. He had a hand pressed over one of his sharingan eyes, the blood still leaking between his fingers. He was breathing and alive and Danzo would never hurt him again. Kakashi had never been so happy to rip someone's heart out. That craggy shit had done this to his otōto.

He was so relieved he hugged the younger boy. Although only a few years separated them Kakashi's frame dwarfed him. Shisui no doubt would continue to grow if he were allowed to survive into his early 20s. So many ninja didn't make it there. The ones who did were always more built. Kakashi's own time in ANBU, the daily brutal training with Gai, the S rank missions, it kept him twice the weight he might have otherwise maintained. No doubt if he ever quit he'd slim down, but Kakashi had no desire to lounge around with nothing but memories and regrets to hound him. No, he needed ANBU. It was his redemption and purpose. Training kids like Shisui, Itachi, Genma, Raidō, and now Tenzo... Seeing them grow up and come close to surpassing himself. Knowing they're strong enough to take on almost anyone short of a Sannin. They were his life. Not someone from his team. No. Kakashi would never let that happen again. Not his otōto.

"Taichou."

They all still called him Taichou, despite almost all of them now leading their own squads.

"Taichou I don't know what to do. My clan. Danzo, he tried to steal my eye. He's after our eyes. I...what if he does something to my family? My otousan-"

"Shh, not here." He let the younger boy go. "Flicker over to that girl. I saw her break somebody's leg and she's still running."

Shisui chuckled. That sad, dark chuckle he'd been doing for months. Hearing it made him frown. Kakashi didn't like the similarities he was seeing in Shisui and his own father before the man had taken his life. If there was anything him or the forsaken kami could do for this boy, Kakashi would find a way to make it happen. He didn't deserve this. The chuckle pervaded the pre-rain mist around them, floating over the wall and its litter of root uniforms.

"Ya, she follows orders. I'll go get her."

Chapter 4: Interrogation

She ran so far Sakura thought she might have reached a completely different section of Konoha. The circular village which would take about two hours to walk a straight line across (if she could ever find a bunch of streets in a straight line) meant walking along the circumference of it would take anybody a lot longer. Sakura kept running. Her legs sprinted as fast as they could go with chakra, pushing the muscles which shouldn't be able to do this. Even so she didn't get 1/8 of the way around the wall before someone found her. When the next person appeared in front of her, she swung her arm back, and with another scream Sakura lunged at them.

His body flickered one step to the right. Her fist met air. He stepped back to avoid her next adrenaline induced hit.

"Woah woah, calm down, it's me."

She swung again, almost fell off the wall, and only saw through the sweat and blood crusting over her eyes when a hand grabbed the back of her ragged dress in a familiar hold. He slung her up and held her high enough she looked him straight in the face. Her mouth was so very dry.

She croaked out, "Shisui?"

His eyes narrowed, he looked at her civilian dress, her cheap shinobi sandals, and finally landing on her school purchased hip pouch all students got their first week. Then he let out a bitter, sad laugh, "A little academy student knows my name. How do you know my name?"

"They mention you in books."

"Those wouldn't have pictures. Did someone send you to target me?"

"No!" Sakura pleaded.

She felt creeping horror at how this was turning out. He didn't like her answer. He shook her, the jerking motion made her limbs knock back and forth in the air. Her toes dangled above the far away apartment buildings. How he held her so far out from the wall, she thought he might get sick of her and drop her off the edge.

Her voice came out quiet, "Please stop. I'm an academy student."

"A little academy student hiding in the trees and getting in fights she should have well stayed out of."

"You're a hero. I couldn't let him hurt you. Even if he hurt me. At least you'd be okay," Her lip was trembling by the end of it.

Today had been too much: the bullying, the temper of the one girl she thought might eventually be her friend, running through the trees, attacking the councilman, the chase, the fireball jutsu which nearly incinerated her. Sakura's breathing started to shudder. It turned into big gulping intakes.

The assassination and dismemberment of their pursuing masked ninja. The one who'd remembered her and chased after her. The sound he made as she broke his leg and left him to fall over the wall. If she hadn't killed three people today, her actions had led to their deaths. The man she'd punched in the forest, she'd seen his eyes roll as the nose collapsed and punctured into his head. Her lip trembled harder.

Shisui was so sad and angry already she didn't want to cry in front of him. What did she have to worry about? He was the one who people wanted to steal parts from.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make it worse."

He heaved a sigh. With this sound his arm lowered her body so she dangled around the height of his chest. He seemed to be thinking heavily about something. His arm lowered again, this time swinging her body back over the wall. Her toes barely brushed the surface. He continued to let her dangle as he muttered.

"It was going to be bad no matter what. You saved me."

"You don't seem happy about that. I'm sorry you're sad."

He let her go and her legs collapsed under her. Her cheeks, already flushed and sweated from her run, they flamed with her embarrassment. She tried to stand and discovered the muscles of her legs shook so bad she wouldn't be able to do anything more than sit down right where she was. He sighed again. A reaction, she could only assume, to the pathetic failure of her limbs. Her lip trembled harder and she had to wipe her eyes before they released all the tears she'd been holding back.

"Hey none of that."

She hid her face.

"Kami I'm such a dobe. Please. Please stop."

She sensed him moving back and forth in front of her. But the tears, no matter how her hands tried to hold them in, they just kept coming. She wished she wasn't here. She wished she was anywhere else. Sakura pulled up the torn and singed collar of her ruined dress and buried her face inside it. Another presence full of chakra appeared beside Shisui, the hero who'd rather she hadn't saved him. She cried harder.

"Who's this?"

"No idea. The girl who saved me when the councilman tried to take my eye. He almost got it too, see?"

There were a few quiet words she couldn't hear above her own balling and only the order, "Calm her down. We'll need to talk with her."

Then the presence was gone and she was alone with Shisui again. She felt the teenager move from his stance above her, felt his presence lower till he was smaller, not so looming as before. He still had that hardness to him which made him as dangerous as a kunai. He looked small now and with less bright colors, but he'd just killed people and shook her over the edge of a 100 meter wall. This had all been so scary.

"Hey can you look at me? I promise everything will be ok. At least tonight. No one will hurt you."

She snapped her face up, disbelieving he'd just said that. If he was trying to make her feel better he was terrible at it. The moment of her incredulity made her tears lesson to a dull stream. Still holding her dress collar to her leaking nose, she peered at him. He really was terrible at this. He'd made his chakra go away, it no longer burned bright as an inferno, but looked as small as an academy student's.

Her next question was muffled by her dirty dress collar, "Why are you angry?"

"So many reasons." Shisui looked at her, really looked at her, his eyes flaring bright, dangerous red. But then they flickered back to black and his shoulders slumped, defeated, "None of them have anything to do with you. I'm sorry I took it out on you. I'm not used to talking to people, not honestly."

"If you're nice you can talk to me."

That sad, broken smile was back. All the anger was gone and in its place this shell remained.

She didn't know what to say, so offered what her okaasan always did, "Do you want a hug?"

He looked as if she'd fed him old food from the fridge. Not daring to wait she lunged at him. From his crouched position next to her he caught her and when she wrapped her arms around him he stiffened. She clung on as gently as she could around his neck. His hands fell as if he'd no idea what to do with them, they stayed that way for a minute before he began to pat her back.

She loosened her hold. Sakura leaned back to look at the teenager's still bleeding face. The eye partially dislodged had been put back inside the socket but it was bloody and still oozing. Damaged. Just like her scratches, she thought about the way green chakra could come from her hands if she was real careful. Sakura raised her left hand and stared at it. Her brow squished with the effort, but when the green appeared the flow of the color was stronger and more steady than it'd ever been before. The boy stiffened again under her. She looked up, raising her hand to cover that small part of his face. His bloody eye under the glowing green of her hand. He didn't move. She pressed her palm as gently as possible over it and held it there as long as she thought she could control the chakra. When it began to sputter and her arm was shaking she lowered it.

She examined the eye. It was still crusted with blood, but didn't appear to be actively bleeding so much. Perhaps not at all. It was hard to tell. She stared so intently at the injury she didn't immediately react when that chakra presence from before returned. The eye was more interesting than anything else in that moment. She'd never seen eyes flash different colors before, and his when he'd done it had flared with a swirling flow of chakra, a flow which had dimmed and snuffed out the red. He might be a sad boy who had to kill people, who was bad at talking, but he'd taken her away from the bad people. He could have run and left her alone in the forest. He hadn't left her there. He was still a hero. The idea took root in Sakura and she felt it all the way to her core. That place her own colors flowed from.

It was the boy she still clung to who greeted the man's return, "Hokage-sama."

"Are you both ready to report?"

"I believe so."

Shisui stood up. With her arm still flung around his neck he simply lifted her as well.

"She knows my identity Hokage-sama."

"And she saw you with the councilman."

"Unfortunately."

She didn't know why seeing Uchiha Shisui meeting in the forest with the councilman was bad. Besides the man attacking him. That shouldn't cause trouble for Shisui should it? Sakura twisted to see an old man with a short cropped white beard, a hard face, and penetrating eyes. He nodded and gave his shinobi directions. Sakura heard these, but in that very minute she didn't understand what they truly meant. They spoke words she knew, but without any context to understand their true meaning. It was another code she realized.

"Take her for questioning at T and I. If she's above board she can stay under lock in the ANBU's joint headquarters and barracks."

Sakura was too shocked to ask why she couldn't go home. She was too tired to cry. Despite what the man in white said, she hadn't expected to be taken to the depths of a concrete building. Shisui disappeared, she watched the empty place he'd been standing a moment before. Her wide eyes hoping he'd come back. He didn't, he'd been ordered to leave her here, she realized. She wished he'd come back. He might be scary, but she felt better having him with her.

This place was worse. No one smiled. Their colors were as muted as the grey uniforms they wore and the walls they worked in. It's like the colors couldn't survive past the building's threshold. The feeling got worse when they escorted her to a room with a big, shiny window. She couldn't see any colors outside of the room. It was cold and the metal table they placed her at was colder. When they strapped her to the chair she shivered and it was as if all the colors inside her were frozen. They couldn't move, they couldn't flow or grow.

Her mouth felt so scratchy and dry now she coughed. But her hands weren't free so she just coughed onto the surface of the table. She could see the reflection of the people in it. The one who'd strapped her down stepped aside, made way for two older, more serious men. One was blonde. He was the blonde man she'd seen speaking to the Jōnin Commander outside of the academy on the first day. Ino's relative, her dad? Sakura stared at him, feeling mulish, tired, and not at all liking the way he looked down at her.

"You are an academy student." He looked at her and it took Sakura a moment to realize he wanted her to respond.

"Yes."

It didn't come out smooth and nice. Her throat was scratchy and tickled in a bad way. She didn't think they'd give her water if she asked for it. Not with the way they'd looked at the burn on the side of her neck and shoulder and done nothing. Sakura was beginning to think she didn't like Ino's dad.

"You come from a civilian family, but you have the top marks of any student in your year."

Another statement. He waited for her to answer. Why was he doing this? She didn't understand.

"Yes?"

He had a stack of files next to him. He flipped through them, picked one out and opened it. She saw a flash of her own picture.

"Your instructor writes you excelled in the chakra control exercise. Sub-par forms shown in class, not even attempting to hit or kick back." He lowered the file, her academy record, she realized. Then he picked up another paper, "Yet it says here you were seen channeling chakra to trunk walk, to run, to channel it to your fists the same way Tsunade of the Sannin would. You've been hiding your abilities."

She burst out, "I haven't."

"You have. Who trained you?"

"No one trained me!" She burst out again. She looked back and forth between them. They didn't believe her. An edge of panic crawled through her. She rushed to explain, "I read it in a library book and figured it out. I've been practicing on my own, but I can't make it so it won't hurt people. I couldn't hit my classmates."

She'd never felt miserable, not the thing people describe it as. She did now. It got worse the longer Sakura talked to the blonde man and the man with that wide, mean looking face with scars peaking out of his bandana. They questioned her. Demanded to know why she'd been in the forest, why she'd attacked the councilman, why she felt Uchiha Shisui was a hero. At this question she'd stared at the blonde interrogator as if he'd lost his head, just like those people on top of the wall, he may as well have had it cut off if he couldn't understand why Uchiha Shisui was a hero. She probably shouldn't have told him that in so many words.

After that little outburst big man had grabbed her arm and lifted her up. A lot of people had been lifting her up today. With her legs dangling in the air he towed her down a twisting passage, snapped an order at a man in a grey uniform who quickly unlocked a metal door and shuffled ahead to open a set of bars. Sakura was dropped on the floor and when she turned around she found she'd been placed into a cell with bars blocking her from an equally cold and grey hallway. No one stayed with her. Once the two men left with the heavy bang of a door the hallway light dimmed. It was so dark and quiet, she curled her arms around herself. The floor beneath her too hard and chilled to let her truly rest, she spent hours holding onto herself.

Sakura wondered what her parents had done when she hadn't shown up at home. She hoped they weren't worried. She hoped they would let her go home soon. With a half-hearted sniff she realized she could see her own colors again. Sakura stared at them, stared so long she nodded in and out of sleep. The night shifted around her form shivering in that cell.

---

In Shikamaru's brief assessment, he'd decided the Nara's veranda was the most peaceful place in the village. Surrounded by kilometers of trees it was secluded from most of the population. The nearby tokonoma sunk into the wall, displaying a wide painting, some fresh flowers from the Yamanakas, and the place his dad hid his favorite alcohol and shogi board.

It was on these nights out on the veranda, when his dad would pull out his drink that Shikamaru knew they would play as long as he could keep his eyes open. His dad, in Shikamaru's opinion, was one of the few nin truly worthy of emulating. He didn't try to make people know how far he could think ahead, he just lived and did his job well. He was content. So few people could keep up with the 6 year old. Grown adults shrank away from his statements, and largely avoided him. It was worse in his own age group. Growing up and attending clan functions where the other kids weren't scared of him, not like the adults, but neither seemed to have the capacity to realize much of anything which happened. It was... Discouraging. So he clung to his dad. Cherished his friendship.

Warm light of the engawa reflected off the carved bone board. The flat shogi pieces positioned around the board, protected strongly on one side, giving the appearance of an opening on the other. In 6 moves he'd make his first assault. The tall man across from him drank from a short glass smelling of sweet dark liquor. His long legs bent as he leaned in to assess the available spaces.

Then the pieces shook. He had a split second to register the solid molecules, being so close together, transmitted the energy quicker than their less dense counterparts in the air. Then the air blew warm on his face, pushing Shikamaru's loose hair across his forehead. The sound left his ears echoing a high pitch.

"Otousa--"

"Stay here."

His dad shot off. Only with quick motions of throwing his shadow after him, stretching it further and further as his dad ran into the deep forest, was the small boy able to follow. He ran, knowing he couldn't do much, but also knowing the likelihood of an attacker getting this deep into Konoha's patrolled territory without being seen by the patrols. Another wave of vibrations shook the ground beneath him. Loose branches fell from above. One nearly hit him and as the massive branch scraped his shoulder before crashing his heart pounded harder than it ever had in training. The village was being attacked. His dad was far ahead of him, alone and without backup besides his 6 year old son. Then Shikamaru had nearly been taken out by a tree branch. He ran harder. For the first time in his life putting real effort into how his legs moved, streamlined the movement, pushed chakra through them so they'd push farther and farther. He flew and it felt good.

Scary too, but good. He didn't catch his dad, but he passed gouges in the trees, three dead bodies sprawled in a crevice near the Naka River. Kunai, ninja wire, blood on the white exposed trunks of broken trees. His shadow clung tight to his dad's shirt, stretched thin and long and weak, but it held. His father had stopped moving for a moment, then he was moving every direction in a sequence of jerks which could only be fighting, launching, defending.

He ran faster, cursing himself for never really trying each time his mom showed him the tree climbing exercise. He'd fallen asleep halfway through her explanation. Running on the ground as he was, it's too slow. The next large tree he saw, he sped up, focusing just the chakra he needed to his core and to the soles of his feet. Then he ran up, straight across one of the larger tree branches calculated to get him the best chance of reaching the next tree. It did. Tree after tree, it allowed him to catch up with his otousan. He came upon three blank masks surrounding the tall Nara head. One lunged, the tip of his Kunai cut into his dad's arm, who unarmed and somehow already gotten one of them, didn't move in time. Shikamaru felt when his dad used his shadow to grab the man, lift his arm, and slit his own throat.

The other two converged at the same time. Utilizing their teammate's last gurgling breaths to flank the shadow user. Shikamaru, panicking, grabbed one with his shadow. He didn't have enough control to move the limbs, but he held him from slicing a tantō across his dad's exposed back. He trembled under the effort. He'd never caught someone before. Never felt them fight against his hold, getting more vicious and desperate. It wasn't a good feeling.

Then the man on his hold went slack, limbs jerking but in weakening spasms. Shikamaru stared wide-eyed as he felt the man stop moving. Dead in his grasp. The ANBU-like uniform of the man who'd almost gotten his dad. The blank mask looked wrong, but the black Konoha swirl on the man's uniform marked him as some form of village shinobi. A threat from within their own village. His dad had almost died and he almost hadn't been there. Almost hadn't been fast enough.

A large hand settled on his shoulder, the warmth seeping in at odds with the chill of the family jutsu leaking out of him. He hadn't realized he was trembling till his dad squeezed his shoulder.

"You can let go now."

He startled, promptly dropped the dead weight straining against his shadows in a completely different way than the vicious struggle before. He let his chakra go. Watched as the dark coils faded with his jutsu.

Shikamaru swallowed and turned to see his dad next to him. He'd never seen the Nara Clan Head so disheveled. He stood with a bleeding arm holding the stolen kunai.

"You alright?"

"I didn't think it would be so-" Shikamaru trailed off, face darkening. He'd sacrificed so many pieces, thought it wouldn't ever matter to him so much, but the man struggling nearly beat him...it shifted his perspective. The idea they'd fight back, might succeed, and if he didn't do more it would cost his pieces. His dad. It almost cost him his dad. He hadn't imagined this sort of struggle. Why hadn't he? His dad was the Jōnin Hanchō. The highest rank a Jōnin could be while still retaining status as a normal shinobi. The man almost died. He shoved that thought and the surge of guilt it brought far away to be analyzed later.

His dad reached down to remove the tantō from the dead man.

Another explosion shook the ground, the sound coming faster and much louder than what they'd heard at the house.

"Come on," His dad picked him up and ran them towards the sound.

It wasn't hard to find, not when two bodies thudded with surprising force at the base of the wall. His dad ran them up, with a speed and agility which surprised him. Shikamaru looked at his dad and for the first time realized he'd underestimated him. It was an uncomfortable feeling full of some emotion which lodged tight in his throat. If his eyes watered, he blinked that nonsense away fast enough his dad didn't seem to notice.

When they arrived atop the wall, the part bordering just above the cheap civilian apartments, he saw a crying girl. Seeing her bloody and crying seemed to stop everything and for once his head was completely silent. He knew that shade of hair. The pink shown on top of the wall and amidst the dead sprawled across it.

He only saw her for a moment before his dad was moving again, moved to speak quietly with a tall man with the Taichou insignia over his ANBU tattoo. They spoke in a code Shikamaru listened, picked patterns from, and just as he felt he might crack the code they finished and his dad moved on to speak with the Hokage. Infuriatingly, they used a different and vastly more complex coded language.

Shikamaru sat through their long winded conversation with a mulish draw on his face. He didn't get anything until much later that night, when his dad convinced him to change into pajamas and someone knocked on their door. Shikamaru, who'd just been tucked in, snuck down the hall as quiet as the shadows themselves. His sock covered feet sliding on the polished, expensive hard wood which didn't creak so long as he stepped in the precise pattern his grandfather had designed for the house. One no intruder could hope to anticipate, a pattern of steps and counted distances it'd taken him a month to memorize from the drawings in his dad's study.

It had paid off many times in the past year, sneaking away from his mother who loved to harp and shrill about the smallest things. Who had much harder time catching him if he woke up early and slipped out of the house without a sound. It meant he had to catch up on sleep elsewhere, but it was a cost he willingly paid. Better even because Choji never minded when he slept.

He crept closer to hear the muffled words. It was Choji's dad's voice. However, what he heard made him freeze.

"That girl saved the Uchiha's life and Inoichi has her locked up. She's 6. Her parents were good, of course she's good too. Locked up in interrogation and you know what they'll probably threaten her family with?"

"It won't get that far. They're loyal."

"You know that. I know that. Inoichi should too."

"He never has been rational, he's embarrassed his girl isn't scoring as high. Apparently all the Sensei were speaking how good of an analyst she'll be, that she could eventually lead the Information Division."

"Oh I bet he hated that. Wanted it for his girl."

He could almost hear his dad shrug, "If the clanless kid outscores the inbreeding maybe it wasn't working as intended. Maybe she should get the spot."

When he heard their empty glasses hit the table and the Akimichi head yawn, Shikamaru quickly and quietly backed away. His dreams that night full of blank masks around the Nara forest, a tantō lowering on his dad, and a crying pink haired girl strapped to a table. In the morning he woke up to find his sheets soaked in sweat. His breathing faster and slightly hitched. He showered, ate breakfast as his mother chattered on about what Ino's mom found at the newest clothing store. Her voice and words droned in the back of his thoughts.

At school a completely different story floated around. Apparently the entire village heard the chunk of the wall bordering the Nara forest when it blew sky high. It was all the kids could talk about, chattering and guessing and switching seats to hear new stories of how the village had been attacked. How one of the Councilmen died defending it. No one noticed the empty seat next to him. Not even the teacher looked twice. They all just assumed the smart civilian-born girl had quit.

Shikamaru felt sick.

Chapter 5: Lies Will Save Or Doom

Team Ro's shift hadn't ended. The hours stretched on, their uniforms getting uncomfortable with dried sweat. The blood on his knuckles and under his fingernails had dried to dark brown smears. By the early morning hours Inu knew his team was ready to go home. He could feel the sleepiness thrumming in them. The anticipation of the earlier fight had worn off and they'd been watching Sarutobi do paperwork for the past three hours. Dawn's light crept through the tower's windows, glinting off the masks of Team Ro and their increasingly tired postures.

A knock sounded, brisk and demanding. Inu straightened, feeling both relieved and on guard at the noise. He looked over to Sarutobi.

"Open it."

He complied. A scarred man stepped through, his wide head covered by a bandana and a hard set to his jaw. He looked angry, but his chakra mingled with Kakashi's and he was surprised to discover the Commanding Officer of Konoha's Torture and Interrogation Force wasn't just angry, but also amused and excited. It was a strange mix coming from the usually dour man.

"She's innocent. Her parents likely are as well."

"Check them anyways. Danzo was sure their retirement was suspicious."

"With all due respect Hokage-sama, the old War Hawk didn't like anyone who turned down his promotion offers."

Kakashi felt a stir of unease.

The Sandaime was in the middle of a long report on village spending. He glanced up briefly, "Regardless, we need to be sure."

"And the girl?" The tokubetsu jōnin pushed.

Kakashi had always respected Morino Ibiki. The man knew exactly how far he could push to get his results without any undesirable backlash. In an office full of clan-sponsored positions the ability to rise above them must have taken not just intelligence and skill, but years of savvy maneuvering. Morino had gotten it and kept it.

"I'll take care of it."

Kakashi's unease spiked to alarm. His shoulders stiffened, but he didn't move to fall into line before the old man motioned for him.

"Inu with me. The rest of you are dismissed for the day. Thank you for staying so long."

"Hai Hokage-sama."

He followed after the Sandaime, wondering what he wanted with the girl. From what they'd seen she showed Tsunade-level of control, the first in Konoha within the last two generations. Sarutobi always had been fond of gathering up special projects. Kakashi had been one of them, and it made him all the more wary. The old man could have saved his father, could have announced to the village that the mission had been given false information, but he'd let the White Fang fall and scooped up his son from the aftermath. The parallels here made his steps stiff with each corner and underground hallway he followed the man.

"Under genjutsu," He ordered as they entered T and I.

Inu immediately obeyed. Cloaking his chakra to near nothing, blurring himself from view into a near perfect match of patterns, texture, and colors with the walls they passed. He'd always been good at hiding. The Sandaime often utilized this, bringing him and him alone to meetings where he wanted to appear more personable.

When they passed through the first cell block and stopped before one with more bars, the sort a child wouldn't even be able to slip through, he unconsciously slowed. His steps brought him just close enough to see the girl on the floor, huddling in on herself and visibly shivering. Sweet kami, he didn't think his heart could take this. Feelings seeped off the girl and mingled with his and at that moment he needed to do something. Anything.

Quietly, with his voice masked by a host of genjutsu-fed background noise, he offered to the Sandaime, "Do you want me to get her a bed arranged? You said she was to stay in younger ANBU Barracks right?"

In front of them Mitarashi Anko didn't seem to notice the conversation happening behind her. She just reached inside her old and ripped jacket for a set of keys. The sound of them jangling echoed.

"Ah, I seem to have forgotten that part. Yes, please do. She'll need somewhere to sleep."

Kakashi fled.

---

When she didn't have any more energy to be upset, she remembered the scarred, mean looking man who'd actually been nice. Sakura thought if she had to spend all her time here she'd be as grumpy as the scarred man in the bandana. The man, who may have seemed gruff and aggressive as he'd picked her up. Yet his hold had been gentle. He'd been the nicest person to her all night and she'd had enough hours in the cell to realize he might have done her a favor in removing her from the questioning room. She'd begun to feel bad for him the longer she stayed here. He probably didn't have very many pleasant visitors if he was stuck in this place every day.

Sakura felt dizzy but when she heard noises she cracked swollen, bloodshot eyes to squint. Through the gloom and bars she saw a young woman wearing the sort of edgy, revealing clothing Sakura's mom never would have approved for friendly spars let alone real fights. The woman slinked closer to the cell door in a way which had Sakura eyeing her. She was too tired and cold for this.

"Brat, you're being released into ANBU custody."

Sakura just stared at the woman's declaration. The tall woman opened the door then stepped aside to reveal a man in a long, white coat. Sakura blinked.

"Haruno Sakura you are being released under an offer of goodwill. Do you promise to behave yourself while in custody and not share any of the secrets you may learn while in said custody?"

She flicked her eyes to the young woman, whose face may be straight, but whose chakra fluctuated with emotion.

"Yes Sir."

"When your parents are cleared, you will be reunited with them."

"My parents?"

She looked up, scared, but the man had already swept aside. His cloak swung with the motion. The imperious 火 kanji bright against the white cloth. Around it his hat held the red imagery of a consuming fire. It hung far over him to shadow his face and hide the intent in his eyes. Sakura shifted. Despite the cell's low light he glowed in her eyes.

This man in white did not speak with her, just met her eyes, waved a hand, and turned. When he walked and the door was left open behind him she stumbled after. He walked and walked in a maze so long and twisted she wondered if she weren't still in her cell and dreaming. Only she never would have imagined she'd have been capable of getting her parents in trouble. The notion was simply too wild and terrible. That's how she knew this was real. It's what scared her into keeping her head down, to not look too closely at the people or locked doors they passed. She couldn't afford to make them any angrier.

ANBU Joint Headquarters and Barracks, as she soon found out, was a mostly underground facility connected to the most essential parts of the village by tunnels. They took one of these tunnels. They went through a final thick metal door which the old man had to open by bursting out colors through his hand. It happened so quickly and then he was swinging the doors open she never quite got a look at what he was doing. The way he stood blocked her view. They went by what might have been a bathroom, passed a sink and set of counters, passed three empty rooms with bunk beds and gear strewn about. They stopped at one with three teenagers inside. The man in the bloody white robe stood in the hallway waiting for them and it only took a moment for one to look up and jump to attention.

"Hokage-sama."

The old man looked down at her instead.

How many of these boys do you recognize?"

Uncertain of his intentions, she nervously looked from him to the room. Last time she'd admitted to something like this she'd spent hours in a cell.

"Two," The single word came out quiet.

"Their names?"

"Uchiha Shisui and Uchiha Itachi."

"If you've never met before where did you see their pictures?"

Sakura's hands found each other and twisted together in her nervousness. What if she answered wrong? What would happen to her parents? Why did everyone make such a big deal about pictures?

If she'd known it would be such hassle she wouldn't have lingered that day Inuzuka Kiba had pushed the black haired boy too far. Maybe Shikamaru had the right of it pretending to sleep all the time. How many times she had seen the clan boys in the top class squabbling, how many times she'd ignored them, but that one time she'd seen the Uchiha boy get flustered enough to drop his things.

She should have just slept through the ruckus like all wise sleepy pineapples might. Instead she'd got up and helped the kid who'd dropped all of his papers in his search through his backpack. As she grabbed them up from the classroom floor and held them out, he'd looked so shocked someone was helping she couldn't help blurting, "You alright? You know it's ok if it's the truth and no one believes you. What do they matter?"

His little fists clenched, "Inuzuka has dishonored my family. I'm going to avenge them."

Sakura remembered how her eyebrows shot up. How she'd thought, he's a prideful little thing. How it detracted from the pretty features the girls and their mothers all seemed to swoon over whenever an Uchiha was mentioned. Sure he'd a pretty enough face but so did the Ino girl. She at least talked about interesting things, not getting so caught up in what Sakura's mom had once deemed, "gloomy pissing matches". Sasuke had it down to an art form, and when she'd helped him he'd only given her a curt nod in thanks and not shoved her away. As if the place at his side, however temporary, was more than enough of an honor. Standing right next to him Sakura had been the first one to see what he pulled out of his bag. It was a family photo. Two tall teens whose faces would have looked boyish if they weren't already so solemn and lined, they stood on either side of the Head family as if placed there for bookends. Each held a mask at their sides. She gasped. Those were ANBU masks.

When Inuzuka Kiba shoved his way over she was the only one who didn't let him push her aside. Instead he had to settle in next to her and when he saw the family photo with the two older boys, teenagers holding masks, the Inuzuka actually barked like a dog who'd been stepped on. He looked so affronted standing in the middle of the classroom, surrounded by desks and peers who'd all heard him say his sister could beat up Sasuke's brother. Well, Sakura had thought that's a high bar. She backed up, suddenly not wanting to be between the two agitated boys. The Sensei not anywhere in sight.

Kiba exclaimed, "No way."

Uchiha Sasuke had the biggest, most self-satisfied smirk as he pointed to either side of the family photo, "That's my aniki Itachi and my cousin Shisui. The Uchiha only have the best. So no, Inuzuka, your sister wouldn't come anywhere close."

At noticing the other boy's face turning red under his clan marks Sakura sighed and stepped further back. Just in time too. Kiba lunged and took two desks out with him when he tackled Sasuke. Chairs skidded and toppled. The desks they'd nocked over toppled from their high stands and precariously hovered on legs, before those slipped and toppled into the rows below. The resulting crash so loud Sakura still cringed remembering it. Despite how she stood in a silent underground room surrounded by solemn faced boys and a scary man they called Hokage.

"Where did you see their pictures?" He seemed annoyed at the need to prompt her again. She tilted her arms in ever so slightly like they'd taught her at the academy. Preparing if someone tried to grab her.

She really, really didn't want to answer that. Yet if she didn't she'd be in even more trouble. So Sakura told them. Told them she'd been in class for a month, told them how the kids from ninja clans were trying to one up each other by telling stories of their older siblings. Itachi's face slipped into an expression she couldn't decipher. It wasn't a happy look.

She finished to rush out, "He showed us their family picture, that was it, I swear. I didn't know that they knew the councilman."

Her eyes flicked to the boys. Shisui and Itachi seemed to be having an entire conversation without saying a word. The one behind them, with blood spattered gear at his feet and a cleaning bucket and rag at hand, he stood up and walked over.

He knelt down to her, "Well since you know everybody else. I'm Genma."

He held out his hand only for the Hokage's hand to snake out and pull him back into the room. The old blood stained man stepped closer to the teenagers and spoke in words too low for her to hear. Words of, "Yes Hokage-sama," and then a minute later "No Hokage-sama," got to her ears.

What about their involvement with the councilman, or their picture getting into the hands of Academy students, was so dire she didn't know. What exactly was happening that involved these three ANBU?

The Hokage continued, "When they're not on shift they'll be locked in here the same as you. Please feel free to ask them any questions you need to."

The boys didn't look at all happy with this. Sakura was thinking she didn't want to ask them anything. She didn't want to be blamed for anything else. He looked them over and the ANBU responded in unison.

"Hai Hokage-sama."

"If that is all, oyasumi."

"Oyasumi."

---

He wasn't surprised he slept poorly, waking up an hour before his alarm sounded, he simply turned it off, left food for his ninken summons if they felt like stopping by, then left his apartment behind. It was far too quiet. Much too isolated and gave him too much space to think. Something he'd little desire to do right now. The orange book he hadn't actually read yet might be an improvement to his own thoughts. The sort of eye-catching hentai one couldn't look away from.

He sighed, touched his pocket where the book lived, and made his way to the park he'd been working his persona into. Enough people had seen him loitering around here it wouldn't seem out of place for him to sit. Only that meant he'd have to actually sit. To go so far as fall asleep, as he'd been strongly suggested to do, put his hair on edge. He grit his teeth and forced himself to enter the park. A child with snot leaking out of their nose walked in front of him, oblivious to the hair-trigger nin he'd nearly bumped into. Behind the child an equally oblivious father walked, shouting for yet another kid who trailed behind them all screaming.

It was so different than what he was used to. Far noisier than when he patrolled the rooftops at night. Completely unlike the ANBU underground network of reinforced tunnels and hallways led to every major sector and building in Konohagakure. Entrance doorways and stairwells hid behind seal arrays and genjutsu for anyone not marked with the ANBU shoulder tattoo. Kakashi had been in ANBU so long he'd truly forgotten what it was like to use the streets. Even traveling from his bare apartment to the grocers only took two roof hops. He wasn't used to being visible. Hadn't needed it beyond the required jōnin missions every ANBU had to take on the side.

The sounds of people moving about, their shoes slapping cobbles, their children crying, their chatter which put together in a group built to a rumble and roil of noise. He tried to steer his chakra away from his ears, to just breathe and act as if none of it bothered him. People had always overwhelmed him. It's why he avoided them as much as possible. And having bodies pressing close in the crush on the street made him tense, expecting a poison senbon or a kunai through the back of his ribs. He'd never just walked on the streets, never lingered, never stayed longer than necessary. Not since he'd become a genin at five and learned to walk up walls and shunshin.

Being visible was discomfiting. Not only for him either. An S class nin strolling, even if he was on their side, disconcerted anyone who'd memorized the bingo book. As he walked ninjas backed up from him. He could feel their emotional responses, how unsettled they were to see Hatake Kakashi had started walking around and lingering places. The masses of chūnin were distinctly uncomfortable.

Civilians were much slower to realize who he was. Yet there was no way he'd be able to actually fall asleep around them like Sarutobi suggested. It pained him that Obito would have been able to fall asleep in this park, but Kakashi never would have managed it, not even as a child. The park was crowded. The particular bench he'd been performing reconnaissance on turned out to be surrounded by 45 apartments and a civilian children's toy store. The bench was within throwing distance from a cover of trees and a tangle of play equipment which an enemy nin could easily hide within. There was so much noise from children screaming he wouldn't be able to hear if something was flung his way. The park so crowded their emotions banged against him. It was overwhelming. He couldn't just be here, lay down and pretend to sleep with them around. He'd have to do something, he thought as he stared at the park bench.

When his presence caused a stampede of fleeing small children and parents from a park the chūnin public affairs patrol had to investigate. They found a man who'd cleared out the park, how he'd cleared it exactly they weren't sure, but the panic in the civilians' faces heavily lent to the idea of a horror genjutsu. The lingering panic in the air reaffirmed this. So they were going to round up the trouble maker, only to find Hatake Kakashi sleeping there on a park bench.

The chūnin looked at each other, uncertain and suddenly a lot less willing to approach. The man was a legend, had killed more foreign nin than were currently on the chūnin ranks in Konoha. Technically they couldn't say anything to their superior, but they couldn't not investigate either. The four chūnin shuffled, speaking quietly to themselves before the leader stepped forwards. Her footsteps were hesitant, purposefully scuffing the ground to make noise. He laid there as if he couldn't hear them. It'd been blissfully quiet for 15 minutes and he wanted to hang onto that moment. Lazy Hatake Kakashi was dismissive of people, he could work that.

"Hatake-san?"

He didn't answer. He heard her as she slipped a step closer.

"Hatake-san?"

"Hm?" The man didn't open his eyes.

"You wouldn't happen to know anything about the area genjutsu which was put on this park 20 minutes ago would you?"

"I'm sorry I was sleeping at the time."

She stared at him, "Hatake-san it was a horror genjutsu."

"Oh was it?"

They couldn't expect him to sleep in public unguarded could they? What did chūnin do to protect themselves on a park bench? Not that he was going to ask. He slit his one visible eye open to give her a cursory glance, before closing it again. This one looked terrified of getting too close to him. Instead he ignored her question.

"Thanks for waking me up. I think I'm late for a meeting."

With that he stretched, lazily stood himself up, and green uniform still appearing wrinkled he walked off. Through the street and with generous pauses in his steps to let a market seller pass with his old donkey and cart of wares. The shadow clone he had hidden on the roof above poofed. The memories returned to him immediately. They showed the chūnin public affairs patrol still stood whispering to each other as they watched him go so uncharacteristically slow for a jōnin.

He was late for a meeting with the remaining members of the council, but first he was going to check in with the ANBU Commander. He ambled all the way over to that boring administration building. Only casting a distraction genjutsu and ducking into a side alley a block away, opening the door for a second and disappearing down the stairs. No one with important documents were located in the admin building. Their offices were too open and easy to steal from.

The ground floor of ANBU Headquarters was deceptively small. It had guards, but most of its space was occupied by a secretary's desk, a meeting room, and three offices. It looked like an administrative building with hardly any foot traffic. That's because the real facility and barracks was a block over and 10 meters underground.

Anything of consequence was locked up here, in the underground facility, and behind several layers of security doors. The alarms which would trigger if anyone unauthorized attempted to enter would blare shrilly the location of the door opened and the description of the chakra signature activating it.

Being halfway decent at sensing was highly cherished. Being as good as that pink haired girl who'd interrupted Danzo and Shisui's unauthorized meeting, that was the sort of talent to be fostered. Her little tricks with the chakra in her hands made her so much more valuable than the average academy student. If the Commander didn't have a training program cut out for her already, he was going to request permission to start one.

Down a maze of corridors he avoided the trapped false hallways and walked into what appeared even to him as a blank concrete wall. The sharingan itched as he went through it, clearly being able to combat it, but he ignored the feeling. Passing the border removed all genjutsu and henge he'd cast on himself. He appeared on the other side with his black uniform, white armored chest plate, and Inu mask firmly in place. Gone were the slouch and uncombed droopy hair.

He was Inu here. The tracker of smells, emotions, and signatures, the one they sent out to the worst missing nin. He entered the common room full of couches and off duty squads. Those nearest who glanced at the entrance stood. Followed by the next and the next.

"Inu Taichou," The first squad greeted.

"Inu Taichou," The rest repeated.

"Eshaku," He bowed to the room at large exactly 15 degrees. As he straightened and passed through the couches he nodded to each captain and greeted in a quieter voice, "Panda, Boar, Weasel."

He felt the turmoil from two floors down and three hallways over, it touched his chakra and he knew where she was. He recognized her signature. The emotion behind the fluctuation had him turning down the stairs and detouring to the barracks for younger recruits. Her door was closed. He stared at it, contemplating. From the other side the signature fluctuated again.

He knocked.

No response.

He knocked again, "Haruno-san."

No response.

He cracked the door open, just enough till he saw her shoes next to the bunk, lined up and neat. The rest of the room was bare save a blanket next to a dirty and singed red dress hanging from the railing of the bunk her small form occupied. Inu looked over the girl laying there. Her small body curled up on the bottom right bed with her hair falling over the edge. He stayed long enough to listen to her breathing. She was sleeping. Reassured she was okay he continued towards the Commander's office.

This time his knock was met with a clipped, "Enter."

He opened the thick seal protected door and felt the seal array activate as he closed it behind him. The man before him hadn't looked up yet.

"Saikeirei Sir," Kakashi greeted. He bowed low.

The steel grey hair of the man sitting behind the desk was much darker and much shorter cropped than Kakashi's own carefully combed and tied back silver strands. He was bigger too, his face and neck showing light scarring the medics hadn't quite managed to remove. This man had been the ANBU Commander since the second war. He'd managed to stay out of the politics and still worked seamlessly with Nara Shikaku, Morino Ibiki, and Uchiha Fugaku. Not an easy task considering their clashing personalities.

That alone would make Kakashi respect someone, but the ANBU Commander was so much more. The man who'd taken him in when he was broken after Minato died. He'd been close to failing psych evaluations and instead of tossing him aside, he'd kept Kakashi close enough till he could work again. Mouse, they'd once called him as a joke and the persona stuck. Mouse was huge, easily as big as Danzo and Jiraiya. It was something about a tall nin who survived decades of frontline fighting. They had a weight about them which everyone couldn't help but gravitate to. His chakra felt smooth, deep, and steady, something Kakashi envied since he'd first met the man.

"Inu Taichou, I hear you have some new hobbies. I'm happy they haven't affected your work here."

"I as well. It's been a difficult adjustment for me. While I'm here I wanted to ask if you had a chance to consider the suggestion I noted in my last report."

The one he said they should consider enlisting the girl. That tiny bright child who'd get sub-par attention at the academy. As a kid who'd been orphaned and pushed out of the school at a young age, left defenseless on more than one battlefield with inattentive superiors, and left to figure it out himself, he didn't want the same thing happening to her. Her parents retired, her civilian extended family, her lack of a kekkei genkai almost guaranteed it. The council under Danzo would have ordered it if the choice was between a clan heir and her, regardless of how much she'd already figured out on her own.

The man put down his brush and pushed his scroll aside. Mouse sighed and took off his mask. He waved for Inu to do the same. Revealing Hatake Kakashi's forehead, then his nose and chin. Mouse was one of the few who could match these features to a name.

It was a handsome enough face he'd been told, but apparently it was too sharp and too pale for lack of sunshine. He didn't really care as he had no use for attracting someone longer than a night. Even those wouldn't see his full face, but the appearance of just his normal eye. He didn't keep his partners long nor did he want them seeing any more.

His pale hair made him stick out more than enough in any crowd. His public appearance of Hatake Kakashi made a habit of showing up with a darker grey, more aged, and weathered hairdo. Entering the ANBU facility stripped everyone of their genjutsu and henges, leaving his hair now neatly tucked into a pony tail. It positively shown silver. The white of his chakra, for those who could see such things, ran through the strands and down the chakra pathway of his neck. His white chakra, unless suppressed, constantly flowed a steady stream of white. Occasionally it sparked a white blue as he felt things. He couldn't see the colors himself, but he'd had it described to him. After what he'd seen, he suspected that pink haired girl could see them. He just got stuck with sensing signatures, locations, and emotions of every comrade and every man he killed. It was the blessing, or the curse, of the Hatake bloodline limit. No doubt Mouse wanted to remind him of that. He did it almost every time they met.

Bare faced and on display his Commander observed his sparking chakra and attempt at a blank expression. Hatake Kakashi wasn't good at hiding when he felt strongly about something. Not like Inu or his other personas. Sometimes he wore them so long he forgot he wasn't really Inu. Sometimes Hatake Kakashi realized his Commander made him take off his mask to remind him of this.

"Don't forget yourself Kakashi."

"I'll try not to Sir."

"You look troubled."

"I suppose I am," Kakashi paused.

His Commander waited, patient and used to long silences. When he next spoke he found the issue was hard for him to admit out loud, even to this man who'd been there for him so long. Trained him just as he'd trained his otōtos.

"The new persona... I'm basing it off of my old genin teammate... It's not easy. Honestly, I'd rather focus on the Uchiha, the root replacement, and the girl."

"I hear what you're saying," Mouse looked at him for a minute longer and then left it aside.

The Commander continued, "I've read your report, but I'm not at liberty to assign anyone publicly right now. Even when she's allowed to leave without guard, I'm not sure how her involvement will affect them. Her features were mentioned in the reports the military police received from the apartments. Unfortunately, the Uchiha elders have been wanting to call her in, which we've been putting off, obviously."

"And Danzo-sama's replacement?" Kakashi's feelings fluctuated at the thought of Danzo's operatives still chasing the girl, still following orders to extract Shisui's eyes. The old War Hawk believed in his vision more than most. Kakashi wouldn't be surprised if he'd tailored his replacement to be a miniature of himself. Some young impressionable thing following the man's vision while hidden in the shadows, likely a poor kid like Tenzo who simply never got out.

"Currently unknown. Teams of ours spent all night cleaning out the one root facility we'd known about, which Sarutobi finally approved to raid."

Mouse sighed and Kakashi sympathized with the irritation. The council of elders was getting worse with age and stagnating power. They reached and grasped and when something slipped from their control they played to reassert their position. He was only 20 and he hated it.

Mouse sighed, "We suspect they have at least two more facilities and whoever their new leader is will have instructions to kill the girl. She'll be stuck here for a while. The Uchiha are waiting for an excuse and she might be it. I was going to offer her an apprenticeship with Panther but..."

"But you can't now."

Mouse nodded. This was the only Aburame whom he'd never seen with sunglasses inside a building. Kakashi suspected the man wore contacts, that those were the reason his eyes seemed so dark the irises appeared black. Mouse, Aburame Yamato he had to remind himself, had the stillness so natural to every member of his clan. His smooth chakra tended and maintained with the help of his kikaichū insects. When Mouse showed an emotion it was always earnest and true. The man had never once lied to him. Not even to make him feel better. It's another thing Kakashi appreciated. The sort of thing Inu didn't outwardly show an interest in, but Hatake Kakashi was grateful for the honesty.

"Kashikomarimashita," it was the politest way he could say it and he did understand.

A civilian girl who made the first killing blow on one of the village's councilors, academy student or not, was a risk to anyone associating with her. Haruno-san could be the lightning rod attracting the attention of the Uchiha. The clan was looking for blood. Kakashi had no doubt they'd half the Uchiha police force awake last night at the first hint of sharingan theft. Digging and digging into the reports filtering into the military police from the nearby civilian apartments, people who'd have a great view and called for help the moment they'd seen fireballs and explosions on top of the village wall. Even if they didn't get a good look at him, sharingan red eyes shown through dim lighting like few other features. The fact he'd clearly been injured in one eye wouldn't help, even if the Uchiha elders remained uncertain of which member almost had their eye stolen. Last night he'd personally witnessed the spreading rumors, civilians standing on their balconies gossiping, of an injured Uchiha. The subsequent questioning and fastidious attention of the police had been swift.

Kakashi and team Ro were still on duty last night, had followed the Hokage back to the tower, when just before midnight the Chief of the Military Police and Uchiha Clan Head flung the door open. Demanding why he was getting reports about dōjutsu theft, ANBU, root, Danzo, and a pink haired girl. When he demanded to see his son the Hokage point blank refused. Fugaku-sama looked ready to turn on his sharingan and start the coup right then. The entirety of team Ro stiffened as he stalked toward the old man's desk.

The old man had held his hands up, placating, and his words remained calm despite the other man's anger. This ability to calm people is why Sarutobi had survived so long. It's why Konohagakure had won so many battles under his leadership. Kakashi firmly believed that Sarutobi Hiruzen, if given the chance, could sooth anything short of a tailed beast.

Last night he watched Sarutobi tell Fugaku-sama a barefaced lie and get away with it. He promised the Uchiha prodigies were both fine and far away on assignment. Carefully not mentioning that far away meant they were locked in the ANBU facility 4 blocks over and that assignment was watching over a pink haired child as part of the boys' unpaid zangyō. The punishment veiled as overtime wouldn't please the Uchiha Clan Head, nor would the isolation, but really the man was one excuse away from setting 300 Sharingan users on the village. So Sarutobi lied through his teeth and kept everyone alive for one more night.

Even after the Uchiha Clan Head had left the office, the man's chakra had been so angry Kakashi thought he'd have to block the door from a Uchiha returning in fury. When Uchiha Fugaku failed to returned before their shift ended, Kakashi's whole team thrummed relief. Their chakra mixed with his. Even the Hokage, through a layer of his own anger and exhaustion, leaked relief.

By this morning's visit to the tiny girl in Torture and Interrogation the Hokage had worked through four more piles of paperwork and prepared a memo to wake the 6 ANBU squads who'd be tasked with searching out that root facility. Kakashi had left with the vague hope Danzo had made Sarutobi, Danzo's old teammate, his successor to control the root seals. Apparently he'd not. Kakashi hoped the old man knew what he was doing. Fighting some root was one thing. Fighting 300 Uchiha, if Sarutobi's plan didn't work, would very likely get the Hokage and thousands more killed.

He breathed. The office around them had fallen quiet. Mouse sat before him, his look equally far away. They'd barely avoided civil war. The gravity of it hung heavy between the two ANBU. Mouse's next words brought his attention back to the Commander behind the desk. Aburame Yamato looked grave.

"Kakashi, what they found in that facility was bad news. Mission reports sanctioned by Danzo. It's not just the Uchiha who'll be fuming. I know you don't want that girl to slip through the cracks, but while the investigation is open on Danzo no one can risk themselves." The Commander lifted his head. He added with an almost smile, "Not officially."

"I understand. Thank you Sir," He stood to leave the office.

He really shouldn't leave the remaining councilors waiting any longer. However, as he walked he couldn't help pause at the hallway leading to the younger ANBU barracks.

He worried over the girl. She looked so small and fretful in her sleep. He decided over the next few days he keep a kage bunshin clone nearby. It's not that he didn't trust his little kōhai, his otōtos, but they weren't as keen on having a pink haired nuisance. Or rather, they had varying degrees of frustration that her presence had revealed a security gap. A gap they'd been reprimanded for. Leaving the ANBU facility with a clone cloaking its chakra and hiding near her room, he solidified his resolve to pop the clone each night so it'd return the memories to him.

Chapter 6: Punishment

That night when the clone popped he was sitting in his apartment still wearing the henge of skinny Hatake Kakashi with messy, droopy hair. His ANBU armor he wore still felt the same as ever, so much so he frankly forgot it looked like a wrinkled green jōnin uniform. He'd been acting lazy and dismissive all day. When the memories of the clone rushed into his head, he blinked a single eye and unconsciously slouched into the posture he'd been maintaining throughout the long winded council meetings.

Kakashi laid back further on the couch as he reviewed those memories. His clone had been hidden in the nooks of the hallway, stuck in to the junction between the wall and ceiling eaves with its chakra, hidden just in case. Only it was hours before someone came through. The clone, able to sense the girl, noted she hadn't attempted to move towards her door or leave her bed.

The person who did show up had a familiar bandana tied to keep his head warm in the chilly mist of spring. Genma gave one look at the location of his hidden clone, waved a hand its way, and proceeded to ignore it. While Kakashi knew he'd been shy and withdrawn after Sarutobi's words, the boy quickly bounced back to his obnoxiously flirty self. The boy couldn't help it, he flirted with everyone. Earlier that day he'd heard him coming onto one of the new ANBU recruits, which had made the recipient giggle. They'd been out of his range of sight but he'd sensed their fluttering emotions. Looking at Genma entering this barracks hallway he looked like he'd already forgotten he was here as a punishment.

The young teenager's enthusiasm brushed against his clone's chakra. He'd apparently recovered from the reprimand, or perhaps he was so used to getting yelled at for salacious advances he simply bounced back from it easier than the two Uchiha boys. Those two had snuck straight passed the girl's closed door, their cheeks tinted red as they hurried along. Genma however had few such compunctions. He banged on the girl's door calling out, "Sweetheart! You've been sleeping all day haven't you?"

A grumpy looking girl cracked open the door while keeping a defensive stance, Kakashi noted. She wasn't comfortable around them. She didn't trust them. Wise of her, Kakashi thought. If she hadn't been (after spending a night in T and I) he would have thought less of her. As it was she kept the door as a shield between her body and the loud teenager. She peered around it, but didn't say anything.

"Oh come on don't be that way."

There were dark rings under her eyes. The feelings inside her rolled.

"How do you expect to find anything if no one shows you around? Bet you've never had a tokubetsu jōnin for a tour guide." He waved his fingers in front of her face, flashing a twirling senbon between them. He promised, "I have lots of tricks. No lady has ever complained before."

"You're bad at talking to people, but in a different way than Shisui."

At the look on Genma's face, Kakashi's clone crinkled its eye in amusement. It almost missed when the girl reached her arm out and poked the 15 year old boy in the belly. The kid jumped back, now eyeing her warily.

Still holding her finger out she firmly asked, "You promise you'll be nice?"

The boy's shoulders relaxed. The hand which had reached for his weapons pouch fell away at the child's question. Genma smiled that disarming smile he used to woo all the other 15 year olds. He knelt down, grabbed her tiny hand into a soft hold and promised he would be nice so long as she didn't punch him.

She considered him for a moment longer, her eyes trailing the boy's chakra network. She nodded once and opened the door to reveal she was wearing a long black shirt, its length dangled around her knees. Kakashi's clone saw her trailing after Genma as the teenager prepared to show her "all the best spots."

Kakashi was so busy with Sarutobi and his surveillance of the Uchiha compound he didn't personally make it back to the ANBU facility for another week. However, his clones kept him informed. Most of what they witnessed was boring. So far they hadn't once needed to step in and protect the girl. Kakashi still sent them daily, just in case.

The next day when his clone popped he saw the memory of Itachi's gangly form appear outside her room. The boy was without his weasel's captain mask, his sharingan still activated and he stood there before the door his disgruntled expression bare to see as he mustered himself to face his humiliation. The pink receded from his cheeks as he stood there and straightened his shoulders. Only then did Itachi raise his arm. When he knocked on her door he didn't wait for a response before moving to enter the room.

Inside, Kakashi saw the girl gape at him and step back. She dropped the red dress she'd been trying to sew. The ANBU field sewing kit she'd borrowed from Genma clattered to the floor and the string rolled under a bunk. Itachi glowered at her and she warily watched in turn.

"I'm sorry I got you in trouble. If the Hokage hadn't asked I wouldn't have told anyone. I thought the clan kids were stupid for talking about it so much."

As Itachi glowered down at her his red gaze faded back to black.

"Hn."

"Does that mean you forgive me?"

The 13 year old jōnin withdrew a tightly wrapped store bought bento from the pocket he'd been stowing it in. He looked down at it for a long moment, his grip tightening around the bento. He seemed annoyed he'd been given this task. Perhaps correctly reading the boy's aggressive body language, Haruno-san hadn't made to grab it.

She shrank away when the teenager dropped it on the table in front of her. Kakashi's clone saw Itachi staring at her till she ducked her head in embarrassment, pulled apart the cheap wooden chopsticks, and ate. Her quick peeks as if she wanted to check she was doing it right stopped when she discovered the Uchiha heir remained staring at her. Kakashi smiled. The entire family's social graces got blocked up in that one. The rest of the day went without anything of note and this is the memory which stuck out when the kage bunshin clone popped.

The next day's clone showed a memory of Genma returning. The bandana covered head ducked into a happy, goofy bow in front of the girl, which promptly made her giggle for how his hair upended itself out of the bandana and almost brushed his knees.

He grinned back and presented her some ANBU uniforms he'd asked to be cut down to her size. The same seamstress who'd sewn the ceremonial haori for all four Hokages also got all of the ANBU commissions. The boy pulled each miniature black shirt and tiny pair of pants out. Sans armor it wasn't an actual uniform, but in the dark garments she'd look like a little pink haired Yūgao, miniature and running around Headquarters in a way Yūgao would gut him for suggesting.

Genma was more excited about the clothes than the girl. The 15 year old flourished the custom garb with a presentation he had clearly practiced just for the kid. He held up the pieces, pointing out the pockets, the seals on them which allowed extra weapons and supply storage, the kanji sewn into each with her name on them. After showing off the clothes Genma excitedly pushed the girl into her room and closed the door behind her.

He exclaimed, "You have to change and show me."

So she did. When she came out she didn't look nearly as impressed as Genma clearly was. The boy howled a high pitched, "Aaah."

She wrinkled her nose at the sound, "What?"

Kakashi's clone smiled at the pink haired thing in the tiny ANBU garb. Genma explained she could be their new mascot. Sakura's indignant squeak of anger was the cutest thing Kakashi had ever seen. That was a good day.

The next morning his clone popped itself early. Kakashi had been in the middle of tracking a man who'd jumped over the Uchiha compound wall. His unauthorized and unregistered chakra signature needed to be found and caught. However, before he could reach it in time it disappeared in a similar manner to how Minato sensei's used to disappear when using the space time ninjutsu hiraishin. He'd just stopped to examine the spot and note down how much trouble team Ro would have to undergo to catch this person when his clone popped prematurely and fed it's memories. He processed them quick and moved to run back to Konoha, back to his squad.

This morning's clone had a worrying set of memories. They showed Shisui laying on the sofa staring blankly up at the ceiling. His clone could feel the boy's chakra dip as he lay there on the couch, unmoving and feeling worthless and depressive. The turmoil touching his clones chakra, those feelings coming from his otōto, they were on the edge of self hate.

His clone followed the girl as she came out of her room to grab a glass of water. Her hand still clutched the project of her ruined dress and the sewing kit. When she saw Shisui laying on the couch alone in the dark of the common room she paused. Her fingers twisted the singed red fabric. Haruno-san's chakra fluctuated in indecision, then it resolved and became determined.

She came to sit next to him. She didn't talk, not for an hour, but when she did it was with a bombshell question, "Why didn't you want me to save you?" The boy disappeared in a puff of smoke. The girl stared forlorn at the place he'd been.

Kakashi immediately made another three clones, one to watch the girl and the other two to search for Shisui. They popped at the end of five hours searching, returning the information of where they'd looked and the knowledge they couldn't find him.

The next week of memories Shisui didn't appear at all. It was just a mix of Genma and Itachi doing things which really shouldn't have surprised him. Genma gave her some questionable reading material, Icha Icha Paradise being the highlight. Kakashi hadn't even gotten to that book yet, the others had been so bad. The girl's face as she read through the first page turned from confusion to mortified. She snapped the book close, hid it under her pillow, and held her hands to her cheeks. Kakashi inwardly chuckled. One of the only sources of reading material he'd had as a kid living in the war camps were others' cast offs. The first time he'd read a sex scene had been after he'd been gutting out people's entrails for four months. He wasn't even halfway through his sixth year when he read it.

Next, he saw a moment where Itachi presented her with a shiny box. It was rather sweet of the kid to get her a treat. At least he thought so before she opened the box, which matched her pink hair shade perfectly. Inside it showed he'd bought her dango, but the smears of food and powder left behind made it clear there'd been a lot more originally. Itachi looked on, stoic as if he hadn't already eaten half the box. She stared inside it then looked back at him. She pushed it back, "It's ok you can have the rest."

When Shisui next appeared it wasn't for long. His otōto burst into her barracks room. Kakashi thought it was lucky she was a child and didn't have anything to look at anyways, for the boy probably would have been smacked by an older Kunoichi in training. Her mouth dropped open at the unannounced entry, wide eyes taking in his body, or what Kakashi now recognized was her observing the state of the person's chakra network. She didn't quite flinch as Shisui stomped over and gave her food in the form of shoving it onto the bed in a flurry of embarrassment.

Kakashi's clone picked up a muted form of the younger boy's emotions. They were all over the place. It was better than before, but being in the girl's presence, his accidental savior, frazzled him. His poor otōto. He'd have to find him. Unfortunately, the boy had been avoiding him and his clones almost as well as he'd been avoiding the girl. He'd only seen him twice, and those were brief, this past week. The Uchiha looked at her as if he wanted to say something, then his chakra seized with fear. When she opened her mouth he used shunshin to get away. Her hands dropped the package of food to her lap. Her head tilted down and hung there. His clone heard her murmur, "Thank you."

She was lonely. He hated seeing it. His clone pulled Weasel Taichou aside next time he saw the young captain.

"Don't just go to your room. I know you're stuck here same as her. Be present. You don't have to talk to her, but be there. She needs to see more people. She's your brother's age and she's been left largely alone for more than three weeks."

Weasel Taichou's chakra wavered in guilt. It reached his own and sunk in. Inu brushed off the feeling. He held Weasel there till he verbally confirmed.

"Hai Taichou. We will do better."

---

Sakura sat across from Itachi. He'd deviated from his prior behavior. This time when he knocked he waited for her to respond. Upon opening the door he gave a short bow. Her eyebrows went so high she thought they'd get stuck there. She couldn't help herself.

"Why are you bowing?"

He still bowed as he replied, "I apologize Haruno-san. I've been rude. Please, let me dine with you and make up for my past mistakes."

Her hand gripped the door. Sakura shot her eyes up and over him, sure she'd seen a flash of blue white in the hallway, but looking at the spot now nothing was there. The hallway was completely empty.

"Itachi, is there anyone here?"

"It's ANBU Headquarters."

"So there is?"

"Everyone here has been informed of your circumstances and has been ordered to guard you."

"Oh," Her voice was quiet.

"Would you accompany me to the common room to eat?" He was still bowing.

"Alright."

He stood up to his full height. He was the older, better looking version of her old classmate the girls had all been fawning over. When he looked at her so intense she wanted to squirm. If she wasn't aware of how dangerous him and Shisui were she might have thought he was attractive. Yet even after he apologized he was a dark, broody boy. The colors swirling and flowing inside him reflected this demeanor. She would not be scared of him anymore. She wouldn't. When he moved back to allow her to walk in front, she did so with her chin thrust high. It may have been an act, but she was determined not to feel small anymore. She was Haruno Sakura, the product of two of the strongest and smartest people she'd ever met. She would survive this facility. She would be just fine.

Itachi sat them down to eat at the low tables. She kneeled and when he started a small tea ceremony she raised her eyebrows. She'd heard of this sort of thing, but her otousan and okaasan had never done it. She watched the boy who was the heir of the oldest, and possibly one of the largest clans in Konoha, how rigidly Itachi held himself as he did what he thought was proper. What someone, perhaps his parents or elders, had told him was proper and she realized he must be so used to following his elders' advice it was no wonder he was confused and upset about the councilman trying to trick them. Because that's exactly what it had been hadn't it? Uchiha Shisui had shown up in that forest expecting a friendly conversation and instead he'd been taken advantage of. Had the same thing happened to Itachi? She wondered. Sakura couldn't help but blurt into the silence.

"It's ok you know. If the elders took advantage of you or tricked you, it's not your fault. It's theirs. They shouldn't have done that."

Her okaasan always said the blame should go to the one responsible. It's how she'd gotten Sakura to stop crying after coming home from the academy on the particularly bad days. Those days all the other girls trash talked her grades and tried to make her cry due to her appearance. They'd been taking advantage of her good nature, her okaasan explained. They shouldn't have done it and it wasn't her fault.

Itachi's hand froze over her cup of tea. His eyes switched to their glowing, swirling bright red. Then the chakra shifted and the red faded. He looked back down and continued pouring the tea.

He didn't talk for the rest of the meal, but when she decided to fill the silence with some chatter he listened. So relieved to have someone to eat with after all these weeks she went on and on, talking about her parents' business, about the places they'd gone, about how she once saw the Raikage and his guards, but how the man looked huge and tan and dressed nothing like the Hokage.

She prattled and by the time he'd taken her back to her room she felt so much lighter. As if the nightmares she'd been having weren't as real. As if these halls weren't as empty as she assumed. He walked her all the way to her door and when she closed it, moved to wrap her blanket around her and curl up, she remembered the white blue spark of color she'd seen in the hallway. Sakura wasn't alone. She smiled and dug her head into her blanket.

Chapter 7: Parts Of Us

As the weeks passed and the Uchiha hadn't attacked the village yet, Sarutobi seemed to remember he wanted successors. The successors who weren't entirely pleased they'd been chosen, still dutifully showed up for their training when the old man summoned them.

At 4:00 in the morning Kakashi and Gai trained under the Shinobi no Kami, a warrior so strong other shinobi called him a god in fear. He was old, but he still beat them till they bled with that monkey powered staff of his. That staff wasn't normal. He just hadn't had it so close and connecting with the side of his face before now. It hurt. However, Kakashi and Gai agreed getting hit by it was better than the paperwork and international negotiations training they had from 5:30 - 7:00.

That was enough to incentivize Kakashi to go sleep in the middle of the morning market's cacophony. Which he did with three hidden clones watching and the orange book of Jiraiya over his face. He picked a tree limb to nap on. It was marginally safer being out of reach from anyone simply walking below. They'd at least be visible to his clones if they tried to throw a weapon his way. Gai, pent up from the paperwork and polite discussions training would follow him every morning at 7:03 as they left Sarutobi's office and to the early morning crowd of ninja and civilians it appeared his jumpsuit got stretchier and greener. His teeth shinier and his bowl cut sharper.

The identity of successors remained an S ranked secret. If someone was going to assassinate the village leaders it was a lot harder if they didn't know who to target. The two of them were more than adequately prepared to follow their orders. Although it bothered Kakashi that he slipped into it so easily. He sometimes forgot to drop the Obito persona when he wandered into his apartment. Only to see it still clinging to him when he went to brush his teeth. The distraction of all the more serious things in his life were less painful, to the point he began to welcome them. Like the inordinate amount of time he'd been guarding the kid.

Having a pink haired little girl disrupting the dynamics wasn't something he'd planned and wasn't something he knew what to do with. Beyond making sure no one killed her, he didn't know how to make any of it better. Thus for a month he hadn't done anything more than prod Genma and Itachi, get them to spend more time there, kids closer to her age. However, between the gifts of illicit adult reading material and half eaten boxes of dango she hadn't spent a lot of time with them. Maybe that was for the best. ANBU exposure at such a young age probably wasn't doing any favors for her future psych evaluations. It's why he'd personally stayed far away. He couldn't even help Shisui, the kid he'd known for years and who looked up to him. How was he supposed to help a little kid not miss her home?

Shisui still avoided him and Kakashi felt so inadequate in the face of the younger boy's depression, he didn't know what to do except keep sending ninken to sniff him out. Pakkun and Bull had been tasked with carrying notes and tea coupons. He'd never met a pair of kids who liked expensive, traditional tea shops as much as the two Uchiha prodigies. He just hoped Shisui would accept one of his invites soon. Fretting over it made him feel worthless. He'd even sent a clone to speak with Mouse about it, and the Commander promised to speak with the boy. This left Inu prowling the ANBU facility in the middle of the day, still in his mask and gear. He should sleep, but his legs kept moving. It was only when a small, recognizable voice called out that he stopped.

"Excuse me?"

He looked down. It was the pink haired girl who was simultaneously distracting and cheering his team with her presence in the dour underground compound. The Mitarashi and Uzuki families with their purple hair were the closest thing to this girl's exotic hue he'd ever seen, but even theirs was subdued and easy to lose track of in a crowd. Hers was just so bright.

"ANBU-san, do you know where I can get something to eat? Someone usually brings me something, but I haven't seen anyone all day."

The ration bar had been pulled from his storage scroll before he'd truly thought of it. He held it out, right under her nose like he'd do for one of his ninken. Her eyes went cross as she stared at it, obligingly smelled, and quickly wrinkled her nose. The expression had his smile appearing under his Inu mask.

"ANBU-san, a well balanced diet has vegetables."

Ah, he forgot he was dealing with a child. She was verbose and tiny, but she wasn't the first tiny person he'd trained in these halls. She was just the first who hadn't yet graduated from the academy. Hadn't gone on a D rank let alone a C or B rank requiring longterm food rationing. But she was apparently well trained enough to follow him when he glanced back at her, seeing he hadn't just brushed her off she scampered forwards.

"Is that what you eat all the time ANBU-san?"

"Inu."

"What?"

"My ANBU identity is Inu. I have dogs, so when they want my identity to be known they call me Inu." Sometimes he wasn't sure if he preferred Inu or the hidden ops standard henge. People didn't relax around Inu.

"I like puppies. Do you have puppies?"

"A few."

"How many?"

"Eight currently. They're all under two years old. All training as ninken."

He glanced down to see her eyes had gone wide. She had the most adorably innocent look when she was fascinated. Her quick little brain working through something and coming to silly conclusions he'd never have thought relevant. Maybe it'd been so long since he'd had someone innocent talk to him he just didn't know what to expect.

"Do you have eight different dog dishes? Eight dog beds? Eight leashes?"

He huffed, amused. Inu answered her questions as she continued to rattle them off. Yes he had more dishes for dogs stacked in his apartment cupboards than he had for humans. Yes they each had a preferred place to sleep when they weren't in their summons world. No the ninken didn't need leashes, it'd be too disrespectful to ask that of them.

Yes he could summon other members of the Canidae family like wolves, but he didn't call the larger wolfs often. When she asked why he paused. No one had ever asked him that before.

He looked at her sweet, hopeful face. He didn't want her chakra to stop spreading happiness. He didn't tell her the wolves reminded him too much of his father. Nor did he tell her ninja had a tendency to use summon creatures as a crutch and many died for it. His own Sensei died when the Kyūbi overwhelmed the toad boss. When he could have used the chakra instead to power a better, less self-sacrificing seal with his seal expert Uzumaki wife. No, he wouldn't burden her with that.

So when she asked again, "Inu why don't you summon the big wolves?"

He said, "They're grumpy if you don't feed them a lot." A half truth, but the statement itself was valid.

"Hmm, I bet they can eat loads more food than us. You'd need a lot of those bars for them. Do you carry that many bars?"

He barked a laugh. The sound startled the tiny girl. It startled himself. When was the last time he laughed?

"You should laugh more often. My otousan says it lightens the soul. No matter what happens, if you can laugh you won't be lost."

He looked at the little girl who had upended his team's life.

"Is your otousan also the one to tell you vegetables were the balance for a meal?"

"Yup!" She chirped.

"We'll get you vegetables then. Do you know the henge? I think they usually teach that the third year in the academy."

She looked up at him, confused. He frowned in turn. Before he prodded, "How long have you been in the academy?"

"A month?" She squished her face. "They haven't let me go back yet. I'm afraid Iruka Sensei will kick me out."

He hadn't expected that. Inoichi had been rather snide and brief on that detail in his report. Inu wondered what she'd done to aggravate the proud man. Or what she'd done to elicit Ibiki's added scrawl of heavily inked kanji on the side of the T and I report. Stating, "I like her. If no one else takes her, I want her." It's what made him pause when glancing at it on the Commander's desk, why he'd requested from Mouse to actually read the full summary from Inoichi.

"Iruka Sensei is a chūnin." All academy teachers were ranked chūnin. He'd no idea who that boy was. He assured, "The Hokage has you here under orders and your parents are staying in the protective housing for ANBU spouses. Iruka Sensei won't be making any decisions the Hokage doesn't approve of."

"Oh."

"You don't have to worry Haruno-san."

"Sakura. My name is Sakura."

"Dōzo yoroshiku onegai itashimasu Sakura."

She beamed at his greeting. It was a pleasure to meet her. She was joyful. The feelings she held bubbled up through her chakra, touching and mixing into his. She was so happy her arms swung back and forth beside her. It caused the bubbly feeling to pervade him. What a strange sensation.

He asked, "So do you want to learn the henge? We can't take you out of here with pink hair. You need to change it to dark purple, brown, or black."

It took her an hour under instruction to learn how to modify her head so each strand remained the desired color no matter how the individual hairs moved. What he taught her was more advanced than the academy henge, but it wasn't academy students hunting for her, it was root. So she learned the same technique he'd taught Itachi and the others to use outside headquarters, the one that made them all look a certain way and should be easy to hold even if they were captured. Slight modifications to the original appearance were key. Nothing too large, nothing far from their natural state.

When he showed her how to do it, his hidden chakra flickered just the barest bit out of its cloaked state. Haruno-san, Sakura, watched his chakra network change and unfurl for the transformation.

"It's you."

"Hm?"

"You're the white chakra rescuer from the wall. And the white blue spark from the hallway. No one else has that color. You've been staying with me when I was sad."

The way she said it, the feeling of thanks she had as she said it, made his chest clench and spread in warmth simultaneously. The feelings soaked from her chakra to his, filled his own like an empty bucket.

"Smart girl."

She beamed at him.

He ruffled her hair. The action brought back that bubbling feeling from her, her chakra wafting it and the bubbles floated inside him. He wasn't sure if he'd ever get used to it.

"So the henge..." He explained in detail what he wanted her to do. Her face went serious with pinched brows in concentration as she listened.

The girl was quick, like he thought. She absorbed everything he said. He wondered how bored she'd get if she continued in the academy for the rest of the year. A standard student needed the curriculum repeated four or five times for it to stick, but with one explanation and some extra tips Sakura had stared at her reflection on the shiny metal door and done it near perfectly. She was so excited to be sporting a purple-black color she beamed up at him.

"I look like Ami if she was an Uchiha."

"Who's Ami?"

Sakura wrinkled her nose again. She really did look like a puppy when she did that.

"A girl from the academy. She's loud and started a fan club for the Uchiha in our class, Itachi's otōto. They say they're in the academy to find and marry a ninja. I just..." She looked down, the toes of her sandals moved to touch each other. "They don't know how dangerous it is. That ninjas die. They don't take our classes seriously and either they'll die or they'll get someone else..." She trailed off.

"That's dangerous," Came his solemn agreement.

Sakura stared at Inu. She had been so frustrated each and every day of class. The girls didn't want to get strong because they thought it'd make them look fat and not even the teachers said anything to stop them from thinking this way. They couldn't see the colors. Didn't see how weak and fluttering the force feeding those kids' life remained if they didn't work hard. The colors showed how likely they were to be ok, to keep growing big and not go away. Warriors with small, flickering colors didn't come back.

No one seemed to understand. Yet Inu did, when he said it the swirl was strong. He said it was dangerous. It's what she'd been thinking her entire first month at the academy. It's what had been plaguing her in her dreams of fireballs and dead people on the village wall. How distressing it was when someone died. It wasn't just something to brush off. Inu seemed to care just like she cared. That it was horrible to watch people's colors fade and disappear.

"Right?!" She swung her arms wide. Sakura burst, "What if they get on a team with someone and... and...they die...their colors go away forever and no one can get them back."

The fuel from her nightmares made her lips clamp tight. She looked down, embarrassed. Maybe she shouldn't have shown so much of herself. She tried to make all the chakra bursting inside hide again. She didn't want to ruin her time with the white chakra rescuer by talking about scary things he clearly already knew about.

"I feel them too."

"Huh?" She looked back up, still embarrassed but not wanting to ignore him. The look on the hound mask was inscrutable. She peered closer at him, seeing how his flow of colors became erratic. He was upset? She didn't know.

"I feel them too. Not the colors, but their emotions. It's why my chakra looks the way it does. My whole family could do it, but I'm the last one left."

Her thoughts on this revelation came out quiet, "That must be hard."

He nodded from above her. He was like a shadow that glowed. Big and tall and blocking the sunshine from the window, but radiant all by himself. When he wasn't hiding his chakra it was so, so bright.

"It's good you're already thinking about your future teammates. It means you'll make a good one."

She smiled, the feeling of happiness that he was still talking to her returned with voracity. Sakura lifted her heals again and again, balancing little hops on her toes. She teased him.

"If they don't kick me out."

His next words dead panned in a tone so serious it made her stop bouncing, "They couldn't kick you out if they wanted to."

"Oh?" Was there a secret rule she didn't know about? She thought she'd memorized them all.

"Then the teams would be uneven, one man short. Can't kick you out."

She stared at him. Then she began to giggle. His chakra did a funny swirl and she giggled louder. He was as funny as Genma, only without the bad books.

"I read your report. Inoichi said you were the top of your class. Why would you be worried about being kicked out?"

"I'm practically a civilian? It's why all the clan kids were upset I beat them." She looked down again. She still felt happy to be here, to be talking, but she didn't like admitting this. As if it were some horrible thing, because maybe if he knew she her parents were Civilian born he might stop talking to her too.

He crouched beside her, his gloved fingers lightly touching her shoulder till she looked up at him.

"Genma came from a civilian family."

Her eyes went wide, "But Genma's so good. Nearly as good as Itachi and Shisui."

His fingers lowered to touch the concrete floor beneath them.

"The kids you see here were all the top of their classes. By pushing yourself to do better it means you're more able to protect your precious people. Even if you quit being a ninja tomorrow, being smart, being good, those are never bad things. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a teme."

Her mouth dropped open, "A teme?"

"Definitely," He agreed.

Inu seemed unaware he was the first adult-ish figure she'd ever heard swear let alone encourage it. Not even Genma swore around her. He was sweet, full of laughter, and gave dirty books, but he didn't swear. However, she was beginning to think Inu was just as unsuited to be around normal children. Sakura was smart enough. She thought Inu might not realize he should be treating her like an academy student.

Inu rustled her hair again, he examined it under the bright light streaming through the window to make sure each side and every strand was keeping its henged dark color. Couldn't have any pink slipping out. He'd have to keep watch on her and be ready to cover with a genjutsu if it failed.

He opened the door, stepped out, but turned when she still stood there, holding the metal door open. Her chakra mixed with his. She was nervous.

"You won't get in trouble if you take me outside?"

"The Hokage just wants you guarded. If we weren't all so busy you'd probably have been taken outside before now."

Team Ro's surveillance of the Uchiha compound continued. Since Kakashi caught evidence of someone crossing the compound boundary unauthorized, he'd requested Itachi and Shisui's teams to help. The Uchiha prodigies had been shifted away from spying on the elders, thus they'd been stuck with the current team Ro. With their increased numbers on that patrol, specifically two extra sets of sharingan eyes, even someone using a space time jutsu found it a lot harder to escape. Already, they'd nearly caught the person.

Kakashi and his ninken had spent most of last night tracking the person's scent. It was at once foreign and vaguely familiar. Disconcerting as Kakashi rarely forgot a scent, but it could easily have been one he'd been around in the war. An enemy they hadn't known they had, a spy, or defector. There were so many missing nins after the war. It could be any of the hundreds he'd worked with before they drove back the invading forces.

Her eyes watched as his appearance changed again. The Inu mask disappeared, transforming into the Sukea persona he'd built up and regularly visited the village under. Sukea the photography enthusiast who chatted with shop keeps and joked with old people.

Instead of answering he told her, "When I'm wearing this face call me Sukea. If anyone asks, tell them your parents asked me to watch you for the afternoon while they had to run to an emergency at their workplace. Don't give your name. Say you're not supposed to talk to strangers."

She eyed him. Cataloging his altered features. Something sad swept across her chakra, she wasn't sad, but she was thinking about something sad. He didn't like the feeling from her, it was too close to pity for his comfort. She released the door.

It's heavy weight swung the metal closed and automatically locked it behind them. To get inside the person would have to disarm the locking seal with a flare of their approved chakra signature. Each person passing had theirs automatically logged along with time of entry, sent straight into the book behind the guard's desk. A guard who was still staring at him through the Headquarters' front window. Apparently the sight of Inu using his free time to teach a girl henge and get her food was very strange indeed. He normally would be laying in his apartment bed right now. She'd asked that first question and he hadn't expected to suddenly be spending the afternoon with her. Except she was asking him questions and he kept answering them.

Sakura declared, "This makes us friends."

"Does it now."

"You know one of my secrets and I know one of yours. Or does everyone know about Sukea?"

"No they don't."

"Then we're friends."

This is a solution to her loneliness, he realized. It's just not the solution he'd been pushing before. He couldn't give her family back or give her suitable company her own age, but he could give her this. He held out his hand.

---

Sakura thought she liked Inu the most.

He'd answered more of her questions than anyone and he even taught her this new trick. She'd been so bored since she'd been stuck in that building and the maze of tunnels underneath. Her chakra signature had been added to exactly two floors and she had explored every nook of those two floors so many times. Half the reason she approached the silver haired Inu is because he'd been lingering near her and she was so tired of having no one to talk to.

Now she was outside! The fresh air blew through her hair and she didn't even care that he'd messed it up. His technique was so sneaky and cool, she never had to have pink hair again if she didn't want to. It was a shocking revelation for the girl who'd been teased so mercilessly about the hue.

He'd also said it was okay to be smart and to be a good ninja. He was the first person who'd ever said that to her. Her parents, while they cared, had been wary when she said she was going to be a nin just like them. They'd shared a long look full of meaning she hadn't understood, her mother's jaw had been stiff as she gave a sharp final nod of approval. That had been that. They were proud of her, but also scared for her. Her okaasan twice now, after finding her upset after the academy, asked her if she wanted to return. Sakura's answer hadn't changed.

Storming forward with Inu the colors flooded her limbs. She was firm on her resolve. He was her friend. He couldn't take it back now.

He did take her to a stand serving seared meat and vegetables. They ate them sitting side by side at the stall and when she asked about how long it had been there the persona of Sukea chatted animatedly with the stall owner. The older woman grew excited they wanted to hear about her family who still lived and cooked in one of the villages skirting Konoha proper. This woman and her children moved inside the walls once the civilian apartments had been expanded.

The arm of Sukea might look unassuming, but when he leaned against her she could feel the hard ridges of his armor. When the woman's back was turned he whispered to Sakura.

"There are still six outskirt villages. They're close enough to regularly do business with Konoha proper, but they remain far enough not to immediately get in the way of village defenses. Together the seven villages could pool a population of 500,000 and a fighting force of 110,000 if retired ninja were recalled. Most retired nin relocate there."

"Why?" Sakura blurted.

She might have been embarrassed, but Sukea had a kind, pleasant face. Remembering he'd told her to never henge the real features like her face, beyond the colors and tiny distinctions, she looked at the sharp structure of his and realized this is maybe what the white chakra rescuer really looked like. Maybe not the paint markings, but the jaw, the nose. His intense eyes as he took her questions seriously.

"Housing is cheaper out there."

"But they move farther from the people they care about," Sakura, having now spent nearly four weeks away from her parents couldn't imagine choosing this.

"Not so far they can't see each other every week."

"But don't clans have compounds?"

Some don't have enough housing for everyone. Konoha has been prosperous and they've grown big here. Because we won the wars. There's also a few who've been thrown out for marrying someone their clan didn't approve of. The Konoha clans might be 20% larger if they didn't anger people," Sukea added these numbers under his breath so only she could hear.

"That's so many," She whispered back. Sakura liked having someone to share secrets with.

With an added, "You'd have learned that in the academy's last year. It's part of the preparation for C rank missions. They'd also warn you not to spread the knowledge around."

Sakura added after a moment, "Being sneaky is good, in case some bad people attack."

"Correct. They won't expect so many. The village is hidden in the leaves in more ways than one."

With that statement the mostly hidden chakra from the man next to her stuttered and hid itself away. Watching it, Sakura wondered why that comment meant so much to him. The man who showed her his face. She ate the rest of her vegetables, twirling her sticks and watching the white blue flow of his chakra's reaction. How it dipped, spurred suddenly moved in and out. It tested and played... His chakra reacted. Sakura thought it might be one of the few things he couldn't entirely control.

Chapter 8: Value Of Literature

It wasn't the only time Inu or Sukea sat and ate with her. Sometimes he'd show up with food at her bunkbed in the barracks. Sometimes he'd pull her outside to go for a walk. Once he couldn't come personally, but a random ANBU stopped her. Their black sleeved arm and white forearm guard stuck out in the air before her. 

Sakura was walking through the common room for the 100th time, folding pages she'd torn out of that Paradise book. Her little fingers tucked and folded the simple origami puppy face. The puppy's right ear had the words, "Hot breath on her neck". The puppy's left ear had the words, "Warmth tingling..." but the rest of those words had been scratched out by Sakura. She couldn't have them ruining her folded puppy. She didn't feel bad about tearing out the page. The Paradise book had been read so many times by so many people grabbing it out of the "literature" box Genma had found, she didn't think anyone would miss it. Who needed swooning and kisses anyways? Sakura nodded her head to herself as she thought this over and folded the last edges of the origami puppy face. She'd need to find a brush and ink to give it eyes and a nose, but it was already adorable. So distracted she didn't immediately notice the white armored arm or the serious panda mask staring down at her. When she did she blinked up at them. 

"Ohayō Gozaimasu ANBU-san," The woman was so tall Sakura had to crane her neck away from those glistening wet, long legged black pants and lean to see the painted panda face.

There was no return greeting, something she'd gotten used to from a majority of the people here. It still made her sad, but she kept trying. Instead, something appeared in the woman's hand so fast Sakura didn't know where it'd been pulled from. The female captain held a book. On top of the cover it had a crinkled piece of paper with messy handwriting and a little face drawn. The note read, "Please give this to the kid. Thanks. - - Inu."

The female captain held it further, prompting the short girl to reach out for it. It was an old looking book. 

She glanced back up at the panda masked woman in her white captain armor, recalling her conversation with Itachi. He'd explained their difference in armor. It had been one of the few long-winded answers she'd ever received from the 13 year old Uchiha. Prompted when she asked why his, "Armor was white when so many others here had black? And, and, well wouldn't black armor help you blend into shadows better?" So she knew the white armor meant this woman was strong, a good leader amongst other elites, she'd been recognized for it. 

Sakura held the book close, happy to bits that Inu had thought enough about her to give her a book not from the cast off ANBU box of literature. She was so happy she was a bit late to reply. Panda was already leaving. Sakura hadn't even said thank you or gotten a chance to ask the only female ANBU officer (she'd seen) all the questions she'd been building up in her mind. With so much free time with little else to do she had a lot of questions. She couldn't miss this. Sakura didn't know when, or if, she'd ever see Panda in the Common Room again. 

Upon seeing the woman about to leave she rushed two steps forward, placing herself back within the woman's sight. She'd learned weeks ago not to touch any of the ANBU without warning. It made them react poorly. Only one weapon had been drawn so far and that one had been caught by another ANBU before it could hit her. Sakura was getting better at not startling them. So she just ran forward to block the captain's path. 

She bit her lip then blurted, "ANBU-san your armor is white."

The woman stopped. The tall, so very tall captain looked down at the question. Their head and panda mask tilted. Sakura, who had been practicing her patience and information gathering skills on the ANBU members, now understood the power of a statement and patience. After she stated the obvious she waited just like Ino's dad had waited in the interrogation. Eventually the woman in white armor spoke. 

"Yes." 

Pleased her use of the interrogation technique worked Sakura prodded, "So that means you're strong enough to fight off any enemy nin you attract away from your team." 

It was a summary of Itachi's explanation. His justification of his armor was all about the brain tracking easy to see targets. Nothing screamed target like a reflective white surface on a dark night. He went on and on about how the human eye worked for calculating distances. It was kind of boring, but she wasn't going to tell Itachi that. Not when she'd finally found something he cared about. Panda mask woman seemed to respond well to her summary anyways. 

"Yes."

The woman's tone had become clipped, irritated, the girl realized. Sakura hurried along with her request. She really, really wanted to know what the female captain had to say. She was stuck here and she needed more to practice on than healing Genma's cuts and scars from training. It was so boring and this woman was so cool. Sakura couldn't help the way her eyes got big nor how she blurted out the request she'd been holding in. 

"So you must have had to train a lot to build up your muscles and chakra that much. Do you have any tips?" 

The woman's fingers stopped twitching towards her kunai pouch. It was much nearer to Sakura's eye height and the concentration of the woman's colors had been flooding down to the fingers. At this last question they eased, returning to a more normal flow. The panda masked captain looked from Sakura's face to the book she clutched to her chest. 

"I'll write some down for you."

With that statement the woman shunshined away. What remained were a pair of bloody prints from the captain's sandals. Sakura realized that glistening wet look of the woman's black pants and sandals hadn't been water, but blood. She stared at the red tracks. Her grip on the book became tight, her wide eyes now moved from this one bloody set of sandal prints and shifted to the trail of blood the woman had left behind as she'd crossed into the common room to deliver the book as Inu requested. Sakura's eyes stayed wide as she calculated how much blood must have been soaking that fabric to still be seeping down. Enough to make each of those steps leading through the common room. 

Sakura swallowed and stared at the red tracks. Panda, she decided, was as scary as Shisui and Itachi. More so, as no matter how good the teenagers were they didn't have the ruthless presence of that veteran captain. Her skin crawled. 

Sakura clutched her book and hurried back to her room. There, sitting cross-legged on her bunkbed she put the book on her lap. It's spine creaked with age. The pages had long ago darkened to a deep yellow. The book fell open to a heavily creased part of the spine, laying open there as if it'd been read hundreds of times. It opened to a chapter on the basics of fūinjutsu symbols, theory behind space and time, and how short range transportation formulas like those utilized in generic shunshin techniques could be expanded upon for long range transportation of goods and people. 

She flipped to the beginning of the book. The bold title printed on the otherwise blank yellow cover read, "Academy Year 4: Wartime Supply Chains by Senju Tobirama". An interesting title, Sakura mused. Although she was confused why she'd never heard of it before, not seen it on any of the booklists posted in the school office. She fingered its ragged and cracked spine, before flipping it open. Just inside the old cover she read the messy name. Her eyes widened. There in faded, old, hand stroked kanji was a name she'd only ever heard about. 

"Namikaze Minato Year 4" 

This book was worth a million Paradise books. Her otousan said people pay ryō for rare things. It really might be worth a million, maybe even millions of ryō. Written by the second Hokage and used by the fourth, practically a Konoha secret. Her hands shook. The book belonged to the fourth Hokage as a child. It'd been his when he was just a ninja in training. Her fingers carefully brushed over Namikaze Minato's name.

To the silence of her room she asked, "Who is Inu?" 

---

He hadn't seen the girl in days. He'd been too focused on sneaking around the Uchiha Compound at night tagging the undersides of benches and window ledges with seals to sense a particular chakra signature and trigger traps. The key to a space time ninjutsu user was to let them get confident. Let them think they could enter the area freely with the assurance no one would be able to hit them if it came to a confrontation. The key was to not hit them at all. 

Kakashi was a tracker and lures had always been his strength, something he'd hardly had to work at. It's why they'd pulled the orphan out of the academy and stuck his nose to the ground in a bloody mess. He'd been tiny, precocious, and those Chūnin and Jōnin they stuck him under reasoned if he could trap and kill a squad from a distance, then they'd use that. However, his traps hadn't had any finesse. They were bloody and physical and left everyone dead. That was until Namikaze Minato, on a return mission with his jōnin squad, had walked into the trapped field and dismembered bodies the tiny six year old had left. Minato, Jiraiya, and Kushina were all seal experts in their own right and when they'd found him covered in dirt and bits of the people he'd blown apart with rudimentary explosive tags, they not only escorted him back to the Chūnin who was supposed to be watching him but they made it clear he was being reassigned, effective immediately. 

His traps were better now. He was going to catch that user of the space time ninjutsu and he was going to take him alive. Every person needed chakra. Not a single nin stayed conscious once you drained it. An experience he knew to be highly uncomfortable and distressing. 

It was a blessing having Itachi and Shisui's team assigned as they could work on the actual outer wall surveillance while he set up the seal nodes. His fish net would alert him when the unauthorized presence returned. He wasn't going to let Shisui or Itachi or any of their family get into an even worse situation. After he'd sensed the signature and their emotions twice already, surveilling the area around the Clan Head's house, he wasn't willing to let it keep happening. The Uchiha may be upset and on the edge of making a major mistake, but they were part of this village. A founding part who'd invested decades of their lives to protecting and serving it. An assassin sneaking through on his watch over them was unacceptable. 

---

The next time he did see the girl it was only for a few minutes. In which he'd been informed from one of his clones that Shisui hadn't shown up with her dinner. So when he had a moment he sent another clone with food. It was taking a toll on him. She took one look at the clone holding the food out to her. 

"Inu is that you?" 

"I'm a clone of Inu."

She nodded her head. Then queried, "You sound tired. Not quite there and your colors are fuzzy around the edges. Have you, the real you, not been sleeping?" 

"Not well, no. Boss wants to make sure his team is safe."

"Just don't forget they need you too. If you're tired that won't help anyone." She then looked around and pulled a squished bit of paper from her bedside table. "This is Chibi Inu. I made him for you."

"Ah."

"See even clone you is tired. You should take Chibi Inu's advice and sleep more."

The clone ruffled her hair. He smiled down at the child. The expression hidden behind his clone's hound mask. 

"Don't worry about stray puppies. You can't take them all in."

She groaned, "My okaasan said the apartment is too small. She made me take the last one I found to the Inizuka compound. The families who lived there all had stripes on their faces. And they had so many puppies! I bet they'd feed you and make sure you sleep."

"I can sleep when I'm dead," His words came out so casually, with such expectation, the girl beside him stopped smiling. He turned around to find her white knuckled hand clutching the folded paper dog. The clone held out his hand to her, waiting for her to take it or to give the Chibi Inu she'd made for his boss. Boss told him to spend time with her in the Common Room and make sure she ate the food he brought. She hadn't done either so far, leaving two of the clone's mission objectives unaccomplished. He kept holding out his hand. He would complete this mission for his boss. 

Finally the clone asked, "What's wrong?" 

"Why do you talk like that? Like you don't matter."

He didn't have an answer. 

"You're not allowed to die. Not as Inu. Not as Sukea. Not as anyone else either. You have too many people who care about you."

"Oh?" He was still holding out his hand. 

She took it. It was stronger than he expected from someone so tiny. If she pressed any harder she'd pop the clone. 

"Ya. Me. Or didn't you know?" 

She stormed forwards. Stomping with heavy steps that sent light tremors through the concrete floor with each impact. She dragged him forwards and the clone let her.

---

She said it bold as brass, but inside Sakura had been fretting. Besides her parents, she'd never told someone she cared about them before. No one had ever asked her either. Yet Inu had shown her more of his faces than any of the others had. He didn't just stop by and offer her food or suffer her presence. He cared. It was strikingly obvious in everything he did. She couldn't help not care too. 

She hoped it wouldn't scare him. From what little she'd learned about the ANBU people, she knew two things with a gripping certainty. One, they were terrible at talking to people. Two, they were skittish. She had to tread carefully in everything she did and said, less they poof away from her. 

---

Shisui hadn't shown up again. The boy's team informed Kakashi of the repeat absence when they showed up to report for their scheduled surveillance of the Uchiha compound. Kakashi, who'd just worked 8 hours himself waved off team Ro and stated he'd fill in as captain. He reached for a soldier pill, digging around his pouch till he felt the bottle of them. He watched team Ro disappear through the trees, leaving Shisui's three teammates standing around him, waiting for his plan on tonight's surveillance op. 

It wasn't as easy as it had been. Not with the unauthorized visitor, their clear ninjutsu skills, and their impending assassination attempt. The foreign nin had been returning on a predictable, weekly schedule to observe the Head House. However, Kakashi knew the next visit may be the one they acted. 

It was the worst time for Shisui to be falling apart. If Kakashi wasn't so glad the boy hadn't offed himself yet, he would have been annoyed. He just didn't have it in him to be annoyed, not when the concern and anxiety for his little otōto got worse with each slip the boy made. The weight of it settled on him, making Kakashi more exhausted than he had any right to be. 

He'd have to follow protocol and report it. Mouse would be informed. Missing ANBU members was never a good sign. Shisui might be pulled from the roster. It might be good for him. It might not. The lack of structure would have killed Kakashi in his place, the threat of taking ANBU out of his life had jostled him to get it together. Should Shisui be kicked out and sent to a program with the mind healers? Would the mind healers reduce the underlying cause of depression? Kakashi doubted it. Shisui's problems were so different, prolonged, and hard to solve. Life had beaten him down. Fixing that wasn't going to happen just by talking about how hard it was and sending the boy back out there. Kakashi closed his eyes, the action and the emotions he couldn't keep off his face hidden under the mask and ANBU standard ops henge. 

He thought the boy might do well being captured by Mouse, being metaphorically chained to the Commander's desk with a pile of supply order forms and paperwork. It'd done Kakashi a world of good. Maybe it'd help Shisui. He'd facilitate anything promising to help his otōto. Anything. Especially something so easy as talking to the Commander and covering some of the boy's mistakes. So Kakashi worked Shisui's shift, again. He would have to make another clone and make sure the pink haired girl was still getting fed. He'd made so many to cover for Shisui lately he had to be careful not to lose track of the tasks he'd set them on. 

Kakashi continued to cover more shifts. Well aware each time he got closer to the line of overworking and stretching him self thin. Each time he stopped just short of that critical point Kakashi knew was his limit. He wasn't any use exhausted. He wouldn't put his teams at risk. There was a line and he wouldn't cross it. 

He remained tired, but not exhausted. Still functional and quick thinking, still mostly full on chakra each shift he started. Naps and soldier pills had gotten him through worse situations. This was safe and comfortable in comparison. Not healthy, but Kakashi knew he could maintain it for a month or so before it started to drain him completely. Hopefully by then this would all be fixed. He had to keep hoping. 

The night the foreign nin was expected to return, that same day and time they'd observed the Head House each previous week, he had the three members of Shisui's team as well as team Ro scheduled. They would appear to patrol as normal in case the nin was watching. This particular shift Kakashi had to be extremely careful and quick. He used his sharingan twice to finish the net without getting caught by the compounds dōjutsu users.

He wouldn't have even considered doing this tonight if he didn't have Shisui's team in addition to his own. Only he did have them and so he was going to trust them to watch his back while he finished this nasty job. It wouldn't be pretty for whoever got caught in the trap, but someone with chakra wafting such malcontent near the Uchiha Clan Head's house wasn't deserving of gentle treatment. So Kakashi was a bit vindictive while tailoring the last of it. The sharingan use allowed him to do it and do it in record time, his teams watching the outskirts and waiting as backup all the while. He popped another soldier pill to refill the heavy chakra drain from his left eye, but the trap came together so beautifully under its scrutiny. 

Always staying out of sight and using a dozen other high level stealth techniques, he finished and retreated before the Uchiha chūnin guards passed this part of the compound. It was a long shift, but the net was done. The trap ready to trigger on his command regardless of where he was, so long as he kept the remote controller seal inked on his arm, the trap and net would remain connected and feeding results to him. 

Exactly 39 minutes later his fish net across the Uchiha compound alerted the return of their unauthorized chakra signature. A presence heading fast towards the Clan Head's house, Kakashi waited till the assassin reached the perimeter then fed chakra into his remote connection, triggering the trap and the nasty chakra eater seals he'd placed there. 

With coded hand signs to the three people on Shisui's team he ordered them to continue their outer surveillance. Then he went to the area his own team had been hiding this shift. With Genma, Yūgao, and Tenzo following he led them around the Uchiha chūnin guard patrol and dropping into the near deserted gardens. By the time they arrived to the trap outside the Clan Head's house it was 22:30 at night. 

There laying in the middle of his trap they found a nin slumped in an awkward angle, as if his legs couldn't hold him and he'd passed out before he realized he was falling from the roof. He wore a black cloak with red clouds. Kakashi's sharingan eye blazed, cataloguing the features and chakra signature permanently in his mind. Using it so much was going to give him the headache of his life later, but they'd caught him. While he bent to examine the man and remove the foreign nin's weapons the rest of his team spread around under the Clan Head's House, just out of sight from the guard patrol and ready should anyone wander over to this section of the walled off gardens. Kakashi's sharingan eye found four hidden weapon stashes, five scrolls, a storage container, and a strange ring emitting chakra. He pocketed it all in a storage scroll of his own. His head was beginning to pound. Sharp pains shot deep into his skull. They grew worse due from prolonged use of his left eye and the shooting sensations grew sharper as the pain began to spread. 

Just then a hawk landed on the branch above him. A summons to the Hokage's office. He stared up at it, his pounding head getting worse. Then he looked back down at the foreign nin. Those features which had been so familiar. Where had he read them before? Then it clicked. The memory of a past report he'd seen while the sharingan was active. It came back to him, crystal clear despite the six years which had passed. 

The foreign nin's face remained covered by an orange mask, a mask which wouldn't have been so unique if it weren't for the odd single bar opening of an eye slit. Kakashi's sharingan burned the image into his head. His gaze narrowed and stared at the image. That mask was eerily similar to one reported on the night the Kyūbi attacked. The exact same description which the Hokage's on duty ANBU team recorded. The orange masked man who snuck into Kushina's hospital room and released the Kyūbi from its weakened seal. The same sharingan eye which controlled the Kyūbi and convinced the chakra presence to wreck the village which had been keeping it prisoner. The one who'd gotten the Uchiha in trouble and placed under investigation 6 years ago. 

Kakashi couldn't blame the Kyūbi. He could even empathize. He could however blame the orange masked shit who set an enraged being loose on a largely civilian population. He removed the mask just long enough to see the features of a disfigured Uchiha male and slap an extra chakra suppression seal on the nin's forehead. It'd keep him unconscious till Kakashi, the Hokage, or the ANBU Commander removed it. 

Kakashi glanced up at the hawk still waiting for him. The movement sent another stab of pain through his head. His stomach lurched with a wave of oncoming nausea. He swallowed, mentally preparing himself to shunshin into the ANBU bathroom stall directly under the Hokage's Tower. The one reserved for any of the four people scheduled to be guarding the Hokage tonight. 

 

Chapter 9: Scar Tissue

Notes:

As of June 18, 2022 a total 10,000 words were added to chapters 1-4. These feature Shikamaru and Sakura's parents (who I completely forgot were retired shinobi). To account for these changes I also updated quite a few scenes for Sakura and Kakashi.

Kumo's kidnapping of Hinata (which in cannon happened when she was three) is postponed in this story. Here it's assumed to have happened directly after Danzo's attempt to steal Shisui's eye, making Hinata six at the time she was kidnapped. This allows both Hizashi and Hiashi to be alive, happy, and very concerned about village security. Which feeds excellently into the plot of the Root and Uchiha fiasco. :)

Thank you all for your interesting discussions on mental health and trauma awareness. It's so real in the Naruto universe when we consider the human brain doesn't fully mature until the age of 24-25 on average. For instance, Kakashi's relatively young age of 20 is compounded by the heavy trauma he suffered during his life. Which is why the fairly well adjusted six year old can tell that Kakashi and the other members of ANBU have some things they're clearly working on, like social awareness. Why something as simple as a non-judgmental conversation companion can help them work through their issues at their own pace. Now onto the story!

Kakashi held his ANBU masked face in his hands. The gloved fingers of one hand pushed into the rim of his mask's eye, an attempt to stem the pressure throbbing within. It stabbed and burned, his chakra roiling over a complicated network of scar tissue Rin hadn't been precise enough to fix during the transplant. No medic he'd gone to since had been able to remove something so small. They said if he could find Tsunade or her Apprentice then they could fix it.

Over using it was agonizing.

It was in this state he was called to the Hokage's office. His back straight and head looking up he walked through the pain. He couldn't shunshin when it was like this, not if he didn't want to be sick on the floor of wherever he landed. The pain in his left temple was so strong he bumped into a wall and it swooped a wave of nausea over him. His hand shot out to grab the wall. The stairs to the Hokage's office were four flights above the ANBU tunnels. He only had three more to go. He stiffened, stood up straight and kept going.

By the time he made it up to Sarutobi's office his face was sweating under the mask. He knocked.

"Enter."

"Hokage-sama you wanted to see me."

The old man pressed the silence seal on his desk and with a pump of tired chakra the sound barrier erected around them. He didn't look up as he kept writing. A huge pile of paperwork towered near his bent shoulders. Kakashi's chakra sensed a wave of consternation from the Hokage. He tried to push it aside. He couldn't handle the extra stimulation of someone else's emotions right now.

"Kakashi I didn't expect you to take my suggestion so literally. Do you know how many concerned Aburames and Hyūgas I've had approach me the past two weeks? No more horror genjutsus near the Aburame compound. I'm told it disrupts their kikaichū breeding season. Don't post three clones around yourself, it's making all the jōnin Hyuuga nervous. Hiashi's been in here so often asking what I'm hiding I'm almost wishing I would have let Kumo have him and his brother. Since their heiress was taken the twins are all energetic and concerned with village security. Hizashi has taken over the childrens' training for the entire clan, branch and main."

As Sarutobi went on Kakashi tried to listen. He really did. He wasn't going to admit that he completely forgot about how paranoid the chakra seeing dōjutsu clan was. Hadn't given them, or the failed kidnapping attempt, a second thought since Sarutobi refused to give a single Konoha citizen to the foreign country. The old man, still reeling from the documentation of how his friend had been kidnapping children for root, absolutely refused to cater to Kumo's demands for a Hyuuga. The refusal was sent earlier that month and frankly caused the old man so much paperwork Kakashi had been avoiding it as much as possible. The re-write of the Kumo peace treaty prompted three extra lessons with Gai and himself on negotiations. That was as far as Kakashi thought about it. His eye shot a spike of pain through the network in his head. It blocked another huge draw of chakra as the eye tried to disable itself, but couldn't.

Sarutobi asked, "Did I tell you and Gai his branch clan members have been requesting to join the military police ever since? If I could strong arm Fugaku into accepting I'd do it in a heartbeat. The Hyūga, they're so nosy you wonder how they can be so entitled."

"Hokage-sama, is this summons just about my sleeping in public?" His head throbbed. He flexed his fingers, trying to remain present and breathe.

"Couldn't you just sleep? The chūnin patrol has been terrified to approach you since the news of the last incident spread."

Kakashi admitted, "I tried. I really did. I... Am finding this more difficult than I first anticipated. I apologize for causing you trouble Hokage-sama."

Sarutobi waved him off, "We'll figure something else out."

The old man paused to rub his head, then continued, "Pick another facet for the persona. A hobby maybe. If nothing else I'll just name you a jōnin sensei for a genin team."

Dear kami not that. The sound of nausea, the sick moan didn't quite get covered in time. Kakashi clenched his fists and convinced himself he wasn't sick, it was just the pain.

Only then did Sarutobi look up. Peripherally, Kakashi felt concern from the Hokage. He opened his one normal eye in time to see the old man's narrowed in on him. He didn't look happy. Kakashi felt a bit too ill to care. The pain in his eye spiked through his head again. The damaged tissue making his chakra fight itself.

"You're over using it again aren't you?"

"Hai Hokage-sama. It couldn't be helped at the time. We caught the space time ninjutsu user. My team is holding him at the compound, awaiting your order."

Chasing down root, watching the compound, and covering the past two shifts which Shisui simply didn't show up for... Kakashi had already been tired. Tonight's use of his sharingan allowed him to set the trap quickly, eliminating the possibility of a confrontation. A confrontation with a space time ninjutsu user always turned poorly for whoever they set themselves against. He couldn't risk his teams like that. He really didn't have a choice.

"How'd you hold them there?"

"Seal trap designed to sap the target's chakra and leave them unconscious."

Sarutobi puffed from his pipe. The smoke billowed between them, not quite hiding the gleam in the old man's eye. Under that gaze Kakashi explained the situation to the Hokage, the history of return observations, the mask exactly matching the features noted from the night of the Kyūbi attack, how Kakashi believed the man was there to assassinate the Head of the Uchiha Clan if not more of the family. When he finished the old man truly looked his age.

The pipe came out of the mouth, "Having an assassin sneaking to the Clan Head's house is the last aggravation those elders need. If they caught wind of it they'd probably think I commissioned the killer."

Kakashi, somewhat aggravated, remembered that's exactly what Danzo-sama's documents said he'd been aiming to do. Using the Uchiha prodigies, familiar faces the family trusted, as his tools of choice. He ground his teeth tight together, only to immediately stop when it increased the pain in his head.

"What do you want me to do with him Hokage-sama? I'm hesitant to bring the nin straight to T and I."

"No don't." The old man sighed, "Cloak the man in a strong genjutsu and transport him into ANBU holding. Mouse and I will deal with it for now. I don't want T and I seeing them until we have an idea of who we're dealing with. I trust our team there, but this..." He sighed again.

"It's sensitive. I understand."

"Dismissed. Rest when you're done. Hand your report in at your leisure. In a few days I'll call your team in to transport the body." Kakashi understood this as alive or dead.

Relieved he didn't have to deal with the initial interrogation personally, he turned slowly around and with a wince he shunshined to the forest 200 meters west of where he'd left his team. The pain in his head stabbed and he fell to his knees, lifted his mask, and vomited. His eyes shut tight, willing his head to stop spinning and tilting.

Shisui always said using the higher levels of the sharingan pained him as well, but Kakashi's had never healed properly. He knew this reduced his ability. Beyond the constant drain on his chakra, triggering anything more than the first level of the sharingan tore through his scarred retinal tissue. He'd never tried to use level three. In his current state he didn't want to know what it would do to him.

His left hand reached out and brushed against a tree. The rough bark dug into his fingers. He clenched it tight and pulled. Underneath him his legs were fine, it was just the orientation of his head which swam. Breathing deep, long intakes helped and walking around his vomit he returned to his team.

Yūgao saw him first. She stepped closer, "Alright there Taichou?"

He made a noise then grumbled, "I'll be fine, but take the rear. I won't be able to keep up when we move to transport him."

The youngest members of the current team Ro watched their superiors.

"I'll carry the nin," Genma volunteered.

"Tenzo's on point then. Set an area genjutsu and unlock the doors ahead of us. We're taking him quiet to ANBU holding. Yūgao change his features to something nondescript. No one should recognize even his body type. Once we're there use the chakra suppression cuffs and place the extra seals on the holding room. Only Hokage-sama and Mouse for access, deny everyone else when you set the array. I'll follow as I can."

The way they were all shifting around him he could tell they were worried, but jumped to go all the same.

"Hai Taichou," And they were moving.

His tree jumps were labored and slow. By the time he made it to Headquarters and entered his team had completed their task. He glanced his one normal eye at the wall clock. Their shift ended 23 minutes ago.

"Thank you for your help today. Get some rest. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Hai Taichou."

Before Genma could sneak away down to his barracks room and pass out Kakashi held up a hand to stop him.

"Who's feeding the girl today?"

That pink haired girl who's emotions were so genuine as she declared they were friends. The first one to call him friend since his hand went through Rin's chest. The thought of it made him more emotional than it normally would. A friend. Dear kami someone was out there calling him a friend. He didn't want to lose that one too. His head hurt so bad it made his eyes, both good and bad leak some water. He was fucking crying. The telling trail of the tears hid behind Inu's mask. They mixed with his sweat and dirt from his hustle to get the seal trap set in the forest. Kami he should just go home. Instead he was asking about the girl.

"Shisui," Genma responded with a half-hearted shrug.

Kakashi hadn't told the other boys about the third's absence. Genma didn't seem to even be aware his bunkmate hadn't shown up the past few days. Through a haze of pain Kakashi could see the boy lilting on his feet. With them so short staffed team Ro was working more than they should. He patted Genma's shoulder and let the younger boy keep walking.

"Right. Get some rest."

Straightening, Kakashi left to the nearest store selling bentos. The nausea eased somewhat when a breeze hit the back of his neck. If anyone in the hospital was any use, he'd stop there. After a lifetime of subpar treatment, jagged scars, and letting bones heal on their own he'd learned not to bother for anything but the worst injuries. Apparently it had been better a few decades ago when the last Senju still stayed in the village, but he'd never seen the woman in person let alone seen her in the village helping the hospital. He kept walking. He'd be fine. If he kept repeating this he might start believing it.

---

It had been three days since Panda gave Sakura the book. It was three days till she felt his big chakra coming down the hallway. She was beginning to sense not just by sight but by feel, the sort of tinglies she'd get and how her own colors would react to let her know someone was nearby. Nearly all the ANBU were strong, but some of them were magnitudes more colorful than the others. Those were the ones she could feel coming from a long way off and each of them felt different, to the point she could now distinguish the teenage boys apart as they silently passed her door at the odd hours of the night.

When he wasn't hiding his chakra, Inu's colors felt like cold snowy mountain air as they entered her lungs. Tingly in a cool and quick way as it settled across her own chakra network. So she knew immediately when he was close and getting closer. He wasn't hiding at all.

She opened the door and stuck her head to peak around the frame. Her pink hair swung out into the hallway with the motion. There he was, his spine ramrod straight and moving swiftly her way.

He stated, "You're getting better. Being stuck in barracks is good for one thing I guess."

When he kept coming Sakura swung the door open wide. She pushed it just in time and he stomped passed her. He went straight to her little side table and dropped two bentos. Chopsticks fell over their side and clattered to the table's surface. He didn't seem to notice.

There was an edge to his voice. When he folded himself on the bunk directly across from hers she saw his big long legs took up quite a bit more room. She wanted to ask him about the wartime supply chain book. Why did Senju Tobirama write it, why didn't they have it on the academy book list anymore, and why did he have a copy? However, all the questions froze in her mouth when she saw how his shoulders suddenly sagged. How he moved to lean back on the bunk and the wall had to take most of his weight.

Her lips pressed together in worry. She'd seen Sukea's face look tired. She'd seen Inu move slower and talk less fast as if he needed a nap. However, she'd never seen him look so exhausted. She pressed her lips harder remembering the way the Hokage had been convinced her knowing anything about the Uchiha boys was bad, how that led to suspicion of her parents, how the boys had been in trouble for a small security gap, how Itachi and Shisui looked like they carried the weight of the world and it threatened to crush them. Through all of that Inu had never looked so wrung out as he did now.

All that trouble from the councilman and how risky it'd been for the Uchiha boys, those things she'd been worried were still happening...She'd seen the boys come in. Seen how harried they all looked. Whatever was going on it wasn't going well.

"Inu, there's still trouble isn't there? With the boys."

Though his shoulders remained slumped, when the eyes behind the mask opened one of them was bright glowing red. Sakura reminded herself most ANBU didn't reapply the henge or genjutsu once they got through the doors. These were his eyes, despite how startling the left one was, it must be how it truly looked. He had a single red glowing eye like Itachi and Shisui. She looked deeper. Rarely was she at his eye level like this and able to so closely observe the chakra swirling and flowing in his head. The socket weighed heavily on his chakra network, taking in a huge draw of the white color to keep the eye red.

He answered her question without any details. It was simple and only enough to confirm, "There is."

His eye, unlike when Shisui's eye was injured, it didn't pull chakra right. Sort of like how her chakra didn't flow over her skin when she left it scarred. Her hand flickered green, she looked down at it, concentrating till the green flowed strong and steady.

"Can I fix the scarring on your eye?"

The eyes blinked. Their stark colors disappeared for a moment and came back all the more startling when they opened again. He hadn't said no. She stepped forwards and raised her hand. His eyes now reflected some of the green. He looked from her hand to meet her own eyes. He stared at her for a long moment. His hands, how had she not noticed how long they were, he reached up on either side of his mask.

"Do you agree to keep what you discover to yourself?"

She squished her brows, "What I discover?"

"Who I am, what you find. It's the sort of thing medics would agree to, but I think you could be so much more than a medic."

She thought of Panda, how strong she was, how she was a captain of an elite ANBU team. She thought of the book of formulas the second Hokage wrote, how quietly brilliant it was and how excited it made her to think of the possibilities. The green flowing technique from her hand, while cool, it didn't really compare to all the other fascinating things she'd discovered while living with these ANBU.

"I think I can be more as well. But if you need someone to help you, doesn't ANBU have a medic?"

She realized maybe there was a reason Genma kept coming to her to fix his little cuts and scars. Shouldn't all shinobi learn how to do basic healing on themselves like that? Surely ANBU has people who do it too.

"We do. They keep us alive and functioning." Then he snorted, "No one in this facility has precise enough control to close skin without scars like this. Only a few medics currently in Fire Country would be able to and none of them are keeping my team's secrets like you are."

Her eyes went wide. She didn't think what she did was rare. Apparently he thought different. Behind his hound mask he looked pointedly at her still steadily glowing green hand. She looked away from the glowing fingers and back to him. His eyes were so intense when he put his entire focus on something.

"If you think you can do it, I'm willing to let you try. But you'd have to agree to never tell anyone who I am or what you know of me. They're secret. You understand? They protect me."

She tried to wrap her mind around that sort of hidden thing. It must be hard to maintain. Sakura wondered if she was capable of keeping something so important to herself.

She licked her lips, "Things you can't tell anyone?"

"Yes," He said the word with a lot of weight on it.

This sort of information was critical, Sakura realized. It might be the difference from him being safe or not safe. Maybe that's why the boys had been in trouble as well. Their identities getting out might be the difference between them coming back or not.

"It means what you see while you help me, if you think you can, you're not supposed to tell anyone. Not anyone but the ANBU Commander or the Hokage."

Her eyebrows weren't squished anymore. They'd risen high enough to crinkle her forehead in surprise. Inu must be really, really high up if those were the only ones who could know.

"Um," She glanced uncertainly at her hand.

The green technique she'd been practicing for weeks to fix Genma's cuts now flowed smooth and strong. She might not be able to do everything, but she could fix cuts. She could fix scars. Sakura looked back into the glowing eyes. This was Inu, who he really was. She didn't want him or his colors to go away. Sakura would keep him safe. She took a big breath. She could do this.

Sakura looked him in the eyes and solemnly promised, "I won't tell. I won't tell my parents or anyone else."

He made a hand sign and with a wave of an arm he produced a burst of wind. It blew past her, grazing the fabric of her clothes and she turned to see the door partly close. Not a lot, just enough to hide him from immediate view of the hallway. Then his long hands rose up and removed the hound mask. He looked exactly like Sukea. His tidy silver hair tied up and the purple paint was gone. He had a long scar down the left side of his face. It's thick tissue contrasted so starkly with that of his pale skin and red eye with those swirling tomoes. If it weren't so drastic a feature he would be Sukea's exact replica.

She tried to hide her smile, but her effort seemed to only make it more obvious. Her cheeks became big with the hidden smile.

He looked back at her, tired and a bit surly. The way his chakra moved, it jolted around the scar, got frantic and confused around the eye, then how it got sucked in as if the entire flow was perpetually and forcefully consumed by the red eye. It didn't look good. The skin around this area was poofier and flushed. Sakura frowned.

Tilting her chin at it she asked, "Does it hurt when it draws chakra like that?"

He met her eyes, his own tired and still grumpy. He gave a single sharp nod. It wiped the frown off her face. No wonder he was irritable. She couldn't imagine what having her colors tugged and forced like that would feel like. It made her uncomfortable imagining it.

She held her glowing green hand over his eye. Under her hand his colors responded to hers. It's the colors she'd focused on, trying to smooth them out and break down the scars in the way. She could feel them when her green chakra entered, there were so many tough little scars. It felt so different from his other eye or from Shisui's eye. He was staring at her and she tried not to be embarrassed. His colors moved erratically at first, almost fighting her, then they moved in line. They stopped flowing so heavily to the red eye.

She saw his chest move. From it a great big breath released and he leaned back heavier against the wall. His colors flowed easier and easier as she broke apart the thousands of little scars she could feel. She wanted to make it more like Shisui's eye, what little effort she could do to achieve some of that. Sakura glanced at his face, seeing he'd stopped staring at her and had leaned his head back against the wall. His one normal eye gazed openly at the bunk above him. She perched next to him and went back to staring at his colors fix themselves.

At least as far as they could with someone who didn't know exactly what she was doing. Just make it like Shisui's eye, she kept repeating to herself. Just smooth the flow. Just break down all the little scars and heal them. But there were so many. Thousands of them and all so tiny behind his eye. She'd been building it up so she could now hold the green flow for almost ten minutes. Nearing the end of those ten minutes she saw the green of her hand begin to sputter. She took it away. Her fingers numb and shaking slightly.

His other eye closed. The boy's chest moved again, taking a huge long breath and letting it out slow. With both eyes closed and leaned back against the wall his next words came out so quiet his mouth hardly moved.

"Thank you."

She didn't want to reply yet. Sakura looked intently at the left side of his face. The big outer scar was still there, if less obvious and less thick. The skin around the socket wasn't as poofy or red as it had been. She pressed her lips together in an uncertain moue.

She reached out with the fingers from her other hand to touch his eyebrow. His colors were flowing smoother, not fighting against the socket as much. He was so bright like this she found it hard to look so closely, but the details seemed to matter so she squinted and leaned in to inspect them.

Only then Sakura admitted, her voice timid with the knowledge he might be mad the big scar remained, "I don't know how much I did. I can try again later if you'd like."

His one good eye opened to look at her. The corner of his mouth tilted up into a lazy grin. When he looked like this she thought all those boys and girls chasing the Uchiha boys were crazy. Clearly he had a reason to wear the mask. He'd have a fan club a kilometer long if he went around smiling at people like that. She shook her head and shoved his shoulder.

"Did you bring me vegetables?"

He chuckled, that deep throaty sound he made when she thought he was being all the parts of himself at once. As if Sukea, Inu, the clones, and this boy were all in one place at the same time.

"I got your damn vegetables. Did you read the book?"

Her face lifted in excitement. The book! She jumped up and dove to the other bunk, tossing the blanket aside so she could find it. Sakura had marked all the pages she had questions from with little torn pieces of pages from Paradise. A better use they'd never had, except maybe the Chibi Inu. They'd been created to be torn out and make the Chibi Inu, she thought. She turned around book in hand and beamed at him. His lazy, happy smile returned.

Chapter 10: Salt Walkways

Kabuto walked through the rain. Buildings around him stood dim and dank. Water damage lined even newer walls and balconies. Older structures remained half crumbled, destroyed by two bigger powers intent on seizing control from the others. The people here still put out salt along walkways to ward off the worst spirits. A mourning ritual they'd not yet finished. Their homes their families destroyed.

Suffering so strongly displayed, death less merciful for how it had been performed in droves. It was little wonder the people of Amegakure saw evil in the world. The immediate details had been taken, the mass graves dug, but there wasn't time enough to dull this pain so intentionally and casually wrought. Kabuto first saw Ame after he failed his first Chūnin exam. There he and his team met a man as shadowed as the history of their village, someone who was working to change how this world was run. Kabuto's mother would have approved. She once said the best thing he could do in life was make the place they had better.

He was doing it. One mission at a time. A Genin who had a purpose beyond the Corps. They might be the 33% who weren't assigned long-term sensei, but it hardly mattered when their first steps were just beginning to form. He was young, barely a teenager, and he already had a mentor sending him scrolls and giving his team opportunities they'd never have. Not if they stuck doing grocery runs with the Genin Corps.

Around him Ame continued to rain. The sound relentless against the metal rooftops. Leached iron ran from the buildings to the streets and swirled down drainage paths. Children played in the same streets, carefree, happy, and well fed. The God of Amegakure took care of its people, that's what they said.

Under a burnt orange awning he stepped into a dry veranda. The shoe rack almost empty. The sign above demanding muddy shoes be left outside. He took off his boots. They were brand new and kept his toes dry and warm. He'd bought it with his 3rd month of Root's salary. They gave a health program and took issues of uniform so seriously, all he'd needed to do was mention his sandals were falling apart. The new leader had his equipment form and increased salary signed the next day. Kabuto stared at his new boots, muddy yes but holding back the swamp, and still couldn't believe it. They were the sturdiest he'd ever owned. Maybe if his mom had been this well taken care of she'd still be here. He would make it better. He'd make it better for her.

In nothing but his socks he stepped into the quiet building, pushed past two curtains, and made his way past the bar and into a quiet lounge. Soft music floated from a stereo across the room. The corner where his Senpai sat held an expansive view of the forest beyond. Rain refracted light on the window pane. It cast the man and everything near in blues.

Kabuto bowed low, "Orochimaru-sama."

"What have you heard?"

"You are right, there's been no word of Tobi, not since his last letter. Patrols around the compound have gotten worse. We lost our original tail on the prodigies."

"And the new leader?"

"Stuck on some girl. Danzo's last order. It's doomed to fail."

"Exert pressure, give your advice, their services can be better used elsewhere."

"Hai."

The Sannin smiled, "You've done well Kabuto. Are you happy?"

"More than I have been in a long time. Thank you."

---

It had been a quiet day and was an even quieter night. Around her Junior ANBU Barracks was empty as it always was on the early weekend. It seemed the time when everyone's schedule collided and she regularly got left alone. Inu's clone was her only company. Later she'd realize just how lucky she was.

Lucky Inu's clone had been there, because she didn't hear the first one come in. She just felt the dead and almost drained chakra as it stepped from the shadows of the hall behind her. They got to her door. It swung open and creaked the hinges. Sakura looked up to find a blank masked woman towered above her. More shadowed colors of suppressed chakra behind her. The closest one, the woman raised an arm. It looked so pale in the dim of the night. The arm guard curiously different than all the other ANBU level nin who came to the underground facility.

In a blink they were next to her bed. Sakura jumped backwards, tangled in her blanket. Her sleepy brain panicked as if this were a nightmare. The woman's arm swung forward with a glint of a wickedly pointed senbon. It's tip still wet from whatever she'd dipped it in. Sakura kicked her feet against the too large blanket.

Inu's clone moved so fast she didn't see the kunai until it lodged in the woman's neck. It snuck in right under the blank white mask and stuck out the side. It's blade severed an artery, one of the big ones. The clone pushed the spurting body away. Deft and quick he found a corner of the messy bedding and tugged away Sakura's blankets.

She stood, shaky, and backed quickly away. Inu's clone helped her towards the door. On the way he bent down. When he pulled the kunai from his victim the spurting got worse. The clone held it out to her. His clone's dampened voice now sounded off for how urgent it spoke. How forcefully he put the kunai in her smaller hand.

He instructed, "Run. If they're inside we need to get out."

Sakura bolted for the open door. She no longer questioned orders like that.

It was in the hallway they got Inu's clone. The clone took out a pair of blank masks before one of their swords caught him. Inu's figure poofed with a disheartening and sudden absence of friendly chakra. The clone's smoke just enough cover for her to run into the man trying to block her. She used the kunai. The handle still slick from the previous woman's neck. She ran around the next person trying to get her. The smoke wafted around her, excessively, as if the clone still tried to protect her even in it's death.

Those two remaining in the hallway felt dark, unwelcome, and full of bad intent. Sakura ran just as Inu's clone told her. Down the halls, through the short cuts by the bathroom, between a book case full of spare black uniforms. Her heart hammered so loud it really felt like a dream. The dark hallways didn't light up around her, not like they should. Instead they only held a dim glow, the ambient energy which never powered down from the sealed surfaces. In the utter dark they had a faint hexagonal pattern from which she could sense every ANBU's chakra who'd ever fed it.

She expanded her chakra outward. It was dangerous, Senju Tobirama once wrote in his letter to his healer cousin, because any sensitive person in the vicinity would be able to feel you. Sensors are best when they go unnoticed. Sakura's heart skipped, but she pushed her chakra out anyways. Searched, pushed, and desperately tried to find someone familiar. There. Three blocks away, on the same level and moving towards the younger ANBU Barracks. It was faint, clearly masked.

Faint and far away, but familiar. Sakura knew that chakra. It was strong. She blared out her own chakra in the same distress pattern she'd felt Shisui use. Help. Help. Help.

The chakra signature raced towards her. Sakura almost cried when she recognized who it was coming for her, the tall Panda masked woman. The ANBU Captain who always was so strong. She arrived in the common room before her, Sakura sensed the Captain's entry, her precise location in the underground facility, and spun sharply to veer in that direction. When Sakura rushed in, a blank masked follower was close on her heels. 15 meters, 10 meters, she sprinted hard around the last corner till she found the familiar signature. Unfortunately the bad one still followed. Sakura could feel them gaining and ducked when they lunged. From over her shoulder she saw the blank masked man, the same one she'd run into under the cover of smoke. His long blade missed her head. His swing arched and overextended his arm.

The blank mask didn't have a chance to use their blade a second time. Panda flickered. One moment the Captain was across the room. The next her white armor plated forearms were reaching from beside the man's extended arm. His neck broke with a sharp twist of the woman's hands.

Panda communicated, "I locked down the facility. All doors should be sealed to any signature but the Captains' and Commander's."

Sakura didn't know if she liked that, "We're locked in?"

"Yes," The grim determination in her voice resonated with the Captain's chakra. "But so are they."

Just as she said this a thunderous boom shook the room around them. For the first time Sakura seemed to feel the weight of soil and buildings above them. The underground facility echoed the explosive noise. It seemed to rattle everything from her bones to the mush between her ears. They started ringing and she cupped her hands to the side of her aching head.

Across the room an ominous orange and gold color started to glow around the door frame. Sakura watched, never having seen any of the ANBU's seals do this before. She sensed the building energy. A toxic and unstable little pool only held back by a metal door. Their side of the door began to waft smoke. The smell of hot steel filled the room. A pop sounded when the nearby wall formed a hairline crack adjacent to the frame. More smoke drifted through when a second crack formed in the reinforced cement.

While she'd been gawking the Captain had been quick and moving around behind her. The focus of the serious woman's chakra seemed to hone in. Intensify in precise motions as she went from task to task. Sakura realized the woman was setting up traps around the room.

The door got incredibly hot. Panda's head snapped up and her motions became rushed. Panda flipped up a huge fluffy chair. Then a corner table and layered them against each other.

"Panda?" Sakura asked, scared.

The Captain's chakra spiked with anxiety and focus. She didn't respond, but threw a thermal blanket over the upturned and protective fort in the corner. Where did she get a thermal blanket and water bottle? The Captain grabbed something else out of a pouch and threw it across the room. The 6 year old's eyes followed the exploding tag, fixated on it as the chakra infused paper fluttered from where the kunai stuck in the far wall.

Sakura felt her shirt jerk. Her miniature, mint condition, ANBU uniform was strong. When the Captain pulled her shirt up the rest of Sakura easily came with it. Sakura found herself shoved into the corner. The side of her face pressed against the table. Her legs too long and awkward against the squishy sofa chair. The next boom shook the entire Common Room. Above her she felt the edge of the thermal blanket flutter. A crack and hiss of sparks far worse preceded a hideous snap sound. Then, within Sakura's limited vantage something huge was airborne and smacked into the interior plaster not a meter from her. Sakura shrieked, a high pitched, panicked noise.

In front of her the huge piece of metal groaned and slipped from the wall. Much too close to the protective sofa chair.

The destroyed metal door slammed to the floor with a bang of sparks and flames. One moment her toes were fine and only barely sticking out the underside of the sofa chair. The next she squished backwards. Bringing her feet with her, Sakura barely avoided being crushed under the remains of the hot metal door. She squeaked when she wasn't fast enough and it burned her bare toes.

Sakura would later remember the Captain's voice, shouted from across the room as it released the chakra on the exploding tag. The noise, its resulting percussion of air, the way her ears rang, the steaming sound of the burning leather chair next to her head. Till they were overtaken when screams lit the air. She heard those.

Sakura blinked hard against the pain in her toes and tried to curl into herself. The sounds of metal clashing, feet scuffling, furniture flipping and tearing, all of it faded and dim.

Someone did find her. They tore away the fluffy and charred chair. Sakura scooted back trying to stay under her protective table. Till that to was shoved and suddenly there was nothing blocking her from the room.

Sakura peered up. Ceiling lights above remained ominously dark. It looked even creepier with nothing but seal work glowing and the edges of a blank mask came into view. She held her breath as the figure leaned closer.

She saw a single dark glove reach out and grip the edge of the wood. A blank mask shifted the table away to till they looked over the edge and found her.

A surge of fear made her move. She kicked the wood. The wood was hard. Connecting her foot hurt like blazes lit under her already injured toes, but she was too scared. The table didn't even hit them. It tottered, fell flat, and the blank mask neatly avoided her leg as she tried to kick them again and again. They grabbed her foot and stepped closer. Sakura screamed.

One moment the masked person loomed over her, the next a sword stuck through their shoulder. Its point glinted, barely distinguishable in the glow of overhead seals. Its tip glinted and dripped as it slid further through their shoulder and closer to Sakura's face. Till it quickly retracted and jerked sharply to the side. The blade slid inside their chest. It rented a gruesome curve then pulled free. Their corpse hit the table and slid to the floor.

Sakura scrambled further into her corner and held her own sides as if it'd keep them away. Panda before never seemed too much worse than Itachi or any of the others. Only just then there wasn't anything friendly or familiar about her.

The Captain was a nightmare stepping out of the dark. Her mask gruesome. Her white armor flashed ominous and rendered carnage in her path back to the middle of the room. Flash, flash, flash, she moved and they fell. This commotion held the center of the common room. Everything seemed to rotate around Panda. Even Sakura herself. It held her gaze, she was trapped and not a little awed and terrified by the single woman army.

"Oni," Sakura whispered, for the woman moved like a demon from the worst stories.

Now there were only four blank masks left. They circled around the center of the nightmare. The one who stepped forward was slight, young, and their chakra swirled in a strange way before being forced into action from some command seal in their head. It was the oddest sight. Odder because she'd seen it before. Sakura recognized the messed up chakra of a boy they'd called Tenzo. He wore a blank mask, but his chakra was the same as she'd seen that night as Inu ordered him to the Hokage tower. Well he was here now.

He stepped up to the Captain and attacked, his movements forced the other three blank masks back. From his jutsu numerous wood staffs shot, halting the Captain's movements, the wooden beams shot out with vicious speed and thunked hard against everything they hit. One clipped the Captain right in the forehead. The reinforced panda mask cracked with a broken porcelain noise and shattered when it hit the floor. The place it'd hit broke through and cut the Captain.

Panda bared her teeth. Her response spiked the Captain's chakra. She was furious, "You."

Sakura wasn't sure what the Captain did to the boy, but one moment he was standing and the next he'd slumped. His leg at a bad angle and his head tilted. She stood over his unconscious figure, blood rushed down her cut to paint half of her face in a vicious visage. She snarled.

In the dim lit room Sakura truly believed it was oni they housed in the depths of the village.

Panda left bodies all over the common room. Her motions got slower and slower until she was the only thing left standing. The side of her face had become a dripping mask of blood. Later Sakura would remember, when everything became still and quiet, how the woman called for her when it was all done. At the time she didn't register it. The moment froze her with everything else and she couldn't seem to move.

"Sprite, are you there?" Her voice sounded scared. For such a tall woman the tone didn't match. Such a strong Captain seemed incapable of fear. The pedestal Sakura placed her on had grown to the height of the Hokage mountain. "Sprite?"

Sakura, whose shaking hands were clamped around the edges of her useless table, peaked out from behind her hiding spot. At some point she'd sunk behind it again. The table wobbled on a leg broken from when the body landed on it. She looked around the shards of the leg to look from the slumped forms, to the whole that used to be the doorway, to the exploded wall, to the two bodies suspended by ninja wire. Their legs and arms outstretched at odd angles from how they'd been caught in that trap.

"Sprite?"

Sakura's head snapped back towards the center of the room, to the white armor and Captain who looked so bright in the dim light. She'd later remember how Panda's purple hair fell forward as she leaned her hands on her knees. Her face writ with exhaustion and relief.

"You're ok."

Sakura remained crouched, mute, and afraid to move. Crimson appeared almost black in the common room's dim lighting. There was so much of it. Blood splattered the walls. Gore coated the scattered chunks of concrete and metal which had been the door. There had been so many people 5 minutes ago. Now it was just her and a scary looking Panda breathing ragged and holding a hand to the puncture wound in her stomach. Through increasingly winded words Panda had to ask her question a few times before the 6 year old heard it.

"Kid, you heal right?"

Sakura jolted forwards. Her bare feet skidded and slid on the blood. The floor was a mess. Destroyed cushions and feathers like islands in the black crimson. The blood squished and squelched between her toes when she stumbled to a stop before the ANBU Captain. The tall woman lowered herself. Her form landed against the ruined couch. It might have been graceful, but for how heavily the Captain fell onto her knees. The mockery of a polite greeting.

Panda asked quite randomly, "How are you doing tonight?"

Sakura, her eyes still wide in shock, looked from the bloody wound spurting between too pale fingers and up to the woman's face. The female ANBU Captain had never spoken this much or so freely. Her words slurred.

"I got books and food for you. Inu sends his love."

The woman sounded drunk. Alarmed Sakura's hands glowed green and shot forward to brush away the woman's own now sickly white hand. Blood loss. Hadn't one of Inu's books mentioned that? It had been one of the more useful ones. A journal written by an ANBU during the 2nd Shinobi War on battle medicine and triage. Sakura followed the advice now. She always had been good at reading and book learning.

The Captain's organs and muscles knitted underneath her fingers. She could feel them closing. Their chakra pathways repaired. The muscle around them shifted, repopulated cells and stimulated a careful and controlled growth. Not too fast. She had to be careful to stop the growth after. Then the skin, only by then her arms were shaking and the green around her palms sputtered.

Her work got increasingly sloppy but she pushed just a bit further till it closed. Into a puckered patch covering what had been a hole she could fit her own small fist into. Her shaky fingers, now bloody, brushed across the uneven puckered skin. If she didn't feel so empty as if all the chakra had gone from her limbs, she'd get rid of the scar.

Yet having run so fast with chakra pumping through her legs, having healed the oni in Captain's armor who should have their face carved in stone for the message it would send... Sakura's thoughts were starting to ramble and skip. She raised her hands again to the Captain's puckered skin, but her chakra just sputtered out. The scar stared back at her. It was messier than she'd like.

She looked up to see the Captain's eyes had shut. Her breathing shallow. Her posture heavy against the destroyed couch. Her head rested back against a dismembered arm. The arm still had a glove on, still had hair just like a normal arm, and if it's bloody stub wasn't visible Sakura would have thought it still attached. Panda fell unconscious against it like it was a pillow.

The squishiness between her toes had gotten worse. The couch was dripping. Her mouth twisted as the smell got to her. This side of the room was worse. More bodies sprawled. They'd previously been hidden by the furniture Sakura crouched behind. Now she saw them. Her breath jilted and stuck in her throat.

Sakura tried to ignore the bodies. Only the more she thought about it the more often she glanced to the one whose guts strung out in a long line on the floor, or the one who'd been cut down while jumping over the couch. Or the four who'd caught an exploding tag in the doorway and piled there, or the one with wood still sticking out of the floor near his feet who'd been sucker punched when he thought he had her out and put in a choke hold until he passed out.

Now their blood leaked under the furniture and was creeping towards her. She almost went to the couch to perch there for safety only to see it too was glistening and soaked. The closest lifeless eyes stared at her. Milky blue eyes of a Yamanaka, the same eyes as her classmate. Next to them was a boy, he'd been knocked out, but the bugs inside his young flesh still buzzed agitated. An Aburame. Sakura swallowed. She wasn't sure what was worse, staring down a dead all seeing Yamanaka whose mask had slipped off or the boy with the agitated bugs. These were all Konoha Shinobi they'd hidden beneath blank masks. Konoha Shinobi had tried to kill her.

If the cold lady captain hadn't been there dropping off Inu's latest gift of food and books, she'd have been all alone. Sakura's breath came fast. When others arrived Sakura was still kneeling next to an unconscious Panda and the severed arm.

The hours after that may as well have been seconds for how much she remembered. Inu's concerned face appeared before her. He spoke but her head seemed too fuzzy to listen. Genma came next. Even Itachi and Shisui made an appearance when the ANBU Commander stopped by. Shisui gave her the oddest look. At some point someone escorted her to the showers, got her dressed, and got her tucked into bed. At some point someone brought her breakfast then lunch and dinner.

The next evening Panda visited. It was unexpected as Panda never visited just to visit. The woman wasn't wearing her mask. Her long purple hair was glorious and spilled over her shoulders. The bags under her eyes and sallow skin made her look tired.

She knocked on Sakura's already open door, "May I come in?"

"Sure."

The six year old scooted across the bed and tidied her tangled blankets. She hadn't slept well last night. Even after the other ANBU arrived and Inu appeared and everyone started cleaning and building new walls and doors. Even after all the drilling and construction noises quieted, she hadn't been able to sleep. Even with the four guards in the hallway. Even when her door was left open so they could check in on her. During her brief nap this afternoon she'd woken up short of breath and with invisible hands reaching for her.

Looking at Panda, the woman was doing just as bad.

"Are you ok Panda-san?"

The Captain's lips twitched.

"Mitarashi."

"Huh?"

"My family name is Mitarashi. I've never had a 6 year old save my life before. I think I owe it to you."

Sakura's eyes were wide, "No. You got it wrong. You saved me."

The woman snorted, her face relaxing by the second. She sat gingerly on the other bed.

"You know how many clients are useless in a fight? How many would see me or one of my people injured and be glad they'd paid top ryō? Thinking at least they weren't the ones bleeding out. Kid, not a one ever tried to help us. Why do you think Shisui is so scared of you?"

Sakura was numb with the information. She stated, "I healed him and gave him a hug."

"We are expecting to die. We aren't expecting to be cared for."

"That's so sad."

"Hm."

Sakura sat with the woman in her room. It was such a novelty to have a female around. She was just as presentable as Itachi and just as tall as Shisui. She spoke enough and sat easily enough Sakura almost would think she was sitting with one of her normal entourage. Similar to how Inu or Genma would stay with her just for a chat. No strings and no rush. Just conversation. As if they were friends. It was nice.

Panda spoke with her. Explained, very briefly, why she'd been so angry with the blank mask they called Tenzo. It ended with a sneering finality, "They should have just cut his tongue out and healed it."

"His tongue?" Sakura was almost not sure she wanted to ask.

"Root members have a seal on their tongues. There are only two people in the village who can counter those sort of insidious and controlling seals. One is hardly ever here, the other, she's got a problem with most. The Hokage doesn't know what to do with her and doesn't trust her to get anywhere near Root or anyone else." Panda sighed, a sad and strange quality to her voice, "He stuck her in T and I. Probably hoping the problem would fix itself and he'd never have to see the Snake Sannin's Apprentice again."

Panda's voice remained neutral but her chakra swirled more under this topic than when she'd been facing Root nin in the blown open doorway.

"You know her?"

"My sister. Her name's Anko."

"Do you think if I asked nicely, if she'd teach me? I promise I'll be nice."

Chapter 11: Information

He hadn't been there for the attack. Panda had. Ever since the infiltration of ANBU Barracks the other captains stopped complaining about his requests to bring things to the girl. In fact, he now had a host of volunteers who hadn't seemed to be aware the threat was so bad.

Genma called the 6 year old their mascot. The way the others banded around her solidified this. The second time he went to get his eye healed, ordered to come back by the 6 year old herself, he found a small mound of jutsu scrolls and reading material piled outside her door.

"Who'd these come from?"

She looked up. It had been two weeks since the attack. The bruises were gone from her face. She stood up before him. The kid no longer flinched each time he stepped inside her room. Outwardly she looked better, but Kakashi was all too aware that didn't mean much.

He kept seeing her face slack and wide eyed with shock. That dark night when the emergency barracks power had been cut. How he'd rushed through the dark hallways and found her surrounded by blood and bodies. The only one left standing. A tiny thing over a field of gore just like he'd been when he was 6. It didn't matter that she hadn't been the one to kill them. Kids' minds dealt with trauma differently. Just because they bounced back didn't mean it wasn't there. The 6 year old in front of him today was much more aware. The girl's eyes focused on him. Her cheeks rosy with excitement.

"They didn't say their names."

"My clone reported you've been getting more visitors."

She looked from the pile of scrolls outside the doorway, apparently not having seen those yet. Then she beamed.

"Some of them even talk," She chattered and came to see the knee-high stack of material outside her door. She peered at the scrolls, seeming pleased to bits, and loudly whispered from his side, "Don't tell them I ratted them out."

"They talk do they?"

"Mmhm, though more just stay out of sight. I'm getting better at feeling when they dim their chakra."

He smiled and ruffled her hair. She giggled. It loosened the vice his heart had been trapped in since he'd found her that night. Panda passed out. The girl's own chakra so low it weakly fluttered against his own. When he picked her up it was so low he thought it was going to disappear in his arms. Her blank stare up at him and unresponsive face.

The girl was here. She was ok. The collection of scrolls stacked at the end of her bed seemed to delight her. Her giggle energized her chakra, bubbled it up and it floated around him with a sort of reassurance words could never convey.

"So you like Panda?" He asked.

She wasn't the one Kakashi would have picked for a role model. She was, however, perfect for a single body elimination team. He'd picked her because she was competent and under that stiff Mitarashi skin she seemed to have a beating heart. He was happy he wasn't wrong. The way the girl's face lit up confirmed his guess.

"She's great!" Sakura babbled on, Panda this, Panda that, and oh did you know Panda could...

Kakashi couldn't stop himself from smiling throughout her healing session. Her bubbling happiness was contagious and with his dark work lately, with the Hokage's muttering on the possible clan massacre they'd avoided, on all the serious things, little Haruno Sakura was a candle in his world.

His eyes were changing. He felt the shift become even more prominent after the second session. He tried not to think of it as he turned the Sharingan on for his ANBU work. He tried to act as if it weren't there at all during the days he impersonated Obito. He still couldn't turn it off himself, but the drain was so greatly reduced his chakra felt full to bursting. He was able to sleep. His headaches had disappeared.

Kakashi felt as if he were actually 20 and not an old man.

Inu settled into his work. The patrols were better coordinated now. Mouse was making subtle changes. Shifts around the Uchiha compound reported tensions for most of the clan were reducing, but while that happened the clan elders and a select faction of the branch families were getting angrier and angrier. Why was it that when acceptance and tolerance grow, those prone to judgement and hate dig in their heels?

After months of his tardiness and letting his appearance slide, Konoha's non-ANBU Jōnin began to brush him off. Those in ANBU gave him strange and hesitant looks but were wise enough not to say anything outside Headquarters. The funnier reactions came from Kakashi's old classmates. Those who knew his temperament well. He began to delight in the whiplash and doubletakes.

Asuma and Kurenai sucked a lemon when he showed up to the bar, sat at their table and opened his book of porn.

Asuma spluttered, possibly enraged that he'd crashed their secret date, "Kakashi!"

"Your dad wants to see you."

He didn't, but saying it was worth it. The way Asuma's face reddened. Next to him Kurenai blushed, looked at his exposed eyes, both of his eyes dark and fixed on his book. Then she looked down at his book. The hentai scene he left open as he lowered it to the table. Kurenai's blush went hot, her emotions took an interesting spike. If she hadn't been Kakashi's fan girl in the academy Asuma might not be turning as purple as a plum right now.

"Right, I'll be going," Kakashi took Asuma's beer as he stood. His back was turned and he'd almost made it to the door before he heard the last protest.

"Kakashi!"

His breathing huffed out against his mask. His eyes scanned the sunshine gleaming off the wall of the bar. The street busy around him and an annoyed, snobby Sarutobi prick behind him, and Kakashi couldn't help his own chortle. He finished the stolen beer and placed the empty bottle on the window sill. His copy of Jiraiya's work still in his hand, he wasn't even looking at it.

It wasn't the worst hentai he'd read. It wasn't good either. More often than not Kakashi had another book hidden under the lurid orange cover. There were only so many times he could read a single seduction scene before wanting to toss it in the river. No book deserved that, not even Jiraiya-sama's work. It was a bit ironic that the porn which had been written to justify the spy master's traveling was now being used as a double for his legacy.

Unfortunately his stunt with the Sannin's book got to the Hokage sooner than he'd anticipated. Oh, he'd hoped it would, just not when he'd been in the middle of such a lovely evening sitting under a quiet park tree. Kakashi knew he and Gai were both toeing a tight line between following orders and genuinely being bad candidates for succession. It was a game he needed to play. He'd given the village too much already to suffocate under a cloak of power.

He wasn't so different than the author of the works he hid behind. The spy master, who if whispers could be believed, was coming back to Konoha. Ordered back, that's what Genma said when he was the member of Team Ro hidden within the office the day Kakashi was messing with Asuma. It was that very night Kakashi received his own summons.

Panda spoke quiet after she gave the summons. She stepped closer so no one else could hear, "He's displeased Inu. Asuma just stormed out of there like a kid."

"As bad as he used to do when I beat him in class?"

Panda nodded. Mitarashi and him always had a silent understanding. She'd never fucked around and not let the others do it either. Rich kids, the entitled sort like Sarutobi Asuma, always rubbed her wrong.

Panda mused, "He wants you. You and Gai. I'm right aren't I?"

He wasn't technically supposed to say. He wasn't surprised Panda figured it out. Just like his team had, they were smart and overworked and in all the right places to hear the wrong things. He was pleased at least one of his classmates wasn't fooled. Panda had known him since he'd been a tiny swot holding his own against Chūnin trying to teach taijutsu. If the village lost her and was left to the likes of Sarutobi Asuma it'd be doomed.

Kakashi shrugged, "Too bad he can't have us."

"Let me know if you need help."

He nodded. His eyes, which the girl had turned off that morning after his shift, were dark and easily followed her distance as she jogged off. The distance was so much easier to estimate now he had two lenses functioning together. His forehead protector straight and tied where it best covered the tenketsu. He sat for a few minutes longer. The tree above him peaceful in Konoha's darkening night.

That fire jutsu he'd been keeping in his hand died. The pages of Jiraiya's book grew too dark to read. The Hokage tower rose higher than all the nearby buildings. It stood foreboding and unapproachable. Kakashi gripped his book tighter and supposed he should go.

Jiraiya was already there. The Sannin stood straight and tall while Hokage-sama had a similar look his son had. Kakashi was dispassionately pleased his stunt worked, got to the Hokage's ears and from someone who'd a history of complaining about Friend Killer Kakashi. Not a good enough source to actually be reprimanded further. The whole affair would hopefully be just enough to be annoying. Just enough wiggle room from what the man himself ordered. Kakashi always was a stickler for the rules. They both turned towards him when he stepped in.

The Hokage started in on him, "My son has been complaining about you. Porn Hatake?"

The big, white haired Sannin looked at the orange book in Kakashi's hand. Seemed stumped for a moment and then Jiraiya chuckled. Unlike the Hokage the Sannin didn't seem fazed by Asuma's complaint in the slightest. Kakashi kept his face blank. The Sarutobi all had a certain way of assessing someone before they tried something, and the Hokage had that look now. He assessed him with that sharp, twisting gaze, before his body turned away. It looked too practiced and nonchalant. The Hokage seemed to be swept up with something in the glass ball on his desk. The spy glass seemed to have all the Hokage's attention.

Only then the man murmured, "Your father would have handled this assignment better."

Kakashi could feel the Hokage's intent, but it didn't prepare him for the words. His face flushed beneath his mask. The heat crept to the top of his cheeks. His shoulders stiffened. The long buried anger and rage threatened to leak out and he tapped it down, harsh and unwilling to show these sort of comments could still hurt him. No, he had many more recent events and orders to dislike. Hokage-sama hadn't handled the Root situation like he'd been promising. He hadn't done a lot of things recently.

"Porn. Hatake Taichou tell me if this is the best you can do?"

"You are unhappy with me."

It was all he could say. Kakashi, who'd already felt affronted and not at all happy with his leader, he had to put so much effort to keep the sneer from reaching his eyes. This is why he'd started wearing a mask after his father's death. He'd never been good at hiding his disdain. He couldn't let them know. Especially not his superiors. That never ended well.

The white haired Sannin knew him too well. Jiraiya looked between the uptight boy he'd looked out for his whole life and the Hokage. The gears turned till his eyes lit with understanding. The Sannin patted Kakashi's arm, gripped it with a big hand in silent support, then turned a lecherous grin on the old man.

"Hokage-sama must be so proud."

"I-" The Hokage started then abruptly turned away from the glass ball on his desk. His calculated expression from earlier slipped with true confusion. Sarutobi asked, "What?"

"I couldn't help but notice last time I was here that you have Icha Icha in your desk. Surely Kakashi got the idea from you. He is your great grand-student after all."

Kakashi stiffened further under the Sannin's hand and Jiraiya gripped tighter, trying to reassure him.

"I..." He looked between the silver and white haired men standing in front of his desk. Then he sighed, a long suffering noise, and rubbed his forehead. The action belied their Hokage's next words, "Of course I'm proud of you."

"Well if that's all, I'd like to take my kohai on some research."

"Jiraiya."

"I'll stop by for my assignment tomorrow Hokage-sama," still holding Kakashi's shoulder they poofed away to a steaming hot springs well outside the village walls. It was at the base of a mountain and utterly deserted.

"Ka-kun."

Kakashi grimaced at the name he'd hated for years. It remained just as diminutive as when the Sannin first bestowed him with it. He'd been a child left on a battlefield field by his Chūnin superiors and told to hold the line. He had. Kakashi held the line. He had blown as many people apart as he could, because even as a kid he hadn't expected to win a real fight against better opponents. He'd been so bloody, his hair and clothes so thick with clotted gore when Jiraiya's team of Jōnin found him.

The man hadn't been a Sannin then. He'd just been the man Kakashi once knew. A fellow nin who he remembered had smiled and was kind to his otousan. One of the few who didn't seem to want anything from them.

"Kakashi, "He'd tried. When the kid felt too overwhelmed by a nice face to respond the Younger Jiraiya had kneeled in front of him and held his thin face between two massive hands. He tried to get his attention. To keep Kakashi's eyes focused on him.

"Ka-kun, I'm here. It's ok. It's over."

At the time, Jiraiya had just sent a teenage Minato and the rest of his Jōnin team in search of food. Jiraiya , from somewhere, found a clean cloth and a bowl of water. He then proceeded to clean the blood and mud off the tiny child's face. At the time Kakashi hated being treated like a child. More so after being sent to do what he'd just done. A Chūnin's voice ordered "Hatake hold the line." A clearing of messily dismembered bodies flashed in front of him. The white haired man hummed and kept cleaning his face.

"You with me?"

Kakashi snapped back to the moment. Those were the same words he'd said all those years ago. He swallowed. How was it possible he still felt so small?

"Of course."

Jiraiya pulled him closer and Kakashi would be lying if he didn't sink into the embrace of his father's friend. The man who'd so effortlessly stepped into the role. The big man always hugged a bit too tight, like the giant toads he worked with, they threw their weight around with abandon. When the arms released him Kakashi stumbled back. Jiraiya remained unpolished, unrepentant, and one of the most honorable men Kakashi had ever met. The way he examined Kakashi now, full of concern and warmth had the boy's heart clenching.

For that's what he was. A boy who'd carried too much for far too long. It didn't matter if his body was grown, his mind felt like it was never quite caught up. Maybe by the time he was 30 he'd feel better equipped to handle life. He hoped so. About to turn 21 and the world felt crushingly fast and full.

"Tell me how a boy who derided my cover story for years ended up needing a cover story of his own."

They spoke next to the warm misty pool. Sunlight filtered the leaves and disappeared early behind the mountain. He updated the spy master on everything from the past year. He gave his opinions, his fears. Kakashi was honest then like he rarely was honest with anyone. Jiraiya had proven trustworthy. He was the head of the little group Kakashi considered family. Crowded close with Mouse, his teams, and a few rare others. Everyone else got half-truths or evasion.

Was that normal? Probably not. It almost certainly would concern the Yamanaka therapist he kept sending a clone to. Clones after all could only hold so much of their originals, a smart nin could imbue the parts of himself into one. With enough, the clones could mimic someone well adjusted and stable. He'd figured that out when they'd threatened to pull him out of the ranks upon Minato's death. It's part of why Mouse kept such a close eye on him.

Aburame Yamato knew. Knew in a way which made Kakashi think he had done something similar himself. He understood a little too well to not be versed in it personally. Just like Jiraiya immediately picked up on his lie. Some men had been lying for so long and to such an extent they could see beneath the underneath. Kakashi told him of his new façade. He now had an Obito persona. It was another character to choose from. Another identity he was expected to uphold. Kakashi told the Sannin he wasn't sure which ones were most real anymore.

Jiraiya listened. He'd always been good at that. When all had been quiet except for the steam of the pool and the forest life around them for five minutes the Sannin prodded, "Does it bother you? Being Obito?"

"Sometimes I think it should. Maybe if I'd been allowed to be a normal person I would have loved reading under trees. We'll never know."

"People will think less of you."

"Just like they underestimate you."

Jiraiya grinned. It was a sharp, lonely, and sad thing. Even the man's teammates had bought the charade. Kakashi personally thought they weren't worth the friendship if they didn't give Jiraiya more credit. He was a standalone fighter and an amazing man. Steadfast, devoted, he would move the world for those he cared about. His teammates had left him. Kakashi moved from seiza and onto the ground. He held his crossed legs close to his chest. Jiraiya switched to sit with his butt in the dirt. Uncaring that his haori got dirty, Jiraiya leaned back and waited Kakashi out. This man knew the nature of society well. Kakashi's breath shuddered.

He wished people weren't so cruel. Only people were cruel, quick to lay their judgement on issues they only glanced at once, and quick to condemn. They'd blamed a single man for a war which had been brewing for years. They taunted him till he committed suicide. Then they'd gone after his young child. Kakashi knew what people were capable of, the depths they went. He'd become good at picking out the ones which matter and ignoring the rest.

Kakashi stared into the pool's mist. He could answer but he couldn't make eye contact just then.

Quiet he spoke, "People dismiss a civilian photographer as useless. People sneer at Friend Killer Kakashi. People are too afraid to speak in front of Inu. People want to degrade the Copy Nin. My clones get better marks in our counseling sessions than I do. What's a few more bad opinions?"

Reading porn in public and sometimes using genjutsu to keep people away from his napping spots didn't faze him or guilt him.

Kakashi had done so much worse under orders. People slowly began to forget he was the man who'd mastered 700 jutsu by the age of 16. When he was 12, Obito had just died, Kakashi was the first non-Uchiha with a functioning sharingan implant. The remains of Team Minato had been tasked with stealing jutsu. It was war. To kill an opponent and come away with their best weapons was largely why the other countries surrendered. That and the combined threat of meeting Minato Sensei and the Sannin on any given battlefield meant certain catastrophe for a thousand shinobi.

Foreign Kages were less willing to test Fire Country's borders after the first few massacres. He'd once followed the order to kill a thousand enemy nin and steal their jutsu. He'd been ordered to follow Minato Sensei onto the field and kill off anyone who tried to escape. If it took an Obito-level of obstinance to twist Hokage-sama's orders, then he was committed to doing so. Obito had always wanted to be Hokage but he was the last person they would have given it to.

Having to play act as his dead teammate for this purpose hadn't sat well with him. When he left the Hokage's office after the order and stood in the bookstore he found himself standing in front of the adults only section. The old woman at the counter gave him the stink eye since he first appeared in the store. She'd been glaring at him since he was a kid. Back then his shoulders weren't used to slouching, but he'd been commanded to slouch and find a book. Kakashi had looked between the glaring shop woman and the adults only section. Her glare got worse when he stepped forwards. She looked positively revolted when he stood before her counter reading the orange book he hadn't yet purchased.

"Hatake Scum. Give me my ryō."

"Hum, did you say something?"

"You!"

He left the store with a bag of the most notorious hentai and a successfully antagonized shop keep. His mask hid his smile. It was, he realized, not so bad to be Obito.

Better still, this was so drastically different from what Sarutobi intended for him. A man who hadn't tried to save his father and seemed just as willing to sacrifice the son. He'd bought a book and fell asleep in public. An order was an order. Kakashi's personal touch just made it twisted and memorable. There was no way he was going to be Hokage if he could help it. They'd have to be desperate to assign him.

The public porn reading habit remained the gem of his impersonation. Foreign shinobi who visited and saw him couldn't believe what they were seeing and the gossip spread. Walking around the village in his Jōnin uniform and orange book in pocket he looked as harmless as a Jōnin could be.

"What does your team think about it?" Jiraiya's question was innocent. As if his own team hadn't mocked him more than anyone else when he'd needed a persona.

"I'm lucky. They are more aware of what's going on than most."

"Oh?"

"Well, they thought my interpretation of the original command was inventive. If they weren't laughing so hard I'd say they were proud," Kakashi's lips twitched. He'd pulled his mask down and when he smiled the older man smiled back.

Team Ro thought the shift hilarious. It even got a smile out of Tenzo who typically had the humor of a brick. Genma teased he always knew he had it in him. Yūgao rolled her eyes and stated he'd not be getting half as many women, but the ones he did get might make up for it. Inu and Hatake Kakashi both smiled at that. For once they were in complete agreement.

He looked at Jiraiya and for the first time voiced his innermost thought out loud. The idea which wasn't encouraged in a military dictatorship.

"Maybe people are supposed to have many different facets. They don't fit easily into a molded role. Maybe that's the point."

Jiraiya smiled, "An ideal world would allow for it. An author. A spy master. A lover of everyone and everything."

Kakashi let his legs stretch out in front of him. His sandals touched the edge of the steaming pool. The mountain air chilled around them. Kakashi wanted that world, he realized. He wanted it desperately.

---

Shikamaru didn't know where ANBU headquarters were until they had been infiltrated. His dad wasn't on duty that night, but had been debriefed. A report in the same coded language the ANBU captain had used on the wall all those weeks ago. He took a copy then decoded it under his bed covers that night. He got up early, picked up Choji, who brought them both breakfast, and the two took such a long detour to the academy and a quarter kilometer in the wrong direction that Choji finished the food on the way.

When they got to the entrance which didn't look like anything special, Shikamaru pouted. A full-blown, grumpy, physical reaction to wishing he hadn't bothered. The building was perfect. Nothing wrong with it at all.

"Come on let's go."

Choji gave him a look but followed.

It was only when they passed the next alley did he see it. The door was taped off. Its blackened edges indicative of some burn or minor seal incorrectly removed. Shikamaru stumbled to a halt. It was the shadows standing on the roof above which solidified it in his mind. Those people in armor who all wore a genjutsu to look the same. Today it appeared as if they had large beetle designs painted on their masks. He looked at them, then let his eyes drift back to the door. He grabbed Choji's arm to stop him.

"You ok Shika?"

"Hai, I just realized something."

"Not even you can get everything immediately."

Choji, he knew, was right. He turned to his friend to ask, "Do you mind if I invite some others to have lunch with us today?"

Four hours later and sitting in the middle of the noisy play area, the shadow of the Konoha academy overhead, he invited Uzumaki to sit with them. It was a strategy he'd mulled over for all of morning classes. The more he thought about it his conviction solidified. He needed Uzumaki. The boy with the ANBU tail. The boy who snuck surprises on their Chūnin sensei for 4 months. The sensei were only just now beginning to figure it out. He was sneaky and kind and the Hyuuga girl would do anything the blonde said. Shikamaru needed Uzumaki for his plans to work.

So he invited Uzumaki to strategize with him and Choji. It... didn't go as planned. Not 3 minutes into his explanation and recruitment pitch, before he was loudly interrupted. 5 minutes after that more people wandered over and Shikamaru saw his board over crowding and his pieces rebelling. He saw it happening, but didn't have a plan to keep them in line.

He hadn't expected his little lunch group to grab attention. He hadn't expected Uzumaki being so loud. He hadn't expected Uchiha to follow, state how stupid this was, then swagger away. He hadn't expected Ino to follow with stars in her eyes. Uzumaki ran off, yelling after the Uchiha.

By the time he got back to the classroom he slumped in his seat. So much effort for no gain. Caring was exhausting. Why couldn't he stop caring? Why did the image of the pink haired girl on the ruined wall cling so vividly in his mind? Worse than a mistaken shogi move, it replayed and brought all kinds of uncomfortable thoughts about his village along with it. How the story didn't match what they'd said. How she'd saved maybe a lot more people than just that one Uchiha prodigy, and how they might throw her to the dogs for it. It replayed, so starkly different than the nice atmosphere of the academy and the kids deluded to think they weren't being trained to kill people.

She was a kid just like him, but she'd known. Haruno Sakura had been keen and aware. Shikamaru pouted when his lunchtime schemes fell apart. These kids couldn't take anything serious. Shikamaru sulked. He wanted his shogi partner back.

He stared at the scratched wood of his and Choji's table. It was better than staring at her empty chair. His mouth pinched hard in the corners and stinging water flooded the edges of his eyes. He sniffled, discrete enough so the boy beside him couldn't hear.

When class was about to start the empty chair next to him scraped on the floor. Shikamaru jolted. He stared in horror as a boy sat. His own teary eyes stared back at him, reflected in black glasses. The boy's face shifted forward. Shikamaru swallowed.

"You're upset. My kikaichū feel your emotional distress."

"That's Sakura's seat," Shikamaru couldn't get passed that. It was hers.

She saved an Uchiha from getting his eyes stolen. Oh yes, he'd read all about that from the Jōnin Hancho's desk once he'd figured out how to unlock it with shadows. He'd found the interrogation report of her and her parents. He'd found scribbled notes holding his otousan's concerns for the girl. His otousan's correspondence with the ANBU Commander were half written and waiting to be finished. It questioned their joint orders from the Hokage.

Remembering that the Hokage had called "the girl too much trouble". Oh. Just oh. It made Shikamaru's fists clench under his desk. That was her seat. She should be here. She shouldn't be blamed just to keep up a fake face to the village. It wasn't true. He wasn't going to let someone take her seat.

"I'm aware," Aburame's mouth just visible above the protective coat showed a hint of a smile.

He opened his mouth again, ready to rip into Aburame when the boy continued, "I remember her too. She was kind to me. Why? I am still trying to figure this out."

It strangled his response, "Ah."

Aburame didn't need a proper conversation partner to continue, "I heard you at lunch and believe I should assist."

His face tilted ever so. His glasses flashed fluorescent light. Shikamaru stiffened, his face still inconspicuous and wet. Neither boy said anything else before the Chūnin who'd been unlucky enough to be assigned as their sensei walked to their desk.

Shikamaru weighed the results. He'd lost an Uchiha and a Yamanaka, but he'd gained an Aburame. On the paper he never actually used for notes, the same sheet which had remained blank since Haruno Sakura was disappeared by their village leadership, he inked a simple kanji.

Arigatō.

He slid it over to the Aburame. When the boy's hands picked up the paper and gripped it, Shikamaru couldn't bear to look. He was so tired. His head had been whirring in circles and possibilities and escape schemes. It felt so heavy he had to rest it. Maybe it wasn't so bad to have another brain on this.