wassup people! have this pre-xmas miracle! next update should be with you sometime between xmas and nye [three cheers for not having any uni classes over xmas break and actually having time to write!]
for those who read PMW, the next chap should be published towards the end of this week!
happy holidays!
Five days after her talk with Kakashi, Sakura meets her new ANBU team.
Bear-sama catches her when she steps into HQ, on the lookout for the bulletin board with the lists of solo mission available to ANBU agents.
"Mongoose." He calls, and Sakura startles slightly, not having interacted with the man since her recruitment. "A word?"
He turns, and Sakura follows silently, surprised when he leads her to the door of one of the more remote training grounds within HQ.
"Now that Hound is out, and Gecko is temporarily retired, you and Fox can't stay a unit. She's too valuable in Seduction, and your file presents you as a successful infiltrator." He tells her flatly, having stopped right before the door, not yet going in but clearly intending to.
Sakura tilts her head at the man, because that's not exactly news. She's been planning to just snag solo missions wherever she could or volunteer for rotation as a medic, but Bear's words seem to imply that her plans are being thwarted.
"Sir?" she asks when he hesitates, and he tilts his mask to look at her, seeming, for whatever reason, reluctant.
"You're being reassigned." He announces, and though his tone is bland through the mask, she thinks that he isn't pleased by the fact.
"But- my team?" Sakura can't help but ask, hating the thought of a permanent end to Team Ro. "When Hound-taicho's done with his babysitting assignment, he's coming back!" she knows she should probably be more respectful, but Kakashi said he's coming back.
Bear snorts at her description of jounin-sensei duties, but his voice when he speaks is curt. Final. The earlier reluctance carefully masked.
"Don't worry. Team 4 isn't known for long assignments." He tells her cryptically, then pushes the door open. "Wolf! I brought your newest teammate!"
Three people are already inside the room when Bear pushes her in, and Sakura almost stumbles, turning to shoot him a glare, though his attention is on her new teammates, so he misses it.
When she turns to her apparent new team, the agent with the canine mask – Wolf, Bear had said – has his mask turned to her, and she bites back a groan. Apparently, her new captain hadn't missed her show of annoyance with the Commander. Lovely.
"A kid?" one of the other agents asks, and Sakura has no clue how to even begin deciphering his mask. "I thought we stopped this shit after Weasel."
"Is this Hound's kid?" her final teammate checks, voice clearly feminine, and something in Sakura relaxes.
"Agent Mongoose will be running missions with you for the foreseeable future." Bear announces, completely ignoring the other two. "Bat, Crow – stick around long enough to at least show her the ropes, will you?" he adds, his words pointed and clearly directed at the other two operatives, though Sakura has no idea why.
She's more concerned by the fact that her new captain still hasn't spoken. The unease that she's been dumped with another ROOT operative sharpens her attention to the point that she's hardly breathing, watching for her captain's next move.
Then, to the grudging 'yes, Commander' of her new teammates, Bear turns on his heel and leaves.
"…Pleased to meet you." Sakura greets into the silence that falls, and that finally seems to earn her a reaction.
"God, how old are you?" Bat demands, seeming almost worried for her, which is…odd, Sakura thinks absently.
"Almost twelve."
"Shit." Bat swears sharply, "They gave Hound an Academy student?! Worse yet, they put you here?"
The initial concern had been almost touching, but now Sakura's frowning behind her mask. She really isn't liking Bat's tone, nor the stress he put on Kakashi's mask name. As if he shouldn't have been trusted with her safety, or something equally ridiculous. There's also something concerning in the subtle glance Bat sends at Wolf-taicho's back when he says 'here', and Sakura has a feeling this team is going to be a lot different to her experience with Team Ro.
"That's enough." Wolf finally speaks, and Bat tenses, though Sakura doesn't really understand why. Yeah, the words were flat and said almost without inflection, but a) mask, b) ANBU, c) rather unfavourable implications thrown around by subordinates. He isn't even using killing intent, for kami's sake!
"Mongoose," Wolf says, getting her attention immediately, and she almost sags with relief at the realisation that he's not a ROOT operative, "specialisation?"
Sakura blinks, tilting her head as she thinks of her answer.
"Assassination and infiltration." She replies, echoing Bear's words. She hadn't realised just how many successful infiltration missions she's ran with Team Ro, so the fact that there were enough for her file to peg her as an infiltrator threw her slightly.
"And in combat?" Wolf presses, almost idly, and Sakura lets herself think back to Shin's words.
"Speed." She offers, because it's true. She's ridiculously fast in this life, especially compared to before, and it's another one of those things that have been years in the making so she hadn't even realised she could be considered fast until it was pointed out.
"Ninjutsu. Mid to long-range support." She debates mentioning medical-ninjutsu, but thinks better of it. She has no idea what Kakashi had written in his report of their final mission, whether ANBU at large even knows of her having healed Yugao. Better not risk it.
"My marksmanship's shit though, and my taijutsu needs some polishing." She adds, because hiding her summons and Mokuton and med-nin skills is one thing, but hiding her newly-discovered glaring weaknesses could get them killed, and she doesn't really want that on her conscience.
Wolf nods in acknowledgement of her words.
"Warm up, then spar." He instructs curtly, and Sakura gratefully takes the opportunity to run around the field and stretch a bit. She's going in blind in regards to her new team's abilities, and she'd rather not get killed or permanently injured in their first training session.
After about ten minutes, Wolf calls her to the middle of the grounds, and Bat ambles over, stopping about fifteen feet away from her, making it clear he's her first opponent.
"Terms?" she checks, and her teammate shrugs.
"Don't kill me. But try not to lose either, 'cause loser becomes target practice for the others." He explains, clearly not expecting Wolf-taicho to bother, and Sakura files that away to be dissected later.
And then, at some unseen signal, there's suddenly a fireball heading straight for her, and it's instinct to shunshin sideways, out of the way of the blast. It's instinct as well to flick three kunai at Bat, one at his feet, one at his centre of balance, and one she'd aimed at his head but it sails harmlessly by his ear, and she winces. Fucking Shin and his all-seeing eyes, how had she not realised before how shit her aim has gotten?
Still, not one to waste the sudden opportunity, she uses a seal-less kawarimi to switch with the knife that sailed wide, and then she's in Bat's blind-spot, swooping low, ducking under his reactionary elbow strike, and just as she's about to summon a chakra scalpel, Shin's words about relying too much on chakra ring through her head.
She bites back a curse and reaches for one of her senbon instead, this one tipped with lidocaine, a gift from Genma, and steps just out of the range of the sweep of Bat's tanto, having lost the factor of surprise. Then, she pitches forward, low and a little reckless, and stabs the senbon into the back of Bat's knee, leaving it there, then switches with her kunai again when the floor under her feet suddenly erupts with earth spikes.
She eyes Bat, who's still standing, and realises she'll need to get his blood pumping faster if she wants the local anaesthetic her needle was dipped in to have an effect. Grumbling, she twirls out of the way of the shuriken Bat sends at her, then feels a stab of vindictive satisfaction when she sends his own technique back at her teammate.
She hears a quiet 'crap' before Bat jumps out of the way of her fireball, straight into the path of the three kunai she launches at the spot he leaps to, and he has no choice but to flicker away again. The training ground between them splits as a meter-thick canyon stretches between her and Bat, a distraction, and Sakura shunshins out of the way before she loses her footing, panting slightly at the fast pace of the fight.
She's about three metres from Bat and takes the opportunity to spit a small water bullet at him, and her teammate swears again and rolls out of the path of her jutsu.
But, when he lands the third time, his leg buckles and he lands hard on his knee, the anaesthetic finally kicking in. Despite the mask, his confusion is palpable, and Sakura doesn't waste time; she flicks another two kunai, both wide of Bat's head, though the threat is clear. She kawarimis with one blade, grabbing the second one out of mid-air as she orients herself, then twists so she lands behind Bat, grabs his hair through the hood covering it in one hand, wrenches his head back, and with her other hand she presses her kunai to his throat.
"Yield." Bat calls, and though the mask modulates his voice, it doesn't hide the fact he's also panting, and Sakura releases her hold on his hair and pockets her knife, stepping away.
For all that their fight terraformed the training grounds, it was so fast-paced that it barely lasted a minute, and Sakura feels the slight incredulity that radiates from Crow, though Wolf-taicho is unreadable, his posture and chakra revealing nothing.
"It's just a local anaesthetic." She murmurs to Bat, offering a hand to help him up, then enforcing the arm she wraps around his waist with chakra when he tries to put weight on his numb leg. "It should wear off in a few minutes."
Bat grumbles something unintelligible but nods semi-gratefully when she deposits him on the edges of the training grounds and bends to pull out the senbon still lodged in the back of his knee. She thinks she hears an ill-tempered 'fuckin' Gecko' before she turns to Wolf, eyeing him and Crow expectantly.
"What next, taicho?" she asks, when no other task appears forthcoming, and she thinks detects a flicker of amusement in the man's chakra before he tamps down on it and speaks.
"Taijutsu." He says simply, as if unbothered by her incapacitation of Bat. "Crow."
Her presumed-kunoichi teammate steps into the same spot Bat had started out in, and Sakura picks up her pace as she makes her way back to the makeshift sparring ring.
Then, Crow falls into a vaguely familiar taijutsu stance, and Sakura pales beneath her mask.
Crow is a Hyuuga.
Goddamn.
There goes Sakura's plan to not use chakra in her taijutsu.
She wonders what Shin would advise.
And then, a slow smile spreads across her face when she realises that, despite his ambition and generally easy-going nature, Shin has a mean-streak a mile wide.
And a fondness for mind-games.
Taking a deep breath, she studies Crow's stance for a beat more, then mirrors it. She sees the moment Crow stills for a split-second, then all traces of surprise are wiped from her posture and chakra, and she rushes Sakura in that same graceful way she recalls Neji using back during their first fateful Chunin Exams.
When Lizard draws closer, Sakura calls up the chakra scalpel to the tips of her index and pointer fingers and does her best at dodging her teammate's Gentle Fist while also trying to replicate the fluid movements with her own body.
The feeling of her tenketsu being blocked is far from pleasant, but Sakura knows that the Jyuuken isn't a quick fighting style, relying more on endurance and accuracy than brute force.
That suits her just fine, and her and Crow fall into a rhythm, almost dance-like.
Sakura loses track of time, though she absently feels her control grow sloppier as more and more of her tenketsu get blocked, though Crow also can't move her right leg too much, as Sakura had numbed the nerves in her thigh, and her left arm is hanging limp by her side.
If she manages to do the same to her right arm, she'll win, Sakura muses, waits for an opening, and leaps-
-and her stomach makes contact with the knee Crow brings up, the move so unexpected of a Hyuuga that Sakura is completely blindsided by it, and she crumples to the ground, retching.
She doesn't actually vomit up her breakfast, but it's a near thing, and she spends a few seconds more on her knees, getting her breath back, then pushes to her feet.
"Preferring one style doesn't mean I'm incapable of others." Crow tells her flatly, though not unkindly, holding out her hand in a clear offer to unblock Sakura's tenketsu.
Sakura offers her arms gratefully, then nods at Crow's words, wincing behind her mask.
"My mistake." She admits easily, twitching her fingers in the Seal of Reconciliation once the other kunoichi is done. She turns warily to Wolf-taicho, wondering whether her clear mis-step will have any consequences.
But her new captain just tilts his head. "Meet here at 0800 tomorrow and we'll go through formations and styles." He says simply, and Sakura blinks, thrown.
"Am I not sparring with you?" she asks, more than a little confused, because sure, her spar with Crow may have lasted longer than with Bat, but it's still been less than half an hour since she'd first walked into the room.
And she knows nothing about her captain.
Wolf studies her carefully in the wake of her words, and, over his shoulder, she can see Bat shaking his head rapidly, as if to discourage her from pressing the matter.
"I did not build my style with the thought of friendly sparring in mind." Wolf tells her at length, his voice the coldest it has been so far, and something in his words doesn't add up.
They're all trained killers. A single slip-up could kill, but that's what separates jounin from genin: control. Hell, her and Lizard could have killed each other ten times over if they'd been any less careful in the placement of their strikes.
To Sakura, the explanation sounds more like an excuse, and she doesn't understand.
"Respectfully, sir," she begins before she can think better of it, ignoring Bat and frowning at Wolf, "neither did Hound-taicho."
At her side, Crow makes a sound that could've been a sigh, and Bat makes a move as if he wants to facepalm, before remembering his mask is in the way, but most of Sakura's attention is on her captain.
He's studying her right back, posture and chakra as blank as Shin's, but Sakura has neither the familiarity she has with her brother nor a view of his face to so much as try to pull apart what he's actually thinking.
"As you wish." Wolf allows after a beat, stepping closer to take Crow's place, and Sakura tenses, but he just waits.
When a few seconds pass, Sakura carefully lobs two kunai at her captain, wondering if they can start. When he absently deflects the one that would've dug into his thigh and likely ruptured the femoral artery with the back of his arm-guard, Sakura decides that they're on.
She blurs.
Wolf ducks her flying kick at his head, then leaps lightly over her sweeping low kick as she lands, stepping back just out of reach as she pushes into a handstand and sends her heel at his chin. Getting back to her feet, Sakura puts some distance between them, studying her captain. He'd barely moved and hadn't retaliated, but she hadn't made contact once, and she'd been moving faster than she had with Lizard.
Alright, then.
She flies through the seals for Katon: Hōsenka, needing to get Wolf to move, because she needs an idea of who she's fighting.
So far, all she knows is that he's fast and, presumably, rather deadly.
The initial fireball that she creates doesn't seem to phase her taicho, as he merely shunshins to the side and out of the way, and Sakura smiles beneath her mask, grateful that she's gone for this jutsu and not the actual Great Fireball technique. In the next breath, her fireball splits, becoming smaller fire bullets, and Sakura's control over her chakra means that she can adjust their paths so they head unerringly for Wolf's new location.
She hasn't yet mastered the trick of hiding shuriken in the fire, but that doesn't mean that she can't send them after. When she gets an idea for the direction Wolf is dodging to, she sends a volley of shuriken at the man and-
-all of her weapons miss.
Sakura stares, her shock making her control over her fire jutsu waver, until it drops. She barely manages to dodge the answering barrage of senbon, thrown seemingly out of nowhere, each needle glowing blue at the tip, and when she twists out of the way she sees the senbon pierce through the nearby rock and bury itself half-way in the stone.
She throws another few kunai, to the same result.
In a fit of frustrated piqué, because her aim may have been less accurate than she'd realised, but it wasn't bad, and it definitely wasn't this bad, she slaps her hand to the ground, barely remembering to strike with an open palm instead of a fist in order to maintain the façade of her Tsunade-taught technique being an Earth jutsu.
She feels a vindictive sense of satisfaction when the earth between them erupts, not quite the craters and devastation she'd once been capable of, but enough to upset Wolf's footing and make him put some real effort into clearing the suddenly unstable terrain.
It's only when she expels the chakra from her hand and reinforces her arm to avoid damage that Sakura realises there's something not-hers wrapped around her core.
Genjutsu.
And she didn't even notice him cast it.
"Kai!" she calls, and immediately, her vision rights, and she realises that, although dusty, Wolf is a good three metres to the left of where she thought he'd been.
But something is still wrong, now that she's looking for it, and she flares her chakra again, breaking the second layer.
She repeats the process three more times, growing progressively more uneasy, because she has no idea what's real anymore, nor any clue as to how many layers Wolf had even managed to bury her under before she'd noticed.
When she stumbles into the seventh layer, she freezes. Because now, instead of perception-altering, she's landed in an evocative genjutsu. Of her worst fear, it feels like.
Sai, Shin, Shisui, Kakashi, Genma, Yugao, off to the side even Naruto and Sasuke lay around the field, like one of the battlefields she lived through during the War before, and they're all bleeding profusely, missing limbs, some with gaping, round, mortal wounds in their torsos that Sakura knows instinctively come from her untamed, untrained Mokuton.
You can't save all of them. What sounds like Tsunade's voice rings through her head, sharp and uncompromising and cruelly mocking, a tone she hasn't heard since she was thirteen and struggling with her own inadequacy, though distantly, she knows Tsunade never said those words to her. Would never say them like that. You're not good enough. Not strong enough. So, who do you choose to save? Who lives? Who do you let die? Choose, Sakura-hime.
Sakura stares at the carnage around her, flooded by guilt for a situation that hasn't happened yet, and it takes her a long moment of staring at Sai's paler than usual face, at the blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, at the hand he's using to carefully cradle the gaping wound in his stomach, before she remembers this isn't real.
She brings trembling fingers to her chest and concentrates on her chakra.
"K-kai." She chokes out, and, as her chakra flares, the illusion shatters, replaced instead with the bright lights of the ANBU training grounds, the damaged floor, and Wolf's mask, closer than she remembers it being, tilted towards her, no doubt studying her reaction.
She's on her knees, a position she doesn't remember falling into, and she glances up, breathing heavily, eyeing her captain warily. She can't feel anything not-hers in her chakra anymore, but she's beyond the point of being able to evaluate anything objectively, feeling raw and fragile.
"How- how many more layers?" she asks disjointedly, not recognising her voice when she speaks, and not just because of the mask.
"That was the last one." Wolf assures her, and if she's not mistaken, he sounds concerned, but.
But.
Sakura concentrates, for it's a fair bit more challenging without the seal, but her arms are shaking enough as it is trying to keep her face from impacting the ground that she doesn't think she'd be able to manage the hand-seal right now, and flares her chakra, not dropping her gaze from Wolf's mask.
Nothing happens, and she lets out a shuddering breath.
"Are you alright?" Wolf checks, and Sakura barely resists the urge to snarl at him. Barely, but she manages.
Instead of deigning that with a response, she pushes carefully to her feet, stumbling only slightly when she's vertical again, then she straightens and faces her captain.
"0800 tomorrow, yes?" she asks, heading towards the door, Bat and Crow seemingly knowing better than to try and stop her. Instead, they seem almost sympathetic, and Bat even opens the door for her, though Sakura pauses to let Crow leave first, the other kunoichi being slightly closer to the door than she is.
"Mongoose," Wolf calls, still in the same place he'd stood when she broke the final layer, and Sakura waves at Bat absently, showing him to go on ahead, which he does, though not without one final look at their captain.
Sakura turns, tilting her head, feeling too tired to react verbally.
"…You did ask." Her captain offers, almost apologetically, though his tone doesn't change.
Racking her brain for what he's referring to, Sakura snorts before she can stop herself.
"Yeah." She agrees blandly, nodding in agreement. "I did. It's just been almost five years since I last sparred against a genjutsu user; I wasn't expecting it." She offers with a shrug, wondering whether Wolf will pick up on the significance of the date. By the way his attention on her seems to sharpen, she guesses that he does. "I've also gained a few more nightmares since then."
"Will you be alright?" Wolf repeats after a beat, when it becomes clear she's not going to say anything more, and this time there's something odd in his tone, a weird inflection she doesn't really understand, unless-
She thinks of Bear's comment about her team not being known for 'long assignments', thinks of Bat and Crow's obvious distance to their captain, thinks of the fact that none of them took off their masks even for a training session within-Village, while Team Ro only ever donned their masks in the corridors of HQ and on missions. She thinks of Wolf's obvious hesitance to fight her, of the initially arrogant-sounding warning he'd given, and she thinks.
"Taicho," she begins carefully, studying the man's posture, since his face and chakra are hidden, but her captain seems to be a shinobi the likes of Kakashi, too used to hiding or faking what he's feeling for her to be able to get anything meaningful out of it.
"I'm not blaming you." she says slowly, wondering whether she's about to get punted through a wall.
Judging by the way Wolf stills, it seems she hit the nail on the head.
"Sure, I wasn't exactly ecstatic at being shown my worst nightmare in technicolour, but like you said, I did ask for the spar, and I ignored your warning against it." She pauses, frowning thoughtfully.
"If anything, I'm annoyed at how long it took me to realise that you had caught me in an illusion, not at the fact that you had." She admits honestly, because that is one of the things that's bugging her far more than the actualvision.
"You did get through the layers fairly quickly, once you realised there was an illusion." He points out, sounding distantly impressed, and Sakura allows the unsubtle change of subject with an indulgent snort. "And I am rather good at what I do."
"Be that as it may," she dismisses, then, realising that the man probably wouldn't take well to a comment the likes of 'no hard feelings', she adds, "I'd still like your help in learning how to recognise genjutsu sooner, if you're willing."
Wolf's iron-grip on his chakra breaks for a second, and Sakura feels his stab of surprise at her words, though it's carefully masked within the next second.
"0800 tomorrow, Mongoose." Wolf brushes her off, neither accepting nor denying her request, though he sounds…lighter. Almost amused, if she had to guess.
"I'll be here, taicho." She assures the man, then dips her head in a shallow bow and leaves the training grounds.
She feels like she'll need a long hug from Sai to get any sleep tonight.
Luckily, Sai is more than willing to indulge her need for hugs when she gets back to their apartment.
"How was your day?" she asks once she finally pushes herself into a reasonably sat-up position, instead of laying as she has been with her head on Sai's shoulder and her body slumped against his side.
"D-Ranks then team training." Sai murmurs, rolling up his scroll once he realises she's up for talking. "Sensei has gotten oddly fond of making us do survival exercises."
Sakura snorts, though it warms her inside when she realises that Kakashi appears to have taken her advice to heart. "Anything interesting happen?"
"I used one of Shisui's Fire techniques and Sasuke got a really weird look on his face." Sai muses, and Sakura hums thoughtfully.
"He might not know it." She offers, because that's a very real possibility. "And Fire ninjutsu was the specialisation of the Uchiha Clan."
"Should I offer to teach it to him?" Sai asks, and Sakura pauses, trying not to tense against Sai's side.
The thought hadn't even occurred to her. She had in her mind's eye Sasuke as she had known him, bitter and proud and viciously cruel.
But this Sasuke hadn't been tortured for seventy-two hours by his brother. She'd made sure of that. And this Sasuke had a teammate who could match him in skill, for all that Sai kept telling her that he was only using his speed and tanto in training.
"You could." She replies belatedly, after more time than the question justified. "But how will you explain knowing it?"
Sai cocks his head, humming as he considers. "I'll say that my nii-san taught me."
Startled, Sakura can't help but laugh. "You've gotten sneaky, Sai-chan. That's not even a lie."
Sai smiles, small and sly, then gets to his feet so fast Sakura almost overbalances. Her brother heads to the packs and holsters he'd abandoned by the door upon getting home and bends down to rifle through one of his pouches, coming away with a small scroll.
He sits back down on the sofa next to her and answers her unspoken question by unfurling the scroll, revealing a drawing of a hawk.
"Could you channel some chakra into the paper, please?" Sai asks her, and Sakura blinks at the odd request, though wordlessly does as asked after a beat. "Thank you." Sai says once she's done, rolling the scroll back up and throwing it lightly so it lands on his pile of pouches and holsters.
"What was that for?" Sakura demands, once it becomes clear Sai isn't going to explain.
Her brother blinks, as if surprised she has to ask.
"A tracker." He tells her slowly, the smallest of frowns pulling on his brow as he studies her. "It should be able to find you, or deliver a message, no matter where you are."
It's Sakura's turn to blink.
"And you asked for my chakra…to use it to locate me?" she checks, the pieces coming together. "When did you design it?"
"I started working on it when aniki went to look for you." Sai admits, not meeting her eyes, the frown on his face deepening, becoming almost…pained. Frustrated. "After your last mission."
Sakura's chest warms, and she feels the sting of tears in her eyes. She reaches out, her vision blurred, and gets her arm around Sai's shoulders, pulling him to her chest and wrapping her other arm around him too, for good measure.
"I love you, Sai-chan." she whispers against his hair, feeling the teen tense slightly at her words before he melts into the embrace.
He doesn't say the words back, but his arms come up around her waist, and he lets himself go boneless, letting Sakura hold him.
They're still hugging when Shin gets home an indeterminable amount of time later, and the older boy watches them for a moment, a fond smile on his face. He doesn't join in on the impromptu cuddle session, but when he passes by the sofa, he ruffles both their hair, before he disappears into the bathroom, followed by the sounds of the shower running a few minutes later.
Sakura closes her eyes and breathes in.
She's content.
The next day, after her meeting with Team 4 – where she determinedly ignored the odd looks Bat and Crow sent her way when she didn't appear to show the slightest hint of discomfort around their captain – she's feeling oddly not-tired, so it's almost a relief when Kakashi suddenly falls into step with her as she's heading back home from HQ.
She's got one of Shin's sweaters thrown over her sleeveless vest, her mask and body-armour sealed into a storage scroll in her pack, though with her pouches and holsters and knee-high boots instead of sandals, she still looks like a shinobi, instead of the child she'd been the first time she was this age.
That might explain some of the odd looks sent her way as she walks down the street. Or it might be her hair.
Or Kakashi's presence at her side.
"What's up, taicho?" she greets, when Kakashi appears content to be her silent shadow. She knows he knows where she's coming back from, and he looks like he wants to ask something, but seems to think better of it.
"Feel like sparring, kouhai?" he asks lightly instead, trademark orange book in his hand, though Sakura can tell less than half of his attention is actually on the page.
Sakura rolls her shoulders and glances up at the sky, surprised to find it barely past noon.
"Sent the kids home early?" she teases, not overly concerned, though if that is the case then she'll have to take a detour to the market and hopefully lose Kakashi before heading home.
To her surprise, Kakashi sighs.
"I wish. Hospital." at her sharp look, he shoots her his bullshit eye-crinkle. "Sasuke tried a too-ambitious taijutsu move without supervision and twisted his ankle. Naruto got annoyed at the process Sai had laid out for getting Hosenka down and tried skipping from point A to point F and burned himself. And Sai has a dislocated shoulder."
She sends him a curious look at the lack of a story for Sai, and Kakashi hums with clear amusement.
"Just because Sasuke is an idiot, doesn't mean he wasn't a successful idiot. Kid's got a mean axe kick."
Sakura huffs a laugh despite herself, and inwardly breathes a sigh of relief.
"I'd be down for that spar." She agrees, then a thought pops into her head. "Would you be willing to let Shin join us? We're hoping to get him through the Jounin Spar somehow so he's been trying to get back into shape, and I feel like you both might have some pent-up frustrations to work through."
Kakashi considers her for a second, then shrugs. "As long as your brother doesn't try to kill me in a way that sticks, I don't mind."
Sakura smacks Kakashi's arm and changes course back to her apartment, wondering what Shin will have to say about her idea.
Two hours later, she's sitting on the edge of the training grounds and working on getting her breathing back under control, her muscles aching pleasantly and sweat still dripping slowly down her nape. She's long since shed Shin's sweater, clad now simply in her sleeveless ANBU vest and still too hot, and she's never been more grateful for letting Genma talk her into getting an undercut the last time she complained about her hair starting to grow out; the gentle breeze on the back of her neck is a new and welcome sensation, especially now.
Her and Shin had teamed up against Kakashi for a bit at the start, mostly to let Shin get a feel for the jounin's fighting style. Then she'd gone a round with Shin one-on-one, then two rounds with Kakashi to give her brother a break, and now, it's finally her turn for a break, and she watches Shin and Kakashi fight, almost unable to tear her gaze away.
Kakashi is a genius, but he's lazy about it. Unmotivated to expend more than the absolute minimum of effort, especially when he's out of ANBU uniform. He prefers to win by frustrating his opponents into making mistakes, often running circles around them with the Academy Three, then defaulting to Chidori or whatever Sharingan-stolen overkill ninjutsu he's feeling like using.
Shin is a genius too, moreso than Sakura had initially realised, because she hadn't had a comparison point in ROOT, but it's obvious now. She's certain that Shin could easily outwit Shikamaru, even the eighteen-year-old post-war Shikamaru she remembers from before. And because Shin is intelligent, he's too proud to be ignored or toyed with, so he pushes.
He makes Kakashi take him seriously, and it's mesmerizing.
Shin fights with his brain more than his brawn; doing so much high level, on-the-spot maths that Sakura's head aches just looking at it, and she likes maths. He dodges Kakashi's strikes by the narrowest of margins, aims his shuriken to collide in mid-air and ricochet at just the right angle to knock Kakashi's kunai off their trajectories, meets and counterbalances Kakashi's ninjutsu in a way that has Sakura holding her breath.
Kakashi goes for a fire technique, Shin meets it with a wall of water. Kakashi uses wind, Temari's favoured Kamaitachi no Jutsu, a C-Ranked jutsu which in Kakashi's hands could be devastating, Shin doesn't so much as blink before meeting it with Fūton: Daitoppa, also a C-Rank, but Wind is Shin's element. His technique counteracts Kakashi's, appearing to feed off the Copy-nin's jutsu, and Kakashi has to kawarimi to keep his head.
And as Shin throws a barrage of shuriken with unerring accuracy at Kakashi's new location, and Kakashi moves again, Shin follows with a volley of kunai, which draws Sakura's attention.
He's never said it, but Shin hates using kunai; she reckons he finds them far less accurate than the throwing stars, and she has a feeling he appreciates the potential for subtlety offered by shuriken, which kunai simply lack.
So when he throws three kunai, much in the same way she'd thrown them against Bat, and draws his katana, Sakura has a dawning suspicion as to what is going to happen before it does.
And Shin proves her right: as Kakashi jumps over the knife aimed at his feet, deflects the one going for his centre of balance with his own kunai, and plucks the one aimed for his head straight out of the air and throws it right back, Shin's chakra flexes, and he's suddenly in the air, less than six feet from Kakashi, katana drawn and already slashing down.
Kakashi's visible eye widens and he steps back, clear of the edge of the blade, but Sakura recognises this katana: it's Shin's chakra-conductive one. And once he finally learnt how to channel his Wind-natured chakra into the blade to extend its reach, he never stopped.
Kakashi may have dodged the blade, but the edge of chakra-wind rips into his flak jacket at the seam of his right shoulder and tears, Shin's momentum forcing the blade all the way across Kakashi's chest and abdomen and to his left hip.
Sakura watches, frozen, as Kakashi's flak jacket hangs on for a frozen second, then the front of it falls off, joined by the front of his navy undershirt a second later. Sakura catches a glimpse of wire-reinforced mesh underneath and breathes a sigh of relief, for once thanking the stars for Kakashi's paranoia.
Not that it would've been a mortal wound, seeing as she's almost certain Shin hadn't extended his blade as much as he would've done had Kakashi been an enemy, but it would've been…messy.
Kakashi blinks, and that seems to break the trance that's fallen over the field.
"You owe me a new flak jacket." He tells Shin flatly, then, inexplicably, calls up a Shadow Clone. He sends it off in the vague direction of the Village, picks up his tattered shirt and front of his vest, and meanders over to where Sakura's sitting.
"Your brother," he announces once he reaches her, his tone almost cheerful, even as he shrugs off the newly-ruined flak jacket and pulls his jounin shirt over his head, ending up in just the short-sleeved mesh shirt she'd caught a glimpse of before, "is incredibly annoying, kouhai."
Sakura blinks stupidly up at him for a moment, then laughs, startled.
"Try living with him." She shoots back, offering Kakashi the sweater she'd been wearing earlier with a grin. "It'll be tight on you, but it's Shin's, so it's only fair."
For a second, she thinks he's going to take it, if only to stretch the fabric beyond repair and ruin the garment, but he eventually sighs and waves her off, choosing to fall into a lazy sprawl next to her.
"You okay?" she checks, a tiny bit worried despite herself, because this was the closest she's seen to Kakashi having an even match in this life.
(the one time she all-but buried him alive doesn't count in her mind – she knew him, from both lives at that point. Shin didn't have that familiarity and he'd almost decapitated the man)
"I didn't so much as scratch him." Shin grouses, finally walking up to them, settling heavily on Kakashi's other side and falling into a deep stretch.
"Despite your best efforts otherwise." Kakashi comments idly, tone bland even if his words are sharp, though Sakura knows he's not actually holding a grudge.
"It would've been insulting to come at you with anything less than deadly force." Shin deadpans, and that seems to be an answer Kakashi wasn't expecting, because he stills, then doesn't reply beyond a thoughtful hum.
"Where did you send the clone to?" Sakura asks after a few seconds of silence, unable to let the mystery go unanswered.
Kakashi shoots her a look, a childish glint of I-know-something-you-don't in his visible eye, and she huffs, elbowing the infuriating man.
And then, there's movement by the treeline, and a distantly familiar brunet walks onto the training grounds, flat black eyes underlined by dark shadows zeroing in on Kakashi almost immediately, though they widen slightly at the state of the man.
"Kakashi." The unknown shinobi greets, voice quiet and hoarse, the reason for which becomes clear as he launches into a short but vicious coughing fit which makes Shin's attention snap to the man. "Something you need?"
And Kakashi stretches, eye crinkling in a smile, though it's a touch more genuine than his usual ones.
"A favour." He replies, then lifts a hand and points idly at Shin. "I found you another protégé."
Hayate takes in the scene, not reacting outwardly to Kakashi's words despite how much they feel like a punch to the gut. He eyes the way the two teenagers next to Kakashi tense, the pink-haired one eyeing the man thoughtfully, while the other, well-
"What." The silver-haired one hisses, rounding on Kakashi, and Hayate comes to the rather surprising realisation that he doesn't recognise the teen, not even by sight. "Some warning, Hatake!"
"This is ample warning, wouldn't you say?" Kakashi drawls, too sharp to be teasing though it's not quite hostile either, leaning back on his hands, muscles shifting under the mesh shirt.
Hayate studies Kakashi at that, takes in the tattered remains of his jounin shirt next to him, and the flak jacket laying at his side in two, clean-cut pieces. But Kakashi's chest isn't separate from his body, nor even bleeding in the slightest, which is the natural conclusion such a strike would encourage.
Clothing with the evidence of coming on the wrong end of a Wind jutsu, yet body bearing no obvious injuries either means a lucky hit from his opponent or complete control over whatever technique his opponent had used.
He turns his attention back to the silver-haired teen, noting the expensive-looking sword laid next to him on the grass, the slightly too-wide shoulders for an otherwise slim build, and the way he holds himself. Undoubtedly a swordsman, judging by the fact Kakashi had called him, and a good one at that.
But something's bugging Hayate, and he studies the teen more closely, gaze flickering between him and Kakashi. The kid's tall, and clearly younger than Kakashi, fifteen or sixteen at most. His silver hair is swept up into a high ponytail, bangs framing his face and plastered to his forehead with sweat, and his dark eyes are flat and narrowed dangerously on the Copy-nin.
He's cold and all sharp edges, like the blade at his side, looking like he's weighing the merits of ripping out Kakashi's throat with his teeth, and-
-Hayate knows that expression, though he's never seen it on an uncovered face.
"A protégé?" he asks flatly, drawing their attention to him, and immediately, the violence in the boy's face vanishes as he turns to Hayate, expression all cool assessment and unflappable calm, his eyes taking in Hayate's every move.
Mercurial, and able to jump between emotions like a switch being flipped. Hayate is definitely familiar with that.
"Yup!" Kakashi agrees, cheerful as could be, eye crinkling in that bullshit smile. "Though don't fall in love with this one – he's a right bastard." He adds, not losing the cheerful tone even as the teenager bares his teeth.
"You'd know all about that, wouldn't you?" he snaps back, sharp and mocking.
"Kakashi," Hayate cuts in, pausing for the inevitable cough that rattles his body, "is he yours?"
There's a moment of silence as his words sink in, and then the thus-far silent teen at Kakashi's other side breaks out into loud, startled laughter.
"Kouhai." Kakashi calls, aghast, sounding betrayed, then turns his wide, disbelieving eye to Hayate. "Hayate, I'm twenty-six years old."
Hayate shrugs, unbothered. "A cousin, then?"
Kakashi's kouhai snorts, falling into another bout of incredulous laughter, and Hayate thinks he sees tears leak out of their eyes.
"I would rather," the other teen declares, looking like he'd swallowed a lemon and adamantly not looking at Kakashi, "get captured by Kumo than share blood with him."
"T-that's rude, aniki." The pink-haired one admonishes between chuckles, pushing up from the sprawl they'd ended up in with the force of their laughter. "Y'know, Morino-san implied something similar, back when he hosted us that one time."
Kakashi snorts, turning from Hayate to shoot his kouhai an incredulous look. "Of all things, you remember that?!"
He gets an impish grin and a careless shrug from the teenager Hayate suspects is, in fact, a girl.
"Much more fun than remembering the circumstances that led to us needing to rely on Morino-san's hospitality." She shoots back, and Kakashi's expression does something complicated beneath his mask, before he turns back to Hayate.
"Answering your, frankly, ridiculous query, no, the brat is not mine, nor a cousin-"
"-As far as we know." The girl chirps, completely unrepentant, even when she gets two glares for her words, one exasperated and another indignant. "That hair colour isn't exactly common, taicho."
"-As far as we know." Kakashi concedes after a beat, looking like the admission physically pains him. "But he's fast and crafty and good with sharp things, so basically your ideal type, no?"
"I haven't had a student in years." Is what Hayate settles on, because it seems that Kakashi is bizarrely set on this idea.
"That's okay!" the girl dismisses cheerfully, smiling at him with more warmth than their level of acquaintance justifies. "We're basically trying to have Shin take the Jounin Spar, but taicho can't sponsor him because he's too close to me, and my brother isn't exactly a people person, Hayate-san."
Hayate blinks.
"I'm only a Tokubetsu." He reminds Kakashi, who just shrugs.
"Think of it as mutually beneficial, then. A successful apprenticeship will get you the jump to full jounin."
"Hayate-san," the teen in question finally speaks, eyeing him thoughtfully, far more polite than he'd been with Kakashi, "how about a spar? It might prove much more effective in assuaging any concerns you might have than trying to get a straight answer out of this asshole." He explains, nudging Kakashi's thigh with the toe of his sandal none-too-gently.
Wondering whether he's going to come to regret this, Hayate nods.