Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"I hate him!" Sakura bursts out, waving her handful of weeds for extra emphasis. Clumps of dirt escape the weeds to smack her cheek and leave dirty trails down her already dirty clothes and arms. Her hands are lost causes entirely. "It's entirely his fault! Sasuke left and then Naruto left too and then I'm here all alone and I had to find my own teacher because he is just that useless."

"Don't be shy," Ino comments dryly, from where she's watering her father's more expensive, delicate plants, "tell me how you really feel."

Sakura tosses her weeds in the bucket Ino has thoughtfully provided for that and goes to work yanking out more of them. The spikey stems bite into her fingers and the roots cling to the soil and resist her as she works. It's an excellent form of stress relief.

Another handful gets pulled from the dirt with a rip that she can feel all up her arm. "I don't think," Sakura says, "that he ever spared a single thought for me. I didn't notice at first that he was obsessed with Sasuke because…" she falters and a look from Ino has her sighing and telling the truth, "because I was obsessed with Sasuke and so it seemed natural that he would be too. And no one can ignore Naruto, even though almost everyone tries. But me? He could ignore me," Sakura says bitterly. "Sasuke cared even less. Only Naruto paid any attention and that's just… augh!"

She kicks the bucket and then stomps after it angrily to go and pick up the mess it's strewed around. When Ino doesn't laugh, doesn't even crack a smile, Sakura mentally upgrades her friendship with her from 'tentative-post-rivalry-BFF' to just 'BFF'.

"Well," Ino says, "at least the joke's on them now, right? I mean, you're getting personally trained by Tsunade, the Hokage, and your sensei is left with the shame of being so bad at teaching that one of his students went evil and the other two found their own teachers." Ino wrinkles her nose. "Which, seriously, that's ridiculous levels of bad." Ino considers that. "Maybe even legendary levels of bad."

"Unless there's worse out there, whose teams died and so no one can complain about the teaching. Hard to do that when you're dead, I guess," Sakura says moodily. "But it still is utterly unfair that I got shafted. Am I that ignorable?"

"Not to me," Ino says firmly, a funny little smile on her lips. "Now come on, kill those weeds and then we'll go get ice cream and plan how you can ignore him. After all, turnabout is fair play and he's no longer your sensei."

"Do you think he'll even notice?" Sakura asks doubtfully.

"If he doesn't," Ino says bluntly, "then he never cared at all about Team Seven. You're all that's left of it."

Sakura flinches at that truth. "And if he does?"

"Then he gets to figure out how to fix it. He owes you, Sakura. Remember that."

"I will," Sakura says, scowling. "Believe me, I will."

The plan they wind up going with is simple. Almost too simple to even be considered a plan but Sakura decides that it's the best one and Ino, after some deliberation of their more elaborate (but impractical) options agrees reluctantly.

The entire plan can be summed up as: Sakura will live her life as if Kakashi-sensei does not exist.

Neither of them thinks this will be overly complicated. After all, Kakashi-sensei has zero reason to come and see her (this realization had had Sakura reaching for another bowl of ice cream) and she had even less reason to go and see him now that she had a proper teacher who knew how valuable a student she was. (That was Ino's contribution.)

Day one goes astonishingly well. So does day two and day three and all the way through day seven. Sakura finds that the longer she pretends Kakashi-sensei doesn't exist, the easier it is to pretend that she really doesn't notice the fact that he stops by once a day, while she's training and whenever he's not on a mission, to watch her and Tsunade-shishou.

He never says anything, so ignoring him is made easier. The fact that it makes her feel like she's holding bits of glass in her hands, Sakura tells herself, is something that will pass. She just has to get used to it. There is no Team Seven. The sooner her feelings cotton on to that, the better it'll be for everyone involved.

Right?

Another week and six days pass in a similar manner, with her training in the fine art of being a medic nin going extraordinary well.

As Sakura trudges home from the hospital, tired and with aching hands (running chakra through them for hours is something Tsunade-shishou says will get more comfortable with practice) she finds herself in a hopeful mood. She'd read, in some silly book of superstitions borrowed from Ino, that it took three weeks, twenty-one days, for a new habit to really stick. If she was lucky, then she'd get through the next day and it would no longer feel quite as hard.

Of course, when had she ever been that lucky?

Tsunade stares at her ANBU guards and resists the urge, barely, to toss them all out so she can get drunk as quickly as possible. Three things stop her from doing just that. One, Shizune will find a way to make her life miserable if she does. Two, while Sakura has made an admirable effort for putting the nasty business with her team behind her, it's painfully obvious to Tsunade that her student wishes things had gone better and probably doesn't really want anything horrific to happen to her former teammates.

She considers that a moment. Probably, Tsunade decides, is definitely the most important word in that point.

Third, and most important, is that she knows exactly the state that Konoha is in right now and they cannot afford to have one of their most efficient Jounin out of action especially not when he's been taking ANBU missions, at her request.

"You're sure," Tsunade says, like she wishes they really weren't, "that he's lost all memory?"

ANBU Cat shifts uncomfortably. "We're uncertain if it is memory loss, Hokage-sama. But Morino-san and Hiromasa-san are with him at the moment but currently estimate that his memories only extend to a point five years ago. Anything after, he has no recollection of."

"I want to see him," she says, standing and picking up official hat of office. Tsunade doesn't feel she's worthy of the hat but there's some places that protocol, even by her, must be observed. "One of you come with me."

The two agents exchange glances. "I'll attend you," ANBU Ferret says, his voice low and rumbly. "ANBU Cat will ascertain your office remains secure."

Tsunade doesn't bother to dignify that with words, just a nod, and both she and ANBU Ferret (horrible name, really) disappear in a swirl of leaves. They reappear in a darkened tunnel, lit only by a few tiny jutsu-traps creatively wrought to light up whenever a chakra presence comes within a few feet of them.

They're deep under the Hokage Monument. She doesn't stop to get her bearings, doesn't need to, just strides down the hall that lights up as she walks. The combination of Morino—head of torture and interrogation—and Hiromasa—ANBU's commander—is a potent one and limits where they would be.

ANBU Ferret keeps pace, walking just a few steps behind her. Her escort, not someone she needs, and Tsunade has learnt enough in the last few months to know that she's got to keep him around until she's with Hiromasa and Morino, no matter how it grates on her.

"What happened to the rest of his team?" she asks as they make their way up a flight of stairs. The jutsu lights race alongside them.

"Two dead," ANBU Ferret says promptly, without hesitation. "One alive. Unwounded."

Tsunade nods. They both know the odds of coming away unscathed from a battle that killed two teammates and left a third… changed. She says nothing. If there is a traitor in their midst it will be found out during the debriefing. That's what they pay Yamanaka-san, Head of Intelligence, a good bit of money to find out.

That the surviving agent brought back their injured companion instead of just deserting, however, makes her wonder if it wasn't just obscene luck. Tsunade hopes so. Two agents down is bad enough.

"Inform Morino-san that I'll want the debrief reports of the entire mission," she says. "As soon as he and his team can get them."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

She comes to a stop in front of a plain door that looks like every other one in the compound. It thrums against her senses with security jutsu, feeling like a caged storm against her chakra. Tsunade places one hand flat against the door, pushing a smidgen of her chakra through her palm.

The wards crackle audibly and then part. "Remain here," Tsunade says. "I'll be out soon enough."

ANBU Ferret nods and positions himself with his back to the wall, right beside the door. As he fades into the stonework--quite literally, with a jutsu to hide his presence--she enters the room that unlocked for her.

In theory, there was no door that was to be barred and locked from her access. Theory, Tsunade has found, has little bearing in the real world. With a shake of her head, she lets the door fall shut behind her. The door jutsu snap to life as it latches.

The room she finds herself in is dark.

No jutsu here to light her way.

It would be inconvenient but she doesn't need them. Tsunade unfurls her chakra enough to wrap her around herself like a cloak, so that the other security jutsu here know not to trigger at her presence, and walks forward.

If she wasn't supposed to be here, she knows this room would turn her nightmares real. She's studied the schematics of the trap jutsu and has admired them. She has no wish to be caught in them. There are all sorts of strengths and she's aware of her own weaknesses.

Her nightmares have nearly always been stronger than her faith. That's been changing lately but Tsunade sees no reason to risk it pointlessly.

The room is not very large and in seconds she's at a second door. The wards on this one are stronger but subtler. Harder to tell they're present, she knows, if you've been hit by one of the traps here. Her chakra gains her entrance to the second room and she finds herself in a long hallway.

It's utterly silent.

There's light, now, in tiny lines that trail from the ceiling to the floor in regular intervals. They illuminate hardly anything. Tsunade barely spares the doors on either side of her a glance and walks three down and then chooses the left door.

Her hand flares with chakra a third time and the door cracks open.

Hiromasa is at the door in a flash, his Byakugan active. "Hokage-sama," he says, after a moment, "we've been expecting you."

"You assumed I might show up," she says, aware of the word-trap, "but did not ask for my presence."

The Hyuuga, disgraced and turned to the darkness, shrugs.

"Security must be observed," he says and because he's right, she lets him get away with that. "Come in." He backs away from the door, leaving her room enough to enter without feeling trapped.

Trapped, uncomfortable ninja are dangerous ninja.

"How is he?"

"If it's a jutsu meant to disorient, it's done exceedingly well," Hiromasa says, sitting on the edge of the utilitarian stainless steel table despite there being chairs around it. Tsunade doesn't blame him. The table is probably more comfortable than the metal chairs. The only light comes from a single bulb that dangles above the table. There's another door on the other side of the room.

Beyond it, she knows, is Morino and their potentially compromised agent. "You don't think it was meant to disorient?"

Hiromasa grimaces. "It certainly did so," he says, "but I don't think that was the point of the jutsu. I would hazard a guess that it was meant to de-age as a primary objective. The accompanying disorientation that came with was merely a secondary characteristic."

"Can you reverse it?"

"Basic measures to do so have already been done. They failed." He rests his elbows on his knees, his Byakugan still active, his head turned slightly so that his blind spot doesn't cover the room behind them. "We can try the more experimental measures but it might be safer for all involved if we give it time. This sort of jutsu tends to have a set time it lasts before expiry."

Tsunade nods. That matches with what she knows of de-aging jutsu. Her own research said much the same when she'd looked for a way to keep her appearance youthful. "We'll see if it can expire before trying anything else," she says. "Is he a danger to the village?"

"No more than any other ninja found, as far as they know, out of their timeline."

It's her turn to grimace and she does so. Tsunade doesn't even want to imagine what her reaction would be to being suddenly years out of step with her memories. "I'll have to speak with him," she says, "and gauge his threat level for myself. Being around people who he knows might trigger something."

"He knows most people already," Morino says from the far side of the room. He leans in the doorway, looking disgruntled. "Didn't believe me when I said who I was. Still thinks I'm barely Chuunin."

Tsunade's lips twitch with repressed amusement. "Does he believe you now?"

"He's trying," Morino says, "but that's the problem. He already knows me and Hiromasa and he'll know you, Hokage-sama. Nothing about us has changed except we're older and more advanced in our specialties. I don't think that's going to be enough to trigger any current memories."

"Not unless we triggered a particularly traumatic memory," Hiromasa agrees reluctantly.

She no longer finds herself smiling even slightly. "Is he awake?"

Both Morino and Hiromasa nod.

"I'll talk to him," she says, "and then we'll decide what to do about him."

Hatake Kakashi was confused, unhappy, and very, very uncomfortable. The last thing he remembered was being on a solo mission out in Ame and then the world had gone blurry around him and he'd found himself staring as a Konoha ninja was cut down in front of him. On the ground had been the body of another Konoha nin, her neck clearly broken.

The uncomfortable part, he blames on the metal chair. It's designed to cause a level of discomfort and he's been sitting in one for hours.

Confused and unhappy are harder for him to decide exactly why. It is, he thinks, because none of this new, mad world makes sense. He'd gone from a sunny sky, to storming rain, and had been slow to respond when the enemy--had to be the enemy--attacked him. He knew he owed his life to the third Konoha nin, who'd managed to get the both of them out of the way with a complex transportation jutsu.

That had been confusing enough. But then the ninja, his savior, had muttered something about not wanting to talk to Tsunade-sama about this failure and he'd asked why, confused. Tsunade-sama hadn't been in the village for years. Had she recently returned? Why couldn't he remember this mission while the other one, the one he'd just been on, was clear as crystal in his memories.

"Look," the Konoha nin, who he didn't remember being part of ANBU, had said, "we're going to retrieve the bodies of our comrades and see if we can't complete the mission objectives. Then we're heading back home and we'll sort it out then."

That had made perfect sense to him even though he'd had to ask what the objectives for the mission were. They were clearly on the same side--the other nin wasn't lying, he could smell that--and maybe working the mission would make him feel better.

It had worked. For the duration of the mission.

Kakashi shivers as he remembers what the village had looked like as they'd returned. There had been signs of heavy battle. Again. Things that he could swear had just been repaired were old and weathered and other things were gone entirely, as if they'd never existed. He wishes they'd left him with a kunai. Not so he could attack anyone--they were his own, even if he was confused about this upside down world where Morino was more than a Chuunin working the mission hall and Hyuuga Hiromasa was no longer a rising star of his clan and instead, ruled over ANBU--but so he was armed. It would make him feel better the way few other things could.

Instead, he just feels unsettled and lost.

He knows the people, at least some of them, but he doesn't know who they are now. What had happened? His head pounds as he tries, strives, against his memories and finds nothing but what he already knows.

Kakashi comforts himself that, in a pinch, he can use the chair as a weapon. It won't get him very far, not when he's deep in the ANBU compound, but it's better than nothing. The door opens again and Morino steps back into the room, his manner more respectful than it had been when he'd just been with Hiromasa.

He understands why the moment that Tsunade-sama enters the room, her brown eyes sharp, her hair tidy, and wearing the robes and hat of the Hokage. What happened to the Sandaime? Kakashi wonders. And how did they get Tsunade-sama back to the village after she swore never to enter it again?

"Hatake Kakashi," she says, "I hear you're a bit confused."

That's so like her that he finds he's relaxing against his conscious will. "Tsunade-sama," he says, still bewildered. "What's going on?"

She sighs. "That's what we're going to find out."

Kakashi has never found those words quite so ominous before as Tsunade-sama, the Hokage in this different world, settles down to begin figuring out what's wrong with him.

"He's a mess," Tsunade says flatly, hours later, in the outer room once again. Kakashi is asleep, due to a jutsu designed to force sleep on a person, his head drooping over the uncomfortable chair he's still sitting in, in the other room.

"Are his memories inaccurate?" Hiromasa asks. "I did not spot any inaccuracies."

"No," she says, "which is part of the problem. He's thoroughly convinced that it's not a matter of what's wrong with him--it's what's wrong with us."

"A genjutsu?"

"Likely what he's thinking," she allows. "That would provide an explanation that makes reasonable sense to his side of the story. But I'm inclined to believe that the de-aging theory is more likely. Of course, from his end, that's the implausible option."

Hiromasa and Morino look at one another, gauging the situation. "What are we going to do with him?" Morino asks. "We can't keep him in confinement. Someone will notice. Ninja are the worst gossips."

Tsunade wishes she could argue that and can't. She's no better. "Get Yamanaka Inoichi to review the case and we'll get him to do a full mind-search in five days if Hatake isn't showing any signs of being himself in the proper timeline again."

"And in the meantime?"

"I'm going to have to find a way to apologize," Tsunade says darkly, "but there's only one person in town right now who knows Kakashi and who Kakashi wouldn't know even by reputation. I'll assign it to her as a mission, so at least she's getting paid for it, but…"

Sakura wasn't going to be happy about this. Not even remotely.

For that matter, Tsunade wasn't very happy about it herself. "Keep him here for the day, just in case Yamanaka wants to ask him something. Tomorrow, send him to me."

Chapter Text

"Kill me," Sakura says, breezing into the flower shop and ignoring the startled looks the civilians give her at that. "I mean it," she says, "the quicker the better."

Ino blinks at her, looking up from where she's wrapping flowers for another woman. "Don't worry about her," Ino tells the woman blithely, "it's a ninja thing. Here's your flowers, Nakamura-san. Thanks for stopping by!"

Nakamura-san gives Sakura a long, dubious look while thanking Ino, and Sakura watches her leave with raised eyebrows. "It's a ninja thing?" she asks archly.

Her best friend scans the shop quickly for anyone who looks like they might need her help—Ino always takes her responsibilities seriously, even if she complains sometimes—before kicking at Sakura's ankle, where the customers wouldn't see it. "Shut it," she says. "Nakamura-san's a sweetie but she's ancient and thinks ninja are from a different world or something. If she doesn't get that, then there's no way she's going to get over-dramatic teenager drama."

"Nice to see you've got my problem pegged before I tell you want it is," Sakura mutters, leaning over to rub her ankle. "Pig."

"Forehead." Ino leans against the counter, looking more like a shop girl than a ninja right then and there. "So why do you want me to kill you? I've got to charge you extra if you wind up bleeding on the begonias." Ino ponders that. "Though our meat-eating varieties would probably appreciate it."

Despite herself, Sakura laughs. She's still in a horrible mood but it's easier to ignore it when Ino is with her and being ridiculous. "You don't have meat-eating begonias," Sakura says and at Ino's look of 'are you sure about that?' laughs again. "No, seriously, you don't."

Ino just shrugs innocently.

"Yamanaka-san?"

"Sorry, Forehead," Ino says, "gotta work. I get off in two hours—meet me then? Unless you want to work…?"

"Sure," Sakura says impulsively. It'll give her something to do. It's worth it, too, for the surprised expression on Ino's face. Ino knows she hates shop work with a passion, having helped out before.

That doesn't stop Ino from directing Sakura over to the till, where they kept spare aprons underneath before Ino drifted off to go and chatter with a customer.

The division of work suits her mood perfectly. Ino is like a butterfly, no customer gets very far into the store without Ino saying a quick hello and a tell me if you need my help and no poisonous plants are not sold to civilians and anything lethal in under thirty seconds requires your ninja ID and thirty-six hours before the order can be released no arguing and if you argue you can take it up with the owner.

It never fails to amuse Sakura that Ino can say all of that with a bright smile without laughing. She knows she can't do it—she's tried. It's hard to say something that's a warning and threat and an offer to help all in one without losing composure.

The two hours pass in a whirlwind of brightly coloured and scented flowers, some that Sakura recognizes and others she doesn't though Ino finds the time to give her an impromptu lesson to two ones she doesn't, and the customers don't blink an eye at finding two girls instead of one minding the shop.

Of the customers, the ninja recognize them both as Genin—the only reason that they're even allowed to sell anything deadly—and the civilians know Ino as the daughter of the owners and Sakura as her friend.

Sakura finds it soothing, though by the time she's done her unplanned for shift, she's also tired. It's only eleven in the morning; Ino had been working the morning shift.

"There," Ino says with satisfaction as her dad comes in and shoos them out. She grins at Sakura as they wander down the street. "Wasn't that a change? And you're not ready to spit nails."

"No," Sakura replies, "it's a miracle."

"It might be," Ino laughs.

They walk in comfortable silence for a few moments before Sakura sighs. This, Ino takes as permission to pry. (Which, to be fair, Sakura admits, it kinda is.)

"So," Ino says, "what's got you unhappy-like? Your sensei? Or is this a new and untried unhappy thing?"

"Kakashi-sensei," Sakura says moodily, "and a new and untried thing."

Ino pauses, clearly trying to work that out. Sakura watches the rapid-fire expression on her friend's face and tries to guess what she'll come up with. It won't be reality, Sakura mourns, but it'll be interesting.

"Don't tell me they're giving him another team?" Ino asks, sounding appalled. "After the disaster of what happened to you guys?"

Sakura winces. That would hurt, even though she's spent the better part of a month ignoring him. "No," she says quickly, as Ino's face turns stormy. She wouldn't put it past Ino to go raging up to Kakashi-sensei to give him a piece of her mind.

It's funny how much that comforts her even as she tells Ino that, no, that's not it.

"What is it then?" Ino asks. "It can't be worse?"

"Let's get a smoothie," Sakura says, dragging Ino down the street.

Half an hour later, smoothies in hand, they're in the park where they first met, sitting on the swings.

Ino fiddles with her straw and then fixes Sakura with a look. "Okay," she says, "now talk."

"I've got a mission," Sakura says moodily. "And it's looking after Kakashi-sensei."

"What?"

"I don't know," she says. "Tsunade-shishou was pretty apologetic about it but she's putting me back with Kakashi-sensei because, apparently, he doesn't remember me."

Ino, mid-way through a slurp of her smoothie chokes as she splutters. "What?" This time, instead of confusion, she has a good bit of outrage in her voice.

"Some jutsu nailed him on a mission." She doesn't look at Ino, who is still muttering vile things under her breath. "It erased his last few years of memory or something. They're still trying to figure it out."

"Well isn't that just convenient!" Ino rages. "He gets to mess with your life, destroy your team, and then some enemy nin gives him a get out of it all card for free?"

Sakura looks down. Toys with her smoothie straw. "Yeah," she says quietly. "That about sums it up."

It doesn't cover the fact that some part of her is upset that he's hurt but it does cover what she feels is the raging injustice of it all quite nicely. Sakura simmers with resentment over it, really, because if one of them had to forget, why couldn't it be her? She's the one that got left behind. He's just the one that screwed it all up.

"I'm going to kill him." Ino kicks up a cloud of dust with one foot. "Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but one day I'm going to kill him. And they're saddling you with him because maybe you'll trigger something?"

"How did you--?"

"Hello," Ino says dryly, "my family specializes in mind-jutsu. That's a pretty basic attempt for triggering memories."

Hope, weird and painful and ugly, blossoms in her chest. "Do you think it'll work?"

Ino looks uncomfortable.

Her hope crumples like a used tissue. "You don't."

"Well," Ino says, like she really wishes she didn't have to, "Sakura, he couldn't be assed to remember you when he had his memories. Why would he remember you without them?"

Kakashi squints at the dossier. There's no real need to, of course, because he's read it twice already and has it memorized, but it gives him something solid to focus on. He stares at the pictures of the Genin who were… apparently… his team.

He cannot imagine what possessed him to pass a team.

He never wanted a team.

But apparently he had one. The future, he decides, is a bizarre place. Assuming this isn't just a genjutsu.

He tells himself that it could still be a genjutsu but as time ticks on by he finds his belief in that assumption challenged more and more. He doesn't believe it now, but it's just tempting to lie to himself. There's limits to what genjutsu can do, especially if they're not backed by a bloodline limit, and by his estimation, they crossed over the limit of reasonable doubt quite a while back.

Which doesn't stop him from wishing a genjutsu was the trouble. It would be infinitely easier to just assume that and then spend his time figuring out how to break it.

If he's really in the future--which so far, seems to be Tsunade's leading theory, though they haven't ruled out him having lost several years of his memories, which definitely doesn't sound right to him because he recognizes himself in a mirror and he hasn't gained any scars and he highly doubts he's become a good enough ninja to avoid all scarring for somewhere in the guess of at least five years, maybe as much as seven…--then he's got a problem.

Several of them.

The most pressing one is that he has no idea how to get back. They killed the ninja that did this to him. He distinctly remembers snapping his neck.

Of course, he thinks wryly, picking up a picture of a blond kid making an atrocious face for the camera, his memories might not be reliable at this point. Who is to say that one is?

He's conflicted on if he even wants that particular one to be reliable. On one hand, the fact he killed the person who might have been able to reverse this is thoroughly distressing. On the other… the fact he killed the person who did this to him is entirely satisfying.

Setting down the picture of the blond kid, whose name makes him wonder what sick joke this is, giving him his sensei's child to look after, he picks up the photo of the other boy. Dark hair, dark eyes, clearly an Uchiha through and through. He's baffled at the thought. Why would anyone put him on a team with an Uchiha after what happened to Obito? The Uchiha Clan had been quite adamant in their disapproval of him having one of Obito's eyes and informed the village the he wasn't to be sent on missions with any of their Clan.

When had that changed?

The third picture is that of a pink-haired girl. She's smiling at the camera, making it look more like a school photo than a picture meant for a ninja's ID. He doesn't recognize her as being from any existing clan but that's not entirely a negative. It means she's got less training to fall back on but it also means she doesn't have any familial bad habits trained into her.

Setting her picture down, he wonders at the scarcity of information in the dossier. There are the basic stats of each Genin along with their mission records and a few notes, only a few words long for each of them, in what look suspiciously like his own hand, about each of their abilities.

If this is all the information that Tsunade-sama gives him, it makes him wonder what is missing. He can see that they've all been ninja for about a year. There should be more.

There isn't.

Kakashi tilts his chair back, balancing precariously on the back legs, and considers that with no little amount of dread. Tsunade-sama has already told him that he's being assigned to Haruno, the pink-haired girl, until they can determine what's wrong with his memories. He suspects there's going to be a Yamanaka involved in that and isn't looking forward to it.

More worrisome is the fact that while he's being assigned to look after Haruno, Tsunade-sama made no mentions of Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke being assigned to him as well. What can they do with only half the team?

And why isn't he being placed with all three of the Genin he's supposedly sensei for?

He glances at the clock and knows he'll start getting answers in about an hour.

It's going to be a long hour.

He never was that patient.

"I don't want to go and meet him," Sakura says, her smoothie gone and her face stony. "It's going to be horrible."

Ino, her rage shelved because Sakura is upset, swings her legs idly. "You've got a few more minutes before you've got to leave," she says comfortingly.

"If I'm late, Tsunade-shishou is going to murder me." Sakura lifts her head. "I am giving serious consideration to that option."

"I'd miss you," Ino tells her. "Don't."

Sakura smiles slightly. "I won't, I guess," she says sighing. "But only because you don't want me to."

"Look on the bright side," Ino tells her. "Which is, I know, ridiculously hard but there is one!"

Tilting her head in thought, Sakura tries to figure out what could possibly be a bright side of Kakashi-sensei not remembering anything that he did to ruin his team. Of the fact that he won't, doesn't, remember the fact that Sasuke left because he chose vengeance over their team, or that Naruto bailed in order to follow a better teacher, or that she did the same, only her teacher couldn't leave Konoha and so, neither could she.

Put that way, she thinks, she envies him for that. Life would be way easier if she could just turn time back enough for none of it to have ever happened.

"I don't know," she says dubiously. "Are you sure there's a bright side?"

"Yes," Ino tells her earnestly. "You're going to go and meet him, right? They're going to hope you trigger his memories, right?"

She nods, still not seeing where Ino is going with… Her eyes widen. "Ino!" she says, shocked.

Ino looks pleased with herself. "I thought it was a good idea."

"It's evil," Sakura tells her.

That earns her a raised eyebrow.

"But good," Sakura concedes. "You think I can get away with that?"

"I think," Ino says, "that they're going to have to give you room enough to see what Kakashi might remember anyway. You might as well take advantage of that."

She squirms a bit. "I want to," Sakura confesses, "but won't he be able to tell I'm lying?"

Ino just shrugs. "What's he going to do?" she asks. "Tell on you? If he's going to be jerk enough to forget everything that happened, then I think you're perfectly justified in taking advantage of it to do a little… creative rewriting of history."

"Naruto and Sasuke are still gone," Sakura points out as she stands and dusts her dress off. "I can't rewrite the story so that changes."

"You don't need to," Ino says, smiling slightly. "In fact, it's better if you don't. Lies always go better if you mix a bit of truth with them, you know? But there's nothing to say you can't change how things went with you, right?"

Sakura frowns as they toss their cups in the trash and start heading for the hospital, where she is supposed to meet Kakashi. "I don't know if I like that," she says. "It just makes things easier for him, doesn't it? If he thinks I was a student he cared about? Then he'll think he wasn't a total failure when he finds out that Naruto and Sasuke both… left."

"Don't think about what's good for him," Ino advises, sounding a lot like her mother for a moment. "Think about what's good for you, Sakura. Would you benefit from rewriting your relationship with him?"

"I'll think about it," Sakura promises. "But I'm not saying I will. It might serve him better if I just drop the whole, ugly, truth on him."

Which was incredibly tempting to her. He could have it and he'd have no idea how to deal with it because she had no idea why Kakashi-sensei had made the decisions he had and suspected that this Kakashi-sensei, with years of memories taken away, might be similarly handicapped in this matter.

"Hokage-sama might not like that," Ino observes.

Sakura deflates. "No," she admits, "she wouldn't. She's already given me the 'go easy on him' lecture. I don't see why I should."

"Me neither," Ino says, "but then, I'm not the leader of a bunch of deadly ninja either. She's got her reasons and I'm sure they make sense to her but, Sakura, he still owes you. Even if he doesn't remember, he still hurt you. I'm not going to say what you should do but--just, seriously, don't let him off the hook too easily."

"That," Sakura says, "I definitely won't do." They stop at the street just before the hospital and look at one another. "Are you going to come with me?"

Ino looks dreadfully tempted before she shakes her head. "No," Ino sighs, "I shouldn't. I'll let you decide what you're doing first and then we can talk about how I'm supposed to react later, okay?"

"How you're supposed to react?"

"Well, yeah, if you're suddenly his favourite student, clearly I can't be going around hating him," Ino points out. "And if you're dropping the harsh truth on him, I can't be friendly, right? Let me know what you decide and I'll tailor my responses to that."

"You'll support me no matter what I pick?" Sakura bites her lip the moment the words are out and wishes that she hadn't sounded quite so pathetic there. Ino doesn't seem to notice, which she's thankful for, because noticing would just make it more embarrassing.

Instead, Ino just takes it seriously, and gives her a look like 'who do you think you're talking to' as she rolls her eyes. "Oh, come on," Ino says, "of course I'll support you. I've never done anything but."

She's running out of time before she's due at the hospital and knows it but Sakura can't resist the urge to criticize that comment. It's so blatantly untrue that it leaves her feeling a little like she's been struck. "That's not true," she objects, "you and I, we weren't friends for years. I dropped you."

Ino just smiles at her, not a bright smile that the customers of her parents' store get, but a smile that's harder, that glitters around the edges with emotion that Sakura doesn't understand. "I didn't drop you," Ino says. "But we'll talk about that later, if you insist."

"You make no sense," Sakura accuses.

"Sure I do." Ino laughs. "To myself. That's the most important person to make sense for, I think." Ino reaches out and gives her a shove. It's not a very gentle shove. "Go, Sakura," Ino says. "You're going to be late.

"We're talking later," Sakura says, half a threat and half a promise.

Ino just waves her off with a roll of her eyes and a grin and Sakura is left to hurry to the hospital.

Chapter Text

Kakashi isn't sure why he's been moved to the hospital, though he knows they've taken blood and have run a couple of scans on his brain in the ANBU compound already. He supposes he should be grateful they left him his clothing and didn't insist he get into a hospital gown or anything like that.

Tsunade-sama is studying a clipboard with medical jargon on it and making notes. Kakashi stares out the tiny window and ponders the various ways he could make his escape.

Of course, there's the problem that even if he gets out of the hospital without Tsunade-sama noticing, he has no idea where he can go. If everyone in this strange world believes he's the one out of sync, things are naturally going to be different.

He's not even sure where he lives in this world. Back home, he lives on the ANBU compound, like all the other full-time ANBU without families who might complain about their lack of presence. Kakashi squashes the hurt that comes at the thought of families with ease. He's been doing it for years, after all.

It would be nice, however, if he could go to the stone. Tell his family about the predicament he's found himself in. See if they have any advice, even though he cannot hear them even if they do. He finds the ritual of it comforting.

A glance at Tsunade-sama tells him that he's going to have to wait. Haruno should be here any minute now—she's not late yet, but time is getting close, and while he's the last person to criticize anyone for being late for anything but a life or death situation, he doubts that the Hokage's protégé would do something that careless.

Kakashi tries to decide how he feels about having a Genin of his own.

He's pretty sure it's a dreadful idea. He can't even keep a plant alive in his cramped room in the ANBU compound, though Gai keeps trying to help him. How is he supposed to look after a Genin?

Especially, he thinks, with a pang for Rin, a medically inclined Genin who has a teacher of her own already for her field. She doesn't need him.

It's unfortunate, he thinks, that Tsunade-sama is determined to try and trigger his memory. Haruno could go her way and he would be quite happy to rejoin the ranks of ANBU and if his memory came back… well, good for it, but he wasn't aware that he was missing anything now and so it didn't really matter as far as he was concerned.

A knock on the door and the feel of an unfamiliar chakra presence outside it, got his attention. "Come in, Sakura," Tsunade-sama says without looking up from her clipboard. "You're on time, good."

The door opens and the pink-haired girl from the photos steps in. Kakashi studies her covertly as she shuts the door and thinks that the photos didn't do her justice. Her hair was not nearly as bright in them as it was in real life and her eyes are greener. They flicker over him with a myriad of emotions before settling into carefully closed off neutrality.

"Tsunade-shishou," the girl says respectfully.

Kakashi wonders how bad a teacher he must be that she does not look his way even once with a smidgen of gladness. Somehow, he feels that he's been vindicated. Hasn't he been failing teams relentlessly, harshly with the deliberate attempt to get out of teaching?

It's weird to feel uncertain about how to react when he can tell that he clearly has lived up to his estimation of his own abilities as a teacher.

"Sakura," Tsunade-sama says, "while I've assigned you to Hatake Kakashi, you're to report to me for training every day—the exact times will be worked out once you and your sensei have figured out a routine."

He can't see Haruno's face and her back is straight and unreadable. Kakashi is left to imagine her expression as she bows her head and agrees.

"Right," Tsunade-sama says as she hands Sakura a set of keys, "Hatake, you're free to leave the hospital. Sakura knows where your apartment is, she'll show it to you. You both know the parameters of the mission."

"Tsunade-shishou," Sakura says, "will we be sent on other missions while--?"

"Give it a few days in village and I'll review the idea," Tsunade-sama says briskly but with a bit of a smile for the girl. She clearly likes her protégé, Kakashi thinks, and wonders if he'd done the same. "Any further questions?"

He shakes his head as Haruno murmurs a negative. Tsunade-sama rests one hand on Haruno's shoulder for a moment before pulling away. "I've got other duties. I'll expect to see you tomorrow, Sakura. Don't be late."

"I'm never late," Haruno says indignantly, which makes Tsunade-sama laugh as she leaves the room.

Awkward silence falls almost immediately. He doesn't know about Haruno but Kakashi is back to calculating ways of escape, no matter how nonsensical it might be to dream of. He stares out the window, figuring it's his best bet, and wonders if Tsunade-sama has placed teleportation and transportation jutsu wards around the hospital.

Probably a safe thing to believe, he decides, a bit wary of trying when everything is so out of sync.

Haruno sighs.

He turns to look at her as she visibly steels herself. What has she been told about his situation? He curses himself for not having thought to ask previous to this.

"Kakashi-sensei," she says, "come on, I'll show you where you live."

Then she turns and heads for the door of the room. That's it. As far as omens go, it hardly seems like a good one.

Kakashi stares after her for a moment and then, slowly, gets up to follow.

Sakura resists the urge to run. Barely.

It was all very well for her to talk with Ino about how she'll treat Kakashi-sensei. It's turning out to be an entirely different thing for her to figure out how she wants to be treated by him and how she wants to treat him now that she's actually forced to deal with him.

It's really, really unfair, she thinks, that he doesn't remember anything.

"What year is it, according to your memories?" she asks without looking at him as she makes her way down the halls of the hospital.

He tells her and she's glad she's in front of him because Sakura's a pretty poor liar as it is and she can't stop the grimace from passing her face.

God, he hasn't even lived through the Uchiha Massacre yet.

What is she supposed to tell him?

Is this a test? she wonders. Does Tsunade-shishou want to find out how she can deal with a situation like this? Sakura has no intention of failing any test set by her new sensei but it would be nice to know for sure.

Sakura doesn't know what to say to him so she's silent as they walk, taking to the rooftops as soon as they get out of the hospital, she leads him to his apartment. She's only been here twice and both times were because he had been more than four hours late to training and she was sick of waiting.

This time, it's weird to be coming here with Kakashi-sensei.

"This is your building," she says and Kakashi-sensei looks up, evaluating it.

It looks like a pretty normal building to her. Not a super nice apartment, like Hinata says that Kurenai-sensei has, but it's not in a bad area and it's not in a horrible state of disrepair.

"Strong wards," Kakashi-sensei says approvingly, with a nod.

She looks at him and then frowns at the building. She doesn't sense anything from it. Is this another thing she should have been taught and wasn't? Sakura makes note to ask Ino, whose sensei might laze about with her team more often than Ino likes, but who nonetheless makes an effort to train all three of them. Ino also has a Jounin for a father.

Sakura mourns the fact that she can't say the same. It's hard to always be finding things she should know but doesn't because of her background.

"Come on," she says.

They enter the building together. There's no elevator, which Kakashi-sensei notices with another approving nod, and she scowls at as they head for the stairs and head up.

"This one is yours," Sakura says, stopping outside a door that looks much like every other one they've passed.

He studies the door intently, frowning slightly--she can just barely tell through his mask--as he obviously judges his own security. Sakura waits, not sure she should try and rush him when he's busy and this is all new to him.

She does hope he doesn't make them stand out here for a while though.

Eventually he nods and looks at her, clearly waiting for her to open the door, as if he hasn't been the one making her wait all this time.

His keys rattle in her hand. There's several there and she's not sure what they're all for but at least the wait time has given her the chance to figure out which one is meant for his apartment. So she thinks, anyway. When the key slides smoothly into the lock and turns just as easily, a soft click telling her the door is unlocked, Sakura smiles slightly at her triumph.

It's a tiny thing, but it makes her feel better.

She pushes the door open and then, feeling awkward, steps back and gestures for him to go first. It is his home, she tells herself, it makes sense that he'd enter first.

He does.

Kakashi moves slowly and cautiously, like he's entering enemy territory, and Sakura is careful to hang back out of reach, just in case something spooks him. Of course, with a ninja of his ability, being truly out of reach would require her being at least on the other side of the village, but Tsunade-shishou would not accept that as an excuse so she stays put, just inside the door, which she shuts behind her.

Watching him explore his own place, Sakura wonders what he thinks. It's the plainest apartment she's ever been in. All the furniture is practical and utilitarian and, well, boring. She trails behind him as he enters the kitchen and starts looking through drawers.

He stares down into a drawer, then looks at her. "I cook?"

Sakura shrugs, a bit surprised. Kakashi never struck her as the sort. Clearly, he'd never struck himself as the sort. "That's news to me."

He frowns and shuts the drawer and moves on. Watching him explore the bathroom is more interesting than she would ever have guessed. He studies every bottle, every item intensely, and seems to get more information from them than she does. When she looks at the same things, she sees shampoo and conditioner (Kakashi-sensei conditions! She'll have to tell Ino) and things like deodorant that everyone has.

When he treats these things like they might go off in his face, she wonders just how many things he's got trapped in his apartment and makes note not to touch anything. Just in case.

His bedroom, she lets him explore on his own. It's beyond awkward to think of going in there with him and he says nothing when she hangs behind and wanders back to the living room and sits, gingerly, on the couch after checking it for traps. She doesn't find any traps but does find a few kunai stuck under the cushions and a garrote wire tucked inside the cushion, just where the zipper is.

Sakura leaves them where she finds them and wonders if she'll ever be as paranoid as he, clearly, is.

Who puts a garrote wire in their couch cushions? Just in case? Who?

And if that's in the couch, just the cushion she's sitting on, how much more is hidden around the room? Sakura eyes the room and tries to guess as she waits for Kakashi-sensei to finish exploring his apartment.

When he comes out, he looks mildly impressed with himself and satisfied. Sakura decides not to ask him about it--if she had to guess, she'd say he was pleased with his own paranoia.

"Haruno," he says, when he sees her sitting on the couch, precisely on one cushion, and not leaning back against it, just in case. "Where is the rest of… the team?"

"Your team," Sakura corrects before she can stop herself. "Team Seven."

He watches her.

"They're gone," she says flatly. "Training."

"And you?"

"Training," she tells him, "without the gone part."

His face twitches, for a moment like he's almost going to laugh, before it clears up again. "Look," he says, "you're supposed to be helping me."

But I don't want to. She glowers at her hands and when she can control the urge to glower at him, she looks back up. "I am helping you," she says. "I brought you here, didn't I? Like Tsunade-shishou said."

"That's called 'following orders'," he points out dryly.

Sakura shrugs a little. "I don't know what you want from me," she says honestly. "I'd rather be training with Tsunade-shishou right now."

He grimaces at her.

She resists the urge to grimace back.

Well, Ino, she thinks, he's never going to believe I was his favourite student now.

It's almost too bad, but her acting skills just wouldn't have been up to it. She never was that great at it in the kunoichi-only classes. Too much of her real feelings always shone through.

Kakashi leans back in his chair and fixes her with an unreadable look. "So I'm that bad of a teacher, huh?"

Sakura hesitates.

Kakashi watches her hesitate and weighs the odds of her telling the truth. He already knows and he suspects that she knows he does, which makes things simpler and a lot more likely that—

"Yeah," Haruno says, her voice flat, her eyes clearly saying she wants to be anywhere but here, "yeah you were."

Vindication would be sweeter if it wasn't for the knowledge that whatever fuck ups future him had done were his to clean up now. Kakashi resents that, more than a little, since from Tsunade-sama's assigning Haruno to him, it's clear he's meant to fix this.

He's never wanted to be a teacher. Ever.

He nods slowly and leans forward to rest his elbows on his legs. "Tell me what I did." It’s not a question.

Her eyes narrow at him; she picked up on that.

"What I don’t understand," Kakashi says, "is why they gave me—" it’s his turn to hesitate, realizing that he’s not sure how much Haruno knows about the Kyuubi and about Naruto’s peculiar relationship with the village, "—an Uchiha."

Her eyes remain narrowed. Her mouth a thin line. He isn't sure if she can tell he changed his mind at the last moment, about which Genin to ask about, or not. It doesn't really matter.

"Given my history," he says, and her eyes flicker to his covered eye, "the Clan is unlikely to have agreed to that."

"Hokage-sama did what he wanted," she says, her voice tight. Kakashi isn't certain of what has made her tense up—perhaps she's had a bad encounter with the police force? Well, she wouldn't be the first Genin to have that happen to… She continues with, "I was unaware clans had any say in what teams their children were placed on."

"No, you wouldn’t. You’re a first generation ninja, aren’t you?"

"Yes," she says defiantly.

He nods slowly. "All parents are informed of their children’s teammates at graduation. Shinobi Clans have their legal loopholes to force a team change if they do not agree. Balancing each team of Genin is a tricky act."

Haruno looks like she’s swallowed a lemon. "Civilian parents do not have the same loopholes, do they?"

"They’ve one," he tells her.

"Pull their kid from the school, right?"

"Yes."

She nods like that makes sense to her. He wonders if she’d fought with her parents over her team assignment or if her parents hadn’t known. If they’d come to Konoha after… after the attack, which was possible, even with a baby, then no one would have been likely to enlighten them.

"So why did I get placed with an Uchiha?" Kakashi can make his own guesses about why he was given Uzumaki. His sensei's child. And Haruno as a civilian would have been placed on his team as the third because it would cause no fuss amongst the Clans.

Indeed, when they were assigning the teams he expects that they were relieved to have such an easy solution. First generation shinobi rarely, if ever, raised a fuss about their team assignments. They were too busy working their asses off to make sure they could make the cut, since it was an uphill climb against their contemporaries with Clan backing.

Haruno's face tightens and she stands. "I want to show you something," she says, "and I think you'll understand why when you see it."

It's not really an invitation. He could demand that she tell him here. Looking at her face, though, Kakashi knows she's already disinclined to like him. That she doesn't trust him. That somewhere along the line the other him, the one that should be here, fucked up monumentally.

Pushing the matter here wouldn't solve anything and might make it harder for him and Haruno to work together for as long as Tsunade-sama feels they should. Kakashi has worked with teammates who don't like him before.

The key is compromise. It costs him nothing to go with her—and it'll allow him to see more of the village and figure out what has changed and what has stayed the same.

He's not opposed to that and stands, slowly, so that she doesn't get jittery around him.

"Lead the way," he tells her.

Surprise flashes across her face—had she expected him to refuse?—and she nods. "Come on."

Chapter Text

She leads him to the Uchiha district.

Before they ever enter it, he can tell there's something wrong. The paint has faded and the gates are shut. Sakura doesn't stop, just turns sideways and wriggles through the gaps between the wooden slats, with the ease of long practice.

Kakashi winces at the thought of doing the same. There were some things that had been easier when he'd been younger, even if there are upsides to being older. Instead he forms a few seals and reappears on the other side of the gate.

He looks around and realizes they're in a ghost town.

Shutters creak and hang off their hinges. Silence has an almost physical weight to it. On once brightly-coloured signs there's dirt and grit and everything has faded from the sun.

"Welcome," Sakura says, with a twisted grimace, "to the Uchiha District."

She starts walking purposefully down the eerily empty street--eerie for him, because two days ago, this was a bustling, thriving community, but for her, it's clearly been this empty for years--and he follows, horrified, wondering what happened to reduce a Clan of the Uchiha's strength to this.

What enemy could do such a thing?

"Why was I given an Uchiha to train?" he asks again. This time, he thinks he knows the answer.

"You're the only one that could," she says, without looking back. "No one else has the Sharingan in the village."

He thinks about all the people he knows, even just on sight, who have it and shudders inwardly. "What about Konoha's Military Police?"

"Disbanded."

Kakashi stops abruptly. Haruno keeps going for a few steps before turning back to look at him inquiringly.

He's… pretty aghast, to be honest. "You can't just disband the internal police force."

"Most of the force was Uchiha," Haruno points out, like she's reciting a history lesson and he has the uncomfortable feeling that she is. "After the Uchiha Massacre," he can hear the caps in that, "the Sandaime Hokage did not have the personnel, or the volunteers, to staff it. Those who were members but non-Uchiha were absorbed into the general forces, a portion of which was then given the mission of regulating the village."

"A portion," Kakashi says blankly, then takes a few steps to keep up with Haruno who has started walking again. His long stride eats the distance between them easily. "How can we afford that?"

Haruno gives a bit of a shrug. "I don't know about the expense side," she says, "but it's been working fairly well from what I can tell."

"With all your vast experience?"

She ignores that.

On reflection, Kakashi thinks, she's probably right to. "Where are we going?"

"To Sasuke's apartment," she says, which horrifies him all the more.

"He lived here even after--"

"Yes."

"But why wasn't he placed with…" he falters as he realizes that he's unsure who the child could've been placed with. Another Clan wouldn't've been able to raise him--there are too many strictures and familial secrets and skills for any Clan to feel comfortable about taking in another Clan's child. And a civilian family would be unprepared for the trauma that he'd undergone.

He can just imagine the political quagmire it would've caused to try and find the child a shinobi family that wasn't a clan but that the clans approved of to raise a Clan child.

But to just leave him alone…?

Surely a better solution could have been found.

"It's funny," she says, "that you say that. No one said that about Naruto."

A pit of ice settles in his stomach, along with churning guilt. He's not sure what she knows but it's clear that she knows something. "He was provided for."

He had been, right?

Truthfully, Kakashi had put as much distance between himself and his sensei's child as possible in an attempt to forget what had happened and never bothered to think about what the child's life would be like. He'd just wanted to forget.

Watching the narrow shoulders of his third Genin, Kakashi finds himself without anything to say in his defense as she snorts her disbelief.

"This," she says, stopping outside an imposing looking apartment block, "this Sasuke's place."

He surveys it. It looks just as broken down as the rest of the district, dusty and dirty. He tries to imagine living in the silence of this place and cannot.

Kakashi knows what a silent house feels like, he remembers that clearly.

He also remembers having his team around him, from a very young age. Uchiha Sasuke, he knows, did not make Genin at six, the way he did.

Very few did.

"Are we going in?" he asks.

Haruno stares up at the building. "If you want to," she says and doesn't move.

"Who killed the Uchiha?"

Her green eyes are as cold as stone when she looks at him. In a few years, he thinks, she'll be formidable. Not yet, but it will happen. "An Uchiha."

Kakashi stares up at the apartment. "And left Sasuke alive."

She makes a noise of dismay in the back of her throat. "He wants Sasuke to kill him," she says, "and to do that, Sasuke feels he must live with hatred only. He's gone from the village."

He hears what she doesn't say: Team Seven failed. They hadn't been enough of a family to keep Uchiha Sasuke grounded and protected and a part of the village. Haruno, quite clearly, blames him.

Does his older self, the one with all his memories, blame himself?

"Who killed the Uchiha, Haruno?"

"Uchiha Itachi."

Sakura wraps her arms around her waist as they walk through the abandoned sector, Kakashi-sensei's silence a compliment to her own. After she'd told him about Uchiha Itachi he'd fallen silent. She peers at him, knowing he'll notice, but hoping he won't take her to task for her lack of subtlety, as she gauges the depth of his frown.

… It's a pretty big frown, she decides.

She hasn't tried too hard to get him to talk. It's weird enough that she's wandering around here with her first sensei, already without adding extra strangeness.

The Kakashi-sensei that she and Ino had been imagining had been like her lazy, always late sensei only without the last year.

This Kakashi-sensei is different, more focused. When he asks her a question, she knows he expects a serious answer because there's none of the other Kakashi-sensei's bland amusement at life in his tone.

This Kakashi-sensei is all business.

Sakura likes this one better, she decides.

"Where did Uzumaki Naruto go?" Kakashi-sensei asks, breaking the silence. "And why?"

"Jiraiya-sama took him as his student," Sakura answers. "He wanted training to become strong enough to go after Sasuke and bring him back. He promised."

Already she feels guilty for that promise. Like she's swallowed a live goldfish.

Sakura says nothing about the fact that some people are after Naruto. It doesn't really matter now, not when he's safe, away with Jiraiya-sama. Even Tsunade-shishou believes that Naruto is safer this way.

"And you chose Tsunade-sama to study with."

"The training," she says, "was better."

He's silent for a few moments. "Tell me about Team Seven."

Wind tugs at her hair, tied back with her hitae-ite, and Sakura seriously gives thought to not answering him at all. It's an ugly can of worms and she doesn't want to relive it. If she could, she'd go back and erase it from her mind.

In the end, though, she tells him because this Kakashi-sensei is different from the one she knows and if she doesn't tell him, someone else will.

At least this way, he'll know what it was like to be on the team.

At least this way, she'll finally get to tell her side to it all and be listened to.

Sakura likes this strange, different Kakashi-sensei even more for that.

Kakashi lays back on his bed, in his room, in his apartment—none of which he'd been aware of owning before the morning—and tries to think. Haruno has gone home, wrung out and tired and grumpy, with a promise to pick him up bright and early tomorrow morning.

He's, truth be told, glad she's gone for the night.

He needs time to adjust.

And to try something that's been itching at him for days now, but that he hadn't had the time to try. First, there'd been the mission and he hadn't the time or the chakra to spend on trying to summon his dogs. Then there'd been the return to the village, ANBU, Tsunade, the hospital, Yamanaka Inoichi poking around in his mind…

He hadn't been left alone long enough to feel up to trying to summon his dogs. He desperately wants their comfort and this, all alone in a place that smells almost familiar but isn't his and isn't known, he finally has the time.

Kakashi tries not to get his hopes up.

Leaving his bedroom, he takes a cautious seat on his couch, and after a second's hesitation (he tells himself not to be a ninny) and bites his thumb and runs through a familiar set of seals, molding the chakra with the ease of long practice.

For a moment, all goes well, and he thinks it might actually work—and then the chakra slams up against what he can only envision is a wall, sloshes back at him, leaving him reeling back into the cushions of his couch, and he's left with a jutsu that he's known for what feels like forever having fizzled and backfired on him.

Kakashi stares grimly at where his dogs should've appeared.

Right. He doesn't know how the jutsu that put him into this position worked but he suddenly wishes he'd taken a little more time to make the offending ninja's death more painful… and lingering.

He clamps down on yearning for his dogs. He doesn't have time to wallow. Especially not if he's got to adjust to their loss as well as… everything else.

(And though it pains him deeply, the loss of his dogs only impacts him. Everything else impacts more people, more savagely.)

Unfortunately, adjusting means dealing with the clusterfuck of a team the Hokage has dropped in his lap, and he's pretty sure there's no way to put the team back together because it's already shattered beyond repair.

Haruno blames him. Uchiha Sasuke isn't spared her blame either and even she even lays some of it on Uzumaki Naruto. Though, admittedly, Uzumaki gets rather less of it. From what she said (and his nose knows she wasn't lying) she's right.

If he takes her word for it, for the year and change another him had control of Team Seven, Kakashi has to agree with her scathing assessment:

He really didn't try to train them. Didn't try to make them a team. Failed them all dismally.

There's worse teachers out there, he can think of a few, but Haruno's pointed and detailed run-down of Team Seven under his command definitely earns him a ranking position on that list.

Which is uncomfortable.

More than that, it's nearly impossible to comprehend. Kakashi looks at his hands. They look like his hands still, the ones he woke up with that morning. The ones he'd woken up with last week.

They're not the hands that failed to steer properly. He's the wrong Kakashi. This is some bizarre, messed up future that he wants out of. How the hell did he mess up responsibility so badly?

Teaching—especially Genin, who are breakable and fragile and naïve and think they aren't any of that---isn't something he sees himself doing, if he's honest with himself. In his timeline, he's not a teacher.

He kills things. Saves things, sometimes. But mostly he kills things while wearing the black and white and scarlet spiral of ANBU.

Kakashi closes his eyes and rubs at his face. In this world (the future, supposedly) he's a Genin sensei. A really awful Genin sensei.

He wonders what Tsunade-sama (who is Hokage now, which hurts his head to think about too hard; the Sandaime took over and Haruno mentioned he'd died but…) was thinking, to place him in the hands of someone who held a grudge.

Was it punishment?

Was it encouragement to do better?

Could he do better? That's the million ryo question and he knows the answer to it.

"Yes," he says, letting the word come out as a sigh.

He knows how to be a good sensei. Minato-sensei had been one of the best and everything his sensei had done, he remembers. He can apply the lessons learnt there to a team. It's one of the ways he gets through being an ANBU captain and leading missions there.

Clearly, in this future, he hadn't bothered to put forth the effort when it came to a bunch of Genin who needed him. It's an ugly realization.

I don't want to teach, he thinks, and that's true.

Kakashi wonders if that was his older-self's justification for fucking up the lives of three children who'd depended on him for guidance. That's ugly. Worse than ugly, it's criminal. Can he hate himself for actions he hasn't even done yet?

(He suspects the answer is yes.)

A knock on his door, his front door, not one of the… alternative entrances, gets his attention. It's less a knock and more of a steady pounding and the chakra signature isn't one he recognizes. It's not Haruno's, though from the training level, it's probably one of her contemporaries.

Kakashi drags himself off the couch to go an answer it.

He suspects, with some dread, that the person on the other side of the door (who is trying to break the door down) is the person who is the biggest reason that Haruno is not a worse mess than she is.

He's read Haruno's file, and her records, and after talking to her all day has a grasp of her personality.

Tsunade-sama is an excellent teacher but even she could not possibly have shored up the wreck the past year should have, would have, made of Haruno's self-esteem and confidence in herself. That would have had to come from a friend.

When he opens the door to find a tall-for-her-age kunoichi with blonde hair and fierce blue eyes staring up at him, he knows he's right. Yamanaka, he notes, with an inward shudder. As a Clan, they're known for being relentless once their attention is engaged.

"I'm coming in," she tells him, clearly uncaring of the difference in age, that people will talk, that he's apparently a Jounin sensei while she's only a Genin, that she's not even one of his Genin, and that all of the above matters in the village.

Kakashi strongly suspects that whomever her sensei is will be showing up within the hour, thanks to the gossip tree of Konoha. Either that or her parents. Unless she's here with parental approval, which is a frightening thought.

He lets her in anyway, and considers it to be his own way of making amends towards Haruno. If he's going to do anything to fix what his other, older-self wrought then he needs to understand what he's dealing with.

"Name?" he asks, as his security jutsu hum to life around the apartment and he sinks into a chair that is booby-trapped enough that even he feels secure in it.

The Yamanaka girl, with her hands planted on her hips, looks at him. Dirtily. "Yamanaka Ino," she says. "Haruno Sakura is mine."

He nods. He remembers her father (it must be her father, she's got Inoichi's eyebrows and scowl, though not his nose), saying something similar years back. "Before you start yelling," Kakashi says mildly, "I feel the need to point out that while I'm Hatake Kakashi, I'm not the Hatake Kakashi that you're pissed off at."

"Then you'll learn from his mistakes." Her voice is like the crack of a whip. It'd be impressive on anyone. On her, with her dainty features, he finds it entirely disturbing.

When the Yamanaka girl leaves three hours later, Kakashi's head hurts worse than it had when she'd shown up. No one else came knocking on his door, so now he's forced to assume that the girl had obtained parental permission (which has always seemed a bit silly to him, when she's technically an adult the moment she puts on her hitae-ite but he doesn't make the rules--he only follows them) before coming to give him the rundown.

She leaves with a smile that's lined with ice and sky blue eyes that burn and he thinks he understands a lot better what she meant when she'd stated that Sakura was hers.

Kakashi rubs his face then gets up and makes himself a coffee. It's a stupid thing to drink when he's got to be awake in a few hours, at most, and he thinks he's going to be pulling an all-nighter this time around. He needs the time to think before Sakura inflicts herself on him again.

What is he going to do?

The information, too much information, is jumbled around in his head and for a moment he wishes he were back in his time, back where things made sense and no one had lost their mind and made him a sensei of anything except, perhaps, how to murder people more efficiently while wearing the black and white of ANBU.

His coffee scalds his tongue and he grimaces.

He doesn't know how to fix this. He doesn't understand why he would have turned out to be such a bad sensei. Kakashi knows he doesn't want to teach but he's done a lot of things over the years that he hasn't wanted to do and he's done them well.

What the hell went wrong with him between his timeline and the one he's found himself in?

Is the other Kakashi, the right Kakashi for this timeline (though he's done everything wrong) back in his time? Kakashi thinks about that and decides, all things considered, that he would rather be in this time, in this situation, than in the other him's position.

ANBU headquarters is a bad place to be disoriented.

That's getting off the important things though. He admits that it's a stalling tactic. If he dedicates himself to fixing this, he's not sure he can also dedicate himself to finding a way to go, well, home.

Kakashi thinks about Sakura's green eyes, half-hurt, half-vicious, as she told him about what he'd done to train his team. He thinks about the Yamanaka girl who is all confidence and sparkling, strident determination to make things better for Sakura.

He thinks about the last Uchiha, Sasuke, who he failed so badly that he left the village.

He thinks about Uzumaki Naruto, who he's failed more times over this time around, and who has left the village as well.

Sakura is the only one he can make things better for. She's the only one in his reach right now.

Kakashi wonders, again, what the other him had been thinking.

As his coffee grows cold, he doesn't find an answer, and the lonely night offers no ideas either.

Well, shit.

Chapter Text

The Memorial Stone is the most solidly reassuring thing he's found in this new time.

Kakashi had brooded until he'd realized that no one had said he couldn't go out and, well, the middle of the night isn't enough to stop him from going to visit his family.

The stone is a little older, a little grimmer, and there's a distressing number of names that have been added to it in the years that, however it happened, he's never lived, but it still feels like coming home in a way his apartment hadn't.

That probably means his problems have problems but he doesn't care. Kakashi doesn't talk aloud to his family, though as he stands there visiting, he does tell them all about what the other him (their him?) has done, what he's found himself in, and about the loss of his dogs.

He's a (more than) competent ninja without them but that's not the point. If he's to be stuck in a different time (genjutsu?) with a team of children (well, one, but also not the point) where nothing is quite familiar enough to him—then he wants his dogs.

His family listens to him, which is more of a comfort than anything else has been.

When he leaves the stone, dawn is kissing the horizon and making it blush pinks, golds, and oranges. The beauty of it is wasted on him but, despite his lack of sleep, he feels better. Steadier.

While he doesn't know what to do about his dogs yet, he does know what to do about Haruno.

It isn't everything he wants. But it's a start. He'll figure out the rest later.

Kakashi is on his second cup of coffee when Sakura knocks on his door, once, twice. He opens the door (a bit jittery from the caffeine and lack of sleep) before she can knock a third time.

She immediately lowers her hand, looking flustered and bites her lip.

"Come on in," he says, stepping back to let her do that. After a split-second of consideration, he waves her in and heads down the hallway himself, expecting her to follow him.

She does, after a moment, shutting and locking the door behind her, though what she murmurs under her breath as she does so… well, he probably isn't supposed to hear.

He isn't quite sure what to make of it either.

It's a complicated feeling being preferred by someone over your other self.

Kakashi shoves the urge for more introspection (all of it uncomfortable) away and looks at Haruno’s hopeful but wary face as she takes a seat on his couch. He’s got to tread carefully here. It bothers him that another him made such a mess of this.

He wants to fix it.

Not to prove that he can be a better teacher, though he can, but because Haruno is a Genin who needs a teacher and who, despite all her anger at the other him, still views him as that teacher even though Tsunade-sama has all but taken over that role. She wants him to be her sensei.

His feelings on that are decidedly mixed—in this world he’s not fit to care for his dogs, much less a Genin as far as Kakashi is concerned—but his feelings don’t really matter when compared to the look in his (his!) last remaining student’s eyes.

If he fucks this up he'll never forgive himself.

"Do you have an itinerary for the day?" he asks her.

She shakes her head. "No," Haruno says. "I’m supposed to answer any questions you might have and remain in your presence in order to field other peoples’ questions but… no."

Perfect.

He smiles, knowing it’s visible through the mask. She seems just as discomforted by that as by anything else he’s done. "Let’s go find a training field then," Kakashi says, "and we'll see what you can do."

Her eyes stare up at him, wide and startled, like a wild rabbit, like he's spoken in some alien, incomprehensible tongue.

Kakashi discovers he can hate himself, his other self, a little more. "Come on," he says, keeping the loathing out of his voice with an effort. She'd take it personally when it's all directed at himself. What the hell had his other self been doing that she was so startled by this?

He knows the answer: nothing.

"What I can do?" she asks as he shoos her out of his apartment and locks the door and the ward jutsu up tightly. "You want to know that?"

"Of course," Kakashi says patiently as they head for the stairs. "Otherwise, how am I supposed to be a proper sensei if I don't even know what my student can do?"

Haruno doesn't have an answer for this. He suspects she's too startled with an unusual concept (a sensei who cares!) for her to find a response.

It's going to be a long day.

The sun beats down on them, hot and uncomfortable and making the dust and sweat they're both breathing in to be dreadfully uncomfortable.

More uncomfortable for Haruno than for him, Kakashi admits. Most of the sweat is hers. He's glad for the glare of the sun. It means his expression is harder to read--even through the mask, some expression bleeds through--and today is one of the days where he wants nothing to show.

Mostly because his heart has sunk somewhere down around his feet and he suspects that he's going to trip on it soon because there's no end to his other self's deficiencies in teaching Haruno. The day has proven to be ugly.

Haruno is sub-par.

Worse than that, she's a danger in the field. Her ability to sense enemies is below that of a Genin in his time (he wonders if that's the same across the board--has peace made them weaker?) and the only thing she has to compensate for her weaknesses is unusually fine chakra control and the beginning techniques of a medical ninja. Her foundations are solid; he knows from her records she was an excellent student at the Academy, if physically weak.

The neglect, then, had to have come after.

Kakashi wonders what he's going to tell her. He doesn't want to crush her fragile self-esteem. Despite himself, he likes her--she's a quick learner, she's obedient without being subservient, and even though she has to know she's not putting on a good show, she's giving it her all.

Like she's got something to prove, he realizes, as he parries a kick. The kick uses taijutsu that's more advanced than Haruno's got the foundations for and he suspects, if he asked, that the Yamanaka girl is probably the one that taught it to her. It's a solid, basic kick only a few notches above what is taught in the Academy.

He'd eat his mask if the Yamanaka girl doesn't know it.

He'd eat his hitae-ite if the Yamanaka girl isn't the one that's taught it to Haruno. It would explain both how she knows it and why she's not great at it if she learned it from another Genin.

"All right," he says. "That's enough."

Haruno stops attacking mid-punch and nearly collapses in on herself. Her face is red, her pink hair is in absolute disarray, her clothes are dirty and torn in some places, her chakra levels are very low, and her weapons are scattered around the field.

He looks much the same as he had when they got here.

Kakashi wonders if that's going to upset her. He hopes not. She's a Genin and he's a Jounin who has been in ANBU for the last few years. The difference in their abilities could be explained by that. But… he thinks she's too honest with herself to know that's all it is.

She rests her hands on her knees, breathing hard and not looking at him.

His heart twists inside his chest as he realizes that she knows she's not on a proper level for a Genin--especially not one that's been out of the Academy for more than a year. He's both grateful for that (it means he doesn't have to find a way to soften that blow) and pities her.

Neither of those emotions show. Haruno, he doubts, would take them well.

He takes a moment to organize his thoughts the way Minato-sensei would've done. He has to be truthful but not cruel. This isn't the case of someone slacking off, where cruelty would be warranted.

"Your effort is admirable," he starts with, both because it's true and because he wants her to know that he values that. She might be below where she should be but he sees nothing of a slacker in her. Haruno is trying her flat-out best to keep from being left behind. "Your chakra control is formidable for someone your age."

Another thing that's true.

"Your taijutsu need work," Kakashi settles on, feeling it's better than bluntly stating that she'd get herself killed in the field if she went out there so ill-prepared. "Your weapons skills need improvement as well and your jutsu repertoire requires expansion."

Haruno pulls herself upright, looking grim and resigned. It's clear that she thinks he's going to just give up on her again.

Once again, Kakashi is appalled with the actions of his other self. If he could, he'd smack himself around until he saw sense. No matter how little he wants to teach it doesn't change the fact that, once given a responsibility it should be seen through the best he is capable of—just like a mission, any mission.

"Have you any familiarity with genjutsu?" he asks, because while she's learning medical jutsu, he thinks her control is more suited to another field. Or maybe that's just his own bias. He misses Rin. He can't let that get in the way with teaching Haruno.

She looks startled.

He waits patiently for her to work through her surprise at being asked, feeling another fission of self-loathing for another him who didn't do his job.

"I know how to break them," she says diffidently, looking down like her answer is in some way unacceptable. "You--the other you, I mean--said I would do well with genjutsu thanks to my control."

"Where did you learn to break them?" Kakashi asks, doubting it was from him, with that reaction.

"I saw another shinobi use it during an attack," Haruno tells him, looking everywhere but at him.

For his part, he's impressed. Picking up any jutsu, even one so simple as a kai directed to dispel jutsu on the go is not an easy task.

"Well done," he says and means it. She flushes to the roots of her hair. "Would you be interested in learning more?"

Her eyes shine. "Yes, Kakashi-sensei. Yes!"

Kakashi wonders if Tsunade-sama will be put out with him for stealing her newest student. He figures that, if that happens, it is entirely fair. After all, Haruno was another him's student in the first place. He's just picking up the slack and doing it right this time around.

"Very well. But call me Hatake-sensei, please." His eye curves into a smile. She looks giddy--no, ecstatic to be acknowledged in such a manner as she bubbles that she will remember, definitely. "Tell me what you've learned about medical ninjutsu. Do you have ambitions of being a medical nin?"

Haruno deflates and shuffles her feet.

"Just tell me the truth," he says reassuringly. "No matter how you answer, I won't get mad." This requires more patience than training ANBU rookies but Kakashi feels that makes sense. And, in any case, a lot of this is his own fault.

He can put up with having to grit his teeth and wait to get a straight answer out of her.

"I don't know," Haruno admits. "I like learning and I like Tsunade-sama and I'm good at medical jutsu but…"

"Elaborate, Haruno," he says, keeping the bite out of his words. She needs him to be patient. He can do this.

Another Kakashi should have been the one to do this but he'll do it because it needs to be done.

"I don't know," she says, sounding frustrated. "I can't tell if I like learning it because she pays attention to me or because I like the subject! I know that if I can keep someone alive then, yes, it's good to know but I don't want to spend my life healing people!"

There’s a long pause as Haruno breathes deeply and raggedly, looking like it’s something shameful to have admitted to him. Kakashi doesn’t think so, because he’s never had an inclination to heal anyone, though he knows a few basic jutsu, just to keep himself alive on the field.

Haruno, though, looks like it’s the end of the world.

“Tsunade-sama will not hate you for not loving her specialty as much as she does,” Kakashi tells her calmly.

Haruno looks on the verge of tears. “But she’ll be disappointed in me!”

“She’ll cope,” Kakashi says reassuringly. “There’s very, very few ninja who choose healing as their vocation.”

“But I’m good at it! Shouldn’t I—Shouldn’t I carry on with it, if I’m good at it? I could make a difference.”

"There are many ways to make a difference, Sakura." She looks at him, startled, and he realizes that he’s used her first name.

Kakashi pretends this doesn’t alarm him on a deep level. Is he getting used to this world? Or is it just that he's getting used to dealing with Haruno? He likes her, Kakashi can admit that--it's not just that he feels guilty about what his older-self did, though that's part of it.

But he likes her, as a person, in her own, flawed ways. He wants her to succeed.

"You can make a difference in many ways," Kakashi repeats, this time without using her first name.

She looks tentative but willing to listen, almost hopeful, and he's glad for that. The destruction of her team and the lackluster training she's received haven't broken her spirit.

Kakashi can work with this. He knows he can. He even wants to.

It worries him, though, how she'll react when he leaves. Surely, he'll wind up leaving. The Hokage is looking into ways to send him home already. There's got to be a way to reverse whatever happened.

(What will happen to Sakura then?)

"How?" Sakura asks.

"That depends on what path you take," he says, and gestures with her to come with him. She falls into step with him, as they leave the training grounds, her clothes dirty and her face sweaty and her chakra low. Kakashi looks pristine.

But Sakura looks happy.

"Can you teach me about genjutsu?" Sakura doesn't look at him as she asks this.

"If you want me to," Kakashi says, shelving his thoughts about what might happen if he had to leave--to go back to his own time. "I can definitely teach you a fair bit, though I'm not as good at it as some. I'm primarily a ninjutsu specialist, though I'm well rounded for all of that."

Sakura nods. "Because of your eye."

Obito's eye. "Yes. Because of that."

"Do you think I'd be able to learn to be a ninja like you?" Sakura asks. "Someone who is strong all around?"

"I think," Kakashi says, "that you can become any sort of ninja you want to be, with the proper training."

He means it too.

Sakura seems to understand that because she lights up like a sunrise.

Sakura collapses on her bed, hours later, with a whimper of pain. Everything hurts. This Hatake-sensei, is a hard taskmaster.

She sort of loves him for it, even though her body doesn't.

"Ino," she says, without opening her eyes, "can you get me a glass of water and some painkillers?"

There's utter silence in the room and then the soft clink of a glass on her nightstand.

Sakura opens one eye, feeling creaky and old with the movement, and sees Ino standing over her, one hand holding the pills she'd asked for. "You already had that ready," Sakura accuses, forcing herself to sit up and grimacing at the dirt she's spread all over her blanket. "How long have you been lurking in my room?"

Ino grins at her, unrepentant and glorious as always. "Long enough," she says, "I saw you earlier with that man and thought it might be best if I took precautions."

"You were keeping tabs on my thoughts."

"Just enough to see when you'd get home," Ino admits. "And don't give me that look. You gave me permission to practice keeping tabs on your mind."

Sakura takes the pills, swallows them, and downs half her glass of water. "I know," she says, "but it's still weird whenever you actually do it."

"Stop whining," Ino says brightly, making Sakura grimace. "Tell me how your training went."

"Can I shower first?"

"No." Ino plops herself down on the bed, on a patch of blanket that’s clean, and crosses her legs at the ankles. "You don’t even want to stand until the painkillers kick in anyway, so don’t give me that."

"I don’t want to think about training," Sakura says grumpily. "I hurt in places I didn’t know it was possible to hurt."

Ino, knowing her better than anyone has a right to, just smiles. Her smile, Sakura thinks, is a bit like that of a shark's only a shark was never nearly so glittery around the edges. "But...?"

Sakura smiles. "It's amazing," she burbles. "He's actually teaching me! And he's strict but I'm learning so much. Hatake-sensei doesn't like repeating himself, but he will if I don't understand and if I have a question he'll patiently help me work through it until I've got it down pat."

Because she can and because Ino is right there, Sakura wriggles over to throw her arms around her best friend, dirt and all.

Ino doesn't shove her off, which makes her happier. They'd been rivals for so long, but—she's missed Ino. Fiercely.

"I'm so happy," Sakura says dreamily. "I hurt everywhere and tomorrow is going to be worse because he's not going to go any easier on me and I'll be sore from the start but I'm learning! He's going to teach me genjutsu. He flat out told me I'm not very good."

"He what?" Ino yelps.

Sakura hurries on, her arms tightening around Ino, to keep her from storming off to yell at Hatake-sensei. "No, no!" Sakura says quickly. "It's okay. He said that to help me understand how we were going to make it better."

Ino eyes her suspiciously.

"It's true," Sakura insists. "Honest, Ino." She looks down, biting her lip, and fidgets.

Ino, being Ino, takes a moment to play with her hair. "What are you thinking?" she asks.

Taking heart from the fact that Ino doesn't sound like she's going to haul off and smack Hatake-sensei (it is a fact of Sakura's world that despite Hatake-sensei's greater skill and experience, Sakura believes that if it came to a fight about her, Ino would win; Ino has always won when she really wants something) Sakura rests her head against Ino's leg, knowing she's getting Ino even dirtier and not saying anything about it.

Ino doesn't tell her off about it either. Just toys with her hair and waits.

"He said," Sakura says carefully, "that it would be better if I had a team to train with."

Ino's fingers pause. "Like, join up with another three-man team?"

"No," Sakura replies, shaking her head slightly. "Someone else he can work with. He doesn't want to deal with the mess of paperwork that comes from combining an incomplete team with a complete. He sounded utterly disgusted at the idea."

No one has ever called Ino stupid when it comes to the important things. "He wants someone to switch over to your team." Ino's voice is carefully, utterly blank. It's a bit scary because Ino is someone who uses emotions rather than uses the lack of them to make a point.

Sakura makes herself look up at Ino, which is very intimidating when she suspects that Ino has figured out where this is going. "He asked me if I knew anyone who'd like real training," she says, her voice coming out wheedling and a bit meek. "I said I might."

You interested? drifts, unsaid but heard, between them.

Ino's eyebrows rise. "I see," she says dryly. "He doesn't want to deal with the paperwork for combining a team but he's willing to deal with the paperwork for a transfer?"

That's not a no. Sakura takes heart from that.

"It's only a few sheets," she says, still wheedling. "You'd have to sign in triplicate and it's probably a good idea if you get your parents' permission," despite being technically adult, in Konoha, upon becoming a full shinobi, at their age, parents could make things extremely difficult if they took it to the Hokage, "but..."

"I'll think about it," Ino says, with a note of finality to the words, and Sakura knows not to push. Ino will think about it. That's good enough. She revels in hope and clings a little more.

"Hatake-sensei says if you decide to join, to meet us at Training Area Seventeen," Sakura says.

"When?"

"Tomorrow, five in the morning."

Ino nods and they lapse into silence until Ino shoos her off to the shower.

When Sakura gets out of the shower, achy but clean, Ino is gone. Sakura dreams deeply that night of endless blue eyes, silver hair, and an expanse of hope more beautiful than any dawn on the horizon.

Chapter Text

Like she promised Sakura, Ino thinks about her request to join another team. She thinks about it all through helping out at the shop, through supper and through the clean up after. Then, once her dad says he's heading out to the greenhouses, she follows him. They walk along the streets of Konoha, not at a rush, not in a hurry to get anywhere, and Ino still thinks about it.

There's a lot to think about, when it comes to Sakura's offer. Hatake-sensei hasn't been around long enough to show his faults (and she's sure he's got them, when he's just Kakashi-sensei, de-aged or from a different time or something) and while Sakura's bubbling over with enthusiasm now, who is to say that'll last a week, or two, or three?

On the other hand, Ino had watched the way Sakura had moved when she'd staggered into her room. She'd been totally wrung out.

Ino can't remember the last time she's been wrung out from training with Asuma-sensei and the boys.

It makes her violently, terribly jealous. She wants that. She wants it badly.

She just doesn't know if Hatake-sensei can give it to her. How good can he really be? He's the man that Kakashi-sensei was and if it was a toss-up between Kakashi-sensei and Asuma-sensei, Ino knows which one she'd pick in a heartbeat.

(Ino loves Asuma-sensei, she does, but he doesn't force her past her limits.)

But, really, no one else is offering. Only Hatake-sensei. Ino stews over this silently.

When they're in the greenhouse and she's occupied with weeding--there is always weeding to do--while her father inspects his experimental hybrids, that's when Ino decides that she really should get a second opinion. Sakura is right anyhow. If she really wants to do this then she's got to make sure that her dad at least knows about it.

"Dad," she says, not looking up from her weeding. He doesn't look up from his hybrids, but she knows he's listening. Her daddy always listens to her. "What would you say if I wanted to join another team?"

He's silent for a long moment. Ino spends that time biting her lip and pulling out more weeds, just to give her hands something to do.

"What brings this on?" he asks. "It's not because you're still upset about Shikamaru not picking you for that mission, are you?"

That's a good question.

Ino grimaces. She is still upset about it. She's aware that she's not a powerhouse type of ninja but it offends her on a deep level that Shikamaru assumed that power was the only way to beat the enemy. And it hurts that he left her behind because he thought she'd be useless.

Even if his goal had been to protect her, well, Ino doesn't want to be protected.

"No," she says, because she hadn't really considered the idea of a transfer in that light. "It's not about that." Though now she wonders if Shikamaru and Chouji and Asuma-sensei will assume that it is, if she does this. That's uncomfortable. It makes her seem really childish.

(But is it so very childish to go after what's the best for her?)

"Why would you consider a transfer then?" Her father might have sounded like he was being dismissive to anyone else but Ino knows him nearly as well as she knows herself and knows that he is giving her the chance to convince him of her reasoning.

She takes a deep breath, looking up to meet his eyes. They're the same shade as hers, neither of them with pupils--a mark of their Clan. "Have you heard about what happened to Hatake Kakashi?" That's the place to start.

"Yes," he says evenly. "I've been called in to consult on his case. What do you have to do with it, princess?"

"He's training Sakura," she blurts. "Actually, like, paying attention to her. She was dead on her feet when she got home tonight and she's learning a lot and he's actually paying attention to her this time instead of ignoring her." Being her father, he's well aware of her complaints about Sakura's sensei. He's heard them more than anyone.

"Go on."

"Asuma-sensei doesn't train me," Ino says. They both know it's true. She's heard her father gripe about it to Shikaku-san and Chouza-san before, when she wasn't supposed to hear it. "He barely trains Chouji and his idea of training Shikamaru is playing board games with him. Sakura told me that Hatake-sensei wants me for his team. He wants to train me. Sakura needs another Genin to work off of and push her further. I can do that."

To her surprise, as she talks, she realizes that not only can she do that (which isn't a surprise) but that she wants to do it, which rather is. Ino doesn't like Kakashi-sensei.

What she's seen and heard so far about Hatake-sensei, she likes a lot better. Even when she'd barged in on him and spent hours explaining exactly why he needed to smarten up, he'd listened to her and hadn't talked down to her.

Grudgingly, she counts that as a point in his favour.

"Do you want to do that?" Her dad sets his hybrid seedling down in its tray and looks at her. "Ino, switching teams is going to cause tensions between you and Shikamaru and Chouji. It's going to make Asuma-sensei look bad."

"I want to do it," she says firmly, making up her mind. "I can handle Shikamaru and Chouji and if Asuma-sensei had actually bothered to pay attention to me then I'd never have wanted to leave. I don't think he even knows my goals. He never even asked, Dad."

It's an old complaint.

"If he looks bad for that, then it's his own fault." Ino believes that, entirely. "Though--will transferring teams be a problem with the Nara and Akimichi Clans? I don't want to cause problems for you, Dad."

He thinks about it. Ino appreciates that he doesn't just flat out tell her yes or no without considering the situation from all angles. He hasn't even told her if she can do this or if he's entirely against it. There's no one in the world Ino loves more than her father. He's never let her down, even when they disagree.

"It will help that it would be to Sakura-chan's team. I can pass it off as girlish friendship and a desire to help out. I don't think Shikaku or Chouza will like it but Shikamaru's already a Chuunin and there's going to be times when your team would be split anyway…"

Ino holds her breath, waiting for his verdict.

The next morning, Ino is waiting for both of them. She's got her hair tied back and is armed to the teeth.

Hatake-sensei smiles.

Sakura squeals and flings her arms around Ino.

"My father says that if I don't show improvement under your hands, that I'm to go back to my old team," Ino tells Hatake-sensei.

"How long a trial period has he given me?"

"Three weeks."

Hatake-sensei nods. "That's enough time to make a noticeable difference if you're willing to work hard."

"You'll find my work ethic to be impeccable," Ino says with utmost confidence.

Sakura agrees with Ino's assessment of herself. Ino has never been one to shirk her duties or her training. It's just that no one has ever bothered to give her all of their attention before.

Asuma-sensei will have no idea what he's missed, Sakura gloats. Because Ino is hers now and the only person she has to share her with is Hatake-sensei.

Things are looking up. Way, way up.

Kakashi looks over his two students and knows this is the right thing to do. He's even pleased about the Yamanaka having agreed and gotten permission to be here! It will help Sakura and Sakura had been absolutely determined that Ino be her teammate the moment that he'd floated the idea of getting one at her.

They'll need a third. Eventually. But right now, Kakashi thinks, he's going to have enough trouble just dealing with the two of them. Sakura is below where she ought to be. He needs to find out where Ino is.

But that is what they are at Training Area Seventeen for.

"Ino," he says, "has all the paperwork for your transfer been signed?"

She nods. "On my part," Ino says. "Signed and delivered to the Hokage's office this morning. Dad signed off on it too, so no one can countermand it unless those orders come straight from Hokage-sama herself." She considers that. "Or you, Hatake-sensei."

Sakura looks vaguely anxious.

"I'm not going to countermand them," he says, which makes both the girls relax. "We'll go after training today and finish them up officially." Kakashi hates paperwork. It leaves him feeling a bit bemused that he's actually looking forward to doing this bit of it. "Have you told your old team yet?"

Ino shakes her head. "Chouji's got personal training with his dad right now and Shikamaru and Asuma-sensei are out on a mission that I'm not ranked high enough to go on."

He takes a moment to admire the fact that she can say that so bluntly, without any bitterness clouding her voice. Internally, he winces at how fragmented their team must be that telling them of her transfer isn't even the first thing on her mind.

"Okay," he says, "but when you can, tell them. Or else tell me that they're all in town and we'll tell them."

As he had half-suspected, she looks relieved at the offer. Kakashi doesn't blame her. Even when a transfer is a good thing for the transferee, it's a hard thing to do when faced with the disapproval of everyone else.

"Yes, Hatake-sensei."

Sakura beams at him.

Kakashi wonders how he's going to survive two teenaged girls and their dramas. Boys aren't any better, drama-wise, but he's more used to it from boys. It makes a difference.

"All right," he says, refusing to dwell on it. "Sakura, today you're going to be doing conditioning. Ino, you're with me today. I need to see exactly where you are. Sakura, if you need help or have any questions, don't hesitate to ask."

Both girls nod.

Pleased with their willingness--and he hopes to god that Sakura doesn't think he's ignoring her for the day because that isn't the case at all and that's the last thing her fragile trust in him needs--he has Ino go and stretch out while he sets Sakura to her practice and then crooks his fingers at Ino and gestures her over to the other side of the training area.

She looks apprehensive but determined.

"This isn't about winning," he says. "This is about seeing everything you can do."

"Clan jutsu?" she asks.

Kakashi thinks that over. "Not today," he decides. "That's something we'll go over later, of course, but I want to see your fundamentals."

"Got it."

He slides into a ready stance. "Whenever you're ready."

Her eyes gleam with the challenge in his words.

Physically, Ino is better than Sakura.

Which is what he'd suspected. Her taijutsu are of a higher level, her chakra reserves are larger (probably, he thinks, from her training with her Clan jutsu) and she's physically stronger and faster.

Sakura relies more on traps and jutsu. Ino eschews the both of them in favour of trying to kick the shit out of him. As Kakashi blocks a Chuunin mid-level kick with one arm and feels the power of it travel up to his shoulder and resonate in his bones--he'll have a bruise later--he has to admit he's impressed. Her speed is quite good for a Genin too, probably because her legs are so strong.

But she doesn't like to use her arms in combat (and when he forces her to, she's far weaker there than with her legs) and her ninjutsu repertoire is practically non-existent. Even Sakura had known a few extra ninjutsu. Ino knows the basics they teach in the Academy and nothing else. When it comes to genjutsu, she doesn't even know a simple kai.

It makes Kakashi's blood boil.

Both girls are walking liabilities. Even with Ino's Clan jutsu, it's only useful in certain circumstances and only then if backed up appropriately.

What the hell is wrong with Konoha that this level of training for the kunoichi is acceptable? In the few days he's been here, Kakashi has had his ear to the ground and what he's heard horrifies and alarms him in equal measures.

Of the Genin girls, it's widely considered that Ino is exceptional for her age and rank.

Kakashi thinks of all the girls he's known and wonders what happened. Even Rin, who had been so hyper-focused on her medical training that the rest of her capabilities had taken a hit would have been able to take both Sakura and Ino out when she'd been a Genin.

By the end of training, Ino can barely stand, though she's still trying her hardest to do so and look combat-ready, and his temper is being held in check only through sheer force of will. It is bad enough admitting that he'd been a piss-poor teacher and that he was going to have to work hard to undo the damage he'd managed to cause his Genin.

It is ugly and shocking to be confronted with the fact that he is not the only piss-poor teacher who'd been put in charge of Genin. What is Asuma thinking? And if Ino is this flawed, how are her teammates faring?

He's tempted to ask.

He refrains mostly because he wants Ino to believe he's focused on her training, not on her teammates. Asking now would be a blow to her self-confidence and while she's far and away more confident than Sakura is that would be needlessly cruel at this stage.

Later. He can ask later. He's not sure his temper can take any more disappointments in Konoha today.

Right now he's got to give his second student a critique of her abilities. That's the most important thing. Kakashi takes a breath and thinks about what Minato-sensei would say.

"I'm sure you've heard from Sakura what I said to her," he says.

Ino straightens up, her hair a tangled mess, her clothes filthy and her legs trembling despite her best efforts to control them. Her arms are bruised. "Yes," she says and her eyes flare with that. "I can handle it, Hatake-sensei."

Kakashi finds that he believes her. The look in her eyes tells him that. He strongly suspects that where he had to be careful of Sakura's self-esteem in critiquing her, Ino is the sort of girl that will take everything he'll say as a personal affront and work at it until it's no longer an issue. Sakura, he thinks, will be like that eventually. She's just not there yet.

And no wonder considering everything.

"You'd better be able to handle it," he says, just to have her eyes narrow at him. Yanking her chain is juvenile of him but he suspects that she works best with some challenge in her life to throw herself against. Right now he needs for her to see him as the biggest challenge or else she'll never learn exactly what he wants her to learn. "Who taught you taijutsu? Why don't you use your arms more?"

"Because my Clan jutsu requires that my arms be free," she says. "It's easier to just attack with my legs rather than juggling weapons and jutsu. Dad taught me a lot of my taijutsu."

He nods. That's about what he expected. Clan shinobi have more strengths than the first generation ninja, but they have their own weaknesses too.

"Your dad is a Jounin," Kakashi says bluntly. "He can get away with stylistic choices like choosing not to use a weapon unless absolutely necessary. You're a Genin. You cannot. You will be learning to properly use your arms in a fight--we'll build your strength up there until they match your legs. You've got good, strong legs. You need good, strong arms. From what I saw, your forms aren't the problem. You've got excellent technique--just none of the strength required to back it up. In a fight, that's a liability."

Ino looks determined as she nods and doesn't complain.

"Furthermore," he continues, "your knowledge of genjutsu is nonexistent. We're fixing that. Your control is fine enough that you should be able to pick up an array of genjutsu that will aid you in fights. When I dismiss you and Sakura tonight, get her to teach you the basic counter to a genjutsu. Asuma should have taught you that months ago."

"He didn't teach me anything," Ino bursts out. "That's why I'm here!"

That earns her a grim smile. "And so you're going to be learning a lot--we've got to make up for your deficiencies."

She flushes, eyes sparkling with anger.

Pride, he thinks, is something the Yamanaka Clan have never lacked. But I can work with it.

Out-loud he says, "And beyond that, your ninjutsu repertoire is painfully barren. At the moment you're a one-trick pony, Ino. You will get killed in a battle because you have zero versatility."

Sakura, he sees, is drawing closer, probably to leap to Ino's defense if it looks like her friend needs it. As she's finished her conditioning, Kakashi lets her come closer with a nod. She slips up to stand beside Ino, giving her teammate a concerned look.

Ino, rather than angry, has gone expressionless. Kakashi wonders if he's pushed her too far.

"Both of you are walking liabilities," he says blandly. Sakura flinches, Ino's expression doesn't change. "That's not your fault. You've both done your best to keep up and your attempts show. I appreciate them. Sakura, your control and ability to use textbook jutsu under trying circumstances is extraordinary. Ino, your lower body strength and skill is that of a Chuunin easily and you're quick on your feet to take advantage of openings. Neither of you give up easily. All of these things are very good and I'm proud of you."

Sakura relaxes. Ino still doesn't move.

He wonders what she's thinking. It's probably a good thing he can't read minds.

"Your problems are not what you are," he says. "Both of you have the potential to be very, very good shinobi." He believes that, which makes it far easier to say forcefully. "Right now, however, neither of you is fit for anything over a D rank mission. Maybe the Hokage would send you on missions higher than that, maybe your teams would take you on missions higher than that, but as far as I'm concerned, you are not ready and neither of you should even try to become Chuunin yet."

And here's the most important part, the one he wants them to remember like it is stamped on their foreheads:

"This is not your fault."

That gets a reaction out of Ino. "It's our previous sensei who are at fault," she says flatly. "That's what you're getting at."

Sakura looks between him and Ino, obviously worried about where this is going to go. "That's not fair to Hatake-sensei, Ino..."

"It's fine, Sakura," he says. Compared to the things that Ino has said to him in private, this is nothing. "She is talking about Kakashi-sensei, not myself. And she's right. What Kakashi-sensei and what Asuma have done to the two of you is criminal in my eyes. In my time they'd both be raked over the coals by the Hokage for not training either of you properly. Ino!"

Her head snaps up savagely. He's glad to see that reaction from her. "Yes, Hatake-sensei?"

"What did Asuma do to train your team?"

She scowls at him. "We'd go for yakitori and while Chouji ate, he'd play shougi with Shikamaru."

Internally, Kakashi winces. Shikamaru's a Chuunin now. That's hideous to contemplate.

"Sakura," he says, "how did Kakashi-sensei train your team?"

Sakura hitches one shoulder up in a half-shrug. "He'd teach Sasuke something and Naruto would butt in and demand to learn something too and I got left with whatever I could pick up by watching them. The only compliment I ever got was so the boys would try harder." That sounds bitter.

Ino's hand reaches over to hold Sakura's. Kakashi pretends he doesn't see that for all their sakes.

He gauges the time, gives them a few moments to comfort each other, and then smiles. "Well, then," he says, "now that we know where both of you are… let's get back to training."

Chapter Text

When Hatake-sensei dismisses them, Sakura and Ino trudge back to Sakura's place in silence. Sakura chews on her lower lip nervously as she tries and fails to guess what Ino is thinking about the first day of training with her new (and hopefully forever) sensei. Was he too harsh?

He'd seemed harsher to Ino than he'd been to her, which Sakura doesn't quite get. She's got as many faults as Ino (in her heart, she tends to believe that she's got more but Hatake-sensei hadn't seemed to see it the same way) and Ino has been very quiet since the breakdown of her flaws finished. Even through the rest of their training, Ino had attacked each task given to her grimly, and silently.

Optimistically, Sakura tries to believe it's because Ino is tired.

Sakura is, after all, and Ino doesn't look any better. Their steps are slow and slightly wobbly, their hands shake, their clothes are horrifically dirty and torn and their chakra's been worked down to embers. Maybe it's just that.

(She knows it's not just that.)

"Are you staying over for supper?" she asks, trying to think if she's got anything in the cupboards that Ino will like that won't take forever to make. Her parents won't be home tonight, she remembers.

"We'll order in," Ino says.

"I can't--"

"I'll pay for it," Ino interrupts. "Don't worry about it."

Sakura lets it drop, just sighs. "You get first shower then."

"Like I was ever going to go second," Ino scoffs.

"It's my place!"

"You treat your guests before yourself! Everyone knows that!"

They keep bickering, verging somewhere between half-serious and half-kidding the rest of the walk home. Sakura feels better for the arguing because it's more Ino than the earlier quiet. She hates it when Ino is quiet. Because of that, she doesn't bring up Hatake-sensei until after they've both showered and have eaten (leaving the takeout boxes strewn over her floor, all of them within easy reach of either of them decide they want more to eat).

It's tempting, more than a little, to just let Ino go home without asking. She bites the inside of her cheek, hard, and refuses to take the coward's way out--Sakura thinks in horror of how she'd feel if Ino just didn't show up the next morning to training and she hadn't even bothered to ask.

'Hatake-sensei wants you to teach me the basic way to cancel genjutsu," Ino says, leaning against the bed. "He says Asuma-sensei should have taught me it months and months ago."

"Are you mad at Hatake-sensei?" Sakura asks, getting up to sit next to Ino. Sakura's reassured when, the moment she sits down, Ino leans over to rest against her.

"I'm going to kick his ass."

Sakura plays with Ino's hair, spreading it over her shoulder to finger comb the still damp strands. In the lamp light they practically glow. "That's not what I asked."

Ino sighs. "I don't know. Yes. No. Take your pick. I'm mad but it's--"

"Not Hatake-sensei's fault?" Sakura suggests when Ino trails off. "Something like that?"

"Not really," Ino says grudgingly. "I mean, it's better to... to hear that I suck than die but it still..."

"You don't suck," Sakura tells her honestly. "You're better than I am. And Hatake-sensei didn't say you sucked either. He just wants use to be aware of our flaws."

"You're not the 'one-trick pony'," Ino says, rolling her eyes and nonetheless relaxing. "Though I suppose what with both of us being called walking liabilities, that's not saying much either."

"Ouch."

Ino grimaces. "Not my favourite thing to be called either."

Sakura braids all of Ino's hair, wishing it was longer, knowing it isn't because Ino used it against her in the Chuunin exams, and has unraveled her work to begin braiding it again before Ino says anything else.

"No," Ino says, "I'm not mad at Hatake-sensei. I'm offended."

"At him?"

"At being thought weak," Ino says. "Even worse—at being weak. He was right, damn him. And there's only one way to fix that."

Sakura beams at Ino. "By getting good enough to kick his ass, right?"

"Yeah," Ino smiles, then, and Sakura's world goes back to being the bright and beautiful place it had been that morning when Ino had shown up for training on their team. Ino isn't going to leave her team. She's staying. "We're going to kick his ass." Ino looks at her hands. "Show me the counter, would you? Then we're going out training."

It's past eight at night. They have to meet up for five tomorrow and Hatake-sensei isn't late the way Kakashi-sensei used to be. Ino knows that though so Sakura doesn't remind her. "Okay," she says, instead, "what are you going to work on?"

"My upper body strength," Ino says promptly. "He'll be more use if he's working to fix my ninjutsu deficiencies during official training and I can strengthen my arms without supervision. What'll you work on?"

"My stamina," Sakura says with a sigh. "I'm crap at being able to sustain myself through a battle and that's not something that shortcuts can be taken to learn. Just practice."

"We'll get better," Ino says with determination laced through her voice.

Sakura has to laugh. "Or die trying?"

Ino doesn't even have the heart to pretend to lie about it. "Pretty much," she says, standing with a groan. "If that's the only way that we're going to get stronger then it might be worth it."

"I'm not interested in dying," Sakura insists but gets up when Ino fixes her with a look. "But okay, we'll try this your way."

A week and a half later, Kakashi collapses on his couch, careful not to sit on any of the traps, even in his exhaustion, and wonders why he was daft enough to want to train two students, let alone one. He knows that logically, it's the only thing that makes sense. Having another person around has pushed Sakura to work even harder, especially as Ino is the one person who, more than anything, Sakura does not want to lose to.

He shifts, pulling a kunai out so that it doesn't gouge though his uniform, and toys with that as he tilts his head up at the ceiling. Saying that Sakura doesn't want to lose to Ino is a simplification, Kakashi knows. Their relationship is more complicated but it's clear that, whatever the reason, Sakura is determined to not be someone who Ino cannot be proud of.

That's... interesting. He wonders what sort of home life Sakura has. If he should ask. He's not sure it's appropriate for him to do so when she's managing admirably under his tutelage. But perhaps...

Sakura's training is going excellently. Her control is improving by leaps and bounds and despite the fact that she might not always get something down on the first try, she tries with all her being. Kakashi finds himself well pleased with her. She's going to be an utterly deadly kunoichi (and he was right, her flair for genjutsu is going to be prodigious) and he doesn't understand what other, older him, had been thinking to ignore the want she had to learn.

Thinking of that makes him think of Asuma. He really really doesn't understand what Asuma had been thinking to ignore Ino.

Ino is just terrifying.

It had taken him approximately three hours to decide that her claim, about her impeccable working ethic, had not been an idle boast. It had taken him two days to see that while Ino liked to talk trash and while she liked to chatter and gossip and laugh, she was violently driven to succeed. Sakura believed whole-heartedly in Ino.

Kakashi did too.

He rather thought that while Sakura was going to be the more powerful kunoichi, Ino was going to be the more deadly of the two of them. Sakura was kind, under her insecurities and her heart was gentle even as her strength would let her do anything, in time. Ino was steel and violence and utter ruthlessness hidden by a laugh.

If he thought about it for long, Kakashi found himself idly wondering if he was teaching both the next Hokage and the next head of ANBU. It was possible.

It was years down the road and he was just daydreaming. Every sensei probably had the same dreams for their teams--if they were good sensei.

And it was a good dream. He's only known them for less than a month and he believes in them. Kakashi wonders what is wrong with everyone in this time that they'd not seen the potential in them before.

Asuma had simply let Ino skate by and Ino had done her best--that she'd managed to keep up with no directed training aside from her father's sporadic lessons was impressive and a testament to her ability to work hard--and his older-self had been content to ignore Sakura, barely tossing her a few crumbs of training, until Sakura had found her own teacher.

He grimaces slightly. Tsunade-sama wasn't best pleased that he'd taken away the most promising apprentice she'd found in years. It is only the fact that it had been Sakura's wish to prioritize genjutsu that had kept the Hokage from sending him flying through a wall. Even so, she still found time to tutor Sakura in the medical-nin arts.

Kakashi gets up, running one hand through his hair.

It was well and good to train two of them. He enjoys the both of them deeply and watching their training made him feel good about being here in a way that nothing else did (the world was so different while still being the same; it was disconcerting). He also knows that he is going to have to find them a third if they wanted to participate in the Chuunin exams.

Already he'd decided that he didn't want them in the next exam--the ones coming up in a few months. He'd wait the extra six months and train them further and then... well, Kakashi would be deeply surprised if they didn't mop the floor with their competition.

Kakashi smiles.

It's a pretty picture.

A week after that, Ino lingers after he's dismissed her and Sakura for the day. "Yes, Ino?"

"My old team are all back in the village," Ino says, looking worried. "Hatake-sensei, will you still…"

"Come with you to tell them of the transfer?" he says. "Of course, I said I would."

Ino nods, a bit doubtfully, but doesn't argue that point. Kakashi considers it a minor victory that Ino has stopped vocalizing her opinion of each and every one of 'Kakashi-sensei's' flaws and applying them to him.

Trust is an essential ingredient to a healthy team. Sakura and Ino trust each other the way he's seen very few people ever do. Their teamwork is flawless and he knows that they spend all day in each other's company, eat supper, and then go train more together. Sakura's trust in him is a fragile thing that's blooming a little more each day.

Ino is harder to read, which bemuses him, because of the two girls, Ino is the one that says, constantly, what's on her mind.

But he doesn't really know where he stands with her.

Sakura's feelings, thoughts, and opinions are written across her face. Ino's better at keeping her own counsel.

"Did you want to arrange a meeting time?" he asks, leaving the decision up to her. "Or just wander up to them?"

She twirls a bit of hair around one finger, clearly considering the options. "They should be having yakitori right now," she says, with a sidelong glance at him. "Would that be okay?"

Kakashi is acutely aware of the fact that this is a test. Ino's voice is casual but her body language screams her nervousness. She doesn't know if he'll keep his word and facing her old team by herself would be difficult.

He is also aware that facing her old team by herself would destroy the small measure of trust he's managed to gain from her.

Well played, he thinks. Well played indeed.

"I've got time," Kakashi says. "Let's go and see what they say, shall we?"

Ino brightens. "Yes, Hatake-sensei."

He studies her. "Did you want to get Sakura to come along as well?"

She hesitates, clearly thinking it over, and then shakes her head. "No," Ino says decisively. "If it goes badly then… then I don't want them blaming her while they're still dealing with the shock. Maybe they will blame her later, I don't know, but I think it'd be better without her now."

Kakashi doesn't mention the fact that Ino looks slightly lost without Sakura. He's used to seeing them together, side-by-side.

It's somewhat of a shock as he realizes that he likes seeing them together--but why not? They're his team.

"You'd know better than I," he says amiably, beginning to saunter out of the training grounds. Ino follows him, her pace quicker than his to make up for her shorter legs. "Are you sorry you left them?"

"No!"

He raises one eyebrow at her.

She flushes and looks everywhere but at him. "You're not that bad," Ino mutters, crossing her arms over her chest.

"High praise," he murmurs, a laugh touching his voice.

Ino scowls at him.

Kakashi's smile widens a little more. "Let's talk about manipulation," he says, choosing to not antagonize her more… for the moment. "That was a pretty little scene you pulled on me."

Ino fumbles her next step before regaining her balance. "You were going to do it anyway," she accuses.

He appreciates that she doesn't try to deny it. Both Ino and Sakura have good instincts for when a lie would be useless.

Kakashi considers that. "… Yes," he agrees slowly. "So why the need to try and con me into it?"

She shrugs, looking uncomfortable.

"Out with it," he orders, his voice taking on the same sharpness he uses to train them. "Now, Yamanaka."

Her back straightens, her head goes back, and her eyes flash. Ino's pride doesn't like getting bossed around. From the tidbits he's gathered about her previous team, it surprises him not at all that Ino had been in charge of her teammates. "I suppose to see if you would," she says, a bit flatly.

He nods slowly. "You still don't trust me."

Ino glances at him sideways. Kakashi keeps his face blank and waits for her to decide what that means. He'd be lying to himself if he said it didn't hurt to know of her lack of trust--but on the other hand, he already knew that of his team, Ino's trust was the more flimsy thing. It's not a surprise to have her say it.

"No," she says. "I don't. Not really."

"We'll work on that," Kakashi promises as they approach the yakitori restaurant that Ino has led them to. It looks like any other place and if he hadn't been brought here, he'd never have thought anything of it.

Ino looks at the signs with a closed off expression. He wonders what she's thinking.

He doesn't ask. If she tells anyone, it'll be Sakura and there's some things that a sensei should stay out of.

They duck inside.

Ino is recognized by the server and she murmurs a few words that Kakashi doesn't bother listening to as he scans the place for exits, for people, for layout. He keeps an eye out on her though and, when she smiles (it doesn't touch her eyes) to the server and leads the way into the restaurant, he moves with her.

"He wondered where I'd been," Ino says, her voice muted. "Said he's glad I'm not sick or anything."

Kakashi hesitates a moment and then, figuring that the pluses were worth more than the risk, rested one hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently in reassurance. Her smile flickers a bit as she looks at him.

"It will be alright," he says. "You're not having second thoughts?"

She shakes her head. "No," Ino tells him. "No. I want to stay on Team 7."

"Then you will."

"Ino!" A boy's voice gets both their attention and Ino turns towards the round boy, waving his chopsticks to get their attention.

His student takes a deep breath and puts on a smile that looks more realistic than the one she'd given the server. "Chouji," she says, making her way over to the table.

Kakashi follows a few steps behind, taking in the boy who must be Shikamaru--he looks like his father and he's wearing a Chuunin's vest. Looking at Asuma, however, Kakashi is surprised at how mixed his feelings are.

Asuma had left the village. Had the luxury of doing that and studying elsewhere while the rest of them had stayed to clean up the destruction left in Kyuubi's wake. Kakashi tamps down on his feelings. "Yo," he says, lifting one hand and interrupting Ino and Chouji's conversation.

Asuma might have left and he might not have been Kakashi's favourite person in the village (they were all dead--though his students were making a good try at working their way into his heart) but Asuma had never been stupid.

His eyes narrow. "Who are you?"

Ino steps back and to the side, giving him space while casually making it clear where she stands. Kakashi wonders, again, what Asuma had been doing with her. He'd been given someone good and then not bothered to train her.

"Hatake Kakashi," he says, a bit dryly. "For more information you'll have to talk to Hokage-sama." Kakashi smiles thinly. "It's classified, you see."

Ino swallows a snicker.

Kakashi raises one eyebrow at her and she shrugs, a bit helplessly. He'd mind more except for the fact that she looks more relaxed. That's a good thing.

Asuma's narrow-eyed look doesn't change. "I'll ask her," he says coolly. Shikamaru is watching him with a penetrating look while Chouji is looking between him and Ino and slowly starting to look dismayed.

Kakashi wonders if Ino had said anything to Chouji that would make him suspect. If he does, though, that's not a big deal. They're not here to make a song and game of it.

"Good," he says. "We've got another order of business to talk about anyway." Kakashi nods at Ino.

He'll be here to help if it goes wrong but she's got to say it.

Ino's smile abruptly dies.

Her shoulders remain straight however, and her gaze is clear. "Asuma-sensei," she says, "with my father's permission, I've applied for a transfer to Hatake-sensei's team. It was approved. I'm no longer a member of Team 10."

Kakashi admires the nerve she has to say it so flatly--her voice doesn't even shake though he knows she's got to be torn up inside about saying it.

Shikamaru's face shutters. Chouji makes a dismayed sound.

Asuma looks at Ino for a lot moment and then, without a word, transfers his gaze to Kakashi. "Why would Hokage-sama approve of that?" he asks. "You destroyed the only team you ever passed."

Kakashi's temper boils more at the casual way Ino is dismissed than at the jab at his other self's competency. He happens to agree about his other self. "You'll have to ask Hokage-sama that too," he says, his voice level. "Ino-chan, we're done here."

Her eyes widen slightly at the honorific but she doesn't protest it.

"You can't be serious," Chouji says, as he turns to go. "Ino, why?"

Ino stiffens. "I'm very serious," she says, "and it's true. As for why… I wanted someone who would train me."

"And he will--?"

Kakashi is almost amused at the doubt in the Akimichi's voice. He knows Ino has probably ranted about his other self--and likely done so more than once.

"Yes," Ino says without looking at her old team. "He will."

They leave after that.

Kakashi squeezes her shoulder again once they're outside. "How about you go and find Sakura," he suggests gently.

The scene could have gone worse--but it also could have gone better and either way it was hard.

Ino nods. "Okay. I--thank you, Hatake-sensei. I'll see you tomorrow."

Kakashi watches her dart off through the crowds, gives the sky a glance, and then begins making his way towards the administrative building. He needs to talk to Tsunade. Failing that, he needs to talk to Shizune.

Preferably before Asuma gets there.

Sakura feels like she's the one on tenterhooks while waiting for Ino. When Ino stays behind (something that Sakura notices almost immediately) Sakura knows what's going on. She chews her lip, considers hanging around to go with Ino and then winds up walking home alone.

Ino would have asked her if she'd wanted her along.

Which means that Sakura is left alone to just think and wait and wonder how Ino's old team is taking it. Which leads her, during her shower, to thoughts of how her old team--Naruto and Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei--would have taken all of this. Would they even have cared?

The fact that she doesn't know if they would depresses her less these days. It is still super awful to think about but Sakura now can hold up her memories of training with Hatake-sensei and Ino against her first team's lack of care and the fact that things have changed warm her insides. Hatake-sensei says she isn't a failure. Ino has always believed that of her.

Sakura wonders if she’s, slowly, starting to believe that as well.

She hopes so.

After her shower, she brushes out her hair and then takes out her notes on the medical jutsu she’s trying to learn. Hokage-sama had been disappointed but not surprised when Sakura had admitted that she wanted to learn genjutsu from Hatake-sensei. She wondered how often that happened, how few people stuck out training to be a medical ninja…

That’s not your fault, she scolds, her mental voice echoing everything that Hatake-sensei and Ino have said repeatedly. Sakura thinks she's starting to believe that too but every time she studies medicine--more field medicine over theory now, to adjust for her change in niche-training--she thinks of it again.

By the time Ino gets to her place, showered and tidy, Sakura has almost managed to silence the voice in the back of her mind that belittles her accomplishments.

"Hey," Ino says, standing in the doorway of Sakura's bedroom. "I let myself in."

Sakura blinks at her. "You got past my mom? And my dad?"

"You dad's in his office--his door's closed so that was easy. As for your mom… she didn't even notice me," Ino says, shrugging. "Busy watching some cheesy action flick. The ninja moves were totally implausible."

It's very Ino, Sakura thinks, to notice that sort of thing while sneaking through a room. "Have you eaten?" Sakura asks as Ino closes the door behind her and takes a few steps over to the bed to collapse on it.

Ino wraps her arms around Sakura's pillow and sighs. "No," she says, "I haven't eaten. I'm not hungry."

Sakura points her pen at Ino. "Nuh huh," she says, "you know we're not allowed evening training unless we eat."

Ino flings the pillow at her. Sakura catches it and flings it back. "You know that," Sakura repeats sternly. "Hatake-sensei doesn't want us getting sick and part of avoiding that is proper nutrition."

"I hate you," Ino says, though the words lack heat. "You're right. What do you want to eat? Stay in or go out?"

Sakura weighs how much money she has with inflicting a moody Ino on her mother and reluctantly kisses her money good bye. "Let's go out," she says. "Maybe we can get some okonomiyaki?"

She'd suggest yakitori, but she wants Ino to talk to her, not storm off in a huff.

Ino is silent for a few moments and then sits up. "Works for me," she says, with the false brightness that it's only recently that Sakura's realized she can sometimes see through.

It's illuminating to know that Ino is almost always lying in a way. And sad.

"Okay," Sakura says simply. "You go out the window and knock."

Ino rolls her eyes but is out the window in seconds. Sakura turns back to her books, like she's not expecting anyone to show up, and waits until her mother calls her down.

It's another, stupid lie but it's one that will keep her mom from freaking out that Ino, who is after all just a Genin, can get in and out of their house like it's no problem. Sakura's tried explaining that it doesn't mean anything but privacy means different things to civilians.

"Long time no see," Sakura greets Ino when she's been called down and meets her friend, her teammate, at the front door.

Ino rolls her eyes. "Yeah," she says, "like this afternoon."

But it gets a tiny smile out of her anyway. Sakura counts that as a win.

"Where to?" Sakura asks.

Ino shrugs as they head down the street, both of them ignoring the admonishment to not be out too late. "I don't care. Not hungry, remember?"

"How did it go?" Sakura asks.

Ino's eyes darken. "Badly," she says shortly. "Chouji's upset, Asu--Sarutobi-san ignored me, and Shikamaru didn't say a word. I'm sure he'll find words to say later, but now…"

Sakura winces. "I'm sorry."

Ino just sighs. "So am I."

Chapter Text

Kakashi waits as Tsunade-sama thinks over his request. As he waits, he studies her the same way she studies him.

He wonders what she thinks of him, when contrasted with his other self.

"I can keep the information from Sarutobi Asuma," she says, leaning back. "But some of your peers are going to figure it out. He might even figure it out."

"I know," he says. "And I plan to tell at least one of them myself." Gai deserves that much. Just as soon as Kakashi can catch him between missions, which hasn't happened yet. "But I want to see how Ino handles herself in the coming days on the matter of her old team. Sarutobi's confusion on my current situation will be more telling if he's not given a heads up as to what's really going on."

"That's a pretty harsh test of character," Tsunade-sama says. "She's just a Genin."

"I'm not going to coddle them," Kakashi replies firmly. "They've had enough of it, they don't want it, and I have every confidence that this test is one she can handle." Thinking about the way Ino and Sakura rely on each other, he amends his words to, "This test is one both of them can handle."

"You don't think it'll erode their confidence in you as their sensei?"

"It won't," he says, "because I'm not going to keep it a secret from them. I'm going to let them know and let them know if they need me, I'll have their back."

Her eyes, which had been coolly evaluating, soften slightly. "You're a good sensei."

"No," he says, "I'm just picking up the pieces of a mess another me made."

"That too," Tsunade-sama says.

Kakashi thinks he might love her for that, just a little. Which is terribly inappropriate.

"What are you going to do about the fact that they need a third teammate?" Tsunade-sama asks next. "I have no problems with your current team but they're not going to be able to qualify for the Chuunin Exams without a third."

"I'm not entering them this time around," Kakashi says quietly. "They're clever enough to pass, unless they came up against a monster or a genius," though there's not so much of a difference between the two, "but I don't think they're ready to become Chuunin. They need their basics shored up. Next round. So I've got time to consider a third teammate."

"Try not to poach another Genin from a viable team," Tsunade-sama says, with a wry twist to her lips. "Or you're going to get some nasty rumours going around about you. And I've got enough problems without having to smooth the ruffled feathers of angry Jounin sensei."

Kakashi smiles. "What if I get approached by another Genin who wants to transfer?"

She grimaces, like she's bitten into a sour apple. "Assuming that they're right, and you'd be a better fit, we'd have to allow the transfer."

"In that case," Kakashi says, picking his words carefully, "then maybe someone should be checking the suitability of the Jounin sensei before forcing them to take on team they might not be qualified to teach. I should never have become a sensei."

"You're a good one."

"I wasn't," he says. "That's the whole problem."

It's one of them, at least. He's not sure enough of his standing in the village yet--or even of the real state of the village itself--to say he's pretty sure there's deeper problems than just his other self having been a bad sensei.

Once he's done more looking into it… then maybe he'll mention it. Konoha should be stronger than it is. Training its Genin properly will help with that, but he's only one man, and out of his element.

Instead, he asks another question on his mind. "What's been ascertained about my… situation?"

Tsunade-sama sighs, standing and looking out one of the windows. "The longer you're here, the less likely it is that you've been de-aged or that it's a genjutsu. The predominant theory at the moment is that you've been swapped with yourself--that is, the Hatake Kakashi from this time, has taken your place in the past, while you've taken his place here. Thus far, we haven't found any way to undo the jutsu that caused this."

Kakashi nods slowly. It's about what he expected. His feelings are decidedly mixed. He and the Kakashi from this time had the same origins but their impact is decidedly different.

What makes them so different? He adds that to his list of things to look into. It might be important to know. If only for his own peace of mind.

"In my time, in ANBU…" Kakashi says. "That's… unfortunate."

He means that.

"Yes," Tsunade-sama says, her voice heavy. "It is."

They share a glance full of understanding. Being temporally displaced in ANBU is nothing good.

Okonomiyaki does the both of them good. The restaurant they'd wound up at is busy, but not too busy, and populated mostly by civilians, which leaves fewer people to stare at them for any waves they've made in the gossip tree of Konoha's shinobi.

She feels less stressed out and, unless she's misreading Ino entirely, some of the tension has left Ino, though she's not anywhere near her usual self either. Sakura picks at her leftovers, feeling pleasantly full but not overstuffed, debating if she wants to eat anything else, and covertly watches Ino drink.

"Stop staring," Ino says.

Well. Sakura had tried to be covert about it.

"I cheated," Ino admits, tapping her temple. "You weren't terrible."

"You're reading my mind again," Sakura sighs. "Honestly, Ino."

Ino just wrinkles her nose at her. "I should probably go home," she says.

Sakura cranes her neck back to squint at the restaurant's wall clock. What she sees, what she had suspected, makes her eyebrows raise. "It's early," she says. "You don't want to train?"

That's a first and, more than anything else, that worries Sakura. Ino tackles training with wholehearted fervour usually.

"I know," Ino says, grimacing. "But Shikamaru and Chouji have probably told their parents about my transfer by now. Dad'll need backup."

She wonders if that's true or if Ino just feels like it should be. Sakura chews on the inside of her cheek thoughtfully. There's times when being a first generation shinobi really does mean she misses things. She knows that the Yamanaka, Nara, and Akimichi Clans have a long a complicated history together, but she has very little idea of what that history is.

"Is it going to be bad?" she asked, fumbling for the right words for what she wants to ask. "What you've done?"

Ino squints at her for a moment, then sighs. "I don't know. Maybe? Probably. Dad said he could handle the adults, but it's still going to cause things to be weird." Ino's eyes darken. "It might be less complicated if our Clan were bigger, or if I was a boy, but—neither of those things can exactly be changed. Not easily and not quickly, anyway."

"I don't understand how those things matter," Sakura admits, though she's loathe to confess to ignorance. "Can you tell me?"

Ino opens her mouth, then shuts it, looking troubled and considering as she toys with her straw.

A large group of half-drunk civilians stumbles through the door and, as they get seated, Sakura judges that Ino isn't going to say anything further in here—not about anything important.

"Let's get out of here," Sakura says, waving for their bill and paying it all while Ino continues to frown.

The air is cool in the coming twilight. It rushes through her hair, and tugs at her dress, and makes her spirits lift. Sakura revels in that as she heads towards their usual training ground. The moon isn't up yet, but it's a cloudless night as the stars begin to come out one by one.

Ino follows her, a paler shadow, and neither of them speak.

When they reach their training ground, Sakura falls into her usual stretching patterns and Ino follows her lead, for once, instead of it being the other way around.

"I don't know what I can tell you," Ino admits, her voice a bit muffled as she leans deep into her splits, her face nearly touching the ground. "A lot of things aren't for out-Clan, unless they're formally allied with us, like the Nara and Akimichi."

Sakura shifts her grip as she raises one foot over her head and balances there, feeling her muscles respond. "Do you have to be a Clan to formally ally?" she asks, wondering if it is just a matter of swearing oaths before she can find out more. "I mean, Ino, I'm your teammate." It still gives her a thrill to say that. "I'm in your corner no matter what."

Ino lifts her head up. Sakura can tell she's smiling slightly only from how the shadows bunch around her cheeks. They'll have to light the lanterns once they're done stretching. "I know," Ino says, "but you're not an ally of the Clan. Nor would Daddy sign a contract with you. If we did, you'd benefit more than we would. It's not personal—it's business."

Letting her foot fall, Sakura tries to tell herself that it's stupid that her feelings are hurt by that, no matter how 'not personal' it's supposed to be. She swings her other foot up, bracing it with her hands and pulling higher. "Oh."

"Daddy might be willing to accept you as a formal ally to me, personally, since that's different than a Clan alliance," Ino says, after a few moments. "But I'd have to talk to him first and it's… with the other two Clans upset, it'd be a bad move for us to do that now. So I really don't know what I can tell you."

Sakura forces herself to smile. "We should get to training anyway," she says. "It's fine." It's not fine, but Sakura tries hard not to feel rejected. Ino is her teammate. She's being stupid. "Just… tell me what you can, when you know, okay?"

"Of course," Ino says, getting to her feet. "Why wouldn't I?" Ino pauses mid-stretch. "Wasn't I going to go home rather than train?"

Sakura laughs unevenly. "Want to sleepover instead, after training?" Sakura asks impulsively.

"Your mom is going to kill you," Ino notes.

"That's not a no," Sakura points out. "Is there anything you'd really be able to help your dad out with tonight if you went home? Can't your mom help him?"

"No," Ino says, something unreadable in her voice. "Mom can't do anything in this situation. But—you're right. I probably can't either. Dad might not even let me talk to the other Clan heads."

"Then come sleep over," Sakura wheedles, finishing her stretching and heading over to light the lanterns so they have enough light to correct their mistakes. "It'll do you good. In fact, my parents don't even have to know."

Ino is startled into a laugh. Sakura hugs the noise close to her chest. "You're going to be so dead," Ino says. "What if we get caught?"

"We're ninja," Sakura reminds her. "You're going to let yourself get caught?"

The jab at Ino's pride does what she wants it to do. "As if," Ino says, sounding more like her usual self. "Fine. I'll sleepover. Now come here so I can kick your ass."

Kakashi eyes both of his girls as they show up for training. Ino has borrowed some of Sakura's clothing, to his amusement, though he carefully says nothing about it. He's not surprised. Given the political mess Ino's transfer is likely going to cause for her father, it's probably for the best that Ino hadn't been home last night.

"Before we start today," he says, as they look at him expectantly, "I'm going to tell you what I told Hokage-sama yesterday."

The two of them exchange glances.

"Are there problems with our team?" Ino asks, frowning. Sakura looks anxious at the thought.

"No," he says, making sure his voice is reassuring without being patronizing. "It had nothing to do with that. It had to do with my… circumstances."

The girls swap glances again, even more doubtful at that.

"Does… does that mean they've figured out how to… fix what happened?" Sakura asks. Her tone of voice makes it clear that, if they had, she doesn't think it would be a real fix.

Kakashi's eye curves into a smile that he doesn't really feel. His feelings are more mixed on being out of his own time, but it's gratifying to know his students want him around. "No," he says. "We discussed, and Hokage-sama has agreed, that my situation is to remain confidential for the moment."

Ino's expression clears. "Oh," she says, "because of… Sarutobi-san, right?"

Sakura looks inquiringly between the both of them. Ino just shakes her head and gestures once—for later, he assumes.

"That's right," he says. "I understand that this is likely to cause a few more issues for you, Ino, given that you're likely to be questioned heavily about your decision. If people cause trouble for you, send them to me. That goes for you as well, Sakura. Do either of you have any questions?"

They share a third glance, and then shake their heads.

"Alright," he says. "If you have questions later, you know where to find me. Now stretch out and get ready for practice."

They scatter and he takes a deep breath. One step at a time, he reminds himself. One step at a time.

Then he focuses on what they're doing, and gets to work. "Sakura," he says, "make sure your back is completely straight. Ino, focus on your own footing, not on Sakura's."

"So," Kakashi says, once he's dismissed Ino, and Sakura for the day, "it's a week early, but does she pass your expectations?"

To all eyes, no one else is around, but Kakashi doesn't rely on just his eye—or on just Obito's eye, for that matter. And Yamanaka Inoichi melts out of the trees once his daughter is out of sight and easy hearing.

"She's doing better," the blond man allows. His blue-eyed gaze is penetrating. "I'll reserve final judgement for in a week."

"As you will," he says, unconcerned. If Yamanaka Inoichi had any real doubts, he'd have asked Ino to not tell her team of the transfer. That he hadn't bodes well for his final evaluation of Ino's progress under Kakashi's tutelage. "I assume you're not here for idle curiosity. What is it?"

"My daughter's training is hardly what I'd call idle curiosity," Yamanaka Inoichi observes, and Kakashi glances at him in time to catch the faintly amused smile fade. "I have a favour to ask of you."

Kakashi tilts his head slightly. "Oh?"

"Ino's mentioned you're focusing on shoring up their training for the moment," he says, his gaze taking in the training ground is a sweeping glance. "Rather than going on missions."

"That's right," Kakashi agrees. "Neither of them are desperate for the paycheques that D rank missions would bring them and most C rank missions are out of my comfort level for their current skills. And as a newly formed team, it's important to build synergy prior to putting it to the test in the field."

Though Ino and Sakura have some of the best synergy he's ever seen, hands down, from Genin through ANBU.

He slants a considering look at Ino's father. "Given that question… you want me to take them on a mission."

"I would prefer if Ino were out of the village for at least a few days," Inoichi admits. "There are conversations taking place that I'd rather not have her hear until things have settled a little. Yes, I would ask that you accept a C rank mission for your team."

Kakashi frowns. "Is there anything I should know about these conversations?"

Internal clan politics are rarely spoken of to outsiders—and Kakashi is an outsider, twice over, from being out of time and from being the last member of the Hatake family—but when it impacts a Genin, then a sensei has a right to know in some circumstances.

Yamanaka Inoichi shakes his head. "For now, there's not much to tell. The usual in-fighting and hard words are being said on all sides; accusations, mostly," he says, though he sounds like approves of the fact that Kakashi has asked. "I'd rather Ino not have to deal with all of that. She's more sensitive than she likes to admit. I'll keep you updated if that changes."

"Alright," Kakashi says, though he's unsatisfied with that answer. "If there's a mission I think they can handle, we'll take it. If not…"

Then he'll have to disappoint Yamanaka Inoichi. It's probably not a wise move, not when the man is both a Clan Head and in charge of his case, but Kakashi isn't going to risk the lives of his students when he isn't given more information than he has been.

"I understand," Yamanaka Inoichi says. "And while it's damn inconvenient for what I want, I appreciate your care with them."

Tucking away his irritation at not knowing more of what's going on, Kakashi shrugs. "I'm just following the example I was given," he says. He still wants to know more about why the other him hadn't done the same. But now, he's been given an opening to ask a question he's had almost since coming here. "Do you know why the quality of training has dropped? Is it solely a decade of relative peace?"

Yamanaka Inoichi hums thoughtfully. "That's likely a contributing factor," the man says. "And, too, the Sandaime was a great man. But he was an old man, and tired, and pressed into a job that he didn't want. Things became lax in the little ways and those… those add up. You're not the only one that's noticed."

Kakashi swallows the urge to retort that the training of their people is hardly a little thing. Yamanaka Inoichi's amused glance tells him that, even though he hasn't said anything, it's been heard anyway.

"And that's all it is?" Kakashi asks.

"Do you think there's more to it?" Yamanaka Inoichi asks interestedly.

"I haven't decided yet," Kakashi says. "I'm still looking into it. But the way things are is weakening Konoha."

And likely costing more lives than Konoha should be losing. Dying is always a risk for ninja, but for lives to be lost carelessly…

"Yes, it is," Yamanaka Inoichi says, after a moment. "I can't deny that. Let me know what you decide—on everything."

"One thing," Kakashi says, as Yamanaka Inoichi turns to go. "Have you considered that your request for me to take my team out of the village is another aspect of sheltering them when they shouldn't be? Ino cannot be shielded from the fallout of leaving her team entirely. It won't die out until she's dealt with it."

"It's possible," Yamanaka Inoichi admits. "Though it's also a father's prerogative to make such a request—and the reverse could also be true. Is keeping them from missions really going to strengthen them? Either way, what actually happens, I'll leave in your hands. Look out for her."

Then the man fades back into the trees and Kakashi is left alone in the training ground.

Great, Kakashi thinks sourly. Just what I needed. More problems and expectations.

More decisions to make.

Chapter Text

Sakura chews on her lower lip and tries to decide if she wants to make Ino mad or not. It wouldn't be an issue, really, except that she definitely needs to know if Ino is staying over at her place again tonight or not.

They'd managed to hide the sleepover from her parents last night but Sakura isn't sure that that's a viable strategy for long term. Not to mention the amount of laundry she'd have to do if Ino is always wearing her clothes. And her parents would notice that, if only for the additional cost of water.

But Ino has finally relaxed into something like her normal self. She'd been edgy and anxious from the time they'd quit training and that morning had been quiet until Hatake-sensei had gotten training going. Sakura doesn't want to throw Ino into another funk, but at the same time...

"Oh, hey," Ino says brightly, tugging Sakura's shoulder so that she's looking in the right direction and dragging her out of her thoughts. "Look--it is Hinata-chan and Tenten!"

Shading her eyes with one hand, Sakura smiles. Hinata and Tenten look like they've just settled down on the patio of a cafe with drinks in hand. "They don't look busy," she notes. "Want to go bother them?"

It means putting off asking Ino the question she's going to have to ask, but Sakura doesn't mind that when Ino grins at her and, as they cross the street, dodging traffic, shouts a greeting to the other girls.

"Long time no see!" Ino calls, leaning against the patio railing. "Mind if we crash your party?"

Sakura rolls her eyes behind Ino's back--Ino elbows her--and Tenten laughs while Hinata smiles.

"As long as you're buying something, feel free to hang out," Tenten says, with a glance at Hinata, who nods her agreement. "If you're here to mooch off our drinks, though, get out and don't even think about it."

Ino laughs and heads for the door.

Sakura lingers a moment, and says, "You've just made it a challenge for her," she advises. "Watch your drink."

Then, to the sound of Hinata and Tenten's laughter, she hurries after Ino.

By the time they get back outside, each with a drink in hand, Hinata and Tenten have dragged two more chairs over to their table. Sakura takes the one closest to Hinata, while Ino kicks Tenten's feet off the other spare chair and claims it.

"Question," Sakura says, before Ino can say anything, "does anyone know why this place is called The Laughing Otter?"

"I told you," Ino said, "it's because of how terrible the owner's hair is."

The owner was a nice, older man--the man who'd made their drinks, in fact--but Sakura can't argue that his hair is terrible.

She still pretty sure that's not why the shop is named as it is.

"No idea," Tenten says.

Hinata looks thoughtful, but shakes her head. "I don't know anything for certain," she says, "though I've heard it suggested that it has something to do with a summons."

"Otter summons, huh?" Ino considers that. "That'd be pretty neat. But it's not as funny as my suggestion."

"It's probably more likely," Sakura opines. "But enough about that--how are you two doing? What have you been up to lately? It's been forever since we've seen you."

Back in the Academy, Sakura hadn't been friends with Hinata, but they'd been amicable to one another. She hadn't known Tenten at all. But after everything that had happened in the Chuunin Exam and beyond, they... weren't friends, exactly, but there was a bond there that hadn't been present before.

Something stronger than a casual friendship would've suggested.

"My parents are all 'when are you going to get promoted'?" Tenten says, laughing and swatting away Ino's hand as it reaches for her drink. "My mom's side of the family, now, they get it, but my dad? He tries, but he doesn't understand how it works. Mom's explained it to him but it's like--in one ear and out the other. It's sweet that he thinks I should be promoted, but…"

All four of them sigh.

None of them had even made it to the finals of the last exams.

"We'll get there," Ino says. "No doubt about that."

And when Ino says, Sakura believes it.

As Ino quizzes Tenten on her training regime--and arranges a training date with her in the same breath; Sakura would be envious of that, but she doesn't want to be Tenten's pincushion--Sakura turns to Hinata.

"Have you been doing alright?" she asks. "How is your team after everything? How is Kiba?"

Hinata smiles, her pale eyes lighting up. "Everyone's made a complete recovery from… from that mission," she says. "It's made training slow, but Kurenai-sensei has had us working on building our tactics and strategies instead of furthering only our physical skills. Kiba-kun complains, but… but it's been good. How, that is--I mean--"

"My new team's doing great," Sakura says, surprised at how even her voice is, as Hinata trails off, looking flustered.

"I… I heard that you could have been apprenticed to Tsunade-sama," Hinata says, after a moment, her cheeks still pink.

"I was, for a little bit," Sakura admits, since the way Hinata makes it sound, it sounds pretty special. "And I still go training with her when there's time. But healing isn't what I wanted to do with myself. I was just… tired of being left behind."

And Sasuke had Orochimaru and Naruto had Jiraiya.

Asking for Tsunade-sama to teach her had been… an easy way to level the field, in her own mind.

But while she enjoys training with Tsunade-sama, Sakura finds that with each day that passes, she's more confident in her choice. She'd liked the medical training, being good at it, and getting attention for it.

With Hatake-sensei, and Ino, though, she loves her team.

"I don't know what my strengths will turn out to be," Sakura continues. "But I'm okay with that, right now."

Somewhat to her own surprise, that's the entire truth.

Ino laughs at something Tenten says, drawing Sakura's attention away from Hinata.

"We've… we've heard some of what's going on, Ino-san," Hinata says tentatively, as the conversation takes a breather. "And we won't pry, but…"

"You need someone to shriek at, you can shriek at us," Tenten says, picking up when Hinata trails off, her words flip but her brown-eyed gaze serious. "I mean, for stress relief if nothing else."

"W-why you've decided to change teams isn't any of our business," Hinata says, stammering a bit, her hands wrapped around the edges of her jacket. "But you… you were the real top of the class, Ino-san. I think… that is, we think, if you made that decision then it was for a good reason."

Ino's smile freezes and Sakura's stomach goes all twisted and taut with anxiety.

"I'll think about it," Ino says, in a voice that would make a glacier seem hot. "Thanks."

But Sakura notices the way Ino slants a considering glance Hinata's way and her anxiety doubles. It's an ugly, really ugly, part of her that wails in incoherent envy at the very thought of Ino being able to confide in someone else when she can't talk to her due to Clan rules.

I bet Hinata could be Ino's formal ally no problem, Sakura thinks, then squashes her bitterness.

If Ino needs help, or even someone to talk to, she should have it. No matter how small and insignificant it makes Sakura feel.

"I appreciate it, Hinata-chan, Tenten-san," Ino says, though when Sakura looks up from her drink, Ino's eyes are fixed on her. "When I make decisions, I know what I'm doing and what--and who--I'm picking."

Sakura flushes, both with embarrassment at having been caught out by Ino, and with pleasure at having been chosen by Ino.

"Still, any port in a storm, right?" Tenten says.

Ino's smile twitches. "Funny," she says, "you don't look much like a boat."

That makes all of them laugh, though Sakura's is a bit uneven and Tenten kicks Ino's shin.

Ino leans back in her chair. "Seriously," she says, "enough about me. Hinata-chan, how's your heart doing? Any issues getting back to training?"

Guiltily, Sakura realizes that she's barely spared a thought for Hinata's condition after the Chuunin Exams and what her cousin had done to her. She'd been more focused on the aftermath of the mission that had finished off her original team.

Sure, Naruto and Sasuke are both alive, but that, she thinks, was where the team died.

It had just taken her longer to realize it.

"Didn't that guy--that traitor, Yakushi--help you out?" she asks. "Did Tsunade-sama check to make sure he didn't leave anything nasty behind?"

"Yes," Hinata says. "Father insisted, of course, and Tsunade-sama cleared me herself. I'm as fit as ever for active duty, though there's a note in my file in case I'm brought back injured from a mission."

"That makes sense," Ino says, toying with her straw and, Sakura is amused to see, that she's managed to switch her drink with Tenten's and is casually drinking Tenten's. "A lot of drugs and treatments are hard on the heart. They'd want to have that information, right, Sakura?"

Sakura nods. "Yeah, the heart's a tricky thing."

"Tsunade-sama said the same thing," Hinata agrees. "I was curious about the notation myself, so I asked."

"There's a lot of poisons that take advantage of that too, isn't there?" Tenten asks, sipping her (Ino's) drink and grimacing. "You should work on your immunities. Ino, you aren't going to have teeth when you're old--and give me my iced coffee back."

Ino ignores that demand. "Tons of poisons exploit the heart," she says. "Most drugs are poisonous in large enough doses anyway--what were your immunities like the last time you got tested, Hinata-chan? If you know them, I can make suggestions so that a poisoned blade out in the field is less likely to ruin you."

Tenten leans over and wrestles her drink out of Ino's hands. "I know mine," she says mildly, after a sip of her coffee. Ino rolls her eyes and takes her own drink back. "And I dislike ruination when it comes to myself. You want to help me with mine? What are yours like, Sakura?"

Sakura laughs. "Should we turn this into a mini-seminar on immunities? Are you up for that, Ino?"

Ino rolls her shoulders, considering that. "I guess so," she says, "though it probably shouldn't be done here. The civilians are getting restless."

It's only then that Sakura realizes that all the nearby civilians have edged away from them.

"My place isn't far from here," Tenten offers. "What do you think, Hinata? Do you want to spend the afternoon on poison immunities? It's not relaxing, exactly, but it's not really training either."

"I'd count it as downtime," Ino says, "and I'm fine to teach if you're all that insistent on it. Listen, dumb ones, and I'll knock the fluff out of your brains."

Then Ino yelps, wriggling in her seat.

Sakura laughs, realizing that both she and Tenten had kicked Ino at the same time.

"I'd like that," Hinata says, smiling. "Thank you, all of you."

As they leave the café, Sakura falls into step with Ino. "Are you coming to my place tonight?" she asks, both Ino's good mood and their company making it easier to just… well, ask, rather than agonize over it.

"I'm waiting on my dad to get back to me about it," Ino says, her eyes going distant. "He's working on something he doesn't want me to see right now. I'll try again after our seminar."

Tenten turns back and calls, "Hurry up, you guys!"

They hurry until they've caught up. "If this goes well," Sakura says, "I was thinking that we could maybe do it again?"

"What?" Ino says. "Immunities?"

Sakura swats at Ino. "No, Pig, I meant this--swapping information. There's got to be things we can help each other with other than that, you know?" She hesitates. "Well, except for maybe me."

Her stomach swoops as she says it, but it's honest. Of the four of them, Sakura is the least likely to know anything useful.

"Another pity party, Forehead?" Ino says, swatting back at her. "Get over yourself."

"What?!" Sakura yelps.

"Ano… I think Ino-san has a point," Hinata says. "Of the four of us, Sakura-san, you were the best at the bookish parts of training. Tenten-san aced history, but…"

Tenten shrugs. "It interests me the most. But other things are more useful now that we're out in the field. There's got to be a lot of things you could teach us, Sakura. Don't sell yourself short."

Something hot and tight rises in her throat. Sakura swallows past it, blinking hard, and vowing that she'll remember this later, the next time she doubts herself.

(And she will doubt herself again and again, she already knows this. Years of lacking self-confidence and then the absolute fiasco that Team 7 had been had only reinforced those bad habits. Breaking them is hard.)

"Well, I...," she trails off. "I guess, maybe. Ino's the first one up though."

"As if it'd ever be different," Ino says. "I'm always number one. And, if I'm not, I should be."

They all laugh, though there's an element of truth to it as well. Ino had been the number one rookie of her year in the Academy. That Sasuke had been named as such instead of her was something Ino had harped on more than once.

Now, Sakura wonders, why they'd done that.

Had it been to send a message that the last scion of a once powerful Clan was still just as strong as his Clan's reputation had demanded he be? Had it been an attempt to tie Sasuke more thoroughly to the village?

Or had it been something Ino's father had wanted?

Ino hooks her arm companionably through Sakura's and drags her forward. "Come on, we're almost there!" she says. "And we'll talk about poisoning all of you!"

Hinata makes a squeaking noise of dismay and Tenten throws her head back and laughs.

Kakashi stews over Inoichi's request that night, even as he follows his own training regime (looking after Genin is no excuse to get soft), until the only thing he can think about is the rush of blood in his head and the pleasant ache and burn and drag of exertion.

By the time he's finished with training, he's almost in a good mood. He wraps that around himself as he stops at a noodle stand to get food and heads back to his apartment. The good mood doesn't last, it's gone by the time he gets home, but the sweet heaviness of his limbs stays with him and that alone helps steady him.

If it were only his comfort to think about, he'd just go to bed. But instead he rattles around his kitchen like loose change in a can, eating takeout noodles from a box and mulling over what to do.

He doesn't want to take his team out of the village yet. They have fantastic synergy, some of the best teamwork he's ever seen, and they'll, eventually, be excellent kunoichi.

But they're not there yet.

Back to the beginning is where he's taken their training and he's done that for a reason. They need it.

He supposes taking them on a few D rank missions would be fine--and perhaps he should do that, at least a couple a week, just for a change of pace for them; as a reward for their hard work--but those are all in the village, which wouldn't take care of what Inoichi had requested.

Kakashi wishes he could ask Pakkun what he thinks. But Pakkun, and the rest of his dogs, aren't available to him in this time and there's no one he can really ask for advice. No one living, anyway.

Wait…

His noodles sitting heavily in his stomach, Kakashi pauses as a thought occurs to him. No one living, huh?

Inoichi's request to take Ino out of the village was to get her away from the gossip and in-fighting between her clan and the Nara and the Akimichi. If he could manage that without having to leave the village, then Inoichi would have nothing to complain about.

I'll still check the missions desk, he thinks virtuously, with a covert glance at the time. It's late; there's still plenty of time before morning. I said I would. There might be something there I don't mind them taking on.

He doubts it. He knows the kinds of missions that are C rank and they're not the kinds of missions he wants Ino and Sakura doing right now, no matter how little actual danger they'd be in with him around.

If he's right, however… there's a few things he wants to check first, though, and then… well. Then they'd see.

But he thinks he's found a way to make both himself and Inoichi happy.

Whether the girls will be happy about it remains to be seen but, if nothing else, he thinks they'll appreciate the variety and the chance to snoop.

They're good girls, after all, and he's never known a kunoichi who'd willingly turn down a chance to pry into someone else's life.

And if it works out the way I hope, I might just get my dogs back.

Kakashi isn't counting on that, he really isn't. He can't afford to wish that much for it, no matter how much he misses them.

But he can hope.

He drops the remnants of his supper in the trash and heads back out into the village. There's plenty of time to look into things before his girls show up, but he would like to get some sleep in the interim as well--which means rushing just a little.

To his own surprise, he finds he doesn't mind. It feels good to have to run around to arrange this. He doesn't even mind the invasion of privacy it's going to bring.

Hokage-sama might raise her eyebrows, he thinks, leaping from roof to roof. But I don't mind. If it's done this way, then it's fine. I think I can handle it, if it's them.

He trusts his girls, unruly and young as they are.

Chapter Text

The Yamanaka Clan is one of the smallest Clans in Konoha. It's more than just her and her dad but it's not much more—nothing like the sprawling, tangled mess of the Nara Clan or the Akimichi Clan's steady expansion down the generations.

Usually, it doesn't bother Ino (the joke 'quality over quantity' is one she's said before) but tonight, home at her father's request, Ino does sort of wish that there were a few more cousins to talk to because then maybe a few of them her age and status would be available. Instead, all she has is a handful of cousins much younger than she is, still in the Academy (and one too little to even be in the Academy), and while she loves them, she can't really talk to them about this.

And the adults, of course, but that's its own separate thing.

"Tsubaki-chan, don't put that in your mouth!" Ino says, swooping in to pluck her littlest cousin up and away from the lily of the valley. "No, that's bad for you! Poisonous."

Tsubaki, all adorable curls and dimples, giggles, sticking her hand in her mouth instead of the flowers.

"You know better than that," Ino says sternly, refusing to let her heart melt the way it wants to. "Tell me what lily of the valley does to people."

She's 'home' tonight but, really, that means the whole Clan (who aren't on missions or otherwise occupied) are hanging out in the main greenhouse. It might as well be home, though, since most of her earliest memories revolve around this very same place.

"Heart problems!" Tsubaki crows, flinging her arms around Ino's neck. "Death to bad shinobi!"

"Very good," Ino says approvingly. At Tsubaki's age 'heart problems and death' is a good answer. Detail will come with age. "So that means don't eat that, okay? Are you a bad shinobi?"

Tsubaki shakes her head, giggling. Ino kisses her chubby little cheeks and sets her down—safely away from the lily of the valley and their enticing red berries.

Ino sweeps the row she's in with a critical gaze—Erika and Sumire are weeding and Tsubaki makes a toddling beeline for them. Shobu's slipped out of her row, but she can hear him talking to Hinagiku about homework the next row over.

It's a quiet, peaceful moment and Ino doesn't trust it.

Oh, sure, everything's fine—except for the fact that she knows good and well that she, and her team change, are the subject of discussion tonight. The adults dropped the kids on her and are busy talking in the back area.

Some of the older cousins, adults but not parents, had given her sympathetic glances as they'd slipped by.

I think I'd rather be with Sakura.

But Sakura couldn't keep hosting her the way she had been and Ino hadn't missed the way Sakura had been guiltily relieved when Ino had said that she was going home for the night. Sneaking herself in without either of Sakura's parents knowing… well, that was a risk and Ino got that.

Besides, this was her mess and she had to deal with it.

Which would be a lot easier if I was in there instead of out here.

The very worst part is that she's equal parts relieved and annoyed that she's not in with the adults. It's frustrating being relegated to 'babysitter' when it's her issues everyone's talking about but at the same time, since they're talking about her issues, she's grateful to not have to be put under a microscope.

There's nothing quite like having a choice be thoroughly dissected by a family of mind readers—they can track every process that went into that choice.

It would be creepy, but she's used to it. She does the same thing to other family members. Minds wander, after all. It's just a little more purposeful in her family.

There's the tinkling of the bells over the door and Ino frowns.

"Nara at the door!" Erika announces, even as Ino realizes that she even knows which Nara are there. Her stomach drops.

"Akimichi too!" hollers Shobu.

"I'll get it," she says, as eldest in charge. "Sumire, keep an eye on Tsubaki."

Then, despite the fact that it's the last thing she wants to do, Ino steels herself and heads over to get the door.

"Shikaku-san, Chouza-san," she says, smiling as she pulls the door open. The smile feels brittle. "Please, come in. Dad's in the back with the others, you know the way."

Chouza rumbles a greeting as they go past, Shikaku with a nod. That doesn't bother her.

What bothers her is the way that Shikamaru and Chouji sweep past her too, following their fathers and ignoring her. Shikamaru's face is set, Chouji looks down.

Ino shuts the door.

"Right," she says. Of course they'd be invited into the meeting that she's not. "Right."

She'd chosen this. It still hurts.

Kurenai is tired, filthy, and glad to see the gates of Konoha again.

There's a certain exhilaration to going on missions that challenge her mind, body, and heart but once the job is over, her task accomplished, she wishes that there was a way to get home faster than her own two feet could carry her.

But no horse can out-pace a trained shinobi over the course of a day and flying, well, unless there's a bloodline that allows that…

She might as well keep dreaming.

Entry back into Konoha is a simple matter of having her chakra signature confirmed—it's more dependable than checking her paperwork, though that's checked as well—and then, once she's cleared for entry and confirmed to not be wounded enough to require assistance (there's a burn on her upper left arm but she's bandaged it and it's not terrible) she's left to go about her own business as she'd like in the village.

The night air is cool and brisk. Not cold enough to cause discomfort but, rather, just enough to make her walk refreshing. Though perhaps that's just because she's back in the village and can relax for the first time since she'd left. That, alone, is refreshing even if she remains tired and in dire need of a bath.

It's tempting to head straight home but Kurenai knows the routine as well as her team does. She needs to give them time and, in knowing so, she prepared her report the night before and heads instead to the mission desks.

Though she does slant a considering glance at some of the late night food stands. She hadn't been hungry until she'd smelled food and now she feels like she's starving. Still, Kurenai refrains.

As soon as she'd reached the village, one of Shino's kikaichū would have alerted him that she was back. He, in turn, would have alerted Kiba and Hinata. She doesn't know who came up with the whole routine--the first time it had happened, she'd been surprised and touched. The surprise of it had worn off but being touched and, yes, grateful never left.

Three in the morning means that a great deal of the village is asleep but no hidden village ever truly sleeps, so Kurenai isn't surprised when she takes to the rooftops that there are other shinobi going about their own business.

Missions desk is nearly empty, the desk Chuunin there looking bored as she drops in, leaving her report in their capable hands.

"Yuuhi-san," one of them says, "Hokage-sama would like to speak with you."

"I see," she says, with scarcely a pause, though she's startled. "Is she free now?"

"She's currently in a meeting with Hatake-san but will be free shortly."

Kurenai thanks the desk Chuunin and, rather than head home the way she wants to, heads up to wait on the Hokage's pleasure. The Chuunin who guard her doors nod their greetings but say nothing as Kurenai leans against the wall and waits, her tired mind kicking back into gear.

It can't be another mission already, not when she's just gotten back to the village. Genjutsu specialists are rarely in high enough demand to have so little downtime and she's a Jounin-sensei besides. Her first priority, in the eyes of both the village and her Hokage, should be to her team. Admittedly, like many of her peers she's been pulled from a great deal of her usual duties temporarily due to the upheaval but…

Perhaps it's something to do with her team? Fear clenches at her and Kurenai pries it back ruthlessly. Her Genin are a strong, solid team and Genin-only teams are currently running missions solely in the village if their sensei is otherwise occupied.

The door to Hokage-sama's office opens and Hatake leaves it. He does a blink of a double-take at her and she eyes him back, even as he raises one hand with a 'yo' at her in passing. Kurenai nods back to him but—

He'd seemed different.

"Yuuhi-san, come in," Hokage-sama calls, shaking Kurenai out of her thoughts.

The meeting doesn't take long—and, quite honestly, could have waited—but as she leaves to finally, finally head home, Kurenai is smiling faintly. She takes the stairs up to her apartment even though she's tired because her sensei had beaten it into her head, back when she'd been nothing but a Genin, that elevators were death traps, and once in the hallway of her apartment, that faint smile grows.

Her team is waiting for her by the door, despite the hour.

At her approach, Hinata stands up and beams at her, Kiba rubs the back of his head, and Shino nods. Kiba is holding a bag of groceries. Akamaru shakes himself out of a nap and comes trotting over to her.

"Welcome home, Kurenai-sensei," Hinata says, her pale eyes scrutinizing her even as Kurenai checks them over, too, to make sure they're alright.

"I'm home," she says, kneeling down to pet Akamaru, briefly, the pup giving her face a quick swipe of his tongue with a happy little yip before trotting back over to Kiba, his tag wagging. "Sorry to keep you waiting."

"You were detained," Shino says, both a question and a statement of fact.

"Yes," Kurenai says, unsealing her door and gesturing for the kids to enter her place first before she steps inside, breathing in the fresh air of her home, and locking the door behind her. "Hokage-sama wished to inform me that beginning tomorrow Team 8 will be on active duty again—with all four members."

Hinata claps her hands together even as Kiba lets out a whoop as he heads for the kitchen.

"That is good news," Shino says, and she can tell he's smiling even as he follows Kiba.

"It's wonderful news," Hinata says. "Will we be meeting later today?"

Kurenai considers that even as she makes her way to her bathroom, Hinata trailing after her. She's tired but…

She's missed her team.

"You three are already here," she notes. "It seems silly to send you all back home."

The hours are strange but shinobi operate on strange hours. It's good for her team to have their schedules shaken up a bit.

Hinata laughs softly.

"I'm going for a shower," Kurenai says. "When I'm done, would you look at my burn? It's not serious," she adds, as Hinata frowns. "But it will need a new dressing."

"Yes, of course," Hinata says, her slim shoulders straightening.

And, Kurenai thinks as she steps under the stinging spray of her shower, it will give her a chance to ask Hinata about whatever it is that's bothering her. Something is, she'd noticed the glances the boys had exchanged, and the way that Hinata had her fingers curled around the edges of her sleeves.

It's perhaps twenty minutes later that Kurenai sits on her bed, hair wrapped up in a towel, and wearing loose draw-string pants and a sleeveless tank top. Hinata's turned the lights on and now studies the burn on her upper arm intently.

"It's healing well," Hinata says, after another moment. "It shouldn't leave a scar."

"I didn't think it would," Kurenai admits as Hinata picks out of her salves to use. "It's good to be sure, though."

Beauty, after all, was a weapon to a good kunoichi. As a genjutsu master, she didn't need her own beauty but, since she had it, she wanted to keep it. A tiny vanity.

The salve smells strongly of blackberries and it's cool to the touch as Hinata gently applies it.

"Ryo for your thoughts," Kurenai says, keeping her voice light and easy. "You're very serious tonight. What's the matter?"

Hinata blushes slightly, embarrassed at being caught out, but Kurenai just waits patiently as Hinata works her way through both treating the burn and organizing her thoughts at the same time. All three of her Genin prefer that she be blunt rather than dance around a subject.

How they respond after that, well, that depends on the Genin. Hinata takes her time to think and would rather be doing something with her hands as she does so, Kiba usually plays with Akamaru while he talks about his problems, and Shino prefers to have her undivided attention as he answers with nothing to clutter either of their minds.

"Nothing's the matter with me or with Kiba and Shino," Hinata says as she wipes her hands with a cloth, caps the salve, and reaches for the bandages.

Kurenai inclines her head slightly with a tiny smile. She appreciates that reassurance.

"Wh-while you were away," Hinata says, stumbling over her words before she takes a deep breath. "Ino-san transferred over to Hatake Kakashi's Team Seven."

She hadn't been sure what she'd expected but… that hadn't been it. "I'm… sorry?"

Hinata smiles faintly. "Ino-san has left Asuma-san's Team Ten and joined Team Seven."

Even hearing it a second time doesn't make it make more sense but now she knows why Hinata's unsettled. Hearing it makes her feel unsettled. The 'Rookie Nine' have gone through enough upheaval thanks to Team Seven and now…

"Why?" Kurenai asks as Hinata finishes wrapping the bandages around her arm.

Hinata hesitates. "She says… Ino-san says that the training is better."

With a wince, Kurenai flexes her arm, testing the bandage. "Thank you," she says, "and I'll talk to Asuma about this, see what he has to say about it."

"Hatake-sensei is… different," Hinata says. "He moves differently. Shino-kun and Kiba-kun both say he smells different. Like himself, but not. Ino-san and Sakura-san ignore any questions about him specifically, though they'll talk about his training regimes for them."

That's what had bugged her, Kurenai realized. He hadn't moved quite like she was used to him moving when they'd passed each other in the hallway. Something different.

"And… and, there's a lot of fuss about if he's going to poach from another team," Hinata admits.

Kurenai frowns. "Are people pressuring you?"

Hinata studies her medical supplies intently as she puts them away.

It's Kurenai's turn to let out a breath that's more of a sigh. "Hinata," she says, "do you want to transfer teams?"

There's a yelp from the door of her bedroom and, as Hinata flinches, knocking her medical bag off the bed, Kurenai gets up, unwinding her hair from her towel, letting it collapse around her face in damp tangles.

"Really," she says, leaning against the door frame. "I thought I taught you three better than this."

Because while it had been Kiba who'd yelped, Shino and Akamaru are there as well. Both of the Inuzuka have the grace to look sheepish, while Shino adjusts his sunglasses.

"It's information pertaining to the entire team," he says.

"A-ano," Hinata says, "I want to stay with Team Eight, Kurenai-sensei. I don't want to transfer."

Then, as if her bravery was exhausted, Hinata hurries past them all and into the bathroom. The locking of the door sounds loud in the silence that follows.

Kurenai drags it out for a moment before she raises her eyebrows at the boys. "What have I taught you about eavesdropping?"

"Don't get caught," Kiba says, rubbing the back of his head. It does nothing to conceal his grin. "Hinata, breakfast is ready if you want any!"

She swallows a laugh.

Akamaru yips his own excitement and prances towards the kitchen.

"Alright," Kurenai says. "Breakfast. And while we're eating you can tell me everything different you've noticed about Hatake Kakashi."

She doesn't ask them if they're willing to start acting as a team a day early—after all, their orders were to re-assemble tomorrow, not today—because Kurenai tries not to ask stupid questions of her team. Sweeping past Kiba, she ruffles his hair just for his outraged protest, and laughing heads to the kitchen.

Behind her, she hears Shino check in on Hinata, who comes out of the bathroom, still flustered, but Kurenai can hear the smiles in their low voices.

Welcome home, she thinks, and smiles.

Sakura muffles a yawn with one hand and eyes the empty practice ground.

She's the first one here which doesn't surprise her—it's much closer to her house than it is to Ino's and because of Hatake-sensei's orders they hadn't gone training before the mission. Her bag is packed, though she doesn't know what it's packed for.

He hadn't said what they were going to be doing.

Ino wanders into the practice ground next, looking muted and pale in the pre-dawn light. As she gets closer, Sakura frowns. Ino's in a bad mood.

"Any idea what we're doing?" Ino asks.

"No," Sakura admits. "You okay?"

Ino hesitates, considering that. "I don't know," she says, finally. "Let me think about it more."

"Okay," Sakura says, though that answer just raises more questions. "You know where to find me."

The two of them make idle chit-chat as they stretch out, waiting for Hatake-sensei. They're both early. He arrives right on time, two shopping bags in hand.

"Good," he says, "you're both here."

"What's our mission?" Ino demands, a beat before Sakura can. "You modified that mission brief."

Hatake-sensei smiles at both of them. "I did," he says easily. "And we'll get to your mission. First, I want you both to dump out your bags."

"What?!" Sakura protests. "We know how to pack, Hatake-sensei!"

That smile of his goes nowhere.

"Then prove it."

And what else can they do? Everything else he's done so far has had a reason.

Sakura swings her pack off her shoulders and, with a prayer for her neatly rolled items, dumps it all out. Ino moves a few feet away and does the same.

"Alright," Ino says, "tell us what we've done wrong."

Hatake-sensei takes his time looking over their supplies, never putting down his own pack or the grocery bags he carries. Sakura shifts slightly, casting a glance at Ino who shrugs back. Whatever Hatake-sensei is looking for, Ino has no idea either.

"Okay," he says, stepping back. "Take a seat by your things and we'll start. You've both packed according to the Academy's rules and standards, which is good."

"But?" Sakura prompts.

"Now you're going to get up to my standards," he says, reaching over to pick up one of Sakura's pens. "Why this pen?"

"I like it?" Sakura says. Sure, it's pink, but it writes well (in black ink).

"It's too identifiable," Hatake-sensei says. "Leave it in the village. The pink is bad enough but this brand's ink is used only in Fire Country. Ink can be traced. The point of being a shinobi is to be untraceable." He drops a packages of plain black-capped pens in front of her and Ino. "This brand is one of the two in the village that are used in all major countries—use those for out-of-village work exclusively. The ink isn't as dark and they don't last as long but they work and, more importantly, they're much harder to trace."

"What's the other brand?" Ino asks, picking up her package of pens to scrutinize.

Sakura settles in to listen, realizing that from his shopping bags, they're likely to be here for a good while learning how to get up to his standards.

But they'll get there—with his help.

Chapter Text

It takes hours for Hatake-sensei to go through everything they own and inform them what was wrong with just about all of it. The pens had just been the beginning.

He'd kindly replaced most of it, which had taken out some of the sting. Really, the only thing he hadn't replaced and had, instead, ordered them to buy before the next mission, was the underthings and Sakura was frankly grateful that he was leaving them to buy their own panties and bras and feminine hygiene products so long as they fell within the brands he'd explained were country-neutral and harder to trace.

I can explain to my parents that my sensei bought me pens, and other things, like matches, and wire, but I'd never be able to get through underwear with them.

It was definitely for the best if that never came up with her civilian parents. Ino hadn't seemed to mind as much. Though it had helped that Hatake-sensei had been brisk, impartial, and professional about his critique.

Sakura hadn't really thought anyone could be so work-oriented about that sort of thing but he'd managed it and while she was a bit embarrassed she didn't have much of an urge to hide.

Once that had been done, he'd made them re-pack to his exacting standards and then told them to cart their things back home (Ino had dropped her things off at Sakura's place, since it was closer) and now, finally, they're ready to go on their mission properly.

Rather than leading them out of the village, though, he instead leads them on a long and winding path through it.

"Where are we going, Hatake-sensei?" Sakura asks.

"You'll see," he says.

"All of that work and we're not even leaving the village?!" Ino protests. There's one good thing to come from Hatake-sensei's endless lecture on their supplies—it's distracted Ino from whatever she'd been in a bad mood about. "Hatake-sensei!"

"What kind of C-Rank can we do inside of the village anyway?" Sakura wonders.

"More than you'd think," Hatake-sensei says. "But we're almost there, come on. I'll explain everything once we're inside."

"Inside?" Ino asks, pouncing on the word.

"Our mission's in a house?" Sakura looks around at the neighbourhood they're in with a considering glance. D-Rank missions happen fairly frequently inside houses given that they're always in the village for missions but she'd never thought of any of the higher rank missions being in the village. That's a new idea to her.

She bites her lip for a moment before asking, "Is it a haunted house?"

"… Something like that," Hatake-sensei says. "Now, enough."

They shut their mouths, exchanging a startled look. Hatake-sensei doesn't use that tone of voice with them very often. Trailing after him, Sakura watches as Ino frowns as the neighbour changes from newer developments to creaky old houses and sprawling estates, ones that were around before the village was founded officially.

Ino draws in her breath sharply, almost inaudibly, as they step onto a street that's so empty and desolate that it feels like they're nothing but a couple of ryo rattling around in a can.

Sakura glances her way. Hatake-sensei, who must have heard them, doesn't pause in his stride.

Don't freak out, Ino says, her warning the only thing that allows Sakura to clamp her hands over her mouth to stop from squealing in shock at the voice inside her head. I know where we're going, I think.

You never said you could talk inside peoples' heads! Sakura accused.

Ino shrugs at her, looking unrepentant. You never asked.

That's... fair. Much as Sakura doesn't like it. She sticks her tongue out at Ino, who shoves at her, and they both break out in giggles.

"Really?" Hatake-sensei says, turning to look at them. He sounds a little amused, though, so Sakura doesn't take his remonstrance too seriously.

"Sorry, Hatake-sensei," she says.

Ino shrugs again. "She started it."

"Ino!"

"But we'll be good," Ino says. "Hatake-sensei."

And you did start it, Ino continues sub-vocally. Don't even.

"Just behave until we get there," he says, still sounding amused. "It's not far now."

I thought so.

Where are we going? Sakura demands. What have you figured out?

I could be wrong, Ino says, studying Hatake-sensei through lowered eyelashes. And I don't know why we're going there but I think we're going to his family's place.

Sakura misses a step, nearly stumbling, before she regains her balance.

You're going to have to get better at not giving away that I'm talking to you, Ino says. It's not much of an advantage if everyone knows we're talking.

I'll get better, Sakura says, stung at the very idea of not being good enough to keep up with Ino. Ino, come on!

Ino hooks her arm comfortingly through Sakura's. You'll get better. Why were you so surprised about Hatake-sensei having a family estate?

He's never mentioned anything! He lives alone! He can barely keep a cactus alive!

A fat drop of rain hits the top of her head. Sakura holds out her hand to catch the next few drops.

You said we're almost there, right?

If we weren't staying in the village for this job… you realize we'd be running through this too, right?

Sakura grumbles indistinctly.

Ino laughs, shrugging and tugging her along.

With a rueful sort of smile, Sakura allows her to do so. (Not that being told 'no' has ever really stopped Ino.)

But… yeah, there's the Hatake family estate. It's kind of a taboo topic, really, so I'm not surprised no one told you since you're on his team and…

Sakura heaves a sigh so dramatic that Hatake-sensei glances back at them briefly. It's another one of those things they don't tell to civilians, isn't it?

It's not hidden, Ino says, but we just… don't talk about it. The Hatakes were an old family. Not big, like the Hyuuga, but old and respected. Then… well, you know the war with Iwa?

She nods. She's read about it in history books at the Academy.

Tensions were already high. Hatake Sakumo had a choice of completing a mission or saving his teammates. Ino hesitates, glancing at their sensei's back. He choice his teammates and, I don't really know how, but the failure to complete the mission is what started the war. Hatake Sakumo killed himself, later, due to the shame he brought upon his family.

Sakura gapes at Ino.

It gets worse, Ino says, even her mind's voice sounding uncomfortable. Hatake Sakumo was Hatake-sensei's dad.

Horror and shame flood her.

And I asked if the house was haunted! Sakura wails internally.

I didn't know where we were going or I'd have told you earlier, Ino says hurriedly. Just don't mention it again and I'm sure it'll be okay. He doesn't seem mad!

Please, please don't tell me he killed himself at home…

Ino's expression is all the answer Sakura needs.

The Nara Clan's woods are creepy.

Chouji knows the shadows (which are thicker and darker here than elsewhere in the village) that lurk like gloomy puddles under the high, wide branches won't hurt him. He also knows that they could.

He takes his time making his way through the woods nonetheless. Sure, he's unsettled and uncomfortable, but that's almost the norm these days, since Ino went and threw a wrench in everything.

What's a little more skin creeping discomfort in the face of that?

It hurts a lot to know that Ino left them, that they weren't good enough for her, and that she hadn't given them a chance to do better, but…

Well.

Chouji knows he's not a total genius like Shikamaru. He knows he's not as wildly clever as Ino.

But he's not stupid.

His feelings are hurt and he's tired of Clan meetings and he hates that their team now has an empty space in it where once was a familiar, well-loved friend but he's not stupid and once he'd gotten over all of his feelings (which remain complicated and ugly and he's never sure how to say them) well…

None of what Ino did is really about him, now is it?

He misses her dreadfully but… He's seen her bounce back into town, talking a mile a minute with Sakura, with Kakashi-sensei trailing behind them, and both girls are covered in scrapes and training bruises and are filthy and disheveled and they're so happy they almost glow.

Honestly, if he digs deep, he can't remember the last time Ino was that happy on their team. Chouji's pretty sure she was that happy way back at the start, right out of the Academy, once they aced their last test and first assignment as a team but after that it gets hazy.

He remembers a lot of good times but that's not quite the same thing.

The woods begin to break up slightly, each tree still spaced so meticulously that shade is absolute even on the brightest of days, but less crowded, less on top of each other, as he reaches the outskirts of where most Nara live.

Unlike the Hyuuga compound or the (old) Uchiha sector, there's no walls around the Nara's place. There's no need. The rings upon rings of shadows are a more effective deterrent than any wall would be to ninja.

There's always Nara here and any of them can trigger the shadows that protect their home.

Chouji isn't sure of the details of that and he doesn't ask. It's not his Clan, not his business, and he only knows as much as he does due to the fact that the Akimichi are old allies of the Nara. That he's best friends with Shikamaru helps a little, too, but not as much as outsiders might assume.

Friendships could come and go—though he is loathe to consider that—but the alliance is an old, sturdy and stable thing.

Even if it is taking a few knocks from what Ino's done.

That's not fair—even in his own thoughts he knows that's not fair—but Chouji allows himself, for the moment, to think it and not feel too bad about it. It's more complicated than that but if he can't have hurt feelings inside his own head…

Where can he have them?

Shikamaru is frowning ferociously at a shougi board on the front porch of his home. He doesn't look up at Chouji grabs one of the cushions meant for guests and settles himself down with a bag of chips to eat as he waits.

He's good at waiting.

"We don't have training today," Shikamaru says eventually, long before Chouji gets tired of waiting. "Mission?"

It's really not hard to out-last Shikamaru or Ino. While they can both be patient when they have to be it's something they have to do rather than a state of being.

"No," Chouji says, crunching through another chip, and leaving it at that because he knows Shikamaru won't be able to resist poking at that.

"What then?" Shikamaru asks, looking away from the shougi board to frown at him, eyes raking him over to make sure he's in one piece.

That bit is new, since he nearly died in the attempt to retrieve Sasuke.

"Is everything okay?"

"I'm fine," Chouji says, smiling slightly in an attempt to put Shikamaru at ease.

"You didn't come here just to hang out," Shikamaru says, flat and skeptical. Which he has every right to be. Chouji does sometimes come just to hang out but it's rare. Especially with everything else going on these days.

"I didn't," Chouji says agreeably. "Dad said that Ino'll be out of the village for the next week or so."

Shikamaru's frown deepens and he turns back to the shougi board. "That has nothing to do with us."

Chouji hesitates. It's true and untrue and in about equal amounts. That's one of the reasons this is such a mess, he thinks. It would be easier if it was cut and dried but there's nothing easy in Clan politics.

"Are you mad that she's left us or are you mad that she's happy in her new team?"

That was the question he'd wanted to ask. He doesn't know the answers himself. Chouji thinks the answer, on his part, is 'both' but…

Shikamaru's back stiffens.

"She didn't say anything," he says, his voice low and tight.

Chouji doesn't reply to that. There's one thing Ino has always done and that's let people know when they're disappointing her. She'd complained a lot. To him. To Shikamaru. To her dad. She'd spent days nagging Asuma-sensei about things.

"Okay," Shikamaru continues, resentment heavy in the words. "But this isn't done."

It isn't. Especially not amongst the Clans. There's always maneuvering beforehand—though they'll never know how much their parents did to get them on the same team—but afterwards, transfers from full teams are rare. Combining incomplete teams happens all the time.

But Team 10 had been a complete team. Whole and healthy and exactly how a team ought to be in the eyes of the village.

"It's not," Chouji agrees. "But since when has Ino ever done only 'what was done?'"

There's a pause.

Shikamaru moves a piece on the board before speaking again. "She's a pure traditionalist when it comes to training."

"Exactly." Chouji sighs. Eats another chip. The crinkle of the bag is a comforting, familiar noise. "Which means she takes her training seriously."

Rain starts to drum down in soft, scatter-shot patterns. Chouji shifts so his legs are under the balcony instead of hanging off the edge but otherwise makes no move. The overhang will keep them dry unless the wind changes and it's not cold.

And he waits to see what Shikamaru will say to that.

"Something's wrong," Shikamaru says finally, frowning as he does so (Chouji doesn't need to see his face to know he is). "She'd never have gone over to Hatake Kakashi's team after his… management... of Team 7 just because Sakura asked, no matter how good of friends they are. Asuma-sensei may not be as tough a sensei as she wanted but…"

"But?" Chouji prompts.

"We're missing something," Shikamaru says. "Something big. Ino wouldn't have left if there's not more to this."

"It's awful that she left," Chouji says. "And I miss her and I wish she hadn't."

He doesn't say that he wants her back, though, because if she came back right now he thinks there would be just more fighting over the hurt feelings and turmoil she'd caused.

(He does want her back though.)

"But we're missing something."

And, for the first time, Shikamaru sounds thoughtful instead of angry or betrayed.

Chouji eats the last of his chips and, as he wipes his fingers off on his pants, he asks, "What are we going to do about it?"

Shikamaru pushes away from the shougi board, looking briefly startled at the rain, before standing and offering Chouji a hand up.

"We get more information."

Chouji smiles as he reaches for Shikamaru's hand. "Alright."

Ino might still never come back to their team but at least, this way, they might have the whole story.

He hates this street. He hates the estate they stand in front of. He hates the gates that stare back at him.

It's irrational—none of these things have ever hurt him directly—but the earliest pains, the pains that originally formed him started here and so he hates it all.

Kakashi isn't sure the last time his other self had been here, but for him it had been years. It's like picking at a scab to find out that it's only half-healed.

The village is very, very good at indoctrinating their shinobi in the proper behaviours. It's excellent at—well, usually he'd say they were excellent at training; he has his doubts lately--but, in any case, the fact is that the village, however good they are at many, many things, has never found a way to stop its shinobi from feeling grief and pain.

But I think that's a good thing, overall, or else we'd cease to be human.

He hates it but, in feeling that hate, that grief, that pain, he stays human. Kakashi has seen monsters wearing human skins—has killed monsters wearing human skins—and would rather be human.

Fallible and fragile as humanity might be.

He glances behind him, then, realizing that his students haven't followed him. Sakura looks stricken and he realizes Ino must have given her a rundown of his past.

I'll have to keep an eye on that, he realizes, if Ino's going to start mind-talking.

"Come along," he says, smiling for them as he pushes the gate open. He doesn't feel it, his heart is somewhere around his ankles, but he smiles for them. "Your mission has started."

The girls slip through the gate and he locks it behind him, the jutsu ward glowing a sullen red before fading. The rain is growing steadily worse. An afternoon storm.

"We'll be staying in the first building on the left," he says, guiding them down the over-grown path. "It's not the main house—we'll start there tomorrow."

"Yes, sensei," Sakura says, subdued as she looks around. Signs of decay are everywhere. No one has properly taken care of the paths in ages. The trees and flowers (and weeds) running wild, with determined sprouts of grass having forced their way up through the gaps in the stone walkways.

The building they make for is mostly intact. A few of the windows have cracked where hail hit them and it's dark and dusty as they step in out of the rain but it's in one piece and that's really all he cares about.

"Water is still running so the toilets, sinks, and showers can be used," he says, locking the door behind them. It smells like cedar wood, dust, and emptiness in the hallway. "There's no electricity hooked up, so you'll have to rely on candles and oil lanterns for lighting."

"Hatake-sensei," Ino says, with a glance at Sakura that he feels more than sees. It's dark in the house. "What is our mission?"

Ah. Yes.

He still hasn't told them.

"You're both aware of the fact that I've been prioritizing your skills over taking you on missions," he says, guiding them down the hallway. "I will not lie to you: I was asked to take you both on a C-Rank mission to get you out of the village for a while."

Sakura yelps. "They want us to leave?!"

"Because of—everything, right?" Ino says, sounding resigned.

He claps one hand on her shoulder briefly in support as they spill out into what had been the main area of this house. The couches are abandoned under white sheets, like lumpy ghosts. He can see the outline of a fireplace.

"Partly due to the waves caused by the team transfer," he allows. "I'll say again that neither of you should feel poorly for making decisions that will benefit both your own training and the strength of the village in the long run."

They don't (yet) believe him, of course, but he'll keep saying it, in different ways.

"But we're… not out of the village…," Sakura says.

"No," he agrees, smiling slightly and letting his voice warm a bit. "But we might as well be. Ino, what do you sense?"

Ino blinks at him and then—

"I can't reach my dad," Ino says, surprised. "In fact, I can't find—anyone, but us."

"Old wards," he says. "Old jutsu. In being here, we might as well be on the far side of the moon as far as the rest of the village is concerned. I'm not comfortable running missions with the two of you outside the village," he says bluntly. "You're both growing in leaps and bounds and that will come. For now, this mission fulfills both my priorities for your training and the request to leave the village."

"But…," Sakura begins, the falters, looking at Ino for support.

"But what are we doing here?" Ino asks. "There's a reason we're here, right?"

"We'll be here a week," Kakashi says. "Whether or not we accomplish our mission. That being said, our mission is one that I hired us for, so if I change the terms…"

Well. Then he changed the terms.

"We're looking for a summoning scroll," he explains. "I'm used to it being about twelve inches long, one inch in diameter, with a red rod. It may look different in this time and place."

"Oh!" Sakura says. "For summoning dogs!"

He smiles at her. "That's right. We're looking for my family's summoning scroll."

"What do you mean 'it may look different'?" Ino asks.

"It changes sometimes," he says. "I've seen it larger, with a black rod. For now, we'll concentrate on locating anything that might be a summoning scroll. Any questions?"

The girls exchange looks, words he can't hear no doubt passing between them, before they shake their heads.

"I realize this isn't the sort of mission you expected," he says. "And that it's a self-serving mission."

"It's fine, Hatake-sensei," Ino says quietly. "You had to take a mission, we get it."

Looking at them, he thinks that Ino does get it—not unexpected, given that she'd have grown up with Clan politics—and that, while Sakura might not really get it, well, she's willing to go with it for now.

It's enough.

"Alright," he says, clapping his hands together. "This afternoon we're going to be cleaning and searching this place. Let's get some lights on and begin."

They scatter to do just that.

Rain early in the afternoon gives her an easy out to dismiss her team—and they understand that, leaving cheerfully and already wondering what they'll be doing tomorrow with her—Kurenai collapses for a well-deserved nap before waking up hungry to find the evening in full swing, the rain having passed, leaving the streets clean and glistening and the air sharp and fresh.

Knowing that it's better to get on a standard schedule as soon as possible, she gets up and goes out. There's a good handful of hours before she should even think of going back to bed.

A street vendor selling chadango satisfies her need for sustenance and then, without really thinking of it, she goes meandering through the lamp-lit streets of Konohagakure no Sato, and while she hadn't planned on it, she's not surprised when her feet lead her to her usual bar.

Nor is she surprised to find Asuma there, nursing a drink.

"Hey, stranger," she says, smiling warmly as she slides onto a bar stool.

"Hey, yourself," he says, with a smile of his own and giving her a once over, his eyes resting on her bandaged arm. "That anything to worry about?"

"Not even a little," Kurenai promises.

"Good," he says. "Buy you a drink?"

She says yes and they drink together in comfortable silence for a bit.

"Team 8 has been recalled to active duty," she says eventually. "Hokage-sama told me last night."

It's a good sign for the village that the Genin teams are going back to their usual formations. It's been hectic after the attack on the Chuunin exams and no one has really had time to breathe.

"They've all been cleared for active?" he asks, leaning towards her slightly. "That's fantastic."

"Clean bill of health," Kurenai confirms. "Akamaru will have to take it easy for a while longer, but most of Kiba's companion training is done in-family. Hinata's heart injury has been healed with a note about it in her files for future reference. Kiba and Shino are fine."

And she's grateful that her team came out of it so well. It could have been so much worse.

Kurenai knocks back the last of her drink and, seeing that Asuma is done his, she says, "Walk with me? It's a nice night."

"I could do with a smoke," he allows, so that's what they do.

The moon is bright and clear after the afternoon rains. Kurenai breathes in deeply as Asuma lights up a cigarette.

"How have things been in the village?" she asks easily, choosing not to ask about his team right off. "Or have you been running missions outside of it?"

He laughs, low and rough. "A little from column a, a little from column b. Things are getting back to normal. Most of the arena's been repaired already."

The homes and lives lost cannot be repaired no matter how many times the houses are rebuilt. She knows that well.

"Not that we'll be hosting for a while," she says, with a certain dark amusement. "How's Chouji's rehabilitation going?"

"Good," Asuma says, after a long, slow puff of smoke. "He's not ready for active duty yet, but he'll get there. I think he'll be healed before Shikamaru forgives himself for putting Chouji in that position."

"That's usually the case," she agrees, letting the silence grow and linger as they wander the streets, close enough to touch but neither of them reaching out to do so.

Asuma's cigarette has long since been finished before she speaks again.

"People are talking about you," she says as they cross one of the red-railed bridges.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "I know."

"Did you want to talk about it?" Kurenai asks, glancing at him.

"Not yet," he says. "Not tonight. If that's okay? Just… walk with me, will you?"

"Of course," she says, bumping his shoulder companionably. "That's fine."

Kurenai can be patient.

Chapter Text

Sakura can't see the future usually but, right now, she's predicting the future and feels that she's got an one hundred percent chance of being correct:

Her future involves a whole lot of dust.

She sneezes. Again.

Ino lobs a tissue her way. "Good thing we're not on a stealth mission," she says playfully, then tosses another tissue.

Catching them only because over the course of the afternoon Sakura has grown used to Ino flinging them her way, Sakura sniffles and then blows her nose. "I've never had a reaction like this before," she complains.

"Have you ever been around this much dust before?" Ino asks, making a face at the pile she's gathered with a broom that must be older than they are. It works though, which is really all they can ask for. Hatake-sensei hadn't made them pack cleaning supplies in their gear after all. "I mean, I haven't been. Dad wouldn't stand for it."

Sakura snorts inelegantly into her tissue. "Nothing even close," she admits. "And when the Academy tested us for allergies nothing ever came up as being a problem."

"So you're probably not allergic to the dust," Ino says. "You're just overwhelmed by the sheer amount. Don't think I haven't been considering the way that Hatake-sensei's mask serves double duty here."

With a laugh, Sakura begins wiping off another table that has seen better days. Hatake-sensei didn't say that they had to clean everything to perfection but since they're staying here for at least a week Sakura feels like it's better to do the whole thing properly.

Even if that means doing so much cleaning.

Luckily, they haven't found any rats.

"How do you think he'd react?" she asks, amused. "If he came back and we were both wearing masks just like he does?"

"Like, looking like his mini-mes?" Ino laughs, wrapping herself around the broom handle as she giggles. "Sakura! We've got to do that now!"

"Even though we're in his--?"

Of course, now that Ino likes the idea, Sakura realizes all the ways that it could go wrong. It might be insensitive and she doesn't want to hurt his feelings.

"I wouldn't suggest we try it while we're in the main house," Ino admits. "I don't know him well enough to know if he'd find that funny or not and a prank is only really funny if even the victim laughs."

Sakura makes a face, thinking of all the things Naruto had done that he'd thought were funny but most of them hadn't ever been entertained by. Sometimes he'd been funny, but most of the time...

No.

(Though Naruto getting Kakashi-sensei with a blackboard eraser is still one of her fondest memories from the original Team 7.)

"Do we have access to black fabric?" Sakura wonders, mulling over it. Sewing isn't a problem--both she and Ino passed that module of Suzume-sensei's kunoichi-only courses with ease. "That's going to be the real difficulty. I can't imagine we're able to get out of here without him."

Ino shakes her head. "We definitely can't leave. Maybe we should just keep an eye out while we clean and, if nothing presents itself to make masks out of, we can do it later?"

"It would probably be funnier, anyway, if we went about town wearing them," Sakura offers, relieved that they won't be dragging up ghosts with a possible misstep in the heart of it all. "Can you imagine peoples' expressions? And a mask is way less weird than what Gai-sensei and Lee-kun wear."

With a shudder, Ino laughs. "I would never wear that!"

"What did you mean that we can't get out of here without Hatake-sensei?" Sakura asks, feeling that the fact that she would never wear that green… tight… thing… of Gai-sensei's ever went unspoken.

Ino pauses, then says, "Can't you feel the wards?"

"No," Sakura says, wondering if she ought to be able to. Wondering if that's just another thing she's lost out on knowing because she was born into a civilian family. "I don't feel anything. It's quiet here, but no quieter than it would be on any other large estate with few visitors?"

Ino blinks, stopping mid-reach from where she was reaching for the dustpan. "Really?" she asks, sounding intrigued.

"Yes, really," Sakura says, sounding a bit nettled.

"I wonder why," Ino muses, shrugging her shoulders as she gets back to work. "Do you think Hatake-sensei would be able to answer a question like that?"

"You don't know why I can't either?" she says, suddenly hopeful that this isn't something she's behind on.

With a shake of her head, Ino purses her lips for a moment. "No," she says finally. "I've never learned anything really about wards as powerful as these ones. Dad doesn't have much to do with physical wards, you know? We're all about the mental ones."

"Oh."

They're quiet for a bit, after that, while they work hard on turning the room they've claimed as their bedroom (despite it not holding any beds at all) for the week into a properly clean sort of room. Neither of them had wanted to see what might be living in mattresses that had been left untouched for years on end.

The floor and their sleeping bags would suit them just fine.

Outside, the rain had ended and they had all the windows open letting the house air out.

"When do you think Hatake-sensei will be back, anyway?" Ino asks abruptly, once the room is so clean the floors sparkle with a shine they haven't had in--well, probably longer than they've been alive.

Being here makes Sakura feel very young.

"I don't know," Sakura says, wiping her hands on her shirt. "I mean, he didn't give us much warning that he was going out, did he? Just that he'd be back."

"It's hard for us to get in trouble cleaning," Ino admits. "So that's probably why he felt comfortable enough to leave us here alone. I hope he's back soon though. It's weird to have a mission like this without our sensei just up and disappearing on us."

"Maybe he just wants some time alone," Sakura suggests. "Since this is where..."

Ino sighs. "Yeah, probably." She's quiet for a moment. "Do you want to clean another room or should we see what we can do for supper first?"

Sakura weighs those two options. They've already cleaned the living room and a bathroom and now they've finished their room and, honestly, she's tired of cleaning. And yet... "Let's clean a room for Hatake-sensei," she suggests, even though she's hungry, "that way he won't have to do it himself when he gets back."

The most difficult part about picking a room out for Hatake-sensei is the argument over which room to pick. Sakura favours the one with the double doors, while Ino favours the one with the wall of windows arguing that sure, they're covered in grim now but surely, surely once they're clean they'll look amazing and it's not like privacy's an issue given where they are.

Ino wins that argument.

Truthfully, Sakura doesn't argue too hard against it since Ino's back to herself (or lying so well that Sakura cannot tell the difference) and that's her favourite part of this mission so far. Ino is relaxed and happy for the first time in days.

Sakura treasures that even as they scrub a decade plus of grim off a wall of windows, letting the pale early evening sunlight stream into the room, which motivates them further as they peel dust up off the floor.

(It's disgusting.)

But it looks great when it's cleaned.

They don't dare unpack Hatake-sensei's pack or lay out his sleeping bag, but they drag both into the room and make sure to leave a lantern for him to read by, should he wish to.

(Though they both roll their eyes at what he might read.)

Hatake-sensei doesn't come back until they've migrated to the kitchen, where working over a field stove, they've managed to make a passable soup to go with their ration bars.

"Good work," he says approvingly as he takes in their progress on the house and Sakura flushes with pleasure to the roots of her hair.

As they sit down to eat, Ino breaks her ration bar into four exactly even pieces, before she asks, "Hatake-sensei," she says, "Sakura and I were wondering why I can feel the jutsu wards but Sakura can't. Do you know why that would be?"

Candlelight makes it hard to read Hatake-sensei's expression—and he's a master at keeping his feelings to himself too—but Sakura thinks that, maybe, just maybe, he's relieved that the question isn't anything more personal.

(Like where he'd been. She won't ask that, no matter how much she wants to know.)

"You can sense the wards?" he asks interestedly. "How so? Is it like when you tried to reach out with your bloodline?"

Ino looks startled. "No," she says. "It's different. That's me reaching but this is just… like… a humming? Almost like a song that I've only remembered the melody too but the words elude me?"

"That sounds kind of irritating," Sakura says, when Hatake-sensei doesn't answer right away. Put the way Ino has, Sakura doesn't really feel quite so left out. She hates it when she gets songs stuck in her head from the radio that she can't... quite... remember all the words to.

Ino giggles. "It's not that bad," she says. "It's not something that bothers me? It kind of fades into the background when I'm not thinking about it?"

"I guess that wouldn't be so bad," Sakura concedes. "What do you think it is, Hatake-sensei?"

Sakura gets the impression that Hatake-sensei is smiling. "Well," he says, "we'll have to do a few more tests to confirm it but evidence strongly suggests that you'll need to be trained as a sensor nin, Ino."

"What?!" Ino says. "But those aren't that common! And my bloodline--"

"Lends itself to just a skill set, given that you're already well primed on paying attention and noticing changes that other people won't. Most sensor types don't seriously start training until they reach Chuunin so," he says, interrupting her smoothly. "You can take this as something that's special about just you, not your family."

Ino falls silent then and Sakura wrestles with a terrible wave of jealousy that there's something else that's unique and special and different about Ino and she's still just... herself. Ordinary, boring Sakura.

"What exactly is a sensor nin?" Sakura asks, hating to ask when her feelings are so muddled up but also dreadfully curious. Besides, she reminds herself, if it impact's Ino's training then it will matter to her too.

Hatake-sensei smiles (she can tell by the way his eye curves) as he looks at her. "You're aware of the basic classifications of ninja, right?" He doesn't wait for an answer. "Not the ranks. What are they?"

Feeling a bit like she's been tossed into a pop quiz, Sakura takes her time to think. Classification doesn't refer to rank though, of course, that is just another way to classify ninja. "You mean like combat-types, tracker-types, and espionage-types, right? Tsunade-shishou wants to make medic-type another main class of ninja."

"Very good," he says approvingly. "Those are the three basic umbrellas that shinobi are usually classed under, though I daresay there'll be four types eventually. Once you get into those classes, there's sub-classes of each group. For instance, I'm a combat-type and my subclass would be ninjutsu-type."

"Oh." She thinks about that, noting that Ino doesn't look surprised though she listened intently. "What kind of types would that make us, Hatake-sensei?"

He leans back. "What do you think?"

And it's really in the way he says it, she realizes, that makes him so much easier to talk to and learn from than Kakashi-sensei had been. Hatake-sensei means it as a challenge, something she's meant to rise up to meet. He wants her to succeed and if she misses the mark he'll correct her without making her feel stupid.

Kakashi-sensei would've made the same question make her feel small and dumb for not knowing it right off the bat.

For a moment Sakura quietly lets this revelation re-write bits and pieces of her past where she'd felt like she'd done something wrong by not knowing everything Kakashi-sensei had talked about. This feels so much better.

(Not for the first time does she wish that Hatake-sensei could stay forever and that's terrible.)

"I don't think that Genin teams are usually classed into the sub-groups," Sakura says thoughtfully. "I think that the original Team 7 was meant to be a combat-type and, if training took us down the paths to being a genjutsu-type or ninjutsu-type or taijutsu-type," like Lee and Gai-sensei must be, no doubt about it, now that she thinks about the matter, "then that would be all well and good."

He nods. "And what would you class Ino's old team as?"

That's actually easier to figure out. Team 7 had always felt like a mess of unfocused skills, uneven drive, and uncertain footing. That they could fight was their strongest point--and it wasn't even that they had fought particularly well.

Ino's team, on the other hand...

"Espionage-type," she says. "With Chouji as their hard hitter while Ino and Shikamaru did the heavy lifting when it came to finding information out."

Ino grins at her and Sakura beams back, knowing she got it right.

"Correct on all parts," Hatake-sensei says. "Well done."

He allows them to chatter for a bit longer before shooing them off to get cleaned up (as well as they can when there's water but it's all cold) and does the dishes himself. It's a small chore, especially compared to all of the work his girls had done in cleaning up, so he's glad to do it.

Especially since it's a simple, monotonous task that helps shake off the unease he feels now that they're here, with no way to easily back out.

He's so tired. It's not the kind of tired that sleeping will help (and, indeed, he's braced for nightmares when he does go to catch a few hours rest) especially not after he'd gone and visited his mother's grave that afternoon.

His mother hadn't been a shinobi and so her body had been buried on the estate, in a garden seething with ivy and daffodils. The girls had spent an afternoon clearing accumulated gunk from a house. He'd spent it cleaning a grave marker. If the him that belonged in this time had visited--well... it hadn't been recently.

That doesn't surprise Kakashi. After all, he rarely visited in his own time. In this, the two of them seem to be of the same mind.

Hatake Yua was barely a memory. He can recall a warm smile, a soft voice, and lilacs have always left him a bit nostalgic, but he doesn't really remember his mother at all. Coming to her grave when it's in the heart of where everything in his world went wrong (for the first time) is too hard.

I'm probably a disappointing son, he thinks wryly. He'll never know for sure since he's the last Hatake and his mother's side of the family had all died during Kyuubi's attack on the village. Not that they wanted anything to do with the White Fang's son before that.

"Hatake-sensei?" It's Ino, standing in the doorway.

He realizes that he's been staring blankly down at the bowl he's been supposedly washing for the last little bit. Wonderful. Just what he hadn't wanted to do. "What is it, Ino?"

"Are you alright?" she asks, brash and direct and painfully kind.

Kakashi wishes that she wouldn't while appreciating it at the same time. He thinks that it's this side of Ino that first stole Sakura's heart away in friendship. Always one to directly address a problem and fix it, never one to let it linger unless it's beyond her ability to fix.

"I'm fine," he says gently, rinsing out the bowl and setting it to dry on the rack before turning to give her his full attention. "What is it?"

He's not fine (he's a liar; he's a shinobi) but he's made due in worse circumstances. He's fine.

(They haven't even gotten to the main house yet. That's tomorrow. He dreads it.)

"If you're sure," Ino says hesitantly.

"Just old memories," he says, unwilling to say much more but also not wanting to leave her feeling guilty about his moods. "I haven't been here in a good while."

She nods solemnly.

Kakashi is usually glad he's not stuck dealing with oblivious teens but sometimes he wishes they paid a little less attention.

"You should get some rest," he urges. "It'll be an early day tomorrow and you and Sakura worked hard today."

"Hatake-sensei," Ino says, "is there anything you can teach Sakura that you can't teach me?"

"… I'm sorry?"

Ino casts a look back behind her, presumably checking to see if Sakura has snuck up on her, before she looks back at him. "It's just… if you train me as a sensor, Sakura can't follow me there, can she?"

"It's unlikely," Kakashi allows. Sensors are rare. The Yamanaka Clan produces a lot of them, likely due to their bloodline's influence, but outside of that clan… they're one of the rarer sub-types.

"If she can also learn, that's great," Ino says earnestly. "But if she can't learn then… I think there should be something you teach her that I can't learn."

"Ino, why?" he asks, feeling a headache coming on. "No, never mind, I understand."

Sakura's self-esteem was still terrible and she'd be terrified that Ino would out-strip her and leave her behind.

"I'll think of something," he promises.

Ino flashes him a relieved smile. "Thank you, Hatake-sensei."

"Now go to bed," he says. "Go on. I'll see you in the morning."

She beams at him and then darts back down the hallway. He leans back against the counter, stripping the gloves that he'd used to wash the dishes in off his hands. And sighs.

He'll think of something but not tonight.

Kakashi finishes tidying up the kitchen and then douses the candles. On his way to the room the girls said they'd cleaned for him, he pauses outside their door, listening just long enough to make sure they were both in there and neither was particularly upset, before he keeps going.

He's not entirely sure what his room used to be. Most of this house was meant for servants and, he thinks, guests that were not welcome to stay at the main house, but Kakashi was far too young to really remember.

As he steps into the room, his throat tightens unexpectedly at the sight of the wide, clear wall of windows, the lit lantern on a low table, his things neatly waiting for him. At each end of the windowed wall, is a small table with a vase full of fresh-cut flowers.

One obviously has been done by someone who has studied ikebana while the other is sloppier but no less heartfelt.

He wonders where they found the vases. He wonders why they didn't say anything about it at supper.

"What am I going to do with the two of them?" Even to his own ears it sounds fond.

(He wonders what he did to deserve this.)

It's very dark in the room with no lights anywhere around them.

Sakura doesn't think she's ever been anywhere so dark before in her life—not when she was inside the village.

"Ino?" she says, since she can tell from the sound of Ino's breathing that she's not asleep yet.

"Yes?"

"Are you mad that we're on this mission because of your transferring teams?"

Somehow, with the darkness pressing down on her, it's easier to ask this question. Sakura isn't sure she wants the answer but it's nagged and nagged and nagged at her until the only thing she can do is ask. She holds her breath and waits.

"A little," Ino admits, with a rustle of blankets. "Though not at Hatake-sensei or you. He didn't have to tell us why we were here and you didn't do anything wrong. You let me decide. You gave me a choice, a trial, a chance."

Sakura blinks hard, more relieved than she can say at that.

"I'm mad," Ino says, "but I'm mad at all the people who don't think I know my own mind. Daddy approved of it and Daddy would never have approved it if I hadn't been absolutely, positively determined to do this."

Sakura hesitates, then asks, "Do you miss them?"

There's another rustle of blankets and then Sakura breathes out an oof as Ino rolls over in her sleeping bag right on top of her.

"Yes," Ino says. "I miss them. They've been my friends since we were all in diapers."

Sakura doesn't mention how they never really seemed like friends at school, except around the edges if you squinted, because she's learned that how things were in school wasn't how things really are.

"I want my friends back," Ino says fiercely. "I want to shout at them and nag at them and laugh with them when we go out to eat. I want to debate ethics with Chouji and try to out think Shikamaru and kick both their asses in training. I want my friends back.

"But, Sakura, I choose you. You're my team." Ino huffs and then rolls off of her. "So stop being stupid."

Sakura takes a few long, shuddery moments to just breathe, trying in vain the blink back the tears that her traitorous eyes insist on leaking.

"I love you too, Pig."

"Shut up, Forehead."

Sakura falls asleep smiling and, if her pillow is a little damp… well, it'll be dry by morning.

Chapter Text

Given that it's the middle of the day, the shinobi library is pretty much empty.

Of course, it's never really empty, even at the oddest of hours because shinobi keep weirder hours than most, and the library is never closed.

Ninja would only break in if it was closed—it would be taken as a challenge.

Still, as Tenten breezes through the doors, she knows that it's basically empty. She'll ignore the presence of the other shinobi and, in turn, they'll ignore her presence, and that's really the same thing as far as anyone who uses the library is concerned.

'Empty' is a term they've all politely agreed on without ever saying a word.

There had been so many pros to graduating but Tenten's absolute favourite was probably that she now had access to the full shinobi library instead of just the section that Academy students were permitted to use.

She loves going on missions and getting stronger with her team (even if having Gai-sensei as her Jounin-sensei is… decidedly not what she'd pictured back in the Academy) and learning new weapons.

One day she'll be known for her weapons skills.

But coming to the library is like greeting an old friend that you haven't seen in ages and yet nonetheless you pick up where you left off, seamlessly, and effortlessly, and it's just about perfect every time, no matter the circumstances.

It's hard to be perfect no matter what.

Her kunai skills aren't there yet. (They will be.)

It's also a good place to think.

Lee's busy with rehabilitation training at the hospital and Neji's at the Hyuuga compound basically busy with the same thing. She's incredibly grateful that both of them will be okay. That they're not completely okay now, though, leaves her at a bit of a loose end.

Especially with Gai-sensei being in and out of the village on missions so often.

Tenten gets all the reasons why, and they're good reasons, and as a Genin of more than a year she's more than capable of handling her own training and studies for this time period.

But it leaves her feeling a bit superfluous and she hates that.

Sweeping down her favourite aisles, Tenten grabs a few books that she's read before but wants to review certain sections. She leaves them on a table nestled in the back of the library, leaving one of the chakra tags she'd grabbed from the front desk on top of her books so that no one puts them away.

The tags are an easy way of saying 'I'm in the library, these are in use, don't touch'.

It's really not worth it to incur the wrath of the desk Chuunin if you forget to use one of the tags. They're all incredibly protective of the works here and anything left unattended without a tag will be put away almost immediately.

The final book she's looking for takes her a bit to find. It's not where it's supposed to be, which perplexes her enough that she goes back to the front desk.

"Excuse me," she says, leaning against the counter and smiling apologetically for having disturbed them, "but is Notable Genin Teams by Watanabe Hikaru currently signed out by anyone? I couldn't find it on the shelves."

"Hang on," the Chuunin says, a gruff looking man named Taiga Rinnosuke. "I'll run the index."

Politely, and because she's seen people get kicked out of the library for attempting to learn the index unauthorized, Tenten averts her eyes.

She knows the library well enough to know where things should be anyway.

It's only a few moments before Taiga-san grunts and stands. "Nobody is using it. It's been mis-shelved by someone trying to be helpful," he grumbles. "Stay here, I'll fetch it for you."

Then he's gone before she can even say 'sure'.

Tenten waits.

The other desk Chuunin ignore her and she ignores them right back. That's the way it is in the library, where talking might actually set off someone flinging a kunai to your head. Talk when you need to, but no idle chatter.

"Here it is," Taiga says, shortly, appearing with the book in his hands. "I'll update the register to note that you've got it—at your usual table?"

Tenten takes the book gently. "Yes," she says. "Thank you."

He nods, gruffly, and she takes that as her cue to head back to that desk of hers. Everything is where she's left it, which is good, otherwise she might throw a kunai at someone. She settles in to read, losing herself in old familiar passages.

She's been reading some of these books since she started at the Academy. Notable Genin Teams only came available to her upon obtaining the rank (and she suspected that there were matching editions of Notable Chuunin Teams and Notable Jounin that were, as of yet, out of her reach) so though she's read it more than once it's still newer to her than most of the books she's reviewing today.

"Just fact checking," she murmurs under her breath as she pages through the thin, coded print of the book. It is expected the Genin could figure out this code. It is paranoid but it makes sense. Most of the books and scrolls are in some form of code.

Tenten never wants to be a code-breaker full time, but she's quite handy at deciphering the ones they use on sensitive books. (If she says so herself—and she does.)

Once she's confirmed that she was remembering right, Tenten moves onto her other books, making her notes out in a code she'd created specifically for research. It's not complicated—if you know her. And that's the point.

By her internal clock, she's been reading and working for two hours when she's disturbed.

"A-Ano, Tenten-san," Hinata's soft voice says. "Do you mind if I sit with you?"

Tenten smiles, looking up. "Sure," she says easily, noting the books in Hinata's hands. "Do you need me to guard those while you find anything else?"

Hinata shakes her head, smiling, as she slides out a seat next to Tenten and takes it. Her books don't make a sound as they are placed on the desk. "No," she says, "I've got everything I need for the moment already. Thank you."

"No problem."

Then they both go back to the books. Tenten likes studying with Hinata, for all that they study different things. Hinata understands the way the library works. While Tenten wants to know about Team 8 going back on active duty, she'll ask later.

Actually—

"Drinks, after?" she says.

"Sure," Hinata replies.

And that's that. Neither of them had looked up from their books.

It's maybe an hour after that, an hour and a half at most, when she's interrupted again and this interruption is much less welcome. It lands on her as heavy a storm. Beside her, she can tell that Hinata's frowning—her hands have stilled, fingers curling slightly.

Flicking her eyes up from her notebook, Tenten frowns at little as Shikamaru and Chouji take seats across from them. Companionably.

Except we've never been companionable. That's always been with the boys.

She's always just sort of… been there. Tenten's gotten the impression that Chouji's nice, but shy and that Shikamaru finds girls incredibly tiresome (probably a holdover from dealing with Ino, admittedly) and she's just… always had better things to do.

Word on the street is that she's standoffish.

She just doesn't want to waste her time.

Hinata knows them a little better, given that they are her classmates, but she's never said that they were friends and from the way Hinata's brow is firmly set to 'puzzled' she's just as confused as Tenten is.

"Hey," she says, dropping her eyes back down and finishing her note. "If you're here to work, there's other tables."

Go away.

"A-ano," Hinata says, the apology in her tone, not her words. "The library isn't a place for meeting up…"

Chouji looks uncomfortable—and a bit apologetic—while Shikamaru leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. And on one of her books.

He did that on purpose.

It irritates her. Can't they see she's busy?

"Nice greeting," Shikamaru says mildly, though his eyebrows are raised.

"It's not like you said anything first," she replies, equally mild, though she glances at Chouji. "How're you doing? Lee's been asking about you."

Chouji looks relieved at the question. Probably because it's politer than her first attempt at talking to them. "I'm doing a lot better," he assures her. "I'll be back on active duty soon."

Tenten nods, leaning back in her chair and nonchalantly closing her notebook, putting it on her lap. Shikamaru is clever enough to break her code, no doubt about that. "Good," she says, meaning it. "I'll let him know. He'll probably want a training session when you're up for it."

It was how Lee cared. Chouji's smile seemed to say he got that.

"Kiba-kun and Shino-kun will be happy to know that too," Hinata says. "If you don't mind my telling them?"

"Of course not," Chouji reassures her.

"We're not here for chitchat," Shikamaru grumbled.

"I know," Tenten says, leaving it at that. Hinata just nods and doesn't mention all the ways that polite small talk serves a useful purpose in smoothing awkwardness away. Their loss.

They've never talked to her outside of when she was with her team and they've never sought her out before either. She's always just kind of there.

It grates, but later. She'll think about it later.

Shikamaru allows the silence to stretch but Tenten knows this tactic—Ino's mentioned it to her, before, that Shikamaru likes to try and out-wait people and while he's good at it in battle…

He's not as patient for non-work things.

(She knows that because he's shown up, interrupting her work. He knows better. This tactic doesn't work on Hinata, either, who sits as quietly as she does.)

"Che," he mutters, after a few moments, turning his head away.

"It's about Ino," Chouji says diffidently. "We had a few questions, if that's okay."

Tenten thinks about it. It's not really okay (library, honestly, boys) but if she indulges them they might go away faster and that's better than getting kicked out if she causes a scene.

(The Chuunin are already keeping an eye on them—they're talking.)

"This really isn't the best place," Hinata points out, her voice gentle in a way that Tenten's never is.

"Keep it fast," she says, since Hinata's second admonition goes as unheard as the first. "If you get us kicked out, I'm using you both as target practice."

And she will.

"We just…," Chouji looks at Shikamaru, but Shikamaru's busy staring at her books intently. "We want to know how she's doing."

Hinata sighs.

"You could ask her that," Tenten points out. "It's not a hard question."

Except it is.

"She's not in town right now," Chouji says. "Besides, with our Clans… it wouldn't be…"

Tenten doesn't sigh, but only through sheer force of effort. Ugh. Clan things. She has enough of that just being friends with Hinata and on Neji's team. It's a detriment to her standing in the village that she's not of a Clan but, honestly, Tenten is just as glad.

Clans start somewhere anyway.

She'll make her own. A Clan of weapon masters, getting better and stronger and more varied down the ages. She'll do that with her own two hands.

"I'm not going to tell you anything she's told me," Tenten says, which isn't much, aside from training details. Tenten hasn't asked for anything other than training info and tips on improving her resistances to poisons and other substances. Ino is a veritable treasure trove of knowledge there. "You'd probably get more information just from listening out on the street."

Everyone is talking about them. Gossip ran through the lifeblood of the village—shinobi and civilians alike.

"Everyone's talking about her. And Haruno."

"But not many of them know her," Shikamaru says. "And you do." He glances at Hinata. "And you."

Tenten doesn't blink. "Not well."

"You train with her sometimes," he points out. "And there's that seminar thing you do."

"I train with a lot of people," Tenten returns. "And it's not just me and her in those meetings."

"Ino-san and Sakura-san keep their own counsel," Hinata says. "This is… uncomfortable. We are all shinobi of Konohagakure."

Tenten doesn't ask how they know about the meetings. None of them had kept it a secret that they were meeting. The first meeting's topic hadn't been secret either, though she has no idea what Hinata will be presenting next.

(It's Ino, Hinata, Tenten, and then Sakura—they'd drawn the names out of a hat to get the order.)

"If that's all," Tenten says, "I'm going to ask you to leave. We've got work to do."

She doesn't want to talk about the people everyone is talking about. Even though they are her friends.

"What are you looking up?" Shikamaru asks. "There's a lot of information on Genin teams here."

Tenten smiles thinly. "My session."

It's a lie and not a very good one, in her opinion, though Chouji seems to buy it, but Tenten presses a touch of chakra to the bottom of her desk, where a sigil is. Hinata's eyes flicker to her, holding a bit of relief.

Taiga shows up, out of nowhere.

'You two are going to have to leave," he rumbles at the boys. "You're interrupting people at work."

Shikamaru slants a glance at them (mostly her) that's mostly a glare while Chouji sighs an apology—both to her, Hinata, and the Chuunin standing over all of them. As the boys get up, Chouji asks, "Are you sure--?"

Hinata just shakes her head and refuses to say anything.

"I'm sure," she says firmly. "I don't sell-out friends. Besides, like I said, everyone is talking about them. Try listening to them."

And not pestering her, who just exists. Or Hinata, who they barely acknowledged.

(Who talks about her?)

Taiga walks them out and Tenten is just beginning to relax when he comes back, a frown on his face.

"Anything I need to know about, you two?" he asks.

She shakes her head. "I don't think so," she says. "It's just..."

"…Clan politics," Hinata finishes, with a bit of a sigh.

He grimaces, like he's bitten into a lemon.

"Alright," he says. "If that's the case, I'll let it go. Remember to recharge the sigil before you leave."

She and Hinata know that and he knows they know that but they all also know that he's obligated to tell them.

Tenten nods as he glances at the books they've accumulated between them.

"Anything interesting?"

Tenten smiles. "Not unless you know the significance of thirty-four years."

To give him credit, he thinks about it before he shakes his head. "Not off the top of my head, not in those books. I'll know by the next time you come in."

It's an old game they play.

With a wave, he leaves her to her work and she sighs, quietly.

Thirty-four years.

She has some thinking to do. Later. After she's found all the information she wants to back up her thoughts.

"I wonder why they're asking about Ino-san now," Hinata says, into their friendly silence.

Tenten frowns. "Don't know."

But they'll figure that out later, over drinks.

"Up, get up!" Hatake-sensei says, sounding way too chipper in the morning.

At least, Sakura thinks it's morning. She's not sure, as she sits up. "What time is it?"

"Way too early," Ino opines, from where she's buried in her sleeping bag. "Do we have to, Hatake-sensei?"

Sakura, squinting at Hatake-sensei (who stands in the doorway, silhouetted by lantern light), has the impression he's smiling at him.

"Five minutes," he says. "In the kitchen."

Then he's gone, even as Sakura begins to scramble up. Ino lays where she is for a moment longer before squirming out of her bag.

"The kitchen?" Ino mutters. "At least he might be planning to feed us before whatever he's got in mind."

Sakura smothers a yawn with her wrist as she pulls out a fresh change of clothes and begins the process of getting into them quickly. Ino does the opposite of her, brushing out her hair first and tying it back.

"What time is it?" she asks, again.

"Can't be past five," Ino says, peering out the window. "Otherwise we'd have woken up for our own training. He picked a time we're usually asleep on purpose, I bet."

That… sounds like their sensei. It sounds like Kakashi-sensei too. Sakura catches the brush Ino tosses at her.

"Wonder what he wants to teach us," Sakura muses, attacking her hair as Ino does the clothing scramble.

"Knowing Hatake-sensei, it's going to be something we aren't expecting," Ino says, with a little bit of a frown. "Or else he just wants to get us started on cleaning the main house."

Sakura frowns, too, at that thought. She'd be perfectly happy, she realizes, to spend a week in this little side house with her team and training.

Ino pulls her sandals on and makes for the door as Sakura tosses the brush on their bags.

"Guess we'll see," Sakura says, a bit shaken at a revelation that really shouldn't throw her off as much as it does.

Hatake-sensei has made them oatmeal.

It's field oatmeal, rather than the fancy stuff you can get if you go to the right cafes early in the morning, but it's warm and filling and rather nice, actually.

After they've washed the dishes, they head out onto the grounds. Hatake-sensei brings his lantern with him and the warm light is the only real illumination since the sky isn't yet lightening.

"Stormy day out," Sakura observes.

It's not raining, yet, but it will be. It's too dark for anything else to be coming.

The temperature is cool, little winds nipping at their hands, and Sakura is grateful that they'd had a warm breakfast. A luxury, probably since they aren't in enemy territory.

(Unless that enemy is bad memories and dust, then there is a war to wage.)

They reach an overgrown field that, nonetheless, when he holds up the lantern, Sakura recognizes—

"A training ground," Ino says, rather approvingly.

It's old and over-run but… something about it feels comforting. Maybe it's because this is so very routine to her now. Sakura feels a little more centered as she steps out onto the field.

"That's right," Hatake-sensei says. "Do your usual warm-ups and we'll get started."

They fall to their stretches as he circles the field, lighting a few other lanterns with the one he carries.

He must have set that up before coming to get us, Ino muses, her voice back in Sakura's head.

Sakura yelps, tumbling from her stretch. "Ino!"

Ino grins at her, entirely unrepentant. "You've got to get used to it."

Sakura smacks her on the arm and begins her stretch all over again. Hatake-sensei doesn't say anything but that's not his style. So long as they're doing what he wants them to do, and doing it right, he'll save other comments for after.

Do you think he slept at all? Sakura wonders, pushing the thought awkwardly in Ino's direction, uncertain if it will work.

She can feel Ino's smile in her words. Doesn't seem like it—though I suppose he could've prepared the lights yesterday, while we were cleaning.

Oh! That's honestly a bit of a relief to think about. I hope that's what he did.

But they don't worry too much more about that while they're working out the stiffness that comes from sleeping and once they're done, and sitting on the damp, over-grown grass in a ring of lights, Hatake-sensei rejoins them.

"We won't be working on conditioning too much here," he says. "Though I know you're working on arm strength and endurance, so I'll show you later where the pells are for training against. They're solid; I've tested them out."

They both nod. That means they're unlikely to be able to break them without serious effort.

"If you've got energy to burn, feel free to go there but I won't expect it while we're on the estate."

Sakura leans forward a little. "So what will we be learning today?"

"Last night we talked about sensor-nin," Hatake-sensei says, crouching down. "Today we'll be learning sensing jutsu."

Sakura frowns. Ino tilts her head.

"I know what you're thinking," he says, "but these aren't ones that only Sensor-nin can use. These are the jutsu that other ninja have come up with to work around what they can't feel innately."

"Oh," Sakura says, feeling a little silly. "I didn't realize there were—jutsu for that. I thought it was just knowledge and skill?"

It had always seemed like knowledge and skill when she watched or worked with older, higher-ranked shinobi.

"Skill is certainly part of it," Hatake-sensei says encouragingly. "As a shinobi you absolutely must be able to identify and follow signs of an enemy's passing. These jutsu are used more when you're looking for something hidden."

"Something like casting a net over the area?" Ino suggests. "Is that what you're talking about?"

"Very good," Hatake-sensei agrees. "We'll be learning one that does that today. However, there's a different kind of sensing jutsu too. Care to make a guess?"

They both fall silent.

Sakura thinks furiously while also trying to keep those thoughts to herself so that Ino doesn't pick up on them. She wants, more than she should, more than she wants to admit to herself, to get the other answer.

It would be embarrassing if Ino realized that and kept her mouth shut in order to give Sakura time to think of the answer.

"Dowsing!" she blurts out, then flushes scarlet, glad that the light might hide some of her colour.

"Correct!" Hatake-sensei says. "Good, you're both thinking. What's the difference between the two of them, Sakura?"

"Well," she says, with a glance at Ino to see if she can figure out her expression but Ino is focused on Hatake-sensei. "If you cast a net, you draw things towards you but with a dowsing rod you have to walk around and then dig up anything you find."

"Very good. Ino, do you have anything to add?"

"They've got different applications," Ino says. "Dowse when you know you're looking for a specific thing in an area that's been clearly delineated, but cast a net when you want to see what you might… fish up?"

"Good," he says, rubbing his hands together. "We'll be learning one jutsu of each type today. Tell me—which kind of sensing do you think will be better for this situation?"

"Dowsing," Sakura says. The ground is damp and chill under her but she feels warm and… useful. It's nice. "Because the estate is an enclosed space, right?"

"Very good," he says, and she has the impression he's smiling. "So we'll be learning the net first, before moving onto the one we'll be using the most while here. Any questions before we begin?"

They shake their heads.

Chapter Text

Chouji hasn't yet gotten over the tide of humiliation at being tossed out of the library—they are, in fact, just heading down the steps away from the very same place—when a laugh rings out. He'd like to pretend that someone isn't laughing at him and Shikamaru (who is slumping along with him like a particularly angry shadow) but it's hard when it's Kiba laughing and he's leaning against the railing, Shino with him, and oh so very obviously waiting for them.

He wishes he could be angry about it—being embarrassed is quite literally the worst—but he can't because he'd told Shikamaru this had been a bad idea (or, well, a bad place to execute the idea, which he still doesn't think was a bad idea, exactly) and so, while he hates the laughter, he kind of feels they deserve it.

At least Tenten and Hinata hadn't laughed at them. It's always worse coming from girls for some reason and this is quite bad enough.

Shikamaru grumbles about them rubbing it in but they don't make an effort to avoid each other. It's still new enough to see all of them up and healthy that meeting up outside of the hospital is a novelty.

Without even talking about it, they fall into place, walking down the street together. It's nice, even though he doesn't miss the fact that they're being guided, quite deliberately, to where Kiba wants them to go.

And that Shino is going along with it, which means he agrees with whatever it is that Kiba has planned.

Selfishly, Chouji hopes it's not training. He's not permitted to train outside of his Clan yet, due to his injuries. He'd hate to have to turn it down. Or, worse, sit and watch as the others practice. He's heard through the grapevine that Team 8 has been called back to active duty.

He's glad.

And he's a little jealous.

He has no idea what the shape of the new Team 10 will be like when they go back to active duty.

"How have you been doing?" he asks Shino.

Shino adjusts his glasses. "I've been able to assist my father greatly."

Chouji thinks that Shino was pleased to have been asked, though he doesn't use many words to answer him. When Shino doesn't say anything further, Chouji allows himself to be drawn into a conversation with Kiba about the reconstruction going on in this part of town. It was only minimally impacted in terms of physical damage but…

"The lives lost can't be replaced," Chouji says, nodding towards one bookstore with all of the lights off and the door closed. "The family that ran that store… most of them passed in the attack. They were in the stands. I hear they've a young daughter who was with her grandparents who has survived but it will be years before she is old enough to handle running a store."

If she even wants to, after losing her family.

"At least she's alive," Kiba says with a grim, stubborn sort of determination. "That's the important thing. More than anything else."

Shino doesn’t answer him and, on reflection, Chouji figures it’s just as well. He understands Kiba but, while he considers himself a friend to Shino, Chouji doesn't really understand him.

The restaurant and the little girl aren’t a new story. If they never open again, something else will open in its place. Konoha will grow strong once more. The Will of Fire can’t be extinguished that easily.

He listens to Shikamaru quiz Kiba on his and Akamaru’s recovery and abruptly asks, "What were you two doing outside the library anyway?"

"Training," Shino says.

Shikamaru scoffs. "At the library?"

"We were!" Kiba laughs. "Honest!"

"How?" Chouji asks curiously.

"Ah, just an exercise that Kurenai-sensei gave us to do in our free time," Kiba says easily and Chouji knows better than to push further than that.

So does Shikamaru, from his disgruntled grumble. Shikamaru likes to know things, especially interesting things, though he won't bother to look into it unless something comes up where he feels it might be useful to go through the effort of it.

"Where are we going?" Shikamaru asks, instead. "If we're going training, then no thanks."

"I'm still on medical," Chouji explains.

He doesn't add that he's not supposed to be alive right now. What he'd done had been designed as a suicide move and he'd known and accepted that.

"Nah," Kiba says.

"We're two blocks from a park," Shino says. "Will that do?"

"Yeah, that's fine," Kiba agrees. "I wasn't really thinking about where we were going anyway. Most of the training fields are booked this time of day anyway."

Shikamaru stops. "What do you want to say to us?"

"They could just want to hang out," Chouji says, tugging Shikamaru to the side of the street, so that he's at least not in everyone's way. Kiba and Shino follow. "It's nice to see everyone."

"The correct answer is that both of your expectations are accurate," Shino observes.

Kiba rolls his eyes. "This would be better somewhere more private," he says.

Shikamaru eyes them both. "I think we can stay right here."

Chouji knows it's Shikamaru's sheer, stubborn pride talking rather than his intelligence. They're already being talked about more than either of them wants to be.

"Actually," he says, a bit diffidently, "I wasn't going to say anything, but I wouldn't mind sitting down for a bit."

It's a lie, and Chouji doesn't like telling them, but it works. It's less the falsehood and more the play on Shikamaru's guilt for… the whole mission, which Chouji doesn't think he needs to feel guilty about, but… Shikamaru capitulates almost immediately and when they reach the park, finds a bench for Chouji to sit on and slouches off to get him a drink.

"Well played," Shino says. Kiba laughs.

They don't talk and, when Shikamaru gets back with drinks, which he shoves at Chouji, he gives Kiba a long, dark look. "So talk."

Chouji murmurs a thank you and pops a can open, eyes on Kiba.

Kiba grimaces, looking awkward, before he sighs. "You aren't going to like this… but look," he says briskly, as if ripping off a band aid, "I get that Ino talks a lot, but you guys are supposed to be her friends. And there's stupid shit we do and ignore about all of our friends because otherwise no one would ever be friends with anyone but—how could you ignore what she was saying to the point that she left? That's not how friends treat friends. Didn't you guys pay attention to her at all?"

"That's not fair," Chouji says. Shikamaru's expression has gone dark and closed off. Chouji wishes he hadn't wanted to talk to Shino and Kiba. "Things have been busy and—"

"Kurenai-sensei is quite firm on a problem of one teammate being a problem of all," Shino observes. "A one-off complaint is quite different from a persistently voiced problem."

"What he said," Kiba says. "It's not that we're saying you don't care or anything and we can't talk about how Team 10 was because we've been busy being Team 8, and yeah, all teams are different, but—aren't you guys the ones that are supposed to be good at teamwork? Are you guys the ones with the family background in working together? Hinata thinks that maybe that was the problem, that you both relied too much on family bonds and ignored that it takes work to be a good team."

"She didn't say that to us," Chouji says quietly.

"Yeah, well, she wouldn't, would she? It's not her place to tell you the things you ought to know." Kiba looks acutely uncomfortable. "And maybe we shouldn't be getting involved either, especially with Ino being happy on her new team. But you guys are our friends too and, yeah, we've all been busy but… friends pay attention to friends. So that's what we're doing."

Shikamaru still says nothing.

"It is unlikely that a transfer back to your team will be approved at this point," Shino says. "However, you were her friends prior to being assigned as teammates."

Chouji feels very tired. The very worst part is that they're right.

"If we can't get her back," he says, "then what do you think we should be doing instead?"

Kiba shrugs a little. "That's up to you. Do you still want to be her friend?"

"We are her friends," Shikamaru says, his voice low. He's angry.

Akamaru grumbles low in his throat. Not quite a growl but Chouji doesn't need to be good with dogs to know it's a warning. Kiba reaches down and rubs Akamaru's ears.

"If that's what you want, then act like it." Kiba's expression is frank and open. "If you need help with that, just ask, and maybe remember that it might not have been about the two of you."

"Is that something else Hinata said?" Shikamaru demands, as Chouji files that away into consideration for later. Later, when he feels less like he's been punched in the stomach again. "She says a lot to you, for someone keen to keep a friend's privacy."

"Lashing out at us and at Hinata, through us, isn't going to change things," Shino says quietly. "For the record, Hinata has said very little about Ino, aside from where the question has come up about Hinata switching teams."

"What?!"

Chouji honestly isn't sure if he said that or if Shikamaru said that or if both of them did.

"She's not," Kiba says. "Also for the record. But she's had people asking, wondering if Team 7 is going to take from another team to make a new, full Team 7. Hinata's not interested. Ino hasn't mentioned it to her. Neither has Sakura. I don't think they're looking. They might not look at all, just open membership for their next Chuunin exams. But that doesn't matter—what I was saying, that's just what I've picked up. Not anything anyone's said to me. Just… maybe keep it in mind, yeah?"

Kiba exchanges a glance with Shino, then says, "We'll let you think about it. If you need us, feel free to hit us up. Friends help each other out."

Friends help each other out.

Chouji's manners mean he gets through wishing them well, and goodbye, and he knows he'll see them later, but Kiba's last words have an uncomfortable ring of truth to them.

When was the last time they'd helped Ino out anyway?

He doesn't remember.

When he asks, neither does Shikamaru.

It's a problem but maybe it's their problem, instead of one Ino caused.

I'm stalling.

And he is. He really should've stopped the lesson at least an hour ago, but he's been actually enjoying how well Sakura and Ino are coming along with the two jutsu he's shown them for sensing and finding things.

He wonders how they'd do with tracking jutsu. They're adjacent skill sets but not the same.

He wonders if that's something Sakura might be good at, something that Ino can't follow even though she hasn't had any problems picking up the sensing jutsu. Neither has Sakura. Their inexperience in the new jutsu shows in different ways: Sakura's control is too fine, she's holding the strings of the jutsu too tightly, leaving it overly tense and fragile as a result—even knowing they're there he barely notices them, but they're too easy to break once he finds them; Ino's problem is almost the opposite, her strings are too thick, too easily noticed by any enemy sensitive to chakra. Still, her maneuvering and handling of them is exemplary given that she's a novice.

I don't want to go into the main house.

Hence the stalling. He wants his dogs back but the memories of his childhood (early childhood) home are…

A formidable foe.

"Alright," he says, noticing that Sakura is getting tired (her chakra stores are still abysmal, though they're slowly growing now that she's getting proper training). "That's enough." As he speaks, he slices through both of their strings, noting the strength it takes to do so.

Sakura sighs, rubbing at a smear of dirt on her knees, while Ino rolls her shoulders and shakes her hands out.

He smiles faintly at them. "Good first tries," Kakashi says, and means it. He can never let himself forget that these two girls could have been so much more by now—and that he's got a chance to make it right. "Sakura, we need to work on you relaxing into the jutsu. You're holding it too tightly, which makes it easily broken by disturbances. Ino, we'll have to refine your control—you're using too much chakra in each string. Think whisps of smoke instead of lines done by a pen."

Ino nods firmly, her blue eyes distant—already, he thinks, trying to decide how to do what he's ordered her to.

Sakura is frowning slightly.

"Sakura?" he prods.

She snaps back to attention and he's relieved to see that, while she's still frowning, it's confusion in her eyes rather than upset. "Sorry, Hatake-sensei," she says. "It's just… what do you mean by relax into the jutsu? The Academy teaches that we're the ones that control the jutsu, so how do I…?"

"Good question," he says, though he does catch Ino's expression of bemusement at it.

It's something Clan children learn long before they graduate, though the Academy isn't wrong. Just simplistic. He thinks at her, a firm, directed thought, for her to not say anything right now.

Ino doesn't, though she listens, and that's fine.

"Have you ever seen a movie with horseback riders?" he asks, guessing that neither of the girls has ever actually ridden horseback. And Rin always liked going to the theatre. He hopes he's guessed right that Sakura and Ino would as well.

He doesn't know what teenage girls do for fun these days.

"Yes," Sakura says slowly, her frown going nowhere though it's clear that she's willing to follow his lead.

"Alright," Kakashi says mildly. "Now tell me which was in control? The horse or the human?"

"The human?" she tried. "There's the reins and the saddle and everything, after all."

He smiles, dipping his head in agreement, then asks, "And if you don't have any of that?"

She hesitates for a moment. "There's bareback riders," Sakura ventures. "But most people can't do that…"

"That's right," he says. "Do you see what I'm getting at?"

"Not really," she admits, after a puzzled moment. "Do you mean I'm holding the reins too tightly?"

The thing is, she is, though he thinks that's a symptom of the idea that he's trying to bring her around to considering.

"I want you to view your jutsu as the horse in this scenario," he explains, "and view yourself as the rider. Together you can do anything, but if you're fighting against each other… what happens?"

"You go nowhere fast or easily," she says, grimacing.

"That's right. When you're riding, you want to be in control and the reins—the hand seals you go through—are what let you decide which way to go, but the horse is still there. And your chakra has it's own ideas of how to move and flow and…?"

"I have to work with the way it moves, for each jutsu, instead of against it," she finishes, green eyes going thoughtful before she glances up again. "But why wouldn't they cover that in the Academy?"

"It's not generally needed for the jutsu and theory taught at the Academy-level," he explains. "Especially with things like kawarimi and bunshin no jutsu. The charka usage is minimal and abrupt, not a journey. There's no flow to follow, just an order to give."

Sakura nods and doesn't ask any further questions so he orders them both to stretch out and then run through a few basic taijutsu drills. Less than they usually would but, then, they'll be spending the rest of the day cleaning.

He doesn't need to exhaust them quite yet. The main house will do that for him.

Once they're done, and cooled down, Sakura speaks again, with another question, "What about the bareback riders?"

Kakashi smiles.

"That would be the bloodline limits. They don't need the reins as their connection with the horse they're riding goes deeper than that."

He allows this to stand as is while getting to his feet. With a nod, he orders them to do the same. "Come along," Kakashi says. "The house won't clean itself."

Though he does wish it would.

If this gets him his dogs back, though, it will be worth it.

It's taken days to get a meeting with Tsunade-sama.

Asuma supposes that he ought to take that, all by itself, as a clue. It's unsettling how much it discomfits him. He'd hated being the son of the Hokage but it's strange, now, to have to wait just like any other shinobi.

Heh. I'm never happy.

Dwelling on that is easier than dealing with the rest of it. The side-eyed looks he gets from shinobi whose names he doesn't even know. The way that he is equal parts ignored and avoided. The shame that already slips around the cracks in conversations.

Asuma ignores it.

He's dealt with all of this before, when he'd left the village originally, wanting to get out from under his father's impressive shadow.

Honestly, so far the fallout of Ino's choice just means more of the same and he can and will weather this storm.

But I will get to the bottom of this.

Kakashi hadn't been Kakashi. For the hundredth time, Asuma replays the conversation at the restaurant. It had been like talking to a near stranger, an acquaintance at most. Familiar but not familiar enough.

That Ino had left Team 10 to join Sakura… well. That was one thing. Before this, he'd already quietly started putting together plans under the assumption that when it came to the next Chuunin exams that Sakura would be joining his team and taking them with Ino and Chouji, since she and Ino were friends and both teams would need additional members in order to have three people to take the exam.

It would have been good for Shikamaru, too, to get that experience in leading his peers in a less fraught, less perilous situation.

He hadn't considered that Ino would choose to leave Team 10 and join the shattered Team 7. It hadn't even crossed his mind in his wildest dreams. Asuma is a good shinobi, a good Jounin. Ino had been incredibly vocal about her distaste for Kakashi.

It just didn't make sense for Ino to join Hatake Kakashi's Team 7, no matter how close her friendship with Sakura was.

And even that, he had to admit he didn't understand it. They had seemed to be both friends and enemies during the Chuunin exams and the boys hadn't seemed any wiser about what was going on between them. If anything, Asuma had thought they were rivals. Some odd Academy holdover.

But there's no Academy holdover that would be strong enough for a Clan heir to just up and shatter a functional team to prop up a broken one when there were alliance ties with her teammates that went back centuries.

Ino's a traditionalist. He's known this since he read her Academy profile, the very start of her shinobi file.

The worst part is, if I follow that thought to the logical conclusion…

Then the answer lies in that, for both herself and her Clan, Ino had come to the conclusion that Sakura's broken Team 7 was a better fit. That Yamanaka Inoichi had signed off on the transfer meant he agreed with her.

There's no girlish friendship, no matter how powerful, that would have swayed Ino's father, the head of ANBU Intelligence, if he'd thought it would be bad for his Clan and his heir.

Ino was impetuous and reckless and had the devil's own luck. Inoichi was like ice.

He dotes on his daughter but it's nothing compared to keeping his Clan strong. Asuma knows this.

Which brings the fault of it all right back around to Asuma, where it sits uneasily on his shoulders. He hasn't yet decided what his flaws were.

And now, with her out of the village, I can't even ask…

Though asking straight out… that would have been difficult in any case. He knows that Shikamaru and Chouji have been having trouble getting to talk to her alone—she's always with Sakura or her father—and without the title of sensei to back him, well, it would be strange for Asuma to talk to her privately.

People would talk.

And they're already talking enough.

And, oh, Asuma hates that. Whispers follow him and so do eyes. Some sympathetic but more just wondering, judging, trying to figure out what had gone so very wrong. It would be easier to cope with if he knew, but he doesn't.

"Sarutobi-san," one of the Chuunin guards says. "Hokage-sama will see you now."

It's a strange thing, having been forced to wait. He'd hated being the son of the Hokage—Asuma has never wanted to aim for that but it was expected, almost demanded, of him until he left the village for a few years—but he's never had to wait.

Yet another reminder of how things are different.

He misses his old man. There hasn't been time to really mourn. A funeral and then back to running missions, back-to-back, trying to put the village back together and finding out that while he'd been doing that, his team had gone and fallen apart on him.

Asuma pushes himself off the wall he'd been leaning against and murmurs a thanks as he walks past the Chuunin and into the Hokage's office.

Every Hokage has done it differently.

Gone is the smell of smoke, the wild stacks of clutter, papers that his father always meant to read and maybe got around to now and then. He remembers how the Yondaime's office had been, for the short period of time he'd held the office. It had been wild, then, a frenzy of work that was organized in such a way that only the Yondaime had been able to find anything.

Now, it's almost painfully neat. There's a stack of paper on the desk but nothing like what he's used to seeing. The room is scoured clean, smells faintly of the same cleaners they use in the hospital, and the windows are wide open.

Defiantly so.

There's been additional storage added in the form of shelving and drawers.

From what he's heard, and knows, he suspects that most of the order here is brought about by Tsunade's assistant, Shizune.

But thoughts like that fly out of his head as he meets Tsunade-sama's brown eyes. "Hokage-sama," he says, and the title feels strange on his lips.

He'll get used to it. Right now, though, it reminds him of his father.

"Sarutobi Asuma," the Hokage says, a faint smile on her lips. "How can I help you?"

Just like that, if the fact that he'd been forced to wait days hadn't been enough of a clue, he knows that he's got to tread carefully here. Tsunade-sama is not on his side and she will not entertain returning things back to the way they had been simply because that was how they'd been.

He'll have to pick his words carefully.

"As you know, Yamanaka Ino has recently chosen to leave Team 10, led by myself, to join Hatake Kakashi's Team 7," he says, keeping his voice level and his tone even. He must stick to the facts. "When I requested to see the paperwork detailing the change, specifically her reasons for doing so, I was informed that I would have to speak with you in order to access the same."

Which is unusual.

He's checked the laws, had once he'd been turned away, and discovered that under ordinary circumstances a former sensei has always had the ability and the right to the paperwork filed in regards to a transfer.

"Furthermore," he says, in the face of Tsunade's silence, "when I went to look at the mission logs, I discovered that everything pertaining to the new Team 7," Asuma had been able to look at all of the mission specs for the original Team 7, comprised of Haruno, Uzumaki, and Uchiha without issue, "has been blacked out."

For a Genin team that's incredibly unusual.

Even the C-rank mission that had turned into an A-rank job for the original Team 7 had had some information available to him, as a Jounin of Konohagakure no Sato.

In fact, everything about Hatake Kakashi and his new team, with it's stolen member, was locked down. It was… concerning. And, as the sensei missing a team member, it was frustrating. Team 10 was going to struggle now and he didn't even know why—nor did he have the information at his disposal to make a more educated guess.

"Sarutobi," Tsunade-sama says, leaning back in her chair. "The information you're looking for has been classified for good reasons."

"As Yamanaka Ino's former sensei, traditionally I should be able to access her reasoning, in her own words, for leaving," Asuma says. "Additionally, Hatake Kakashi was not acting as himself and that concerns me."

Especially with Ino having left to join a team under this different Hatake.

"I'm aware that her leaving was signed off by her father," he adds. "But I'm concerned and confused as to why I cannot access anything about her."

Then, feeling he's said enough, Asuma waits.

Patience is something he was terrible at, as a child, but as an adult, he's able to wait without obvious discomfort, no matter how much it grates at him.

"Access to Hatake Kakashi's current status is restricted as per my orders," Tsunade says finally, once she's looked her fill at him.

Asuma has no idea what she's seen in him, though he's refused to look away, meeting her eyes steadily. He feels lost and off-put and wonders how many shinobi felt this way around his father. He's never considered his father as someone to be uneasy around. Feared, yes, should they be anything but loyal but…

That was different.

"As such, most of the current Team 7's information is also restricted on a need-to-know basis."

Asuma does not need it to be spelled out to him that she feels he doesn't need to know. He nods, slightly, still standing at attention and feeling like a scolded schoolboy.

"That being said, you're correct that as Yamanaka Ino's former sensei, you are entitled to read her exit thoughts," Tsunade-sama says. She picks up a thin folder and he realizes that she's known what he'd come for this whole time. "Some minor modifications have been made, as per the current information blackout, but I believe you'll find her reasoning to be clear enough all the same."

She holds out the folder.

Asuma takes it carefully, like it might bite him.

Given everything these days, he almost expects it to.

"This is a copy," Tsunade-sama says. "Once read, it will immolate itself. I suggest you commit it to memory. No further copies will be provided until the blackout has ceased."

"Thank you, Hokage-sama." Asuma nods slowly. He's never felt like more of a stranger in his own village than now. "And my concerns about Hatake?"

"I assure you, those have been heard," Tsunade-sama says. "And taken under advisement. You're dismissed."

He bows and, rather than leaving through the door, he disappears in a swirl of leaves and smoke, landing a few rooftops over.

Asuma glances back at the Hokage's office. Then, with a deep breath, looks down at the folder he's carrying gingerly.

That… could have gone better. It's not a good sign that the Hokage holds him in such low esteem (and that was it, mingled with nearly unreadable sympathy: she disdains him) but she had given him half of what he'd come for.

With knowledge, he can figure out where it all went wrong.

It could also have gone worse.

Asuma doesn't kid himself. There's little chance he can fix this, especially with so many secrets wrapped around Hatake Kakashi, but at least… at least he'll know a little more.

Chapter Text

Discretion. Circumspection. Timing.

It's a fact that, in the first few years of any Yamanaka's life, they are never left unattended by elders in the Clan. Babbling toddlers have no concept of secrecy and the clumsy, flailing motions of learning to roll over, sit up, stand, walk and then run… that clumsiness is replicated in the way their minds reach out, gleefully, looking for the next shiny, incomprehensible bauble to explore.

And, like any child, they can easily cause harm in their explorations—both to themselves and to the unaware people whose minds are within reach.

Ino's not a baby, or a toddler, and while she's not full-grown yet, she's considered an adult in the eyes of the village, if not in the eyes of her Clan. She knows the value of keeping secrets and she knows how to say a million things while saying absolutely nothing at all.

Yamanaka tend to either be too chatty or too quiet but it's the same thing, in the end, it's just a way to draw lines between what they should say and what they could say. Ino talks because she likes talking but it's a tool, too, and one she's been drilled in for her whole life.

So she doesn't say anything as Hatake-sensei stalls, scolds himself for stalling, and then stalls again. She's never lost her family (and her mind shudders away from that) or her home so she can't really figure out how to help him—if he even wanted her help. Sometimes people don't want help with the things that hurt them.

Ino struggles with understanding that too.

Growing up, there's always been someone around to help her when she's needed it and, in return, she's always helped those who've needed it back. That's just how family works even though Ino's old enough to know that it's not how families work for a lot of people.

Including Sakura.

"What are we going to do first, Hatake-sensei?" she asks, figuring a solid goal might be the thing to get them moving. "Are we going to get the lay of the Main House first or should we just enter and start cleaning room-to-room and search as we clean?"

She hears his disdain for himself, the flicker quick resentment that he's not better than this, and the firm thought that he hadn't brought them here to clean.

"What do you think, Sakura?" Ino continues blithely, before all of those conflicting thoughts sort themselves into words.

Sakura glances between her and Hatake-sensei, her green eyes dubious. "Well," she says hesitantly. "It's much nicer to search when things are clean… but I don't know if I want to spend our time here cleaning either…"

What do you want me to say?! Sakura's inner voice demands.

Ino shrugs back at her. It doesn't really matter. There's no right or wrong answer here, just something to push them forward instead of walking in endless stalling circles.

"I guess we can just see what it's like?" Sakura offers. "And make our decision then?"

"Sounds good to me," Ino says, since it is, and Hatake-sensei is moving again.

"Besides," Sakura adds, "it's going to rain soon."

Ino laughs. "You won't melt!"

"Maybe I will!"

They bicker, cheerfully, as they wind their way through the over-grown trails and paths of the Hatake estate and while Hatake-sensei doesn't say anything, he also doesn't try to stop them, and Ino can tell that he's at least a little bit amused.

And he's also a little surprised to realize that he knows them well enough to know when they're really arguing and when they're just… entertaining themselves.

"Oh!" Ino says, as they round a corner. "Hatake-sensei, do you think there's any chance the summoning scroll is outside in the gardens?"

The idea just occurred to her and, from the way Sakura stops and looks around in the gloom, it's just hit her too.

"Because of the dogs?" Sakura says. "Maybe they buried it?"

Hatake-sensei is also looking around and while she can't read his expression, Ino is pretty sure that he's never thought about it either. "I suppose we can't rule it out," he says, sounding a little nonplussed at the idea.

"Would the jutsu you taught us work here?" Sakura asks. "Or would we have to… dig… everything up?"

Sakura doesn't sound enthused by that and, honestly, neither is Ino.

She makes a face. "It's going to take us a lot longer than a week if we've got to dig," Ino points out. "Though I guess with the client here, a change in mission parameters isn't out of the question."

"I'll think about it," Hatake-sensei says. "We'll look inside first. If it's not in the Main House, we'll figure out the best way to move forward then."

Ino giggles. "Do you know digging jutsu, Hatake-sensei? Or would we have to hope some shovels are still intact?"

"A cruel sensei like me would make you do it with your hands," he says, curving his visible eye into a smile. There's no sting to his words. He's joking just like they are. It makes her happy to feel that.

"If that happens, I want hazard pay," Sakura says, as lightning cracks across the sky. "Also, unless we're staying outside, I'd like to get inside before we get soaked!"

"Are you sure you're not made of sugar?" Ino asks, though she, too, picks up her pace. Ino doesn't really want to have to spend the afternoon cleaning while she's damp and chilled to the bone thanks to rain either.

No one here would care about what her hair would look like but she'd care about that too. Ino keeps her mouth shut on that, though, since Hatake-sensei isn't huge on catering to vanity. It's just not practical enough for him.

"You're both made of salt," Hatake-sensei declares, before Sakura can shoot back with a retort. "If the scroll is out here, it's survived worse than a rainstorm. We'll check inside first. Come on, that's enough."

Everything will be fine.

Inoichi is absolutely, completely certain of this. It's a bit inconvenient that his daughter has chosen a path that deviates from the one he'd gently set her upon from before she was ever born, but he's sure it will all work out.

Sometimes the paths that go off the well-known trails are the ones most interesting to follow.

And Satsuki would have approved.

She never had been as keen as he had been on the idea of generation upon generation reprising the same skills and teamwork, always looking for something different, something that might work better. Of course, she'd been a second generation kunoichi without any long traditions to fall back on and she had been incredibly prideful in her own determination to carve her own path.

The idea of ancient traditions holding personal relevance to her family, and, in time, her daughter had been something she'd never considered when Inoichi had first asked her out.

She'd said no when he'd asked her the first time. A year later, after working out of the same camp, she'd asked him, and it had been history from there.

Inoichi smiles faintly.

His wife is long dead, but Inoichi still misses her ferociously. She'd be proud of her daughter for choosing a path that was right for her and supported a friend's journey at the same time.

Inoichi is also proud of his daughter.

He hadn't expected the request for a transfer but then he also hadn't expected the entire situation with Hatake. Had Hatake been the same one who had ruined his Team 7, then Ino would never have asked. He would never have approved either.

Nor had she chosen to change teams out of spite.

He wouldn't have approved of a transfer for a reason like that either. Petty squabbles and ugly arguments were part of teamwork and it was, frankly, better for them to fight it out and become stronger for having done so than intervening when Shikamaru's choice had been a one-off.

A pattern of being left behind would be a different situation altogether. Inoichi has read the reports and the mission parameters that Shikamaru had been given and while he would have made different choices... he has the experience in forming teams and making them work that Shikamaru hadn't.

He sees Ino's side of things, but he doesn't disagree with Shikamaru's choices made under pressure for a mission a bunch of Genin should never have been on in the first place.

No, it shouldn't have happened the way it had but it had and there's no point in trying to rewrite the past with the present's pen.

Nonetheless, Inoichi is glad that Ino will be out of town for a little while. He can feel her--even when he's not trying, he always knows where his daughter is when they're both in the village and it's a comfort to them both, usually, but her upset weighs heavily on him and if he can iron out the worst of the Clan drama while she's gone...

Well, it will only benefit the both of them. Hatake was not entirely wrong when he mentioned that Inoichi was coddling his daughter. He is, but not to weaken her. He wants her strong and he won't interfere with her relationships with her peers... but he will handle those who really are old enough to know better.

He goes looking for her with his mind and can't find her.

Hatake hadn't told him much about the mission they were going on and Inoichi hadn't pried, knowing good and well that should he really want to know he'd be able to get his hands on the mission brief. Instead, he was trusting Hatake, the weird, out of time version that was determined to do better.

Ino wanted him to stay. So did Sakura.

As a parent, he wanted the more competent teacher to remain. As a shinobi of the leaf... it was more complicated. This Hatake Kakashi didn't belong in this time and Inoichi was on the team meant to figure out how to send him back and retrieve their Hatake Kakashi. Inoichi prided himself on being very good at his job.

He also prided himself on being a good father.

Navigating the thin line between the two halves was an... interesting task.

He did wonder where Hatake had gone with the girls though. He'd followed their progress, tracking Ino's mind, and then they had abruptly... disappeared. Had it not been for the tangled anticipation and apprehension he'd gotten from his daughter right before they'd gone he'd have been concerned.

As it was, he was intrigued.

They hadn't been near any of the gates out of the village but at the same time they were no longer in it.

The spirit of my request, he thinks wryly, if not the letter.

Whatever it was, it suited both of their purposes. He'd take it.

And for now, I might be the only one who does. Well, he's an old hat at getting his way.

And this is for his daughter, which is even more incentive.

Inoichi hums a little as he bends his head over the arrangement he's working on. It's a civilian order, nothing dangerous, but it's a point of pride to make very arrangement look as good as possible. They might make most of their money through their poisons but the flowers are part of their aesthetic.

When Shikaku and Chouza show up, Inoichi stays with the flowers, knowing they'll let themselves in and come find him. This is different from the more formal meeting they'd had a few days ago in the greenhouse, where the boys had been allowed in, and many of the adults in the Clans who were in the village too. Ino had had so many mixed feelings on being excluded from that meeting but Inoichi still thinks it was for the best.

"Hey," he says, carefully winding a sprig of baby's breath into his work as the door to his workshop opens and his teammates come through.

Tonight they're at the shop, rather than the greenhouses, and that alone makes this less formal.

"Good evening," Chouza says, taking a bench to sit on while Shikaku heads straight for where Inoichi hides sake.

He doesn't usually drink while working but sometimes he does.

"Where did you send your daughter?" Shikaku asks, curiously not judgementally, once he's poured them all a drink. "It's driving Shikamaru mad."

"No idea," Inoichi says cheerfully. "I asked her sensei to take them on a mission out of town for a week. He obliged. I haven't looked into the briefs."

He keeps his thoughts about how he doesn't think they actually left the village to himself. The whole point was to make everyone believe she wasn't here. She's unreachable for the moment and that is the important part of what he'd wanted.

Shikaku hums thoughtfully, sounding a little amused. "You trust that man?"

"Has anything been figured out about his condition?" Chouza asks.

That's an interesting question. Inoichi does a sweep for minds before he answers that.

"He's Hatake Kakashi, through and through," he says, picking up a slim set of clippers. "He's just from the wrong time. We're pretty certain at this point that he's been swapped with himself. I'm not involved in the attempt to decipher the jutsu that would have managed to do that, except peripherally, but they're leaning towards a bloodline limit because it happened in the heat of battle and didn't require set up. As for if we can send him back..."

Inoichi falls silent for a moment, thinking about what to say next.

"We're not sure if it's possible at this point. It's been nearly a month since he showed up here and attempts to reach our timeline's Hatake have failed thus far." He smiles faintly. "Of course, playing with time is always a mess."

There's a good reason most jutsu don't do that. They play with the perception of time, trick the mind into thinking things are faster or slower than are actually happening... but actual time travel is a different thing entirely.

"He's both physically and mentally healthy and has been cleared by the Hokage for duty." He looks up to find both Shikaku and Chouza watching him and finishes with, "Hatake Kakashi has always been a loyal shinobi of Konohagakure no Sato. He remains so, just a little out of step with time."

Shikaku sighs. "But as a teacher?" For your heir?

The second question goes unsaid but not unasked.

"I am keeping my mind on him," Inoichi says mildly. "After all, it's not as if the original Hatake was any good at teaching."

"It's interesting that this one is," Chouza rumbles thoughtfully. "He's how many years out of step? What happened in those years that..."

Ruined him?

"He's about six and a half years out of time," Inoichi says. "And we don't know what changed. We're looking into it. So far the major change was that he left ANBU."

Shikaku scoffs. "No one is more functional in ANBU than out of it."

"It is more structured," Chouza points out, as Inoichi shrugs, carefully trimming an extraneous bud off a stem. "Maybe that's the difference? Jounin don't really have structure unless they make it themselves. Chuunin are more controlled."

And Genin are literally babysat by their Jounin-sensei.

"Maybe," Shikaku allows, though he continues in what Inoichi thinks of as his devil's advocate voice with: "But being a Jounin-sensei is more structured than either ANBU or Jounin. Wouldn't have becoming a teacher helped him in this timeline then?"

"Not if he was forced into it," Inoichi observes. "And he's been failing teams for years. He doesn't want to teach. That it turns out his younger self is a good teacher doesn't change that."

Chouza frowns a little. "And he had two... problematic students with personal ties to his triggers. I'd probably be a bad teacher if I had been put in his shoes, with his background."

None of them had ever been Jounin-sensei. They were too useful elsewhere.

"Now, instead of being forced into something where he has to face his traumas every day... he's training a civilian born girl and a clan heir he has no personal ties to. And he's doing it to make the best of a bad situation. It's a different set of circumstances."

That could be it. It could be something as simple as that. Inoichi doesn't yet know but he will, eventually. There's nothing that he's ever wanted to know that he doesn't learn eventually.

"Either way," he says, "that's the story of Hatake Kakashi for now. If I thought return was imminent for the original Hatake, I wouldn't have allowed Ino to switch teams. Sarutobi's a poor enough teacher but he's not actively out to kill them."

The three of them are quiet, then, as Shikaku and Chouza drink and Inoichi works on his flowers.

On paper, Sarutobi Asuma had been a good match. He was steady, a solid Jounin, independent but loyal to the village, and had some knowledge of previous Nara-Yamanaka-Akimichi teams. His skills dovetailed nicely with theirs.

But they had not counted on him being lazy.

And even for their three clans, it would have been a complicated matter to turn down the Hokage's son as a Jounin-sensei.

They'd expected Ino to have to counter-balance Shikamaru, as she was too driven and he was too lackadaisical, and Chouji was the balance for both of them, a calming influence because they were both high strung and quick to judgement. They were very alike, in many ways.

(And both would deny it ferociously.)

They had not expected that Ino would have to try and balance out her sensei's laziness as well or that Sarutobi would lean into training Shikamaru's intelligence at the cost of the entire team's fieldwork. Of course, Shikamaru would rather play shougi. Of course, Chouji would rather eat yakitori than train.

And, of course, Ino hadn't been able to be a proper balance when three had been weighed against her. No matter how clever and driven and outspoken she was, she was still a Genin, a thirteen year old, striving against a Jounin's inertia.

And a girl.

It shouldn't matter, but it does.

"Well," Shikaku says, "Shikamaru doesn't want to change sensei. It doesn't particularly matter for him, now that he's made Chuunin, since his assignments are going to be more skill-based and less team-based. Not sure if he's realized that yet or if he assumes it's just a temporary measure until Chouji's full healthy again. He will be learning more, whether he wants to or not now. Otherwise he'll just be another dead Chuunin."

The words sound cold, like Shikaku isn't talking about his son and heir, who he loves deeply, but Inoichi knows better.

Shikaku sounds cold because otherwise he'll get too heated.

"In that aspect, his first mission as a Chuunin was good for him. He understands that being in charge needs more than brains now. And that not being strong enough, good enough, could land him with dead comrades." Shikaku downs his latest drink and pours another. "And friends."

Chouza makes a distressed sound. It was his son that nearly died. Shikaku flashes an apologetic look his way.

"Chouji hasn't asked what will happen to Team 10 yet," Chouza says slowly. "He's mostly been focused on his own recovery and on the emotional upheaval caused by this situation. I'd like to get his opinion before making any decisions about his future as a Genin."

Inoichi nods.

With Ino on another team and Shikamaru as a Chuunin, it's going to change a great many things for Chouji, once the fallout settles.

"Personally," Chouza continues, "I'm against asking for him to be transferred to Hatake Kakashi's Team 7. It would be an easy fix to make a viable team and it would calm a number of rumours, but while it's under… new management now and Ino-chan seems to be doing well, I feel it would be a poor fit for all three Genin involved. Chouji's very hurt by Ino's betrayal, and he does blame Haruno for it, though he's trying not to. Pushing the three of them together would only exacerbate their problems."

"And no chance of Ino being returned to Team 10, is there," Shikaku says, though it's not really a question.

Inoichi shakes his head. "None," he says firmly.

If there had been, he never would have allowed Ino to tell Team 10 of the transfer. Especially not in public. Before that, they could have passed it off as a temporary situation while Chouji healed. There were many such temporary arrangements as the village worked on putting itself back together and finding the new normal.

"If our original Hatake is returned to us, that might change," he adds. "Otherwise, no. Ino is thriving for the first time since graduation."

"This is going to snowball," Shikaku says, a warning in his voice. "It always does when someone dares to make waves. Other Genin are going to realize that they don't have to stay with teams they don't work optimally with now. It's not supposed to be about getting along."

"That's true," Inoichi agrees. "If this was just a personality clash, it would have been a different outcome. But this was a training problem and Ino found a way to fix it for her. Every Genin that wants to transfer is going to have to find a team that's willing to take them, convince the sensei to take them, get permission from their parents, and speak with the Hokage about why they want to change teams. I think there will be less changes than you expect. It's a lot of work for a Genin to switch teams, especially when it's initiated by the Genin themselves."

"The worst part is going to be the talk," Chouza murmurs. "People are already asking what was wrong with her team. Everyone knows that Ino-Shika-Chou teams are supposed to be rock-solid."

They usually are.

"So we blame Sarutobi," Inoichi says. "The Sandaime has passed. Tsunade-sama, as Godaime, has no reason to shield Sarutobi the way the Sandaime would have."

"And people say I'm cold," Shikaku murmurs, but he laughs, a harsh sound. "Between that, Ino's friendship with Haruno, and Shikamaru already being a Chuunin, once we get our Clans on board with the story, it should be manageable. Even Chouji's long recovery helps in this case. A healthy kunoichi can't be seen just sitting around just waiting for training. It's impetuous, her jumping teams, but then…"

"Ino is, I know," Inoichi says, and he loves and fears it in about equal measures. He desperately hopes it doesn't get her killed some day. "Are we agreed, then?"

"Yes," Chouza says.

Shikaku shrugs a little. "Sure."

"Alright," Inoichi says, with relief in his voice. "Then, onto the next matter of business. In-Clan damage control."

"I might just drop a couple of them out windows," Shikaku grumbles. "Back-talking brats… some of them are way too old to be acting the way they are too…"

"Names, Shikaku," Chouza says, amused. "We can't fix it without names."

Chapter Text

Sakura doesn’t know what to expect of the Main House, aside from more dirt and pain, and while she can help with the first, she can’t really help with the second, no matter how clever Ino was about trying to get them out of having to go inside today.

Sakura assumes this is what the whole thing about looking for the scroll in the dirt and ground was about. Ino isn't the sort of person to volunteer to dig around in the dirt, no matter how much she likes planting and caring for flowers.

It's totally different kinds of dirt, anyway, compared to the effort it would take to shovel up everything on the grounds.

Sakura is deeply, deeply glad that it didn't work, as far as suggestions went. If they'd been stuck out digging in a thunderstorm she might have never forgiven Ino.

(Okay, she would have. But she would have grumbled.)

As far as attempts went, even though it didn’t work anyway, Sakura considers it to have been a valiant effort and she’s pretty sure that Hatake-sensei appreciates the thought. Maybe that’s all that they can really do, anyway, in making sure he knows they’re thinking about him and, the thing is, she is.

And it feels… good.

To know that her thought and consideration and care is noticed, observed, and reciprocated as the opportunity arises. Because thinking about that too hard just makes her emotional and she’s already the crybaby of their little three-man team (she knows that Hatake-sensei is gentler on her emotions than on Ino’s and she’s pretty sure that’s why even though he doesn’t, refuses, to hold-back on deserved criticism or praise alike) Sakura shoves all those thoughts away and, instead, just inside the Main House scuffs one sandaled foot through all the grime on the floor and glumly observe the bright, smeary streak her sandal leaves behind.

That’s disgusting.

Rain is starting to fall behind them in thick, fat drops that bode poorly for anything outside staying dry.

She'll take being inside. Even inside here.

Ino peers over her shoulder. "Cleaning it is then?" she says, with a questioning look at Hatake-sensei. "Or do you want us to--?"

Hatake-sensei has mastered the art of looking far away and remote but Sakura doesn’t believe he’s ignoring them. He manages to be lost in his thoughts and paying attention to them. She doesn't understand how he can do these two contradictory things at the same time. Maybe it's some weird Jounin skill.

He doesn’t smile, not even the faintest hint of it, like he might some other time and place, but he nods. "Cleaning today," he says. "You’re both too low on chakra to be effective with the jutsu I taught you. Get a feel for the layout and then start cleaning."

He doesn’t say what he’ll be doing and he also doesn’t say they should be looking as they clean, just in case, but Sakura hears both things and resolves that, unless they find something that absolutely needs his attention that she’ll leave him alone.

"Yes, Hatake-sensei," they say in tandem and watch as he nods, gives a vague sort of wave, and then drifts further into the house without them.

Sakura watches him go, feeling a little forlorn and abandoned.

"Stop sulking," Ino says, clapping her on the shoulder. "Let's get some light going and we'll start figuring out… where to start…"

The fact that even Ino feels this is going to be a long, almost impossible task makes Sakura feel irrationally better.

"I think we should locate a kitchen," Sakura says, with a frown at the grossness they're walking on. "And a bathroom. Those should be cleaned first and then we can expand our sphere of influence. Besides, if it's still storming later, Hatake-sensei might not want to head back to the guest house."

It's too dark in the Main House to make out Ino's expression.

"I think he probably will," Ino says. "But your idea makes as much sense as anything else, so we'll start there."

Sakura hesitates a moment, not sure of which way to go. "Do you have any idea where a kitchen might be located in this sort of house?" she asks.

"Big compounds like this really aren't the Yamanaka style," Ino says thoughtfully. "It's more a Nara or Akimichi thing. Generally, though, the kitchens are going to be near the back of the house, on the main floor. Come on, let's go look."

Fearlessly, despite the near dark, Ino sets off down the hall and Sakura scrambles to follow her.

"What do we do if we find Hatake-sensei?" Sakura asks, in a low voice. "I mean, he just…"

"Wandered off?" Ino suggests.

"Yeah," Sakura says. "That."

"I think the best thing to do right now is to treat it like he's acting normal," Ino says slowly. "I mean, it's not normal, but unless we have a burning question or a need for him, I don't think should really try to disturb him?"

"But if he comes and talks to us, just act like everything's the same as always?"

Sakura is pretty sure she can do that. Or. Well. She can at least try.

"I think so," Ino says. "A lot of shinobi don't want to be noticed when they're not handling something very well. So if we don't need to draw attention to it, we probably shouldn't."

"And if we need to, then there's something more important than his grief going on?" Sakura says slowly. "Is that what you mean? Ino, that sounds… kinda harsh."

Ino is quiet for long enough that Sakura is starting to get anxious, wondering if she's upset Ino and now it's just her who isn't upset and if she'll have to figure out how to cheer up both her sensei and her best friend in the dirtiest place she's ever been.

"It's harsh," Ino admits. "But it's also true. If we start screaming for him then it's because something we can't handle is probably trying to kill us and, in that case, our lives really are more important than his grief. And… and I think that Hatake-sensei would agree with me too."

Sakura doesn't know what to say to that and Ino doesn't really seem to feel like wanting to talk as she lapses into a thoughtful sort of silence, so Sakura just… allows the silence to drag out.

They find the kitchen after three false turns and they don't find Hatake-sensei anywhere. They're making enough noise, though, that if he wanted to avoid them, he easily could. They're quiet but they're not Jounin quiet.

And once they start cleaning, they're not even Genin quiet.

Especially not once they get some of the lights working—which is both encouraging, since dank, dirty places are always less oppressive in the light and also depressing because, well, it's gross enough in here that she almost wishes they could just leave the lights off.

The real prize of the afternoon, though, is the ancient radio that they find on the windowsill over the sink.

"Do you think it still works?" Sakura asks as Ino carefully lifts it down so they can better look at it.

"Nothing is going to work when this dirty," Ino declares, then she grins. "But maybe once it's clean we can get it to tune into a station. Even enka music would be better than nothing, right?"

"Maybe," Sakura says, with a bit of a laugh. "But I'd rather something a bit less old people music, Ino!"

"Beggars can't be choosers!" Ino crows and for a little while, the kitchen's disarray is ignored as they carefully do their best to make the radio gleam.

It takes them the better part of twenty minutes to get it clean and another forty-five minutes to get it to work but it's totally worth it—

Cleaning goes a by a lot faster with laughter and music to go along with the work.

It's late evening and Hinata is mulling over her research in her bedroom, having enjoyed a bite to eat with Tenten after the library and has almost, though not quite, been able to put the whole… experience… with Shikamaru and Chouji behind her.

She's still not sure what to think, except that she hadn't enjoyed the conversation.

The clock is a steady reminder that soon she'll have to leave her thoughts and her words and rest. Team 8 has training tomorrow and she wants to be in top form for that. Anything else would be an embarrassment after so long without a proper meeting.

"When are you leaving your team?" Hanabi asks, all young, cold impudence from her doorway as it's abruptly opened. Hanabi doesn't bother with knocking. With her, is Neji, who's expression is much harder to read.

Hinata sees them from the small mirror she keeps on her desk and doesn't look at them yet.

Hinata is surprised by the words but not by her sister's presence. Even if she hadn't had the mirror set, she would have noticed her coming. She hadn't noticed Neji coming with her but, even still, she savours that tiny triumph and then, deliberately, Hinata takes a moment to finish the sentence she was writing in her journal before she turns to look at the two of them.

"I'm not leaving my team," Hinata says calmly. The serenity is real. Now that she's confirmed as much with her team, the idea of actually leaving them seems absolutely impossible. Moreso because she doesn't want to.

Because manners must be used to be learned, Hinata stands. "Hanabi, Neji-nii-san, please come in. Would you care for anything to drink?"

Hanabi plops herself down on a floor cushion like an irritable storm cloud. Neji takes the chair, which Hinata pulls out for him with a small smile, since he's still recovering from nearly dying. He's back in training now, at least in the family, but he's still going three times a week to the hospital for check ups by Tsunade-sama herself.

"Tea, please, Hinata-sama," he says.

Once upon a time he wouldn't have been so polite to her. If Hinata were a spiteful person, she would dwell on that, but Hinata is just glad he's happier these days.

"I have cookies too," she says, knowing that Hanabi will want those (and she does, her little sister takes three as soon as the plate is set out). Their father would be appalled.

Hinata says nothing.

"Everyone at school says you're leaving your team," Hanabi says, once she's taken a bite out of each cookie. (That way no one can steal them from her.) "But you're not even going to tell us before you do? Even Dad thinks you're going to."

Hinata hesitates slightly as she makes the tea. "I was under the impression that father thinks as little of me as possible."

It's a more complicated situation these days than not but she still remembers the way he'd tossed her to the Academy telling the instructors there to make something of her since he could not find a use for her.

These days, he's a little more yielding. A little more of the man she thinks her mother must have loved.

But change comes slowly and while they've been able to converse over a meal in a civilized manner these days, there's been none of the closeness he shares with Hanabi nor the training he lavishes upon Neji, and Hinata has learned over the years to not expect more from her father. If it happens, it will happen, and she will decide how she feels about it then.

If not, well, Team 8 will support her, as they have from the beginning.

"Mostly," Hanabi admits openly. "But he wondered aloud where I would hear him, which means he wanted me to find out."

"I have no secrets," Hinata says mildly. It's even mostly true. The only thing she's tried to keep quiet is her feelings for Naruto and, as he's not even in the village, that has become much easier. "Though if I did, this would be a terrible way to find them out, Hanabi."

Hanabi stuffs the rest of one cookie into her mouth and shrugs a little.

She doesn't have to say anything for Hinata to know what she's thinking. Hinata is well aware that she's a terrible liar.

"And you," Hinata says, to Neji, "are you here because of the rumours as well?"

"I was curious," Neji admits. "And when Hanabi-sama told me what she was doing, I thought it would be interesting to come along. While I haven't spoken much to Tenten and Lee, I have no doubt they've heard the rumours as well. It's all over the compound."

Hinata supposes she ought to be grateful, in that case, that someone has come right out to ask her, or demand of her, the answers.

"Well," she says, "I, I do not plan to leave Team 8. I am happy with Kurenai-sensei's tutelage and Kiba-kun and Shino-kun are good teammates. We will become strong together. I see no reason to leave them to join Team 7."

"Aren't Haruno and Yamanaka your friends?" Hanabi asks. "Everyone says so."

They hadn't really been friends, back in the Academy, so she wonders what Hanabi's classmates are saying now about that.

Still… it's true now that they're friends.

"They are my friends," Hinata says. "And, as friends, they know I am happy with my team. They haven't asked me to join their team and I have no intentions of asking them."

Truthfully, Hinata isn't sure that finding a third team member has really crossed either Ino-san or Sakura-san's minds yet. They've been busy with training and had little time for thinking of anything else. Even when they've talked, it's been mostly about what their sessions will be like and when and where the next one should be scheduled.

They're far better at keeping their secrets than I am.

It doesn't bother Hinata.

She really doesn't see the need to keep any, having grown up in a Clan where every emotion is read almost before it's felt.

Hanabi sighs, flopping backwards on her pillow. "That's boring," she decides.

Hinata is past the stage where she might have apologized for having a boring life to her little sister, so she doesn't.

"Don't you have anything better to talk about at school?" Hinata says, her soft voice taking any sting out of that question. "Surely your classes aren't so boring that you must talk about me?"

"People keep asking me," Hanabi says, like that answers everything right there.

In a way, it does.

Hanabi has trouble making friends. Hinata had been too shy but Hanabi's brash, well-deserved over-confidence doesn't endear her to her classmates any more than Hinata's shyness had.

Now that people are talking to her, Hanabi must feel like if she doesn't get answers that they'll stop.

"I'm sorry," she says, "but I will not be changing teams. Nor have they mentioned anyone that they would like to become their third teammate."

"Not even Tenten-san?" Hanabi says, with a glance at Neji.

And this, Hinata realizes, is why he's here. Being stuck in the Hyuuga compound, he's had little chance to spend time with his team and feel out what they think of everything that's happened.

"Not even Tenten-san," Hinata says calmly, since it's true as far as she is aware. "Or Rock-san. Or anyone. If they have discussed a third member, they have not brought it up to me. Mostly, when we talk, it's to compare training notes. Ino-san knows a great deal about immunities and how to bolster them for both poisons and venoms."

Hanabi looks unconvinced and, while Neji's expression hasn't changed much, Hinata can tell that he's relieved.

"If you'd like," she says, "I'd be willing to share my notes from that."

Hanabi waves that off, unconcerned, but Neji nods.

"I would like that, Hinata-sama," he says. "If you're certain that you don't mind."

"Knowledge is meant to be shared," she says, smiling. "At least, this sort is. I'm sorry I do not have anything else to share with the both of you but I really don't know anything."

"I wanted gossip," Hanabi grumbles.

"Have another cookie," Hinata says, pushing the plate over to her little sister.

Hanabi sulks some more, eats another three cookies, and sticks around listens to what Hinata explains to Neji about immunities anyway.

Well, we're in the house now.

Though Kakashi is cheating just a little by sitting on the roof above the kitchen. The air inside feels oppressive. He knows it's a trick of the mind, that he'll have to stay inside tomorrow, but for now, he's taken refuge outside.

Only an idiot would be out in a storm like this.

But he's that idiot. The rain is cool and harsh and comforting in it's unrelenting patter against his skin. Also comforting is the music that comes from the kitchen, intercut with static (he's surprised they even got a connection at all) and girlish laughter and the scent of lemon soap.

Kakashi closes his eyes.

He's got to get it together. He hates this.

But he made this choice. He chose to walk into this, eyes wide open, and unlike most of this timeline, this is… about what he expected. There's no one to blame for his surprise.

Part of him had somehow hoped that everything would be as he'd left it and he is bitterly disappointed that it, like everything else, has moved on with the steady march of time. Paradoxically, he is also grateful that things changed.

If nothing had changed, he thinks he'd have never made it past the front door.

Rain spills down the back of his uniform.

What am I going to do with Sakura?

It's a more constructive question than wondering what he'll do if his dogs can't be summoned, if they can't find the scroll.

(The answer is he'll probably go mad. Madder than he already is. Kakashi misses his dogs.)

Peculiarly, it would almost be easier of Sakura wasn't so much untapped potential. With careful development she could go almost anywhere, do almost anything.

He doesn’t think she'd make a good assassin. He knows civilians think that all shinobi are assassins and there's a certain level of truth to it—every shinobi must be willing and able to kill in the course of their missions.

But that's not quite the same thing.

Similarly, ANBU is probably too harsh for her.

Neither of these observations are new or particularly unusual. There are more talented shinobi who are not assassins or ANBU material than there are.

He laughs softly, the sound hidden by the patter of the rain, so that his girls don't hear him.

That's part of the problem, Kakashi suspects. He can think of plenty of paths for Ino but, then, it's easy to see her in ANBU. She's very kind, to those she cares about, but otherwise—

She doesn't have Sakura's sensitivities.

It's not a criticism. Or a compliment. It just is.

He doesn't know enough genjutsu to be able to turn Sakura into a master. Tracking, perhaps, he muses. It would pair well with Ino's sensor-nin training. Though she hasn't shown any signs of wanting to learn it either…

Though she's civilian-born, he remembers. Maybe she just doesn't realize what options there are. There's more to being a shinobi than just doing missions. A huge part of it is finding and playing to your skills, improving your capabilities to the point where you can say you have a 'specialization'.

Clans had an easier time of it, when it came to that, if people lacked their own initiative, they could bury themselves in their clan specialties.

My biases are showing.

There was nothing wrong with that either. The children of the Clans are quite literally born to do that.

I'll start with tracking, he decides. That and traps. They work well with both Sakura's talent and chakra control and will compliment Ino's abilities.

It's a start.

And the rain continues to fall.

Deep in the house, something stirs.

Chapter Text

Ino wakes abruptly and just listens in the darkness of the room. Not far from her, a dark shadow in the night, is Sakura's sleeping form. She can hear Sakura's soft breathing--a comforting, known sound.

It's not what woke her.

She doesn't move, keeping her own breath as steady as she can, trying to throttle the way her heart races for no reason she can immediately spot.

It's cool in the room but their sleeping bags keep her from being cold (she's actually quite cozy) and since they've cleaned, she smells mostly lemon and that harder, harsher taint of what Ino mostly just thinks of as clean. She doesn't know the names of the chemicals used, other than bleach. And lye.

Under that, though, she can still smell dust and mould.

The bulk of the compound is still disgusting and her noses is well aware of that, even while they're hidden in their little sanitized pocket.

Her eyes pick out Sakura, the shape of the door, and not much else. No light sources, since they've turned the lantern off. Nothing seems out of place.

But something woke her up.

Her heart still races, adrenaline pumping like she should be deciding between fight or flight, and Ino can't figure out why.

She'd blame it on her dreams, barely half-remembered already, but that wouldn't leave her feeling like she was on metaphorical pins and needles. She'd blame it on the silence of only two minds close enough to touch but that's never scared her though it has discomfited on previous missions.

So what is it?

Ino bites her bottom lip thoughtfully before she decides to hesitantly do a sweep with her mind.

Sakura is there, solid and comforting, a weirdly split mind that is well known and beloved. One day she will unravel the mysteries of how Sakura's mind works but tonight she just draws comfort from the fact that it is exactly as it usually is. Blessedly normal in its abnormality.

As she reaches out further, beyond the confines of their room, Ino is not surprised that Hatake-sensei isn't in the room they had tidied for him. She's not sure how much sleep he's gotten since they entered his childhood home but she suspects it's not a lot.

As she'd told Sakura, though, it's better not to nag about something like this.

She finds him brooding on the roof, ostensibly keeping watch.

Ino finds nothing else, but she's awake now and anxious against all reason.

Hatake-sensei? she thinks carefully, wanting to keep her voice, even her mind's voice as quiet as she can.

She can feel his surprise, carefully marshalled to keep from showing, even in the gloom of an abandoned home.

You should be sleeping.

As far as rebukes go, it's a mild one, and Ino ignores it. She had been sleeping. She would love to still be sleeping. She's tired.

He should be sleeping too. He hadn't even come in for supper.

Something woke me up, she explains, pushing the weird, nameless sensation at him and her subsequent jolt of adrenaline and, yes, fear. But I can't locate anything other than you and Sakura.

She can feel the way his interest sharpens, clawing back his gloom and distraction, even though he doesn't move a muscle up on the roof. There's none of the fogginess that accompanies feelings caused by dreams.

They're as sharp as kunai and completely inexplicable.

Is Sakura awake?

No.

Wake her up and bring her up to speed. Stay where you are. I'm going to investigate. If anything happens, tell me immediately.

Yes, Hatake-sensei.

Ino feels his wordless approval and then does as she was ordered to. Luckily, she knows how to wake Sakura quietly, without seeming to do so.

She, careful to maintain her illusion of sleeping, rolls onto Sakura, still in her sleeping bag. Given that this happens nearly every night...

"Ino, get off!"

It comes right on cue. Ino clings tighter, like she would if she was actually sleeping, and enjoys the way Sakura grumbles.

Sorry, Forehead, Ino says, once Sakura has given up her struggle for freedom and decided just to cope with it. Hatake-sensei told me to wake you. Don't give us away.

Sakura gives a sleepy, protesting noise. Her mind is kicking into high gear, though, and Ino waits until Sakura has worked her way through what it means that she's been woken up, by Ino, on orders from their sensei.

What's going on?

Don't know, Ino admits. I got woken up by... something. I can't find any other minds, but Hatake-sensei is looking into it.

You told him first? And Sakura probably doesn't mean to share how tangled up her emotions are about that but she does.

Ino doesn't apologize. She's not sorry.

Standard procedure, remember? And if there is something going on then he's the one most likely to be able to handle it. Three Genin are theoretically equal to one Jounin but we're only two Genin in an unfamiliar place.

Sakura wrestles with her feelings, silently, and Ino patiently waits it out. Sakura's logic kicks in shortly and Ino can feel the moment Sakura decides she's forgiven.

Should we get up? Barricade the door? Sakura wonders, though she's careful not to move yet. Are we actually in any danger? What could attack us if there's no mind behind it?

He didn't say anything about getting up and moving. Hatake-sensei just wanted me to make sure you were awake and brought up to speed while he investigates. I don't know if we're in any real danger but can't you feel it in the air? Something is weird. Almost like... something wants to happen.

Sakura is quiet then, stilling even her thoughts as she focuses on just sensing their surroundings rather than on reacting to something they can't see.

It's almost like the air right before a really big thunderstorm, you know? Only I can still hear the rain outside and yet the anticipation of another storm coming is still... there. Almost like if we reach out, we'd be able to touch it? And... I don't think it's friendly?

Yes! That's exactly it!

Ino rests her head against Sakura, which is easy to do when they're already tangled in sleeping bags and together.

What should we do? Sakura asks, after a few minutes of them just listening and trying to hear or feel anything more than the odd ominous anticipation in the air. Should we check with Hatake-sensei? Or just fake waking up and seeing if that does anything?

Ino considers these options carefully. If she'd been in Team 10 still then she would have woken Shikamaru and Chouji and one of them, probably Chouji, would have woken Asuma-sensei while she and Shikamaru had decided what they were going to do.

It had worked for Team 10.

But she's not on Team 10 anymore and new days mean new ways and while Sakura follows her lead, and she's as brilliant in her own way as Shikamaru, Ino knows that Sakura isn't as comfortable just acting without input from their sensei.

Of course, getting input from Asuma-sensei had always turned into 'what do you three think we should do' anyway. Interesting to talk about but frustrating when a decision needed to be made. Not every decision could or should be turned into a lesson--especially not out in the field.

Hatake-sensei teaches but he also leads.

I'll check with Hatake-sensei.

Sakura's relief is a warm, delicate thing. Ino is careful with Sakura because Sakura is careful with her.

If Ino had decided they had to act without their sensei, Sakura would have gone along with it.

And that might still happen at some point. It might have to happen. Missions go wrong all the time. Sakura knows this too, so Ino doesn't say anything, just loops Sakura into her questions as she reaches out to Hatake-sensei with them.

He's startled--Ino feels it and, with a bubbling hiccup of a giggle aborted down the line from Sakura, she knows Sakura can too--but, he's all business in the here and now, not letting surprise sway him.

Ino presents their questions silently, since putting it all into words would take longer and, in the space of a few heartbeats, he reviews them and makes up his mind.

Barricade the door, but leave the windows. If something tries to get in, get out and we'll withdraw to first base and determine our next course. If anything does attempt to enter your room, alert me immediately.

Their assent is swiftly given and then Ino disengages their minds, being careful to do so thoroughly but without undue haste.

When she opens her eyes, Sakura has already sat up, brushed and tied her hair back, and is gravely considering their supplies.

Fashionable even at a time like this? Ino teases, wriggling out of her sleeping bag and reaching for the hairbrush herself.

Sakura rolls her eyes, amused. We might not get a chance later. And it took thirty seconds, tops.

Since this is true, and it doesn't take Ino any longer to put her hair up into a tidy bun, she just grins back at Sakura, completely unrepentant.

Have you decided how we're going to deal with the doors?

Sakura grimaces. We're going to have to move the shelves.

Ino makes a face right back. I'm wishing right now that we hadn't cleaned so well.

Me too, Sakura says ruefully, getting to her feet and carefully and silently padding over to the corner where they had stuck lantern. Do you think we should light it?

Ino hesitates, then shakes her head, tying off her bun, giving it a pat, and standing up. It gives her time to consider the question.

It gives her time to wonder if Sakura's old team ever actually paid attention to her, that she feels the need to ask questions like this, without venturing her own opinions as well.

It's so frustrating.

Probably better for us to wait until we get the shelves moved first. That way, even if someone notices they won't be able to get in as easily and we'll have relative safety to let our eyes adjust. Hatake-sensei might not want us to turn it on anyway, in case we have to bolt.

Sakura sighs, just a little, because that wasn't the answer she had hoped for. Ino is sorry about that, she really is, and maybe Hatake-sensei wouldn't mind at all, but Ino has never shied away from giving her opinion--and even less so when actually asked.

"Left shelf first?" Ino suggests, eyeballing the waist-high shelving. She keeps her voice low but, well, if they're moving furniture around then they'll be making some noise anyway. "It's closer to the door."

"But then we'd have to lift the other one and carry it further," Sakura says, and Ino can feel the frown Sakura is giving the whole situation. "Let's push the right and lift the left."

Since there's plenty of sense in what Sakura suggested, that's what they decide to do. Besides, it kind of makes up for having to be the one to initiate contact with their sensei. Makes it seem a little more fair, even though that might not make logical sense.

The right shelf is heavier than it looks but they're kunoichi of Konoha and it would be embarrassing if they couldn't move a shelf. It moves. Not easily or quietly, and it takes both of them to do it--the thing is solid wood and deceptively light-looking.

Once the door is blocked with the right shelf, they both eye the door, with twin expressions of speculation.

"That's not good enough," Ino says, though they're both wishing it was. "You know it. I know it. Hatake-sensei is going to know we know it."

"I know," Sakura says mournfully. "I was just wishing we were still asleep. It's cold in here when we're not in our sleeping bags."

It is a bit chilly. Ino refuses to dwell upon it, because otherwise it's all she'll think about. Instead, Ino smiles faintly, despite herself. "Then moving furniture will warm us up."

They both turn and eye the other shelf, knowing just how heavy it is going to be to move. The only good thing is that it is empty. It's a small consolation.

"How about we shove it over as far as we can first?" Sakura suggests. "Then lift it only when it's beside the other one? That would minimize the effort, I think."

"We might as well," Ino agrees. "It's better than carrying it the whole way and if we take too long and Hatake-sensei shows up… it's going to be embarrassing if we haven't completed the thing we asked if we could do."

Sakura shudders.

"Somehow," she says, as she goes to put her shoulder against the shelf. Ino gets ready to pull it while Sakura pushes. "Somehow embarrassing Hatake-sensei sounds a lot worse than embarrassing Kakashi-sensei ever did, you know what I mean?"

"Yeah," Ino says, shaking her hands out and then taking a firm hold of the shelf. "I know exactly what you mean. I think it's because he takes us seriously, so we want to take his expectations seriously too."

Between their efforts, they move the shelf over a half foot, then a foot, then another. Then it's bumping up against the other shelf and Ino dramatically drapes herself over it, just for a moment, before she pushes herself away.

"Okay," Ino says, with a certain grim sort of satisfaction. "Now we've just got to lift it."

Sakura is staring at her.

"What?"

"Ino," Sakura says slowly, like she doesn't want to say anything to startle either of them but that whatever it is needs to be said anyway: "your breath is visible."

Ino blinks. Then she blows out a breath. It hovers there, a white cloud, before dissipating. Hairs on the back of her neck stand up. "It's not supposed to be this cold," she says, as if stating that fact will change anything.

It doesn't.

Ino is bitterly disappointed.

Sakura sighs and her own breath comes out in a white cloud too. Ino shivers, more from unease than from the cold. They've been doing so much physical movement that they don't feel particularly cold.

Should we contact Hatake-sensei first or move the shelf?

Ino doesn't complain when Sakura goes back to sub-vocal communication. The cold, the breath, the way it's not supposed to be like this is… creepy.

The shelf first, Ino decides, since that really just makes the best sense. Nothing is overtly attacking them yet and, once they've moved the shelf they can wrap their sleeping bags around each other and huddle for warmth as she reaches out for Hatake-sensei's advice. Come on, quickly.

There's no more dawdling or griping now. They just get to work, channeling chakra into their limbs, giving them an extra boost in strength and silently coordinate the best way to pick the thing up—it's heavy, even with them working in tandem, being solid wood, as wide across as one of them can reach, and tall enough to come up to their chests—and then, with more effort, they manage to hoist it up into the air, scraping the side of it against the other shelf.

They get one corner, then one side on top of the other shelf, and then it gets easier. The hardest part now keeping it balanced as they slide it over. The noise is awful but, once they have the shelf settled, once it's in place, they just stand there, breathing heavily.

Leaving puffs of white with each breath, even though they're not cold at all.

That's just an illusion, she knows, because of the effort they put in.

"There," Ino says. "The door is blocked."

Sakura takes another deep breath and sighs, looking a little more relaxed, as she turns away from the door. "Okay," she says. "Now do you think we'll be safe or--?"

Ino thinks about that before answering, as they both go back to their tangled sleeping bags and shake them out, unzipping them and then draping them over their shoulders because they both know it's not safe enough to crawl back into their sleeping bags right now. Not until the 'all clear' is given.

Maybe not until the temperature goes back to normal.

"I'll check with Hatake-sensei," Ino says. "I think that's the only thing we can really do right now."

"Do you think we should pack up?" Sakura asks, frowning. Ino feels the frown more than she sees it. There's not much light in the room, though their eyes are as adjusted as it is possible for them to get. "Just in case we need to evacuate?"

Ino hesitates a moment, then nods. "I think that's a good idea," she says. "Maybe we won't need to, but if we do then it'll be better if we don’t have to leave our things behind."

"I'll do that then," Sakura says, sounding glad of having something to do. "Let me know what Hatake-sensei says."

Ino nods, absently, her mind reaching out to look for their sensei. He's not where he'd been but, then, while she'd started her search there, Ino hadn't expected him to stay put. She begins a careful sweep of the Main House, alert for any minds, but other than Sakura's and hers…

Ino finds nothing.

Her blood runs cold.

She looks for their sensei again, fighting back fear and reassuring herself that if he'd died, she'd have felt that.

He wasn't allowed to be dead.

Sakura, Ino says, her mind's voice barely a whisper.

I've got everything packed! Sakura says back. If we need to go, everything's ready. Ino—what's wrong?

Sakura, I can't find Hatake-sensei.

What?!

We're getting out of here, Ino decides, over-riding Sakura's surprise with a decision, her mind racing. This is the part of planning she's good at. The part that Shikamaru left to her because, in the moment, she is good at making choices.

He has to think. So does Sakura.

Ino just has to act.

Back to first base, the guest house, then we'll fortify and wait until morning. We can't leave the compound without Hatake-sensei. He's got control of the wards.

Are you sure he's not--

He's not dead. Ino clings to that certainty. That knowledge that she's been raised in. In this place of so few minds, of ones that she cares for, she would notice if one of them died. It's violent, in a way that being knocked out or falling asleep isn't.

She would notice.

She's got generations of knowledge drilled into her by her Clan that say she would. She must believe that.

Come on, hurry! We'll go out the windows! The one on the far right opens.

They silently, and quickly, strap on their packs, rolling their sleeping bags up and tying them tight.

Something scrabbles at the door, like a million legs or hands grasping for purchase. Then the door starts to slide open, something long and thin groping through the opening and finding the shelves. Ino is so very grateful to the shelves.

Hatake-sensei, Ino calls carefully, hoping that nothing else can hear her. We're retreating to first base. Something is trying to enter our room.

Maybe he won't hear them. Maybe he will.

Either way, Ino feels better for having alerted him that they're following his orders and getting out.

They tip-toe over to the window and, now, Ino is grateful for the way Sakura had insisted they scrub the windows until they gleamed earlier. The window opens silently, quieter than the beating of her heart and the shaking of the shelves behind them.

As team leader while Hatake-sensei is missing (and Sakura hasn't challenged her for it) Ino gestures for Sakura to go first, helping her up, and then hoists herself up and out of the Main House. She lands quietly on grass and dirt, the ground springy with good health.

It's not super hot outside, she knows this, but the air hits her like a warm slap to the face after the cold inside. To disguise the exact method of their flight, Ino turns and shuts the window behind them, careful to keep it quiet, rather than slamming it.

She takes a step back and stumbles, abruptly a little dizzy. A headache rolls through her head like a thunderstorm. Unexpected and heavy, leaving her nearly blind.

Sakura grabs her arm, stabilizing her, and then dragging her away from the window.

"Ino," Sakura says, barely breathing the word. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know," Ino says, just as quiet, leaning against her. She closes her eyes. "Headache."

Sakura rummages around in her pack and, shortly, forces a couple of pain killers on her. Ino dry swallows them, reminding herself that the awful, chalky taste just means that they'll work shortly. In the meantime, they stay hidden in the compound, nothing more than over-grown grasses and the shadows of the buildings to cover them.

It's probably good to wait anyway, Sakura says, her mind's voice apologetic, anxious about making the headache worse, but Ino understands. They can't talk too much aloud until they know better what they're up against. Whatever it is will expect us to make for first base immediately. We're safer this way.

Should we even go back to first base? Ino wonders, thinking about that now. Sure, she'd said so, even told Hatake-sensei that they would—though she has no idea if he heard her or not—but it's a good point that Sakura has raised. It's the only place we're familiar with. It's also the only place the shows signs of having been inhabited by us.

If Hatake-sensei manages to escape, he'll look for us there, Sakura points out, though there's no argument in her tone. Just the facts.

Ino thinks about it. It's hard to think around her headache, though she can feel the pain killers working now, slicing off bits of pain and numbing them away from her.

Let's wait half an hour, she suggests. Then we'll go and investigate our rendezvous point. If he's not there, we'll go and hide in the training field until morning.

Sakura is quiet.

Ino waits a few minutes, concentrating on paying attention to her senses and not the pain in her head. Had she over-stretched? Pushed herself too hard? It's possible, she supposes, since she's never really conducted conversations at a distance as much as she's done tonight. It would also explain why her head doesn't get worse when she's just talking to Sakura, less than a foot away.

Sakura? Everything okay?

Everything is not okay, Sakura says immediately, which amuses Ino despite the truth of it. We're outside, in the damp grass, there's something weird in the Main House, you're in a lot of pain, and we're missing our sensei.

Okay, okay, but I was asking about our plan? What were you thinking about?

Sakura is quiet for a few moments longer.

It's a good plan. Let's do it.

But what's your problem? Ino persisted.

I was just thinking of how different Team 7 used to be, Sakura says. It's nothing. How's your head?

Getting better every moment.

Okay. Sakura nods, the movement just barely visible in the darkness. Then get further into the shadows and we'll wait a bit. Then we'll hit up first base and see… and we'll see what there is to see.

There's really nothing else Ino can do or say. She could pry further into Sakura's mind but Sakura trusts her not to do that. Ino would rather have Sakura's trust than have the answers to her questions—at least, when it comes to something like this.

She wouldn't like it if Sakura pried into her thoughts about Team 10 after all. Some things aren't meant to be shared. Some things hurt too much.

Instead, once they've wriggled their way through the tall grass until they're hidden in the shadow of a cherry tree. The Main House and the window they left through is nothing but a long, tall darkness.

Ino hugs Sakura, tightly, and hopes that says all the things neither of them will say out loud.

Then they wait.

Chapter Text

Sakura hates this.

She hates this so much that she could puke but Ino rests her head against her shoulder and closes her eyes so Sakura grits her teeth and tells herself to stop brooding over all the ways this is absolutely, entirely, and totally the worst and instead focus on their next steps.

It would be a lot more comforting if Sakura could really believe that Hatake-sensei would find them, he'd be fine, and he'd know what to do.

She's been burnt before.

She's honestly been let down more than she hasn't been, by everyone except Ino, so even though her mind knows that Hatake-sensei isn't the same as Kakashi-sensei, her heart is somewhere in the pit of her stomach, rolling unpleasantly.

Instead, Sakura tells herself to remember the way she'd felt when it had been just her and Tazuna in the fog on the bridge. She'd been ready to die for him, a dumb old man with a dream because he was the client and it was her job and she was the only one left who could protect him. She remembers the Forest of Death where she'd been the only one of Team 7 left standing and the knowledge that she had to do anything to protect them, the way they were supposed to protect her too.

She'd been so tired of watching their backs. She'd wanted them to watch her back for once.

And she hadn't been good enough. It hadn't been an amazing, glorious victory or anything. She hadn't saved the day.

But she'd held on long enough for others to come and help and that was the important thing. They'd managed to muddle through. She'd done her part. She hadn't let anyone down, even if she hadn't been a heroine like she'd wanted to be.

And now, she thinks, careful to keep the thought to herself as she looks down at Ino, and now I can't give up or give in to fear. Ino needs me.

There's so much she doesn't know right now. So much about this situation that is a mystery. Sakura hopes that Hatake-sensei is okay, she really does, but until they either find him or he finds them, it's going to be just her and Ino and Sakura can't abide the thought of letting Ino down.

After all, even with her head like it is, she made a plan and got us through it, Sakura reminds herself. So how could she, Sakura, do anything less? It's simple: she can't.

And it's more than that, too, and this is what had her silent and quiet after Ino had asked for her opinion—Ino had wanted her input and had trusted her thoughts and opinions. She'd done it without even thinking about it, just like it was something that came naturally to her.

Ino came up with a plan and then presented it for review and, when Sakura had an opinion, she'd listened. There was no argument, no fighting, no time delayed because they couldn't agree on something.

They just… worked together.

It was that simple.

And it wasn't simple at all. Not to her heart.

Hearts are stupid, she decides and, gauging the time to have passed enough that they're pretty close to the half-hour mark that they'd settled on waiting, Sakura looks down at Ino.

Who has fallen asleep.

Sakura swallows hard against a sudden lump in her throat and blinks back tears. Ino might be in pain but the pain killers that Sakura gave her are specifically formulated not to cause drowsiness (a sleepy ninja is a dead ninja in the field) and, yes, of course, they're both tired and damp (the ground is not dry; it never is, this time of year) and frightened and…

Ino is asleep because Ino trusts her.

She's grown past being the little girl whose world was changed with a hair ribbon, she really has, but Sakura thinks she'll never out-grow being humbled by Ino, who doesn't even seem to realize it. That's okay, it really is.

It's probably better that way, really, since Sakura wants to be able to stand on her own two feet and that's what Ino wants for her too. So Sakura will keep it a secret, in her heart of hearts, that Ino is the one Sakura wishes she could be.

Sakura will never be like Ino and most of her is slowly coming to terms with that but… Sakura hasn't yet figured out who she wants to be. Especially now that she's stepped back from being Tsunade-sama's apprentice.

That could have been something amazing. That could have been something that would have made her great.

But what Sakura had told Hatake-sensei was the truth: she hadn't become a ninja just to heal people. She'd approached Tsunade-sama because, well, it had fit. Naruto was with Jiraiya-sama and then there was… Sasuke with Orochimaru…

Which had left Sakura with Tsunade-sama.

At least, it had, until Hatake-sensei showed up and things started… changing, Sakura thinks, glancing up at the moon through the branches of the cherry tree.

Sakura doesn't know what she'll be these days. She's not sure what path she'll walk. Hatake-sensei will make sure, though, that she's given the tools to go after whatever she decides. Sakura has a lot of complicated feelings about him, about their team, about how things are different now—

But she does trust him, when he says she can become whatever kind of ninja she wants to be. Now she just has to figure that out.

Since she still hasn't and probably won't for a while, and for the first time Sakura thinks that's okay, that it's fine if she doesn't have everything she wants to accomplish as a ninja laid out in a neat little plan at fourteen… Ino's still the goal, until Sakura figures that out. She doesn't think Ino would mind.

She takes a few moments to compose herself, to make sure she hasn't lost track of anything in their surroundings (which are quiet, but it's a peaceful, normal kind of quiet—the sort that leaves the insects and animals active rather than cowering in hopes of not being noticed), and to lock some thoughts back behind Inner Sakura, who won't let Ino through, and then gently she wakes Ino.

Ino! Ino, wake up! We've got to head for first base!

Calling the guest house 'first base' strikes her as kind of silly but Hatake-sensei had called it that first and Ino hadn't argued and Sakura can see the reasons for it. If anyone is watching them, listening in on them, then a different name for guest house just makes sense.

All the same, it's not like they've been many other places in the compound yet. Their trail is one written in clean rooms, bright windows, and the smell of cleaners.

Ino comes awake all at once, not flinching or groaning, just shifting and lifting her head up off Sakura's shoulder.

What is it?

Nothing terrible, Sakura reassures her quickly. Just… it's time to go and see what there is to see at the first base.

Sakura hesitates for a moment then asks: How's your head?

Ino's smile is a thing wreathed in shadows and darkness but Sakura is comforted anyway. It's a lot better, thanks. I'm lucky you had pain killers handy.

Do you know what caused it?

Ino shakes her head, carefully getting to her feet, making sure to keep the tree they're under between her and the Main House. No. Maybe I over-reached myself?

Maybe it was an attack? Sakura ventures, getting up just as carefully, adjusting her pack on her shoulders, and quietly grateful that they'd brought them with. At least with their bags they won't have to worry about food and changes of clothing. Maybe whatever it was that kept you from reaching Hatake-sensei also tried to knock you out?

Knowing only that Ino is considering that from the way she tilts her head in the darkness, Sakura begins picking her way through the grass, setting her feet down slowly, toes first, then the heels, leading them away from the Main House. She doesn't know what's in this direction. She hasn't seen any maps of this compound—something, she thinks, that she's going to have to remember to ask Hatake-sensei about later, and there will be a later, she refuses to even entertain the idea that there won't be—so they're just going to have to guess.

It's away from the Main House, though, and also away from the guest house. They'll be able to circle back around, once they've got some distance from the Main House.

If there's something in here that can interfere with my bloodline, Ino says, once they've ducked around another small building and are no longer in sight of their room and the Main House.

Sakura thinks it might have been a shed, once upon a time. Ivy climbs the walls, leaving it looking like something out of a fairytale. She glances at Ino, waiting for her to finish her sentence.

"It's probably better if we speak aloud until we know for sure," Ino says, rather grimly. "I'm not trained enough to be able to notice things like that. If someone's able to listen in, then I won't be able to notice."

"Okay," Sakura says simply.

Ino nods, then says, "If that's the case, then they'll know what our plan was. Do you still want to go to first base?"

Sakura appreciates how easily Ino seems to accept that they could be compromised, that her abilities might be compromised, without beating herself up. Sakura knows she wouldn't be so calm about it. She'd be upset.

"It's also possible that whatever it is wasn't able to hear you," Sakura ventures. "Maybe, like, it was like a radio signal? Just one that runs interference with yours?"

Ino cranes her neck, looking up towards the roof of the shed. "Maybe," she allows. "If that's the case, then it's possible that Hatake-sensei could hear me but that I couldn't hear him back and if that's how this is, we really should take the risk and hope we can meet up with him at first base."

"Okay," Sakura says. "Okay, Ino let's go."

She doesn't think anything is after them, out here, where everything is calm and normal and feels right. At the same time, though, there is definitely something wrong with the Main House and whatever it is… is decidedly not friendly.

Together they leave the shed behind, fading into the over-grown greenery. There's something surreal about the compound, cast all in shadows and moonlight, everything old and abandoned but not falling apart, not yet.

Like it hasn't given up on life yet. It's just napping.

Sakura shares this thought with Ino as they explore their way through a garden that's surrounded by a little stream that's so choked by weeds it's practically invisible (except that Sakura stepped in it and now one of her sandals is soaked). There's a gorgeous little gazebo, with roses on trellises so full that she's impressed they're still standing.

"Maybe that's what we woke up," Ino says as they explore the gazebo and then head back outside. "It was angry that we're not the right people, the ones who are meant to be here."

"Hatake-sensei is though," Sakura points out.

"Is he, though?" Ino asks. "He's from the wrong time, right? What if the house knows that?"

"Houses aren't supposed to have feelings," Sakura says, though she doesn't out-right deny it. It's clear that, whatever has happened, something isn't happy with them. Maybe it is the house. Maybe they are stuck in a ghost story.

Sakura has never liked ghost stories. They're uncomfortable in a way that romances and adventures aren't. Ghost stories are always sad, when it comes down to it, because someone is always dead.

"Houses also aren't supposed to be able to try to break into our room," Ino notes. "Or read minds. So… whatever it is, it's something that's not supposed to happen."

"Could someone have snuck in here with us?" Sakura asks. "I didn't notice anyone when Hatake-sensei let us into the compound but…"

"I guess it's possible," Ino allows, though Sakura's pretty sure that Ino doesn't like the idea. Sakura doesn't much like the idea either but it's one they've got to entertain. "I mean, why would anyone do that? If someone wants to attack us, why would they have waited until the second night here?"

"Hatake-sensei was close by last night," Sakura says. "Where was he tonight?"

"On the roof," Ino says, looking up again. "Sitting in the rain."

Sakura's question, the one on the tip of her tongue, is to ask why he would do that. She doesn't ask. After a moment of thinking about it, she doesn't need to. Of course he wouldn't want to spend much time actually inside where his father had…

Sakura shivers.

"Ino," she says, "do you think it's his dad?"

She doesn't know why Hatake-sensei's dad would come after them. She doesn't know if it's even possible. But now, tired and keyed up and anxious, almost anything seems possible, even if it's a horrible thing to entertain.

"I don't know," Ino says. "Come on, I think we're far enough out from the Main House that we can circle back around now. I'm tired and cold and wet and I'm worried about Hatake-sensei."

"What are we going to do if whatever it is got Hatake-sensei?" Sakura asks, letting Ino take the lead, and keeping an eye on her at the same time, just in case she starts to feel ill again.

She remembers what Ino had said, about not drawing attention to the weaknesses in other shinobi, just compensating for them. Ino had been talking about coping methods.

Sakura sees no reason that she can't use the same idea here and now, to look out for Ino.

"We'll wait for morning," Ino says, without missing a beat. "And then we'll go looking for him. Let's not borrow trouble from tomorrow though—we've got to get through tonight first. And tonight's been long enough."

Despite herself, Sakura giggles, covering her mouth to stifle the noise. Ino grins back at her, fey and untouchable in the moonlight.

It takes them nearly another hour and a half to sneak their way back to the guest house. Partly because they over-shoot it the first time and wind up having to go back, re-tracing their steps, but also because they find another gazebo and, after discussion, they choose to hide their things there, under the benches.

Just in case.

It also leaves them free to exercise greater mobility and stealth. They do make sure they're armed a little more thoroughly, tucking a few extra kunai into their pouches. Sakura makes sure she has some lengths of wire and senbon. Ino has senbon, too, though hers are in a hard-shell case instead of the fabric roll that Sakura's are nestled in.

"Poisoned," Ino says, tucking them away into her pack, not even having to look up to know the question that Sakura wants to ask. "Hatake-sensei approved them."

"Poisoned?" Sakura asks.

"Nothing serious," Ino admits. "A minor paralytic, though if I got someone in the throat with these they'd die because they wouldn't be able to breathe. I'm immune to it unless you hit me with enough to sink an elephant. It's one of the ones I suggested you work on during my 'class'."

Sakura flushes slightly. She hasn't had much of a chance to work on building up her tolerances. It always feels so macabre and creepy, deliberately dosing herself with tiny amounts of poisons and venoms. Her parents would have a cow.

Or five.

Ino doesn't address this or Sakura's lack of immunity. "I've got the antidote," she adds. "And hopefully we won't need them but it's better to be safe than sorry."

With that in mind, Sakura says nothing when Ino wraps a garrote around one of her wrists. It's not a weapon Sakura likes to use but she's not the one using it. She just makes note of it and triple counts her kunai by feel.

"Do you think Hatake-sensei would let us start carrying explosive notes?" she wonders.

Ino shrugs a little. "Maybe," she allows. "But only after we're trained in them up to his standards."

That makes Sakura smile. "At least by the time he's done with us, we know we're doing it right."

"Ready?" Ino asks.

She nods, tucking her nerves away. "Ready," Sakura echoes. "Are you going to do a mind-sweep of the guest house or are we doing it all manually?"

"Manually," Ino says, with a bit of a sigh. "It's the smarter thing to do, even if the risks aren't exactly negligible. Until we know what's going on with my bloodline, we're going to have to do things the old-fashioned way."

Only Ino, Sakura thinks fondly, would treat how most ninja have to handle things as the 'old-fashioned way'.

Making sure their bags are hidden from casual—and not so casual—inspection, they take the time to hide the traces of their passing and then strike out for the guest house. It's strange to creep about the outside of it, brushing through growth that hasn't been touched by humans in years, as they look for anything, anything out of place or… weird.

Nothing outside appears out of the ordinary.

Everything is just how they left it, almost eerily so, though Sakura tells herself to not be silly. Now she is borrowing trouble, making monsters out of perfectly normal circumstances. Why wouldn't everything look normal?

It wasn't like things had gone sideways here.

They slip inside carefully, cautiously, using no chakra and doing so as quietly as they know how. They might be sub-par, in Hatake-sensei's words, but they've been working hard and they're quieter than they were a month ago.

(A fact that, despite everything going on in the moment, makes Sakura happy.)

The north side of the guest house is as they left it. Clean and empty. Sakura ignores the fact that, after their jaunt through the wet grass and plants, she's the dirtiest thing in the rooms other than Ino. She doesn't share that thought either.

As soon as they entered the guest house, all conversation had ended.

They hesitate down the hall from the kitchen. There's a light shining under the door.

They exchange glances, unwilling to reach out with chakra to confirm the signature, but equally unwilling to just ignore it. Unlike the Main House, there's no windows for the guest house kitchen. Otherwise they would have noticed earlier.

Guard my back, Ino says. I'll open the door.

But before she can, it slides open.

"Where have you two been?"

Someone, somewhere, was going to be in a lot of trouble when he figured out who was to blame for all of this. His plans had included training, more training, search for his family's summoning scroll, and probably yet more training.

(Almost definitely yet more training.)

He had not wanted or planned on an unknown threat in his family's compound, in the heart of the village.

It probably says something about him that he's much more comfortable search ing through said family compound looking for immediate threats than a missing scroll. He ignores that. There's more important things at hand.

Like protecting his team of Genin.

When his discomfort is placed against that fact he finds that all of his feelings about his family and his clan and everything that had gone down after his father had killed himself... well, all of that pales in comparison to the more immediate threat.

He finds that deeply comforting. It means that no matter how little he likes being here (he hates it) that he's not broken. It's hard but he's okay. He can still prioritize the important things when it comes down to it.

It's good to know.

The only thing he's found out of place so far is the incredible drop in temperature as soon as he enters the Main House, swinging in through a window (the same window he'd used to get onto the roof in the first place) and that's... interesting.

Everything else is much the same as he remembers, from the plates in his mother's favourite cabinet to the way the rugs are laid down. If it wasn't for the dust and dirt, the moth eaten fabrics and empty, hollow places left by the lack of life--

It would be like going back in time.

Given his circumstances, he feels he's slowly becoming something of an expert on time-travel.

Hatake-sensei, we're retreating to first base. Something is trying to enter our room.

He can almost taste her anxiety on his tongue.

Be careful, he thinks. Let me know when you've arrived and if your status changes.

She doesn't answer him.

He really doesn't like that. It's possible that, under pressure, she's forgotten to respond back with an affirmative but—Ino should know better. Her training has been incredibly neglected in so many ways but, even so…

She should know better.

Ino? he thinks, clumsily unsure of how to force his thought out at her. He settles for thinking it as loudly as he can, in the direction of the bedroom she's sharing with Sakura. Ino, answer me immediately.

But she doesn't.

He hates that even as fear tangles through his emotions and he shunts them away, sharply, even as he continues his methodical search through the main house, angling his path towards their room.

If it's just her being careless, he promises himself that she'll be dead. Not dead-dead, as Ino and Sakura would say, but his punishment will definitely make her wish she was dead. It doesn't make him feel better, exactly, but right now he'd rather hope she was careless than—

Taken out before she could scream.

His pessimism is more than capable of coming up with the worst-case scenarios.

Kakashi cloaks himself in a jutsu, using Henge to fake that he's part of the wall as he sidles around the corner of the hallway that—

It is only long practice that keeps the jutsu in place as he blinks his eye, then again, to see if he can understand what he's seeing.

It's…

It's something.

A foamy, tattered shadow, pale and writhing in the purple-black darkness of the hallway. First he thinks it's short, then it is taller than him, then somewhere in between and a mix of all three, overlapping each other like black on black on black. It has no face. It has many faces. Ever shifting, ever-changing, a mess of rolling unreality. It claws and scrabbles at the door to his Genin's room with hard nails (claws? fingers?) that clip through the door and wall, like a terrible illusion only it leaves marks behind, torn and rent into the wood.

It's so cold that it hurts to breathe.

There's a horrible crashing sound, something heavy falling, smashing to the ground, and the thing lunges, heading for inside the room--

His breath floating in the air, Kakashi doesn't think, just moves, a kunai slashing down through the thing…

And hitting nothing.

It screams--not in pain, in anger, slashing at him in fury that claws at both his left arm and at his mind. Pain, sharp and bitter, assails him and he shunts it away, ready to deal with a fight.

Only the thing is already fading. Dissolving into the air, like bubbles popping, disappearing like it never existed.

The pain lingers, in both his head and his arm, proof enough that it was real.

Kakashi ignores both, vaulting over the barricade the girls had put up (the shelves, he notes absently and with approval), landing in the empty room.

Good. They got out.

They've even remembered to shut the windows behind them, to muddy the waters as to what direction they chose to go.

Kakashi's breathing sounds loud in his ears, though he's not breathing heavily, and relief hits him like a sack of bricks. They got out. They've headed to the guest house, first base.

He grimly finishes his search of the building, quickly but thoroughly, noting that the temperature is rising, stabilizing at something that feels normal, and finding nothing out of place or that would attack him. Then he heads over to the guest house, moving so fast he's a blur, less concerned with being followed and more concerned about his students.

Ino? he thinks again, now that he has confirmation that, if they've died, they didn't die in the room.

She still doesn't answer him and Sakura can't.

They're not in the guest house either, though there's also nothing amiss, and while he's anxious to go looking for them (and, indeed, he's sweeping his chakra out in broad strokes looking for them and finding nothing; he'd be more concerned, more terrified that meant the worst, except he knows that the wards here make chakra signatures less easily read and if the girls are hiding, then, well, their chakra will be following their lead) it's important to stay in one place, where they were supposed to meet up.

He waits.

In defiance of his wants, Kakashi makes himself stay where he is. Ino's last communique said they were making for here.

If he goes out and about looking for them and misses them and then they arrive and think he's been—

Nothing good ever comes of situations like that. He knows that.

So he waits.

He spends the time in the kitchen, bandaging his arm and taking a painkiller for his head. He eats. He scours the guest house for anything out of the ordinary.

He waits. He agonizes over the waiting. Hoping they're not injured. That he can trust what they said. That they'll show up. That…

It's the longest two hours he's had to wait in… well. In a long time. Since his sensei and his team had been all together and things had been right, as much as they ever got for him.

Eventually, though, he hears them.

He knows it's them, though they're being quiet as they can be, because they're not quiet enough. He knows their tells. Sakura tends to step a little too heavily with her right foot. Ino, when she gets excited, forgets to be mindful of the soft noises her clothing makes when she brushes against the walls.

Kakashi smiles.

Gets up. Opens the door before they can.

And drawls, "Where have you two been?"

There's relief in his voice. He doesn't know if they'll notice but he knows. He knows he's in trouble, too, because—

This is his team.

"Hatake-sensei!" Sakura crows, flinging herself at him in an impulsive hug. Ino follows her, a beat behind, and unlike Sakura, she doesn't hug him, just smiles up at him with tired eyes as she stands close.

He stiffens, despite himself, since it's been a long time since someone has hugged him. He's not quite sure what to do. He settles for messing with both of their hair, not wanting either to feel left out, and smiling a bit helplessly and glad they can't see that, in lieu of hugging back.

"I'm glad you two are safe," he says, sincerely and honestly.

They've got a problem or five to deal with, given... whatever that was in the Main House.

But at least they're together.

Chapter Text

I was right. It's definitely thirty-four years.

There's a possibility that she's missed something but Tenten has confidence in her research ability. She's spent the better part of the last few weeks looking into the matter and it's the same number all the way down.

If it's wrong then it's wrong deliberately and she's probably not supposed to notice because it's the same information in every record she can get her hands and the records were published at different times, by different people.

Assumptions in the field can get people killed but, in this case, Tenten is confident that she can safely assume the information is as accurate as it's allowed to be.

The question, now, is to decide what to do about it.

If I do anything. I might not, she admits to herself. Tenten had started looking into the whole matter because she couldn't remember and, as someone whose passions were for history and weapons, that had offended her own sensibilities.

She'd kept looking, confirming the matter beyond the first resource, then the second, then the third...

Because it's bothering me.

Tenten rolls her neck, shakes her shoulders out, and carefully, painstakingly, begins the process of sealing her research away, safe in scrolls that only her blood can unlock. It cost her a lot of money to get the lessons that had been necessary for making these scrolls, but it had been totally worth it.

Besides, she still lived at home. It wasn't like she had much to do with her money except for saving it up.

A Genin's salary wasn’t much but combined with the C-rank mission bonus payouts and some careful frugality on her part, well, it was easy enough to afford the things she wanted so long as she was patient. And she was very patient.

Once everything is tucked away, Tenten leaves her bedroom breezily, heading down to poke her head into the shop on the main floor.

"Mom, do you need any help?" she asks.

"There's a new shipment of senbon in," her mom says. "And some of the spears need to be taken down, cleaned and polished. A dusty weapon never sells!"

"You bet," she says, pulling on an apron and protective gloves and getting to work. "Are these senbon poisoned or--?"

"They're clean but absorbent," comes the answer and Tenten nods.

They're not poisonous, then, because they're designed for the shinobi who will buy them to add their own poisons. Or pay extra for them to do it, though most shinobi tend to be paranoid and would rather do their own anyway.

Not that I really blame them. I'd do my own too.

But she isn't a huge fan of poisoning her weapons. There is too much room for error and a poisoned weapon being used against you in the field was doubly worse when it was your own.

But maybe, maybe eventually…

Ino is giving her advice on how to build up her resistances. Tenten never wants to become the sort of kunoichi that relies on poisons to be her first line of offense or to rely on them… but a little surprise now and then isn't a bad idea. Especially when weapons are her specialty. Poisons will catch people off guard.

The time in her parents' shop goes by quickly. It always does, since Tenten loves helping other shinobi figure out which weapon would suit them best. She doesn't even mind the Academy-level students, who come in and look avidly without buying anything; how could she mind? Once upon a time that had basically been her, even though she'd worked the till for years.

And it gives her something productive to do while under the supervision of an adult. Tenten has been an adult in the eye of the village for nearly a year and a half, but this is the longest she's gone without being accountable to anyone and having them check in on her progress. She understands all the reasons why, and she supports that Gai-sensei is running the missions he can't take them on yet, but it makes her antsy at the same time, not having someone around her who she can reach out to and ask to check in on the steps she's taken to improve herself, if they can tell she's improving or if there's a flaw in her stances or...

Well, anything.

Lee is still in the hospital recuperating--she visits him most days and he's always glad to see her--and Neji is behind the walls of the Hyuuga compound, where the closest she can get to him is asking Hinata how he's been doing.

But...

I'm lonely and antsy.

It's okay to feel these things, to wrap them around herself as she thinks about ways to improve her skills, but it's also because of these feelings that she's going to take her time before making any decisions. All her books say that, in the midst of feeling negative emotions, it's best to take a year before making any drastic changes.

Now, her books mean things like people having died, and this isn't it, but since Tenten doesn't plan on waiting a year to make up her mind, either, she feels that she can co-opt the same principal for a smaller issue.

That's why I'm going to wait. If I make a choice now, will it be because I'm lonely and anxious to be out there, doing more, or will it actually be for my long-term benefit?

She doesn't know yet. It's hard to make that judgment call.

Tenten is glad no one but herself is asking her to--so far. It would be awkward to be asked and to not know the answer.

Especially with Lee and Neji.

They're very different but they both know her. If she tried to step around a question...

They would know.

And she'd rather they didn't, for the foreseeable future, because she knows them, and they would assume the worst possible outcome for them would be the only possible outcome.

And it's not. It's really not. I just don't know what to do yet.

"What's your plans for after work?" her mom asks, in a lull between customers.

"Going to see Lee," Tenten says, putting back to rights their selection of kunai. That part is easy. It's always the same and she likes spending time with him--he's weird but he's a good teammate and friend. "Then probably training."

Her mom's silence has something to it though, so Tenten glances up.

"Why?" she asks. "Do you need me for something?"

Just then, a customer comes in, and her mom shakes her head--not in negation, but that she'll explain herself later.

Since Tenten doesn't want her family's business all over the village, she waits, working through it and glad for a new mystery to ponder (even if she's pretty sure it's going to be something as prosaic as hitting up a market on the way back from visiting Lee), until they're closing up for the evening meal (they'll be open again later in the evening for a few hours but that will be her elder brother's job, not hers).

It is a list of groceries to pick up, which she takes with a laugh, but it's also--

"You're friends with that pink-haired kunoichi, right?" her mom asks.

"Sure, I guess?" Tenten says, with a shrug. "Why? What's up?"

She doesn't explain that of the 'Rookie 9' kunoichi that Sakura's the one she knows the least. That Ino and Hinata are her real friends while she's just... friendly... with Sakura.

"It's just that your father heard that she turned down an apprenticeship with Tsunade-sama," her mother says. "So, we were wondering if that's something you were considering? You've always talked about her and if she's looking for an apprentice then..."

It feels a bit like being punched in the stomach with that old, old dream of hers being brought up now. She remembers telling Gai-sensei and Lee and Neji about it on their very first day of being Genin.

Gai-sensei had been incredibly supportive of her dream. Lee had been humbled by her determination to succeed. Neji had taken it as a matter of course that, obviously, if she was on his team then she'd be striving for the top.

And then... nothing had happened.

Oh, she's gotten stronger, there's no doubt about that, but her dream of being like Tsunade-sama had just sort of... stayed in dreamland.

And a lot of that is my fault too.

"Oh, Mom, I don't know," Tenten says. "Do you really think I could? Tsunade-sama isn't known for her weapons work and that's what I'm best at."

Her mom smacks her. A quick slap upside the head that reminds her, sharply, of the fact that her mom had been a kunoichi of Konoha too, until she'd chosen to retire and raise her children. It barely hurts, the sting already fading away, but the disappointment in her mother's eyes is more painful and will linger longer.

"You can do anything you want to do," her mother says severely. "Your dad and I raised you to see limitations as challenges. If you don't want to, then that's fine. If you're happy, that's fine. But lately you haven't been. So, figure out what you want to do, and we'll support you."

Tenten hugs her mom. Quick and close.

"I haven't decided what to do yet," she says, which is the absolute truth. "Though I've been looking at a few options. Do you know the significance of thirty-four years?"

Her mom doesn't.

That's alright. No one else she's asked has known either. It's one of the reasons she's been thinking about it so hard.

It matters to her, she finds, that thirty-four years.

"When I decide, I'll let you know," Tenten promises, folding the grocery list away into a pocket. "And... you know what? Maybe I should try and see if I can be what Tsunade-sama is looking for."

She doesn't know if she can be a medical ninja. Her chakra control is pretty good, but she's never been spectacular at it. She loves her weapons. She doesn't know if she could give up focusing on them in order to start from scratch in a new specialty. She doesn't even know if Tsunade-sama is looking for an apprentice now that Sakura turned her down.

She doesn't know anything.

Maybe finding the answers out to a few of those questions would help her figure things out. Maybe that's one of the problems, that there's too many doors open, and she can't pick. Maybe if she can get a few of them closed, things will be clearer.

"Picking up a little more than basic first aid is never a bad idea," her mom says encouragingly. "Even if you decide not to go through with it all the way, you might learn something that could save a teammate's life."

This is true.

Every shinobi learns some first aid. They need it, even in the village, to properly care for training scrapes and bruises and to be able to gauge if a training accident is serious enough to need a visit to the hospital or if they can just... walk it off, take a few days a little easier.

But there's entire worlds of medical jutsu that Tenten knows are out there.

"I'll think about it," she says, and she will. "I'll be back in a bit with groceries, okay?"

As she leaves, her mom still looks a bit troubled.

Tenten is more than a bit troubled. Learning medicine is important. It's useful. It could keep her team safe.

And it would mean I'd be kept safe so that I can be their safety net.

Tenten hates that idea. She loves fighting. She's fine with being someone's guardian, their protector, but she's not fine with being someone's healer.

She didn't become a ninja to be taken care of. It's bad enough that Lee is a monster at taijutsu and that Neji is just a monster at everything.

What is she?

And that's one of the reasons she's struggled with her dream. She wants to be strong, like Tsunade-sama. She wants to be gorgeous, like Tsunade-sama. She wants to be well-known, like Tsunade-sama.

But she's pretty sure she doesn't want to be Tsunade-sama.

She's not sure she could be anyway. Tenten knows her strengths and weaknesses pretty well after a year and a half on active duty. Kunoichi like Tsunade-sama don't come around often and, frankly, she's done her research. If there's a magic level of skill or talent, she doesn't think she has it. If she's a genius of anything, she's like Lee, a genius of hard work.

Hard work alone doesn't make kunoichi like Tsunade-sama.

Mom would smack me upside the head again.

It's an ugly, uncomfortable truth but Tenten doesn't shy away from it. She's probably, almost certainly, not good enough to be a kunoichi like Tsunade-sama.

Despite saying that she'd go to the hospital to visit Lee, her feet take her in a different direction. She doesn't drift aimlessly, instead she walks with purpose, lost in her own thoughts, until she blinks and finds herself where she and her team had first sat down with Gai-sensei and he'd asked them about their dreams.

For a moment Tenten misses all three of them so badly that it's like a physical ache. She takes a seat, no one else is here, not even a random stranger.

She hates being indecisive.

But how can she not be when she's not sure what her dream ought to be anymore? She leans back, slinging her arms over the back of the bench, and looks up into the canopy of trees. Here, at least, she can't see any signs of destruction. The leaves are the same.

She's not the same as she was, nearly two years ago now, sitting in this very spot.

Tenten reaches for one of the leaves but, of course, they're all out of her reach.

Just like everything else, lately.

She wants to be a legendary kunoichi. She needs to be a legendary kunoichi. Not for anyone else's sake, but for her own, because her very best ought to be good enough to get her there, shouldn't it?

Two years in, she's not so sure. She has a better grasp of what genius is these days and where the gap between it and hard work lays. There's nothing shameful about not being a genius. Naruto literally beat that into Neji's head during the Chuunin exams.

But…

She's discontent and restless and… it rankles. No one talks about her. Everyone's been murmuring about Hinata-chan changing teams, even though Hinata has been quite clear that she doesn't want to, but no one has said anything about her. It's like she doesn't even exist.

Who talks about her?

Is she really that over-shadowed by her teammates? They're both guys and Tenten is well aware that, automatically, that means people will talk about them more. (It's not fair. It's never been fair. It's still the truth.)

But before the exam and everything that had come with and after it, she'd thought she'd been holding her own. She'd felt confident in that.

Then she'd been beaten by a fan-user from Suna and no one cared about her anymore. There'd been no dramatic come back for her to make.

Just—that was it, she was done.

Ino and Sakura hadn't made it to the finals either, but their double knockout fight was already appearing in the latest editions of the records. It was so rare. People noticed.

People talked.

Even before the whole team transfer thing, people had talked. Now they talked more.

And Hinata had her own talk. The shy heiress, nearly brutally killed by her own cousin, but who had stood up until she passed out and then, unconscious, had stood up again. Hinata's status alone had people murmuring, but while she hadn't made it to the finals, she'd made it.

Hinata is not the daughter her father wished he had, but she was becoming a formidable kunoichi in her own way.

No one has forgotten any of the girls of the Rookie Nine. She doesn't think they will either.

"And here I am, feeling sorry for myself," she mutters, but it's true. She doesn't want to lose to a bunch of kunoichi younger than her. It stings her pride.

It's not fair.

Wind whips through the leaves, shivering a few of them free, and Tenten catches several, looking at them seriously.

It's not fair. She lost once, so what, no one was holding that against Kiba or Chouji or Lee. But it is an ugly black mark against her, since she's a girl. She knows it. Everyone knows it, even if everyone won't say it.

Only a third as many kunoichi graduate compared to their shinobi counterparts in the first place. Less than a fifth of that third ever make it to Jounin. Nearly forty percent male graduates that live through their first year as shinobi go on to make Special Jounin or Jounin.

The women that make it absolutely must be extraordinary. Most stop at Chuunin, either due to not having the skills to go further, injuries, or marriage and children. A kunoichi that makes it to Jounin has beaten the odds stacked against her.

And even the legendary Tsunade-sama is a medical ninja.

Which isn't what she wants to be. Irrationally and illogically, part of Tenten still desperately wants to become Tsunade-sama's apprentice. To take that fame and rise with it, making her own legend with her own hands.

Or, at the very least, maybe have someone notice her. She'd give a lot for that right now.

"Thirty-four years," she says. She can't forget this number. It rings against her spirit. It calls to her.

It's a long time. Even longer to shinobi records, which get broken every day, because there's always someone trying to break them.

Tenten sighs.

She hates indecisive people and she's the most indecisive person she knows right now. What she wouldn't give for Hinata's confidence that staying with her team is the best move for her. For Ino's audacity in switching teams, despite knowing it would hurt her and her teammates both.

Instead, Tenten wallows.

The wind snatches the leaves out of her hands, and she watches them go, dancing through branches, until she can't tell which are 'her' leaves anymore.

Then she stands.

I'll go see Lee. Then, while I'm there, I'll see if there's a course or something on field first aid that goes deeper than what I know already. That will make my mom happy and it is good to know, even if I hate that there's a disproportionate number of women in healing. It's the safe option for a kunoichi. If I see Tsunade-sama… I won't bring up the apprenticeship unless she asks me.

Tenten doesn't think she'll be asked. Even Sakura had to ask Tsunade-sama rather than the other way around. She also won't tell her mom that she didn't ask. She's not ready to look at that decision head-on right now.

Then I'll get groceries. Go home. Help make and eat supper.

She starts heading for the hospital with the same purposeful, thoughtful stride that had carried her here in the first place.

A leaf gets caught on one of her buns and she catches it before it can slip away. She studies the veins of it. Then, without quite knowing why, slides it into her pocket.

And after supper I'll continue training. Maybe I should also drop by the Missions Desk and ask if there's any news they can tell me about Gai-sensei.

She feels better, having a plan, even if it's only a plan for the rest of the day.

And maybe, just maybe, while I go step by step, I'll figure out if I want to do anything about that thirty-four years.

Chapter Text

It’s somewhere between Hatake-sensei’s hand on her head and Ino’s question about if he found anything in the Main House that Sakura has a horrified realization.

She’s hugging Hatake-sensei.

Sakura yelps, embarrassed beyond words, as she pulls away from him quickly, babbling incoherent apologies, face flaming, wishing she could sink into a hole and die and—

Both Ino and Hatake-sensei are smiling at her. Oh, Ino looks like she’s about a heartbeat away from a laugh, and Hatake-sensei’s smile is more read in the curve of his eyebrow and line of his shoulders but it’s both reassuring and bewildering all the same. She still feels horribly embarrassed but to her confusion and comfort Hatake-sensei ignores all of that like it never happened and instead answers Ino’s question instead.

And yet, Sakura doesn’t feel ignored. She feels… grateful, honestly, and more than a little loved because they’re saying, without saying anything at all, that even if she did maybe over-step with the hug… it’s okay. It’s not a big deal. It’s not even a mistake, really, since Hatake-sensei didn’t push her away. It happened and that’s… all.

She uses that coolness to smother the flames of embarrassment and listens to Hatake-sensei’s answer.

"It really was something like a ghost?" she says, all thoughts of shame blown away once he describes what he’d found in the frigid Main House.

Ino shivers as if she, too, remembers the cold. The kitchen is lit by field lamps, but she looks like all the pigment has been washed out of her, like Ino, herself, is a ghost.

Except Ino would never die with regrets enough to haunt someone or some place so Sakura shoves the macabre thought out of her mind and goes to put a pot of tea on. Tea won't fix it, but it will help. Hatake-sensei doesn't stop her.

"We don’t know that it was a ghost," Hatake-sensei says firmly. "Or a monster. Or even an invader."

"It… it is hostile to us though," Sakura offers. "We do know that."

"We do know that," he agrees, then looks at Ino. "Do you have any reason to believe that it went after you specifically?"

Ino thinks about that carefully as Sakura fetches cups from their packs and rinses them. The small, homey task settles Sakura's nerves more than the questioning does.

"I don't think so," Ino says slowly. "I think what happened with my Clan abilities was… collateral damage, if anything. It was trying to get at us physically. When I reached out mentally I think it was just…"

Ino trails off as Sakura sets the tea leaves to steeping. Camomile and lavender aren't her favourite kinds of tea but it's the one she makes, since it seems like it would be the most useful one right now.

"Sakura said earlier that maybe it was like radio interference," Ino says. "Hatake-sensei, I couldn't feel anything when it took me out, though I felt it when it tried to get into our room, so I think… I think I just hit a part of it that just is?"

He nods slowly, thoughtfully. "Like hitting a wall?"

Ino rubs one of her temples, then rubs the other. "Only if that wall is invisible?"

Sakura tries not to, she really does, but a giggle slips out of her.

"Shut up, Forehead!"

"Make me, Ino-pig!"

Hatake-sensei just looks at them. Tired, concerned, and amused all at once.

Sakura sticks her tongue out at Ino and goes to pour the tea, being careful to strain the leaves out, and hands each of them a cup. Ino takes her gratefully (after she sticks her tongue out in retaliation) while Hatake-sensei takes his, then stares at it blankly for a moment, as if he's not quite sure what to do with it.

She wraps her fingers around her own cup and inhales the steam. "What should we do tonight?" she asks.

Sakura hesitates, then, because she really doesn't want to ask the next question but it really does need to be asked: "Hatake-sensei are we going to abort the mission?"

After all, this really wasn't in the mission brief. It was like Wave Country all over again, except no one had told a lie to get them to come.

"That," he says, after a long moment of silence where Sakura stares into her tea and hopes he doesn't hate her for asking it, "is a good question. We'll be remaining here for the night."

Ino's expression is closed, giving no idea of what she's thinking away. Of all of them, she's the one who was the worst injured—though Hatake-sensei does sport a few bandages, he doesn't move like they're anything serious.

Hatake-sensei's sigh is a heavy thing. "And then we'll discuss whether we stay or go."

This time aborting the mission means that Hatake-sensei doesn't get his dogs back. Tazuna-san's dream had been grand and all but this small, important thing to her sensei means more to her. Sakura wonders if that makes her a bad person.

"Finish your tea," he says, "and get some rest. I'll stand guard."

"You're injured, Hatake-sensei," Ino says. "I can be guard. I got some sleep alrea—"

"Ino, you've yet to go three minutes without flinching from the light or rubbing your temples," Hatake-sensei says with a firm sort of gentleness. "You need to rest."

"What about me?" Sakura says, with a bravery she doesn't quite feel, but learning means taking risks and of the three of them, she's the only one not wounded in some way. "I could stand guard. Hatake-sensei, you need your rest too, because if that thing comes back, you're… the strongest. I'm not very good in a fight yet," and she's proud of herself for adding that yet, "but I can scream bloody murder with the best of them, if need be."

From the look Ino gives her, Sakura figures she's lucky Ino can't use her mind speech right now or she'd be in for a biiig lecture.

Sakura pretends she doesn't notice and just waits anxiously for Hatake-sensei's verdict.

"Alright," he says, after a long moment. "Four hours, then wake me. That's a standard watch shift when out in the field, even for ANBU."

Her protest at having to wake him dies unborn. If ANBU can accept four-hour shifts, then she can too.

"It's because ninja are people," he says, to her unasked question about why. "And no one can maintain vigilance all night without getting sloppy. Our brains aren't made to be at that level of alert for much longer than that."

"Yes, Hatake-sensei."

He smiles at her, setting his empty teacup down on the counter. Sakura has no idea when he'd drank it and from Ino's startled noise, neither does she. "Any further questions?"

She shakes her head. "No, Hatake-sensei." Sakura hesitates for a moment and then repeats, "No, I'm good."

"All right," he says, taking her at her word. "Ino, if you're done your tea, get to bed. We'll be in the bedroom you guys cleared. It's more easily defensible. Sakura, if you hear anything out of the ordinary, wake me immediately. Do not go off investigating on your own. Vary your patrol pattern."

Ino, looking tired and wan, just nods.

"Yes, Hatake-sensei," Sakura says obediently. She might have bristled under the restrictions had the situation been better but they're all tired and he's injured and so is Ino and so if he wants to fuss a little, well, she actually finds it rather comforting.

And sweet, but she'd never say that to him.

Sakura goes with them to the bedroom, where the rest of their stuff was. It was lucky they'd left some here because the bulk of their supplies are hidden in the gazebo still. When asked about it, Hatake-sensei just says to leave it all there for now.

Ino doesn't argue and just curls up in a blanket, asleep immediately. Sakura, fussing a little herself, adds her spare blanket over Ino, tucking her in, while Hatake-sensei lays out his things.

"She'll be okay, right?" Sakura asks.

"She says so," Hatake-sensei says. "And, if not, we're in the village. We can get help quickly if we absolutely must."

Sakura just nods. "Hatake-sensei, are you going to be okay?"

His voice gets a little warmer. "I've been injured much worse than this before, Sakura. I'll be fine." Then he nods at the door. "Go start your watch."

It's a dismissal but, somehow, it doesn't feel belittling or like she's in the way. Sakura nods firmly and leaves. Her last glance of them is him double-checking that Ino's condition has remained stable.

That and the way he'd answered her, leaves her feeling oddly protected.

But now I'm the one that has to protect them.

It's a sobering fact, especially as she volunteered and he'd taken her at her word that she could do this. Sakura wraps that fact around herself—Hatake-sensei is not the kind of sensei to easily trust—so that he thinks she can do this means that she can do this and that she will.

She takes a deep breath and goes back to the kitchen, glad that they'd spent enough time in the guest house, first base, to know her way around it like the back of her hands. Once in the kitchen, she splashes icy water on her face, to help her wake up and then quickly does the dishes.

She dims the lanterns' lights, not turning them off entirely, and then heads out to do her job.

After that, the hours slide into each other. The guest house may be smaller than the Main House but that doesn't mean it's small. She's on tenterhooks for every small creak and shift of the building, always wondering if it's something else or just the old building doing what old buildings do.

Her vigilance and how much work it is gives her new appreciation and understanding of Hatake-sensei's explanation. It's exhausting to keep everything in mind, while moving as silently as she knows how, while keeping her chakra muffled and carefully regulated, while listening as hard as she can, while looking as hard as she can, while trying not to freak out about things like an unexpected rustle of branches or the creaking of the eves.

The one good thing about it is that there's no room for her anxiety and fear of failure. Every ounce of her is taken up with doing her very best to protect them.

Because she has to.

Not because it's a job or anything, not like it had been with Tazuna-san, but because they're her team and she loves them. Nothing will get past her unnoticed.

And nothing does.

Four hours go by without anything going wrong aside from her stumbling over an upraised floorboard and nearly faceplanting. She managed to save herself, regaining her balance, and doesn't allow herself to dwell on that incredible embarrassment.

No one is around to notice and no one has heard her and she knows that as well as she can know anything at this stage in her training.

As the night bleeds onwards, Sakura feels like she's slowly erasing the past year of scribbled lines and blobs of paint, leaving her with a new, blank canvas, one that's just waiting for her to fill it in more confidently. She can do this. She's not just Sakura, from the broken Team 7, she's also Sakura, from the new Team 7, and she's stronger for it.

She is.

When she goes to wake Hatake-sensei, at the end of her shift, he wakes before she touches him. Sakura still isn't skilled enough to sneak up on a Jounin-level ninja, especially not one that had just been in ANBU.

But it fills her with a quiet, unshakeable sort of strength to be able to report to him in a low voice that all was clear.

He doesn't say much, neither of them wants to wake Ino up yet, but when he claps her on the shoulder and sends her to bed, she closes her eyes feeling like her newly drawn foundation has gotten a good start.

When she wakes, morning is well begun, with the sun a good bit over the horizon. Ino is still asleep, though when Sakura checks on her, her colour is much better: she looks like a real girl again instead of a ghostly one.

Their packs are over by the door—Hatake-sensei must have fetched them. Sakura doesn't unpack, though she does take the time to fish her hairbrush out of hers and to brush her hair. She'd like to change her clothes, too, but for now she doesn't, just stretches, takes a quick side trip to the bathroom to take care of a few necessities, and then heads for the kitchen.

Hatake-sensei isn't there, but Sakura isn't worried by the lack of his immediate presence. It's clear that he's been here and recently as there's a pot of tea that's still warm to the touch (she helps herself to a cup) and, once she's finished it, pours herself and Ino a cup, then takes them back to their room.

Ino grumbles when Sakura wakes her, but she takes the tea gratefully. They sit next to each other, their knees touching, as Sakura waits for Ino to feel like talking.

"How did watch go?" Ino asks.

"Good," Sakura says, with some pride. "Nothing untoward happened."

She doesn't mention nearly faceplanting. That's a story for later. Possibly much later, if ever. Ino is her biggest supporter but that would still be deeply embarrassing to share.

Ino nods.

"Do you want me to brush your hair?" Sakura asks.

"I'm not an invalid," Ino protests, but she doesn't complain when Sakura fetches the hairbrush and starts untangling Ino's hair anyway. "Ugh. You're so rude."

"Sure am," Sakura says, hugging Ino from behind and then going back to the tangles. "How are you feeling?"

Ino is quiet for a moment. "Better," she says. "Not sure I want to try reaching out with my mind yet though."

"Then don't." After a few strokes of the brush, Sakura asks, "Think you'd be up to food?"

"Is there food made?" Ino wonders, rolling her shoulders out to shake the sleep from them.

Sakura whacks her gently with her free hand. "Stop that!"

Ino rolls her eyes—Sakura can't actually see her do that, but she knows she is; she knows Ino—and gives a huff. "Fiiine."

Taking a moment to stick her tongue out at the back of Ino's head, Sakura laughs. Now that Ino is awake and acting like herself everything that happened last night doesn't seem quite as bad. "And food wasn't made but if Hatake-sensei's making tea then I don't see why we can't make something."

She pauses for a moment.

"Unless you want to subsist on ration bars."

Their shudder is in tandem.

"A fate worse than death," Ino declares. "I'll pass. Finish my hair and we'll go see what our options are."

In short order, they're back in the kitchen. Like her, Ino has foregone changing her clothes, and she grumbles half-heartedly about that as they look over their choices.

"Field oatmeal two days in a row is a bit bleh," Sakura observes, "but it is the quickest thing we've got, other than the ration bars or soup and soup for breakfast is... a no. Oatmeal it is."

She gets that started, with a bit of gloom. It's not that she doesn't like it, though she never eats it at home, it's that it's just so bland…

Ino looks up from where she's rummaging through their food supplies. "It doesn't have to be bleh. I've got raisins and almonds and cinnamon." Her face clouds. "Though maybe that last one might smell too strongly given everything. Thoughts?"

"It can't be worse than all the lemon-scented cleaner we've used here," Sakura says, after a moment of due consideration. Even if most of the cleaner had ostensibly been expired, it had both worked and smelled heavily of lemon. "Also: tasty. Also also: it survived Hatake-sensei's purge of our things so, like, that sounds like we're allowed to use it so long as we're not in an active combat or danger zone."

Holding up the little bag that holds the cinnamon, Ino frowns a little. "Nothing's happened to us here. Just when we went to the Main House. Nothing followed either of us when we fled the Main House either, as far as I'm aware."

"I'll agree with that," Hatake-sensei says, taking in the scene in a glance and if he looks a bit tired, well, at least Sakura is comforted that he got some rest. "And yes, you may use the cinnamon."

"Thanks, Hatake-sensei!" Ino chirps.

His one eye curves into a smile. "I see you're feeling better. How's your head?"

Ino gives pretty much the same answer she'd given to Sakura, then adds, "I was thinking, though, that with your permission I could try mind speaking either you or Sakura and see if that hurts."

"Let me consider that," he says. "Sakura, how are you?"

"I'm good," she said, a little startled to be asked. Sakura pauses, gives it a little more thought and realizes that, yeah, even just emotionally—she's doing really good today, actually. "Great, even."

There's no point in mentioning things like she's tired, wants a bath, or anything. That's just normal mission stuff. It's actually kind of nice to feel a little wrung out in the way that says she's working as a shinobi of Konoha should be.

"How are you, Hatake-sensei?" Ino asks, liberally adding all three of her extras into the pot Sakura is tending. It immediately starts to smell a lot better and Sakura takes a deep breath happily.

"We're making enough for all three of us," Sakura adds, in case he was wondering. She'd never make food for just part of the team.

Even Kakashi-sensei had been firm about that one. All of the team was fed or none of the team was fed. It had been his very first lesson.

Hatake-sensei nods his approval, taking a seat. "Thank you, Sakura."

"Sensei," Ino complains.

"I'm better than I was last night," he concedes. Sakura thinks he might be actually teasing Ino. "My injuries are superficial and the mind-pain that accompanied them is gone entirely. Furthermore, to circle back to your discussion when I interrupted, Ino, you're correct that nothing appears to have followed us out of the Main House."

He looks at the two of them. "Before we move on, I want say this: you both did very good work last night."

Sakura flushes, pleased, while Ino looks a bit doubtful.

"I got hurt and lost my biggest weapon," Ino says evenly.

"You alerted me to the danger, got both yourself and Sakura away from it, and made it back to our rendezvous point," Hatake-sensei corrects. "Yes, you lost access to your Clan abilities and were injured. That will happen. A good job is one that you accomplish the mission goals and get out alive. You did that. Good job."

Ino looks away, so that neither of them can read her expression. Hatake-sensei studies her back before he looks away, turning his gaze to Sakura.

"You facilitated the escape, kept watch over your teammate, and once back here did a watch shift to protect us. Good work, Sakura."

She's pretty sure she's flushed red as a tomato. "Thank you, Hatake-sensei."

They're quiet then, as he doesn't say anything further, and Ino is still thinking whatever she's thinking. Once they've eaten (also mostly silent, aside from a few thank yous) and Ino is doing the dishes, it's a little awkward though she wonders if that's just her.

She doesn't think so, though, since Ino isn't in the mood to chatter.

"Alright," Hatake-sensei says. "Now we have an important decision to make. Do we want to abort this mission or not?" He holds up one hand, when Sakura opens her mouth. "No, think about it first. Then speak."

Sakura shuts her mouth and does as her sensei tells her. She thinks.

She really does want to help Hatake-sensei find his dogs. The training is great and she likes the chance to have both her sensei and Ino all to herself, without anyone else around, but having fun isn't what the mission is about.

It's finding a scroll so that Hatake-sensei can hopefully get his dogs back. She doesn't know how summoning really works or how it's messed up right now, but it's clear that it is. And that it bothers Hatake-sensei deeply enough to be willing to come here, not just by himself, but with her and Ino.

That's huge.

But…

But it's really immaterial to whether they should continue or not. Sakura feels super guilty about that decision but it's true.

When it had come to Wave Country and Tazuna-san's deception, it had mostly been Sasuke-kun's confidence (Naruto's too, she supposes, though she'd still placed Sasuke-kun's opinion over his at the time; she doesn't know what she'd do now) that had convinced her to agree to go ahead with the job.

In retrospect everything about that mission had been way over her head. Kakashi-sensei should never have allowed them to go forward once they'd found out how mis-ranked the job was but then, that hadn't been the last time he'd thrown them into something to see if they could survive either.

Also in retrospect, Sakura wasn't sure they should have done the Chuunin Exams at all. She'd learned a lot by doing them, and maybe that had been his intention, but now that she has a better idea of how much she didn't know, Sakura knows good and well that she hadn't been and still wasn't ready to be a Chuunin. Yet.

But this wasn't Wave Country and this wasn't the Chuunin Exams and she was being asked if she thought she was ready.

Was she?

They didn't know enough about the enemy to be able to make an educated guess at the level of danger. It could be bad. A-rank levels of bad, even, and she pretended she didn't know there was a rank of bad above that.

On the other hand, Hatake-sensei had mentioned that if, at any time, they needed more serious medical attention than what the three of them knew… well. Konoha wasn't very far away.

Except…

She frowned.

That was a problem. In fact, that was a big enough problem that she kept frowning as she turned it over and over in her head.

"I think," Sakura says, "I think I want to stay, except, Hatake-sensei, if you're taken out of commission is there a way for us to get through the estate's wards if you're unconscious or… dead?"

She hates saying it. She hates thinking of it. Since they're dealing with a complete unknown, though, it needs to be asked. If first base hadn't been safe last night, then she and Ino wouldn't have been able to leave without him.

They'd have been trapped in a cage that whatever it was that lived here knew far better than they did.

"I want to test my abilities before deciding if we should stay," Ino says, into the silence that Sakura's question left. "But Sakura's right, her question is more important than my request. Can we get out if we're not with you, Hatake-sensei?"

Sakura looks at Ino, who just shrugs a little. It's not quite the same question Sakura had asked.

He is so very proud of them.

Kakashi doesn't beam at them, as it would be deeply unsettling for all involved, especially given the seriousness that he wants them to feel about this decision. Turning back from a job or carrying on with one when it's changed far beyond the scope of the original briefing is not something that should be taken lightly.

Ninja can't give up easily.

But, also, ninja shouldn't throw their lives away unless it is a requirement that the mission be done no matter what.

His Genin team shouldn't be facing missions like that for years. He still wants them to think about this and they are.

And they're asking the right questions.

"Good questions," he says. "Ino, can you sense the wards today?"

Ino frowns a little, her eyes going distant. "Yes, Hatake-sensei. Though I get the sense that they're… agitated about something?"

"That's probably because I'm not happy with the fact that this has happened," he admits. Both of the girls already know that, since they just nod, and he chooses not to elaborate on all this reasons for his displeasure.

"But what does that have to do with--" Sakura cuts herself off, looking a little frustrated as she tries to find the words to finish that sentence.

He spares her the trouble.

"The wards here are family wards," he says. "That means that there's only three ways to get through them."

All right. There's more than three ways. But they're Genin and just don't have the education, yet, to be able to use the more complicated options.

"The first of those is to be blood-related. This is the simplest option as that's what these wards were designed to accommodated. The good part of this is, if I'm alive but unconscious or too badly wounded to be coherent, it won't matter. If you can get me to one of the gates, we can all get out. I don't need to do anything except be alive to exit this place."

Entering it had taken a little more effort but only because the wards had sensed his hesitance to pass them.

"Now, if I'm dead," Sakura shudders but Ino just watches him with fathomless eyes, "or if you can't get me to the gate, it gets a little more complicated. Blood adoption does work but, needless to say, we will not be doing that."

"What's blo—" Sakura starts.

Ino interrupts, "It's a ritual that makes a person a member of the family as if they always had been. You wouldn't be Haruno Sakura, adopted into the Hatake Clan. You'd be Hatake Sakura, from your DNA up, completely re-written to be part of this Clan."

Sakura scowls. "So if you were Hatake Ino, then—"

"I wouldn't have my Clan abilities at all," Ino agrees. "For all intents and purposes, Yamanaka Ino would never have existed. We wouldn't look the same, we wouldn't be the same. Blood adoption is usually used on infants and even then it's… it's not really done often."

With a shudder, Sakura looks to him for confirmation.

He nods. "Ino's correct. As I said, we will not be doing that." Kakashi had only mentioned it at all because he suspected that Ino knew enough about family and what that meant to ninja to be able to intuit that a blood adoption might work. "I'm far too young to have children as old as you two are."

Sakura laughs, a little unevenly, but Ino doesn't. He hadn't expected her to. Blood adoption has been used to eradicate Clans in the past. It was one of the reasons Uchiha Sasuke hadn't been taken in by anyone. A few civilian families had offered. The ninja clans had known better.

The civilians had been turned down. No one wanted even the breath of possibility of a family deciding it would be better to literally erase the last of the (non-murderously insane) Uchiha.

For his own good, of course. Kakashi had checked the records out of morbid curiosity after Sakura had told him of the massacre.

Ino is her father's only child. His heir.

"Another option and one that I'm not sure you two have the chakra to pull it off, is sheer brute forcing your way out through the wards. This isn't an elegant solution. It's not pretty, it's not easy, it's very noticeable, both inside and outside of the wards. Sakura, this is mostly something you need to keep in mind as a last resort for you. If both Ino and I are dead or so incapacitated that we cannot be brought to the gate, then you will have to try. I'll show you how to best form your chakra to escape from wards like these."

"Even if we choose to put a stop to this mission?" she asks hesitantly, clearly a bit frightened.

"Even if," he says. "It's good for you to know."

"What's the option for me, then?" Ino says. "If you're dead or if you and Sakura are and I'm not?"

Sakura looks deeply uncomfortable—probably at how both he and Ino are casually talking about death, their deaths, but there's nothing casual about it. It must be discussed now so that they don't have to worry about it later.

"I'll be showing you Sakura's method too, as a fall back," he says, "but that method only works to get one of you out. To get both of you out, I'm going to teach you how to resonate with the wards as if you are a Hatake. Specifically, as if you were me."

Now both of the girls are frowning at him.

"As if I'm you?" Ino repeats.

"Why can't I learn that?" Sakura asks.

"Because, right now, you don't have the ability to sense the wards," Kakashi says, not mincing words even though he knows they'll hurt. "Ino's method to get both of you out will be taking advantage of her sensor abilities."

Sakura looks like she's swallowed a live fish and doesn't say anything.

Ino, on the other hand, radiates unease now. "Even though I don't have any training in being a sensor?"

He wishes he knew more about what she did know with her Clan abilities and her potential specifically with them. When they get out of here, he'll have to talk to Inoichi. For now, though, he can't show anything but confidence.

"You know how to recognize my mind from Sakura's, right?" he asks patiently.

"Yes," she says, like that's a stupid question. "I've been doing that for years."

"Then you'll be able to do this," he says firmly. "You'll basically be pretending to be me as far as the wards are concerned. If you can have my blood on you while you do so, even better."

Sakura looks horrified.

"I think I see where you're going with this," Ino says thoughtfully. "Can I have a scrap from one of your bandages last night? There's dried blood on them, right?"

He is so very proud of them.

"Yes, there is, good thinking. So those are the options for getting out of here in even the worst-case scenarios. Do you want time to think about them?" He keeps his voice very neutral. He wants them to think about this.

But he wants them to decide that on their own.

"Ino, in the meantime, do you want to try reaching out to Sakura or I with your mind?"

Chapter Text

"Ino, do you want to try reaching out to Sakura or I with your mind?"

The answer, obviously, is 'um, duh' since that's a condition of her staying on this mission (okay, so she'd probably stay on this mission anyway but she's not telling anyone that) but Ino doesn't say that because Hatake-sensei is actually being super great about laying out all their options and she genuinely does respect that.

Even if he'd brought up blood adoption which—ugh. She'd had nightmares about that when she was a kid, the very thought of someone forcibly stealing her away from her Dad and her Clan was just…

She wasn't thinking about it.

Luckily, and he hadn't mentioned it to Sakura, the older a person got the more blood adoption relied on consent. The ritual necessary didn't give two figs what a one-year-old thought but at their age now the only way anyone was making a blood adoption go through was by consent.

Otherwise, the resistance against it would cause the ritual to fail. Good.

"Yes, Hatake-sensei," Ino says, ignoring the way that Sakura looks all kinds of devastated. It makes her heart bleed but there's nothing she can do about it. Sometimes, being a ninja is about being devastated. Her dad had always told her that being a ninja was nothing but pain, unless you actively worked to make it more than that.

She hadn't really got it, back when she'd been in the Academy, except around the edges of other peoples' grief. Even mostly closed, her mind caught the strongest filaments of thought and feelings that other people threw off unknowing.

After a year and change, she had a better understanding of what that level of pain could mean for her, on a more personal level.

Ino was just desperately, incredibly lucky that none of her pains came from the deaths of anyone she loved. The mess with Shikamaru, with Chouji, even with Asuma-sensei was a mire of unmet expectations and betrayed emotions but they were all alive.

It really, really sucked but she was never going to be anything but grateful that they still existed, even if they were mad at her. So long as they were alive, there was a chance for things to get better. Maybe she'd have her friends back.

She didn't know if she'd get Asuma-sensei back in any capacity. She tried not to hope too much for that, especially since, while she loved him, she also disliked him (hate was too strong a word) in almost equal measure. It could have been so great and he'd let her down over and over and over again.

But her sensei now was waiting for her and she turned her mind to that as he gestured for her to go ahead.

He doesn't even ask who she's going to try. It's a bit of trust in her that she cherishes.

Ino takes another half-moment, bare instant to brace herself, just in case this fails, because even though the pain in her head is gone now, she's never had that happen to her before. She's never been head-blind and she never wants to do that again.

It had left her feeling defenseless, no matter how many words of praise Hatake-sensei gave her for the things she'd managed while unable to use her Clan abilities to their fullest extent.

Ino reaches out smoothly, the way she's been trained by her dad and only barely started using with Sakura and their new sensei, and she can't knock on the mind of someone without her ability, but she can announce her presence.

Here, Hatake-sensei.

She can feel his mild surprise that she chose him over Sakura but he doesn't comment on it.

Good, he says. Any pain?

None.

And she's so very relieved by that. She takes a second to revel in Hatake-sensei's gladness, wrapping it around herself, and then disengages, feeling like she's smiling for the first time since yesterday when things had all gone wrong.

"Everything works fine," she says to both of them.

Sakura beams at her. "That's fantastic!"

Ino can't help but beam back at her. There's a lot that could go wrong with this mission but having her mind abilities back in working order goes a long way towards making her feel better about their odds.

"That is good news," Hatake-sensei says. "Now I want both of you to think about if you want to continue the mission, knowing all the options. You've got thirty minutes to think."

Sakura's face clouds over immediately and, clearly troubled, she says, "Yes, Hatake-sensei."

Ino nods, resting her chin against the back of her chair and closing her eyes. She doesn't need to, to think, but it's a visible sign to Sakura that Ino doesn't want to be disturbed.

Because Sakura desperately wants to ask her for her opinion and Ino is just as certain that this is a choice they've got to make on their own, without pushing or input from anyone else. It was why Hatake-sensei had so bluntly outlined their options and then stepped back.

In every sense, it was for them to come to their own choices as individuals. Once a choice was made, they could discuss it, but…

Well, it's no secret that Sakura tends to lean on other peoples' approval to make decisions.

She's getting better at it, though Ino knows she's not the best judge of that, but… Ino does understand why Hatake-sensei wants them to do this alone.

As for her…

What do I want?

That's the question she's got to find an answer for. Is she willing to risk her life, Sakura's life, and even Hatake-sensei's life (because make no mistake, she has the measure of him now and it's written in his soul that he'll die before anything kills them on his watch), on this mission?

It's not like this mission was supposed to risk life and limb. They weren't Jounin or even Chuunin. They weren't even Genin out on border patrol, which did see combat now and again and, yes, sometimes lives were lost.

But this… this had been a concession to her dad coupled with Hatake-sensei's wish to retrieve his dogs from wherever they were stuck. This had been a training mission. Low risk but interesting. She had been enjoying learning the jutsu to look for things.

Sakura had told her that Kakashi-sensei had told them to look 'underneath the underneath'. Hatake-sensei hadn't said to do so, in so many words, but he was very clearly training them in how to do it all the same.

Ino loves that.

Then there's the matter of her pride. Is she able to walk away from this mission now that it's become a potentially huge risk?

Her pride does not like that idea. Ino has never walked away from a mission yet and she doesn't want to start.

At the same time, this is the very first time it's honestly ever come up. There had been no need to ever consider it while she'd run missions with Team Ten, and this was the very first time she'd run a mission with her new team.

Sure, she'd done a couple of in-village missions solo, before transferring, but that also hadn't exactly been risky. Running courier missions and taking notes in meetings was hardly dangerous, no matter how interesting she found them.

(Ino did like doing these things. If she was quiet and industrious while doing the assigned job, she learned more than people thought she did. Ino loves knowing things.)

On the other hand…

She hadn't become a ninja to be a glorified secretary.

That's really the answer right there. Sakura hadn't been wrong when she'd said that Team Ten had been designed as an espionage-type team, because that was what they were, especially at the Genin level. Higher in rank, though, and they added another specialty type: assassination.

How could she ever live up to both her potential and her family's legacy if she ran away now? It would just set a precedent for leaving when things got tough—and she'd already been left once.

So that's it, Ino decides, confident in her choice. I stay.

Feeling better, now that she's made her choice, Ino ponders what had happened to her last night and, more importantly, if she knew of anyway to not have it happen again.

Dad would know, she thinks, but then he's a lot older and wiser and experienced than she is. Whether she figures out a solution or not while here, she'll be running it past him after the fact. For now, though, it's up to her to find something to tide her over.

Not using my abilities would be the easiest way to avoid being injured, but that seems...

Loathsome.

She can fully shut down her mind-abilities but… Yamanaka don't do that. Not unless it is an absolute necessity and... she doesn't know if this is. Last night had hurt her, but so did a stubbed toe when you crash into a wall.

And what if that was just me stubbing my mind?

It really could have been. She doesn't have the keys to this mystery. It's so frustrating.

Where is the fine line between prudence and cowardice? Does it even exist in the here and now with the choice in front of them?

"Time's up," Hatake-sensei says and Ino opens her eyes.

She pretends to not see the plaintive look Sakura gives her.

Sakura is her very best friend but while she can, and will, help... she can't be ferry that gets her across uncertain waters. It's not like it used to be, in the Academy, when saving someone only made them stronger. If she doesn't push Sakura further these days, Sakura will just get weaker.

Over my dead body.

Hatake-sensei looks from her to Sakura, and he must see that they've come to a decision because he nods his head slowly.

"So?"

Ino loves the way that Hatake-sensei puts so much challenge into just one word. He's not daring them to stay, he's made that quite clear, he's daring them to express their opinion and the fact that he actually listens to those opinions is what makes him so different.

Asuma-sensei had never stopped her from saying what she thought. He'd also just not really listened to her. At all. Ever.

Sakura glances side-long at her. Ino waves for her to go first, which gets her a grimace, but Ino is pleased when Sakura just rolls her eyes, shakes her head, and gets on with it instead of complaining or trying to get out of it.

She's not happy with Ino—she knows what Ino is doing—but she's so much more forward than she was before.

"Hatake-sensei," Sakura says, "I think we should stay. So far, the threat has been confined to the Main House, during the night. If we search the Main House during the day and leave rather than sleeping there, we may never run into this thing again. Further, if any of us are injured, we are in Konoha. If we need help, we can get it."

He nods slightly. "Ino?"

"I'm also in favour of staying," Ino says. "Leaving aside my dad's wish for us to be out of the village for at least a week, which it hasn't been yet, we haven't yet searched the rest of the grounds for the scroll. It may not be in the Main House at all, and I concur with Sakura that so far we haven't seen a threat outside of over-nighting there. There's a lot of work we could still do without potentially triggering any disaster."

"Good points, both of you," he says. "Now what if the threat doesn't remain only a problem at night in the Main House?"

Ino takes this one first, since she had Sakura go first the last time, and it's only fair.

"I don't think it matters, Hatake-sensei," Ino says. "We're shinobi of Konoha. We can't live our lives running away from a 'what if'. Every mission has the possibility to go wrong. We're actually lucky in this one that we've identified a threat and have a chance to talk about ways to minimize said threat. We wouldn't have that chance in an ambush while escorting a caravan or if a border patrol found enemies attempting to cross authorized."

"It's not that we want to leap into danger," Sakura adds, her green eyes a little anxious but her voice earnest. "But a possibility of danger shouldn't be enough to stop us when we have so little information. If it's just a nightmare creature that shows up after dark in the Main House, there's a lot of work we can do without triggering it's conditions."

"So, basically, we're saying that until it makes a move outside of night in the Main House, it would be premature to consider aborting the mission," Ino finishes firmly. "If it does change the pattern and begin to be active in daylight, or outside of the Main House, we can re-consider. We're aware that there's a potential danger now so it's less likely to be able to catch us unaware and it came with a calling card—both feelings and the physical cold arrived well in advance of it actually showing up. Worst comes to worst, there ought to be plenty of time to evacuate if we absolutely must."

After they’re done speaking, Hatake-sensei is quiet for a long time. Ino watches him, and when Sakura opens her mouth to ask what he thinks, she shakes her head slightly. Sakura subsides. This is a thinking silence. They’ve made their choice and said their piece and now it’s up to their sensei to decide what to do.

What’s the hold up? Sakura asks, staring at her.

No idea, Ino says, though she has several.

The look she gets in return is frankly incredulous. You can read minds!

Doesn’t mean I’m going to, Ino says reasonably. And, in this case, Hatake-sensei is both our commanding officer and our client. He holds all of the power of choice.

Then why did he even ask our opinion and go through all of our options for escape? Sakura demands.

Ino spares a moment to hate Kakashi-sensei just a little more. Sakura ought to know this.

Because how else are we supposed to learn what we should do if he doesn’t? This is a weird aberration to our original mission but despite us not knowing what the thing is, the risk is actually fairly low. We could all end up dead but we could all end up dead on a mission to buy groceries if the building falls in unexpectedly.

That's not going to happen.

Happened to a Genin team twenty-six years ago. Tenten-san told me that once while we were practicing together. So, yeah, it's not likely to happen, but it could, and part of being a ninja is being in danger. So we have to know how to think about it.

So you're saying this is a… practice run?

Ino blinks a little. What do you think most of our jobs are? They're all meant as practice for when we become Chuunin and Special Jounin and Jounin. Less than two percent of all graduated Genin remain as Genin for the entirety of their career. Genin's a stepping stone to actually being able to run missions that help the village prosper. Genin are important, don't get me wrong, because without them a lot of things wouldn't get done and a lot of people need the help that a Genin team can provide them with, but no one becomes a ninja with the intent to remain a Genin for life. That's why you can't live off of a Genin salary very well. You're not meant to.

Oh. Sakura frowns a little. I mean, I knew that, but I never really thought about it that way.

"All right," Hatake-sensei says. "It's unanimous. Team Seven will continue with this mission."

He doesn't like it, as the girls exchange triumphant and determined glances, but Kakashi has weighed the odds and decided that it's better for this to go-ahead than it is for him to insist on ending the mission.

If he ends it here, their morale will plummet, and he will be telling him that he doesn't trust their judgement or their bravery.

And they're not being reckless or thoughtless, two things I won't tolerate at this stage, he broods. Their arguments were well considered and correct.

He still doesn't like it, as he hadn't wanted them in a situation where they might be forced to fight at this stage of their re-training, but as he told Inoichi: coddling them won't help them. They've decided, they're right, and he's just going to have to make it work in a way that satisfies all of them.

"Before we do anything else," he says, "the both of you will be learning the best ways to escape. Clean up here and meet me at the training ground in ten minutes."

He doesn’t give them a chance to say anything—though as he disappears, he hears the start of, "Yes, Hatake-sensei", but not the end of it.

A lot can be done in ten minutes, and he reappears not in the training ground but in the bathroom that he’d used to clean himself up last night. His bandages are in the trash, and he fishes them out, inspecting the stains for the most useful one. Tearing the piece off, he drops the rest back into the trash, promising himself he’ll burn them later, then disappears to land near the front gate.

Folding the dirty bandage over several times, he sticks in in a small pouch. Dried blood isn’t sanitary, no blood really is, but it ought to work and so long as they keep it separated from anything else it's not going to cause problems.

The area around the front gate is peacefully quiet. There is no sign of Konoha beyond the gates, just an empty street lined with leafy trees and bushes, but he knows that should he walk out he'd be on a mostly abandoned street of once grand places. People fear that shame is catching and that by staying close to the Hatake family estate they'll be tarred with the brush of it. It's foolishness, truly, but before now he hadn't been back much either.

He can't truly blame them.

Putting thoughts of blame from his mind, Kakashi reaches out with his chakra to probe thoughtfully at the family wards. They yield easily to his inspection an invisible parade of twinkling lights that he recognizes by feel.

We know you! they say, on a level too deep and primal to actually be words. Family!

Eagerly, they inspect him back, and Kakashi wonders if they'll find evidence of him being out of place, out of time, if they do, it doesn't bring any confusion to their purpose. From a different timeline or not, he remains family. In a strange way, that comforts him.

Show me your length and breadth, he urges gently. Let me see the whole of you.

They do, spinning him through the wards like a child's toy feverishly turning, dancing across a surface, the force of each turn being the only thing that keeps it upright. Kakashi yields to the frenetic pace knowing that to try and slow it down would only knock him off balance and, instead, he focuses on memorizing the wards. He's memorized harder with less reason; this is almost simple.

Anything based in blood usually is. The strength comes from the blood itself, not the complexity of the wards.

Once he's seen everything, the wards let him go, wrapping around him like the drape of a cloak or a quick hug, then falling back into their default state, only the warmth left behind against his chakra to prove they'd ever done anything at all.

Approximately three minutes have past while he'd been lost in the wards. He still has a short handful of them before he has to be at the training ground. Kakashi uses those minutes remaining to do a quick (and it is quick) check of the borders of the family estate.

He arrives at the training ground with a half minute to spare and is pleased to see both Sakura and Ino already there, going through the stretches he's drilled them in as they talk in low voices. Kakashi doesn't try to listen in; they may be his team, but they are also entitled to privacy.

"Yo," he says.

Their attention snaps to him with gratifying alacrity.

It still baffles him how they seem to feel he's a good sensei when he constantly feels like a fraud, one that channels what Minato-sensei had drilled into him, but at the same time, it's reassuring to know that, even dead, his sensei has given him the tools to succeed.

He still doesn't know why this timeline's version hadn't even bothered to try. It's not easy: Kakashi has to constantly remind himself that he must vocalize his approval and soften his criticism, he has to strip the training he's given to his kouhai in ANBU down to the basics in order for his Genin to keep up, and he must always, always remember that no matter what came before or what will come after, everything he does now will have a formative impact on the kunoichi these two will grow to be.

It's not easy and he'd still rather be in ANBU... but this is his team now and no matter how hard it is, how tiring it is, he wants them to succeed. Not out of spite towards his older self, though there's some of that, he's only human, but because he likes them. They're intelligent, driven, and talented.

And he likes them. More and more he wants them to succeed for their own sakes.

He thinks he understands Minato-sensei better these days.

"Alright," he says. "We're staying. Now let's make certain that we can get out even under the very worst of circumstances. We're going to cover breaking through the wards using force first. Sakura, this will be your primary method of escape; Ino, your secondary."

They nod. Ino grimly, Sakura looking a little down but just as determined.

He reminds himself to keep an eye on that, then carries on.

"Wards are essentially a shell around a person, place, or thing. They don't become part of what they're guarding but rather they encase it. Depending on the size of what you have warding this may or may not be essentially the same thing. An estate like this? Encased. There's plenty of room inside of the ward to maneuver. A warded pendant? Technically the ward is only encasing it, but the object is so small there's no easy way to differentiate between breaking the ward and breaking the pendant. On the estate, there is."

Sakura raises her hand, and he nods. "Hatake-sensei, does that mean if you were to use this method on something small, like the pendant, you'd end up destroying the object you're trying to get to?"

"Correct," he says. "It won't matter here but this method shouldn't be used on small-scale wards unless you're also trying to destroy what it is guarding."

"Are there ways to break through small wards?" Sakura asks.

"There are," Kakashi says. "And we can cover that in more detail once this mission is over. It will be good for both of you to know."

But later, when he's not making sure the worst-case scenarios in this mission are covered.

"For now, the important thing to remember is that the perimeter of the property is where the ward is directly encasing the property. Like an eggshell, the ward extends up over us and also underneath. However, the space contained within is not warded from inside threats or changes. Which means...?"

"That we or any other entity that is in here can make whatever changes we feel like," Ino says. She doesn't bother to raise her hand, only leaning forward a little. "We could level all the buildings, uproot the trees and flowers, do anything in here, if we felt like it, and the wards wouldn't stop us."

"That's right," he agrees. "Which means two things: the wards won't protect us from any internal threats and to get out of here you must be at the perimeter. Attempting to escape the wards while in the center of the estate would be like balancing without chakra on a greased high wire. Once we're done here, we'll do a full walk around the perimeter. At all times you'll need to keep in mind where you are in relation to the edge of the property. This will be vitally important as it, more than anything else, will be the determining factor in your evacuation routes."

They nod seriously. Sakura has pulled her knees up under her chin and is watching him with green eyes made darker by her concentration. Ino is listening equally as hard, leaning slightly towards him though she is angled so that she is half turned away from him, playing with the grass with idle fingers.

"Now, breaking through the wards." He takes a moment to organize his thoughts. Kakashi has never had to explain ward theory to people without some knowledge already. "At this point in your training, I don't believe either of you have the chakra available to punch through them. However, you may," and for their sake, he hopes, "have the chakra to cut through."

"Like we would with a kunai?" Sakura wonders.

"Very much like," he agrees. "But don't try this with a kunai against the wards. You will be electrocuted."

Ino shifts slightly. "Is that a feature of these wards or a characteristic of all wards?"

"Good question. It's a characteristic of all wards. If you hit a ward with a metal weapon aimed with intent, at best you'll be thrown backwards and at worst you'll be electrocuted, likely dead."

Sakura mutters something about everything in the world ending with death. She's not wrong so Kakashi allows it to pass. Ino is smiling slightly, though she also makes no move to contradict what Sakura said.

"What about a weapon not made of metal?" Ino wonders. "I have some wooden senbon."

"They're likely to shatter against the ward; we can test this later. Now, what you'll want to do is form a blade out of chakra alone," Kakashi explains, working through a seal with the ease of long practice and forming a slim, slightly translucent blade that extends a few inches from his fingers. "This anchors' it to you alone which is why, using this method, no one else can escape with you."

With a nod, Ino pulls up a few more tufts of grass. They're too short to really braid but that doesn't stop her from absently trying as she thinks through that.

"But why can't we just cut a hole that's big enough for two people?" Sakura asks slowly. "Hatake-sensei, if we did that, then wouldn't we be able to get anyone with us out?"

He allows the blade to dissipate. "Making blades this way is very chakra intensive at this point in your training, Sakura. Then there will be the resistance of the wards themselves. They will fight you every inch of the way and, as soon as the blade has gone through, they will begin to re-knit themselves together. Simply put that, while in theory you could cut a hole with a chakra blade, in practice it's exceedingly difficult to do so unless you have huge stores of chakra, are very reckless with them, and are incredibly fast at cutting through the wards. Making a slit to slip through is much more efficient."

Ino looks at Sakura. "Naruto could do the hole-thing," she says. "All that crazy chakra of his? He could do it. I guess Sabaku no Gaara could do it too."

That seems to put it into better context for Sakura as understanding dawns across her face, her green eyes lighting up. "Oh!" Then she frowns again. "But then why is there a method for punching a hole through the wards? Isn't that even more of a Naruto thing?"

Kakashi wishes, for a moment, he'd been around to see how his sensei's son uses his chakra. He's read the reports, of course, but that's not the same, especially not when his team is looking to him for answers.

"Strangely enough, cutting a hole large enough to escape through is more chakra-intensive than it would be to punch right through a ward. Ino, can you tell me why?"

His blonde student thinks about that, with a tilt of her head. "Because cutting the hole would be a sustained attack on the wards while punching through would be a quick, sharp attack?"

"Very good," he says approvingly. "That's correct. With this information, Sakura, can you make a guess at why I say you and Ino wouldn't have the chakra for a punch through but would have the chakra to cut a slit, not a hole, in the wards?"

Sakura mulls this over. "Because... because the force necessary for that one, quick punch would exceed what it would take to sustain a chakra blade long enough for a single cut?" She frowns as she speaks, her brows furrowing. "That seems... counterintuitive, Hatake-sensei. What am I missing?"

He smiles reassuringly. "You're thinking just about the attack itself. Consider what you're doing to the wards."

Her frown deepens. Ino looks at him inquiringly, but he shakes his head. It's good that Ino has figured it out but right now he needs Sakura to come around to this because she's the one who may need this the most should everything go sideways here.

"Ah!" Sakura says, looking triumphant. "It's because of the difference in the amount of the ward we need to break through. Slicing has a very small surface area while a punch large enough for a person to get out is significantly more."

"Well done," he says, as Ino nudges Sakura companionably. "That's exactly right. Furthermore, the slice doesn't need to be as tall as you are. It only needs to be as long as the widest part of you."

"So, we'd be eeling out of the slit?" Ino muses. "I suppose if we're fleeing in an emergency then how we land in Konoha doesn't really matter, though I'd hope I wouldn't fall flat on my face. Hatake-sensei, would anything in here be able to follow us out through a single cut line?"

"Nothing is ever absolutely certain," he admits. "But it is unlikely."

"What would happen if we cast a jutsu at the wards?" Sakura asks suddenly. "Would it act like a mirror or would it be absorbed?"

Kakashi can't help but smile. "Another good question, Sakura. Unfortunately, the unsatisfying answer is that it will depend entirely on both the jutsu ward you're up against and on the jutsu you choose to use. There's no easy answer."

She grumbles discontentedly.

"Any further questions for now?"

They shake their heads in tandem, one blonde, the other pink-haired, they're nothing alike except in how intently they're listening to him.

His team.

"Then let's cover the seals to make a blade of chakra," he says. "These seals are to help give your blade shape and form. The power will come from how much chakra you put into it. For now, we'll be practicing with the bare minimum necessary until I feel you have a good grasp on how to manifest the blade…"

Chapter Text

Chakra has always smelled slightly like the air before a storm, sharp and full of ozone. Even before he'd developed his affinity for lightning, some part of him had sung with each crack of thunder.

Now, six attempts in, as the girls form their blades under his scrutiny once more, he smells the electricity of it, that vital spark that keeps people alive. That forms them as them and not just skin and bone and personality trained to get along.

He is not surprised when Sakura gets her chakra blade formed quicker than Ino. Both girls have excellent control over their chakra for their ages and ranks but Sakura’s control is simply extraordinary. Kakashi is glad that Ino only seems to take it as a challenge, using the failure to drive herself to improve, rather than getting upset.

And it’s a small thing, but it’s good for Sakura to have a success here before I teach Ino something that she can’t learn.

Eventually she’ll grow out of her insecurities, but it will take time after the mess of her first year as a shinobi. Kakashi finds that he looks forward to seeing what she’ll be like once she’s confident in herself in a way that no one can shake. He wonders if he’ll be around for it.

Kakashi inspects their latest attempts, then nods. "Dismiss your blades," he says, waiting until they’ve carefully done so before he says anything else. It takes them mere seconds and Kakashi uses that time to gauge their status. The chakra usage hasn’t significantly tired Ino out, he notes with approval. Sakura’s chakra is lower but then, she has less to work with.

And it is getting better. Her reserves are better than they were a month ago.

Like most things, fixing that neglect is just going to take time. Ino has been using her chakra more strenuously than Sakura for years. It makes a difference.

"Take five to stretch out," he orders. "You’ve been in the same position for a bit. Move."

"What about you, Hatake-sensei?" Ino says lightly, making no move to follow his order, though she grins at him. "You’ve been standing just as long!"

Sakura glances at Ino and then turns a slyly innocent face to him as she adds, "It would be good for you to move as well, Hatake-sensei."

Heh. On one hand, they're being ridiculous. On the other, he's glad to see it. Last night had been rough for them.

And they're not wrong. He rolls his shoulders out thoughtfully.

"Alright," he says amiably. "Though I hope you know that this means war."

The girls exchange amused but slightly trepidatious looks.

"What do you mean?" Sakura asks.

He smiles—this does not seem to particularly frighten or reassure them, which means he’s hitting the right notes—and says, "You're right. It would be a good idea for me to move around more. Which, in that case… we’re going to play follow the leader."

Sakura yelps. "That’s a children’s game!"

Ino is warier as she says, "I don’t think he means the version we played back in the Academy, Sakura."

"Oh no," Sakura says, looking to him for confirmation.

Kakashi keeps smiling at them and, for the sake of giving an answer of some sort, he indulges them with a noncommittal noise. They both look slightly worried at this.

It's a very good sign, it really is, that they're comfortable with ragging on him and, yes, being a bit childish. He's glad to see it.

He's still going to take advantage of it. It'll be good training for them.

He allows the silence to stretch just a few seconds longer before he nods and says, with challenge edging his voice, "So. From now until I say so, you follow me. Do your best to keep up."

Ino’s eyes narrow—she never fails to rise to an expectation; though she's aware enough of her own tendency to play that expectation against other people should the need arise—and Sakura nods, determination flaring in her eyes.

What follows next isn’t very nice at all for anyone except him.

It starts slow. He really does make them do stretches, a handful of which they’ve not seen before, then once they’re good and warmed up, he leads them on a run around the perimeter of the estate.

The one warning he gives for what will come after the game is: "Make sure you pay attention to your surroundings."

The girls exchange glances and he doesn't give them time to think or talk about it. He just sets out at a run.

They follow him.

And, for the first one hundred yards, that's all he makes them do. He sets a pace that's tough for them, but not unreasonable, and gives them the time to get used to it, letting them hit their strides.

Kakashi doesn't have eyes in the back of his head, and this is the first time he's trained Genin, but he's trained both Chuunin and Special Jounin in ANBU. He can keep track of two Genin without having to directly see them.

Once that one hundred yards is up, he keeps running at the same pace but begins using his arms to make shapes in the air. Some of them are actual signs--a signal to stop, turning signs, enemy ahead--and others are absolute nonsense, as he makes waves, forms letters, pinwheels (both arms at the same time, one arm at a time, to their sides, and up over their heads). For variety, he runs backwards now and then, which forces them to do so as well, something Ino mutters a curse about the first time he does, while Sakura just attempts to immolate him with the strength of her glare, saving her breath for keeping up.

He adds in skipping, too, because why wouldn't he, and then that's when it gets really exciting for them.

Because not all of the perimeter is clear and easy to run along. Now they must also do things like hop up the side of an out-building on one foot while their hands are making bird shapes.

If they were in ANBU he'd also be making them practice their bird calls (right now would be a great time for quacking like a duck) but they're not so he refrains. Besides, the ground ANBU would be running over would be a lot more difficult than this in the first place.

He makes them crab-walk through a set of bushes while doing the wave. They play hopscotch. While still running he forces them to hit their knees with their opposing elbows.

Kakashi is not much of a dancer, but he's been on enough missions where being in a bar or watching a show is part of it, if only to gather intelligence, and every shinobi has a sense of rhythm. He runs (literally) them through the moves of the most popular dances in Fire Country.

(At least, they were in his time. They're likely quite out of date by now.)

Either way, it means they learn to shimmy over a fallen tree trunk, swinging their hips from side-to-side, like they're at a club. They high kick their way past old greenhouses, the glass foggy with grime, as if they were cabaret dancers. They spin like tops up and over a gazebo like the street dancers do.

On the fourth loop around the perimeter (though he's not certain the girls are aware of that at this point; all of their focus is now on just keeping up, they have no energy for swearing, glares, or thinking of much of anything) he changes it again, this time in a very fundamental way.

They do this loop running on their hands. Now it's their legs that he forces them to do splits with, and spins and kicks. They go over the out-building sideways, on their hands, while their legs form diamonds. At the bushes he makes them do a push up and uses that momentum to leap over the bushes, landing on the other side, still on their hands.

They go past the greenhouse backwards, legs cycling furiously.

Each girl falls twice during this run, at different points, and he'd expected that (running on your hands like this is incredibly difficult, even if he's taken the pace down to what they can handle) and only makes note of where they went down and how long it takes them to get back in the rhythm of following him.

Every bit of this is ridiculous but he knows from experience that the fact he's doing it as well will take a lot of the sting out of what might otherwise be considered humiliating. It's hard to protest humiliation when their sensei is doing the exact same thing without a care in the world. There's also absolute privacy here, which for training is always preferred but rarely had in a village the size of Konoha.

Finally, finally, he leads them back to the training ground, doing one last leap into the air, spinning four times and landing, his arms forming a T.

Sakura's attempt only has two turns, as she didn't put enough force into her upward thrust to get enough air to do four, but her landing is cleaner than Ino's, though Ino did manage the four spins perfectly.

He smiles at them.

He's covered with a slight sheen of sweat, but the girls--well. Kakashi is terribly proud of them for keeping up as well as they did, but they're drenched in sweat and dirt and covered in grass stains and raw-looking scrapes. Sakura has a bloody knee; Ino, an elbow.

"Well done," he says, and they stay standing through sheer force of will. "Cooldown stretches now and then walk back to the guest house, shower, change, and get something to eat. Then come back here. You have two hours."

They collapse into their stretches wordlessly.

Kakashi also stretches, mostly because it's good form to do so, and keeps an eye on them to make sure neither of them is more hurt than they seemed at first glance.

They're not.

He gives them a wave as they trudge back to the guest house and isn't fussed when they both ignore it. They likely barely noticed it--he remembers the first time he'd had to play this style of follow the leader and it was tiring in a way normal training wasn't because you weren't just working your body, you were working your mind, in order to copy what someone else was doing.

He's not expecting much out of them for the second half of this game, once the break is over.

Kakashi eats a ration bar, not even paying attention to the taste, and mulls over what he's going to do for the next two hours.

I'll gather what I'll need for Sakura's lesson this afternoon and then... I think I'm going to do another look-through...

"Hatake-sensei is a sadist," Ino mutters to herself.

It's a mark of how tired they are that neither of them complains about having to take a cold shower--because there's still no heat in the guest house, except for the camp stove they cook on. There is, at least, more than one shower, so they don't have wait for each other to be done.

Ino flees the shower only once the cold of the water finally penetrates the achy fog the morning had left her in. Wrapping the thickest towel she'd packed about her body (it wasn't very thick or very fluffy given that shinobi travelled light) she makes her way to the room they were sleeping in and quickly scrambles into clean clothes. Then, for good measure, she wraps a blanket around herself and moves onto tackling her hair.

"Sadist," Ino repeats, mostly because she feels Hatake-sensei deserves it, even if he can't hear it right now.

Once her hair is brushed out and put up in a short ponytail, she hesitates. It feels weird to wear it this way, though, as she still misses the long fall of hair she'd had before and Ino takes her hair down and decides she's just going to leave it down for the rest of the day.

Sakura slides open the door, looking as bone-deep tired and as cold as she'd been. Ino ignores her until she's dressed and under a blanket as well.

"We're never challenging Hatake-sensei like that again," she says, once she's decided that Sakura is human enough to want to talk.

"No argument there." Sakura gives her a look of utmost despair. "Do you think he's going to make us do that when we're back in the village?"

Ino shudders. "I hope not," she says fervently. "I really, really hope not."

They're both quiet for a moment, then, just contemplating that and all the horrors that would come with it. There's so much more he could make them go around or up or under in the village, in full view of everyone else.

"The only way to do that in the village would be to go all-out," Ino muses, inspecting her elbow. It's red and raw, but it's just a bad scrape, nothing more serious. As she digs out ointment for it and a roll of bandages (the better to keep from getting dirt in it) she continues with, "If he did that in the village it would be better if we dressed as his mini-mes."

Sakura snorts and looks at her like she's lost her mind. "Better how!? Did you hit your head at practice, Ino-pig?"

"I'm not the one that fell off the gazebo," Ino says loftily. "Don't compare me to you, Forehead. Anyway, yes, it would be better because then we could just blame the entire everything on Hatake-sensei and get commiseration and sympathy instead of ridicule. No one would believe we'd dress up like that on our own."

"We were going backwards on our hands up the stupid thing," Sakura mutters.

Since that's true, Ino leaves that be.

"Don't you think that would make the most sense? The only reason Rock Lee gets made fun of is because everyone knows he dresses and acts like that out of his own volition."

"He's actually really nice," Sakura says, making a face. "But you're right on all of it. When we get out of here, maybe we should make sure we've got mini-me costumes just in case."

"And not tell Hatake-sensei we've got them," Ino decides.

Sakura shakes her head in agreement. "No way, we're not giving him any ideas. He'd make us wear those things for real if he knew about them."

"On the bright side, that would just lend credence to the fact that we didn't choose that all on our own," Ino says. "But I'd really rather not have to wear that all the time, no matter how practical Hatake-sensei's outfit is."

"Do you think he'll eventually make us change what we wear?" Sakura wonders.

Ino finishes bandaging her elbow and passes both the ointment and the bandage roll over to Sakura so she can do her knee. The various scratches and bruises, while they're ugly and annoying, don't actually need any further care.

"Maybe," Ino allows. "Though he hasn't said anything so far, which means he thinks our stuff is good enough for training in. We're both pretty brightly coloured, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if when he starts taking us on real missions outside the village that he'd make us at least wear a more muted version of our stuff. He's that kind of serious, you know?"

Sakura grins at her, looking up from slathering her knee. Her grin is a tired grin, to be sure, but an honest one. "I guess we should get ahead of that and go shopping after this mission then, huh? Maybe he'll be impressed at our fore-thought."

"We need to buy underthings anyway," Ino says easily. "Sure, it's a date. Once you're done with your knee, we need to eat."

"It's going to be ration bars," Sakura says. "There's no time for actually cooking before we have to go back."

But at least he'd let them have a break. Ino stretches out, feeling the pull of their… run? Exercise? She's not really sure what to call it, honestly. Their game? "I call dibs on the blueberry cardboard."

Sakura makes a face as she ties off the bandage around her knee and flexes it to make sure it's both tight and loose enough. "That one tastes like death anyway. You can have it. I'm taking peanut butter."

Ino shudders right back at her and they laugh.

A little bit later, they're in the kitchen, nibbling on their ration bars and eyeing the clock. They have to go back soon and maybe that's why Sakura's mood has soured a bit.

"Is there really any point to me showing up this afternoon?" Sakura wonders abruptly.

Ino, who had just taken another bite of her ration bar, just looks inquiringly at her.

"I mean, you're going to be covering your primary method of escape, right? The whole... being a fake Hatake-sensei thing. What am I going to be doing?" Sakura sounds a little bitter, though Ino isn't sure if she realizes that. "More practice with the chakra blades? I barely have any chakra left, especially after we had to use it during the run."

Grateful for the fact that chewing gives her time to think of an answer, Ino tries to decide what to say.

More practice with the chakra blades isn't make-work or unnecessary; they're both brand new to using their chakra that way. Sakura is also right, though, that her chakra levels are pretty low.

Besides, even if she'd had the chakra, Ino knows Sakura's moods and knows that she's determined to feel sorry for herself right now because she's not a sensor-type. There's no arguing with that and there's no way to change that simple fact either.

"Hatake-sensei will have a plan," Ino says confidently, instead. "He was mulling over where to find something for your lesson this afternoon when we left."

Ino hadn't been trying to read his mind then but, well, exhaustion sometimes made her control a little shaky and she was naturally more prone to 'hearing' any deliberate thoughts about those she cared about.

"He was?" Sakura asks hopefully. "That would mean he's thinking of teaching me something new, wouldn't it?"

With that comment comes the thought that it would be something Ino wouldn't be learning.

Sakura's need for something like this troubles Ino more than the idea of someone knowing how to do something she doesn't know or can't. That's the whole point of teamwork, to cover each other in both knowledge and skill.

"Probably," Ino says, shrugging a little. "No idea what it could be though. You want another bar or should we head over a bit early?"

"Let's split one," Sakura decides. "We're both going to need the energy and we've got the supplies to spare."

They wind up splitting one that's supposedly honey-nut flavoured, but really just tastes like dust and despair. After getting a drink of water and washing their hands they head back to the practice grounds.

Just in time, too, as Hatake-sensei arrives mere seconds after they begin stretching.

Or he was waiting for us to show up, Ino muses. I didn't think to look. I should remember to do that.

He looks them over carefully. "Good, keep stretching," he says. Hatake-sensei is carrying a pack on one shoulder. "How are you two feeling?"

They're both fine and they tell him so, which makes him smile. He doesn't look like he's done anything today, let alone something as ridiculous as their game.

Ino doesn't suggest he also stretch. Lesson learned.

"Alright," he says. "Pop quiz!"

What follows next is honestly far, far more humiliating than their run had been and the very, very worst part of it is that he had warned them ahead of time about this: the whole quiz is about the layout of the perimeter, the obstacles, the distances between buildings, how far they were at various points from the Main House, from the guest house, from the front gate.

To her horror, she remembers barely anything. Sakura remembers no more than she does, which is no consolation at all, because it's absolutely dreadful having to answer Hatake-sensei with repeated admittances that she doesn't know.

It makes her angry.

Not at Hatake-sensei, because he had warned them, but at herself for failure.

The churning, boiling thoughts that Sakura gives off in addition to her muted, resentful vocal responses, press against Ino's mind like a bristling cat. Sakura is near tears.

This is the first time they've flat-out failed anything he's told them to do.

Finally, it ends.

Hatake-sensei looks at them both for a long time, in a silence that makes her ache.

"You both know what you need to improve on," he says, finally. Ino is just glad he doesn't tell them 'well done' because she thinks she might throw something at him. "Once we're done here, walk the perimeter. Every morning and evening, do a lap around the estate."

He does not tell them what they're supposed to look for, nor does he rub it in further.

They already know. She has the impression that he'd expected this outcome.

"Alright," he says, moving on, and Ino can tell from his thoughts that he really is just moving on, re-adjusting plans, and has no interest in punishing them further for their lack of paying attention. He does not seem to be disappointed in them. "Sakura, I'll be with you in a bit. In the meantime, practice your taijutsu forms against the training dummies."

Sakura nods and says, "Yes, Hatake-sensei," then walking dispiritedly over to the training dummies.

Ino watches her go and then looks at Hatake-sensei to find him watching her.

She straightens her shoulders with a grim sort of determination and raises her chin at him. She's mad, yeah, but being mad is a weapon she can use to make herself better.

"So," she says, "how is this going to work?"

He crooks one finger at her and leads her over to the shade of a palmate maple tree.

"Here's one of my bandages from last night," he says, handing over a thin bag made of folded canvas. "The bag is waterproof, so even if it rains, you can keep it on you without worry. If it's not on you, keep it within reach."

Ino nods, taking it and tucking it into the pouch that she holds her hard-cased senbon in. It will be safer there than in her kunai pouch. Canvas is tough but kunai cut through stronger all the time.

"Take a seat and make yourself comfortable," Hatake-sensei says, following his own words and sitting cross-legged on the ground.

Doing the same, she tucks herself against the tree trunk.

"I'm not a sensor type," Hatake-sensei says, after a moment. "And while I've worked with those who are, I can't be a guide the way I'd like to be in this matter. I'm going to be relying on both your determination to succeed and your Clan training for you to achieve this. In the long term, you will be given more direction and training, most likely from your father. For now, we make do."

Some of the ugly, hurt feelings from the quiz begin to unwind at that. Both that he admits he doesn't know how to do something—and that he thinks that she can.

"I'll get it done," she says, and it's a promise without saying the word.

"I know," he says simply. "Now, for most sensors, when they're sensing, they cannot otherwise participate in combat. The shift in their chakra use is too complex to flip between combat and sensory mode fast enough to be able to keep up with both aspects at the same time. From what I have observed, this is similar to when your Clan stops everything to fling your minds out of your bodies."

Ino mulls that over. She's never really noticed a shift in her chakra while doing so, but she sees what he's saying about, conceptually, they're alike enough to give her a frame of reference.

"I'll still need to be able to move, if I'm to open the wards and escape through them," she says thoughtfully. "So, it won't be like after I've left my body. But maybe something in the moments before…"

"And, rather than leaving, you'll be creating a shell of a different person around you. Not physically, like you would with a henge or genjutsu. This will be solely an internal change, and under it, you will still be you. But if anyone goes looking—they must find me. Your shell will have to feel like my chakra and my mind." He grimaces. "I'll be able to tell you when you feel like me, but I won't be able to help you get there."

It's very much not the way that Hatake-sensei prefers to operate, and she can feel his irritation at having to do so. Oddly enough, that makes Ino feel better.

"If I can't do it, I'll still have the chakra blade," Ino says pragmatically. "But theoretically, what you're talking about makes sense. If I can do this, I'll have three factors of recognition—chakra, blood, mind. Dad says those are the most important ones, other than the soul.

"And there's no way to truly mimic another soul," Hatake-sensei says. "That's right."

Ino tilts her head thoughtfully. "I think I've got a few ideas on where to start." She smiles faintly at him. "If I keel over or start turning blue, knock me out of my trance, okay, Hatake-sensei?"

"I'd rather you didn't do either of those things," he says frankly. "But of course."

Shifting a little—there's a pebble digging into her hip at just the wrong angle—Ino closes her eyes and begins the process of spinning down into the depths of her chakra, blind and deaf to the outside world and yet confident that she'd be fine.

Her sensei will make sure of it.

Now, to create a shell that feels like Hatake-sensei… where should I start?

Wham! Wham! Wham!

She pounds her fury out on the training dummies. Sakura doesn't know who she's angrier at—herself or Hatake-sensei.

Him for—

She doesn't even know. He'd told them. He'd warned them. Even Kakashi-sensei had been big on looking underneath the underneath and he'd even said that the most important part of them being able to escape was knowing, at all times, where the perimeter was and how far they were from it.

And then he'd taken them on an exercise that had required all of their attention and after it had demanded that they'd noticed more.

Except he hadn't because he'd said beforehand that they needed to pay attention to their surroundings.

Sakura grimly switches off, using her left hand instead of her right, and continues to try and work through her messy feelings about it.

He hadn't explicitly mentioned a quiz would be coming but he shouldn't have had to. They were genin of more than a year. Underneath the underneath in this case is so incredibly basic.

But she's still so angry.

At herself? It's the first time she's failed a lesson he's set her. It's the first time she's ever really felt like she's disappointed him, even though he hasn't said so, just given orders for them to correct the deficiency, which is smart of him, since it is important.

And they'd known that and then they hadn't remembered to think and then they'd—and it's an ugly cycle of impotent fury that's still easier than facing the fact that she wants to cry, really badly, and she couldn't even say what she'd be crying for.

"That's enough." Hatake-sensei's hand closes around her arm, stopping her mid-punch. It's only then that she even realizes he's approached—and that her arm is bleeding. She's managed to scrape it badly against the training dummy and hadn't even noticed.

With that realization comes the pain and Sakura jerks her arm away from him, embarrassed and even more furious. A couple of traitorous tears escape, and she hopes he'll mistake them for sweat, which also beads down her face.

I don't want him to think I'm a crybaby!

"You're finished with Ino already?" she asks, though she really has no idea how long she's been lost in her feelings. It comes out a bit like a snarl. She can't read Hatake-sensei's expression.

"I am," he says, his voice very neutral. "Care to tell me why you're busy injuring yourself instead of training?"

Before she even realizes what she's doing, Sakura takes a swing at him.

He catches her fist and sighs.

The weight of it hits her far worse than any words. Sakura lashes out, her kick aiming for a desperately rude place--

Which he avoids, naturally, and that only drives her emotions even more wild.

"Alright," Hatake-sensei says. "We'll do it this way. Come at me, Sakura."

She does.

There's no sense of time or thought or calculation brought into this fight. Sakura rails against him, not pulling her punches or her kicks. She only realizes he's taken her kunai pouches when she goes to fling one at him and finds they're gone, along with her shuriken.

She grabs a handful of dirt and flings it at his face, instead. She'd like to say it was a tactical choice but--

It isn't.

It is nothing thinking, just fury, and tears, and something at the bottom of it that tastes a lot like fear. She drives all from her mind until, like a faucet being turned off, she finds herself on her hands and knees breathing heavily and, to her horror, crying.

She is not an elegant crier. She is snotty and red and gross. The blood on her arms is drying into ugly red stains that colour the bruises blooming against her skin alarming shades of tangerine and blackcurrants. Her chest heaves and her shoulders shake and she is sure, so sure, that any time now he's going to throw up his hands and be done with her.

Ino's so much better than she is anyway. More useful. More—

"Sakura," he says, and she braces herself for the worst.

There's a long pause, agonizing against her nerves, and she still can't. stop. crying. She hates this, she hates this, because she's a proud shinobi of Konoha! She should be better than this! She shouldn't be this bad, she shouldn't have failed the stupid quiz, she should have done better at the game, she should have been able to keep Kakashi-sensei's interest, she should have been able to keep Sasuke in the village, she should have told Naruto that someone that puts their hand through you can't really love you, that it doesn't matter what sort of shit Sasuke's going through, she should have stopped them, stopped Shikamaru from taking that team of classmates and nearly dying, all of them, over a boy that didn't think they were good enough, because all of them are good enough—

All of them but her and now she's proven it and now she's just going to be tossed out again, unwanted, unteachable. Useless, stupid, ugly.

"Sakura," Hatake-sensei says, and she can see his feet, just to her side, and she tries not to. If he disappears maybe it will hurt less if she doesn't notice him now. When he touches her back, she flinches, but he leaves his hand there, warm and large. "Team Seven is lucky to have you."

She hadn't thought she'd had any dignity left to lose but now she bawls.

Hatake-sensei settles down next to her and wraps one arm around her in an awkward hug and says nothing else as she sobs and sobs and makes awful noises and finally, finally cries her heart out for every awful, terrible thing that's happened since she graduated.

In her heart of hearts, that's what she's wanted, needed, to hear the most.

Team Seven is lucky to have you.

That she matters.

Even at her worst.

Chapter Text

Kakashi had not planned on spending a significant amount of time with his arm around a hysterically crying teen girl today—and yet.

He pats Sakura's shoulder, hoping how incredibly awkward he feels isn't transmitted while the comfort is, and tries to decide what to do. Ino is seated against the trunk of a tree, eyes closed and totally unmoving, completely blind to what is going on, and he's honestly grateful for that.

I think… I think Sakura needed this.

And it's easier to deal with without his other student losing her shit on him for causing this meltdown.

Easier, too, that we're not in the village right now. Even when you think you're alone in the village, anyone could be wandering by, and then--

Well. Gossip is the lifeblood of any shinobi, good or bad.

Kakashi rubs her shoulder again and tries to gauge if her tears are slowing down at all.

I don’t think she’s fit to continue training today, but that’s no worry. Our timeline is flexible. The problem now is that I’m not sure what to say and… whatever I say, will she be in the mood to listen to it?

He’s dealt with tears before. Every shinobi fails a job now and then and when emotions are high, tears are one of the natural reactions to such things. But he’s never actually had to comfort a teen girl over…

I don’t want to call any of this silly, he thinks dryly. Because it’s not. But it’s not the same as when someone dies.

That he’s got experience with.

I’m not certain that I’ve got anything to apologize for either. They’re students. They’re going to fail sometimes. Sometimes failure is the best way to learn to be better.

Should he have given them more warning? Taken it easier on them? Given them more supportive words?

Training in ANBU had been so much simpler. Everyone had their own damage, everyone always did, but by the time you were recruited to ANBU, you'd either gotten your shit together enough to be functional, even just for missions, or you… weren't recruited at all.

I'd expected Ino's reaction. Her and her pride, but she's already moving past it, which is also what I'd expected.

But Sakura…

I'd guessed that she would be upset. She was already a little off kilter this morning. But… we're going to need to deal with this. She can't be reacting like the world is ending over a training failure, and the way she'd attacked me… Ino could have gotten seriously hurt if Sakura had done that to her. But can I punish her when she's already punishing herself?

It leaves an ugly taste in his mouth just thinking about it.

But we do need to talk about self-control. Okay, crying, screaming, they're frustrating but we're not anywhere that it's a danger to be emotional. This isn't a warzone, where that would get us killed. Attacking, though… that's a different level entirely. Kunai, shuriken, and senbon aren't toys. Same with kicking and punching.

When she finally seems like she's done crying, though there's still a tremble in her body that betrays the depths of her upset, Kakashi fishes out a (clean) length of bandage and urges her to take it.

"Use this," he says. "And go wash your face in the stream. You'll feel a little better."

He looks at her; she does not look at him.

"Then come back here and we'll talk."

She nods dispiritedly and goes to do that.

Kakashi watches her back for a long moment then goes to check on Ino. He crouches down in front of her.

If anything has changed about Ino, it's not visible. He decides to find that reassuring as her pulse is strong and steady (he checks) and her breathing even. He reaches out with his chakra and hers is still hers, familiar and unchanged. Since she's in a trance, it's smooth and unruffled, like a still pond that's surprisingly deep.

He makes no move to wake her from the meditative trance she's driven herself down into. She's in no danger so far and it hasn't been longer than two hours, tops—it had felt longer, with Sakura crying on him—which means he doesn't even need to be concerned with the time it's taken.

And if she doesn't get it today, that's also fine. I'm asking a lot of her, using abilities she's barely even started to explore. Besides, while I think she'll be annoyed at missing what's going on, I think it's better if Sakura and I sort this out without her. She'll understand.

The Yamanaka were the most carefully discreet ninja clan he knew of and for good reason. If they went around blabbing every secret they knew, well, they'd be ostracized.

So even if Ino goes looking to see what had gone on, she'll keep it to herself—or she'll bring it up directly with him or Sakura.

And if that causes trouble, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. For now…

He has enough trouble to figure out.

Sakura feels like death.

She doesn’t so much as wash her face in the stream as she collapses, face-forward, into it and gives serious thought to trying to drown herself in it. Only the idea of Ino finding her like that gets her to pull her face out of the water. She coughs and splutters, her eyes and nose stinging, both from the tears and all that had come with it, and now the unexpected dowsing.

Once that’s done… she sighs and washes her face and then her arms, grimacing at the damage she’s done to herself. Already the bruises coming in hurt. They’ll hurt worse later. Her clothes are disaster, full of new grime and, worse, snot. The cleanest part of her is, oddly enough, the bandage she used to wrap her knee. Sakura is grateful for the clean bandage Hatake-sensei gave her and blows her nose on it.

Gross.

Every part of her feels like slime from the tips of her toes to the roots of her hair.

I don't want to go and face the music.

For a second of grim, despairing amusement, Sakura pictures Hatake-sensei smacking her with a flute. It makes her feel even worse, somehow, than not having thought of it at all. That's stupid. Even I know that's stupid. There's no way he plays.

But she hadn't thought he'd danced either and he'd proven her wrong on that count during their game of follow the leader.

What's wrong with me? I should've been laughing with Ino about it. It's honestly really funny, now that I look back on it. Hatake-sensei knows how to cha-cha through bushes! And yet… I was…

Sakura winces in embarrassment. Then winces again because her face aches. She hadn't wanted him to think she was a crybaby.

And now he'll never think I'm anything but one.

It's honestly a pretty good argument for drowning herself, if it wasn't for Ino. She can't do that to her. Sakura splashes more water on her face and blows her nose again. That hurts too. Her face is raw and puffy from crying.

She feels… empty, though that's not quite the right word. It's like someone has scooped out all her insides and then scoured what was left until she burns. Everything that was taken from her hasn't yet been replaced, either, so it's just aching nothingness flavoured with rising mortification.

Maybe I can just stay here for forever. That's better than drowning. Ino won't be traumatized if I just become a river spirit or something, right?

But, no, Hatake-sensei had made sure to tell her to come back.

He'd definitely come looking for me if I just didn't show up, no matter how tempting that sounds right now. And I can't leave here. He'd catch me long before I could cut my way out and being caught doing that…

Even now, faced with the prospect of having to talk everything out, to try and explain what she'd been thinking (she hadn't been, she'd just been feeling), actually facing Hatake-sensei seems less like a death sentence than…

Not much less of one, she thinks mournfully, making sure she's as presentable as she can be, which isn't very. But being a disaster to teach is better than being a deserter or a traitor.

For one, the sheer shame she feels at the very idea dwarfs anything she feels about going and talking to her sensei, even now. And for another, being either of those things would make her a missing-nin.

I'd be the worst missing-nin ever. Everyone is more of a threat than I am. They wouldn't even bother sending hunter-nin after me, they'd just hire a random squad of Genin and I'd be a goner.

Sakura tries to picture a reality where she's a credible threat as a missing-nin for a long moment, blatantly stalling for time, even in her own mind, before she sighs and, before she can think better of it, pushes herself to her feet.

It's going to be so, so, so awful.

She doesn't want to face this.

But if I don't face him now, will I ever become the kind of shinobi that can stand on her own two feet? I'm not very strong, I don't know many jutsu, I'm not very fast or particularly good with any weapon. My stamina is absolutely garbage.

But he'd said: Team Seven is lucky to have you.

He'd said that.

Hatake-sensei doesn't tend to say things he doesn't mean. I know that. So that means that I can be pretty sure he meant it, even if I really don't see how… can I believe that he meant it?

She wants to but she's not sure if she deserves it. She'd been doing so good, she'd been learning so much, and then she'd hauled off and ruined it by being the worst her she can be.

But he still said it.

Sakura takes one step, nearly stumbling more out of inner turmoil than because of uneven ground or tripping over her own two feet.

The second step is a little easier. She tucks her hair behind one ear, fingers brushing over the band to her hitae-ite. Takes a third step.

So, if he believes that, that Team Seven is lucky to have me… then… why?

This stumps her a little, at first, as she takes a few more steps. Each step is a little easier—momentum; once begun, keeps going. With the way she's feeling right now, it's hard to imagine her presence being a boon for anyone.

It's like, as soon as she graduated the Academy, her luck has been nothing but bad—and it's spread, too, to everyone she's been around.

Sakura shakes her head furiously, trying to dislodge that thought.

Hatake-sensei let me do a watch shift. And maybe I wasn't perfect during the game or the quiz that came after, but I kept up better than I would have a month ago. He's seemed pleased with how fast I pick up new jutsu when he teaches one. I always show up on time. Even Tsunade-sama says my chakra control is very good.

It seems like a paltry list of strengths to try and use to balance out her damningly long list of weaknesses. She could go on for days about those.

But it's not nothing. She's not only weaknesses.

That careful, delicate, might break if she looks too hard at it, thought buoys her long enough that she reaches the edge of the training grounds. Then, of course, it's far too late to do anything but keep moving forward because he looks up from where he's crouched down and checking on Ino.

He looks up and looks right at her.

Internally, she quails, but steels herself anyway. She's come this far, she can't back down now! Sakura walks over.

Ino looks like a sleeping fairy, dappled with leaf shadows that shift and dance with the breeze. If it wasn't for the movement of breath through her body, Sakura thinks she'd almost be tempted to believe Ino was just an illusion.

"Is she okay?" Sakura asks, looking at Ino and then looking around, frowning a little about something that isn't her own internal turmoil. It's still afternoon, though it's felt like the longest one in existence, but the sun is making a steady trek towards the horizon. "Hatake-sensei?"

"She's fine," Hatake-sensei says, rising from his crouch. His gaze rests on Ino for a long moment—Sakura wonders what he's thinking—and then he glances at her and, silently, gestures for her to follow him.

She does.

She’s come this far and if she ever wants to be the kind of shinobi that she dreams of (someone strong, someone brave, someone beautiful to see in action) then… Sakura knows that the only way out of this is to go through it.

And I just have to hope that he doesn’t give up on me and that this won’t be he’s telling me I’m done, he’s washing his hands of me!

He leads her over, not to where the training dummies are, but almost directly across the practice area from Ino, under the shade of another tree. Hidden in the shade, where she hadn’t noticed it before, partly because of how nature has grown up around it, is a bench.

"Take a seat," he says, as he does the same.

Licking her lips nervously, Sakura does so. Then, he’s quiet for a long time, and she tries to pretend that the silence isn’t killing her. (It is. It so is.)

"So," he says finally, "there are several issues we need to address here. First is the easiest one: do you require first aid?"

Sakura blinks, taken completely off-guard by that question. She hadn't thought, hadn't expected, him to ask about something like that.

Her arms hurt, the bruises that are coming in are awful looking. She's got a couple nasty scrapes.

"No, Hatake-sensei. Nothing needs first aid right now."

Later, she'll properly clean everything. Later, she'll wrap her arms up in ointment and bandages.

He sighs. Sakura tries not to let it go through her like an arrow striking home.

"Good. Then he says: "Secondly, do you want to tell me what caused all of… that?"

No, her traitorous heart thinks.

Except, of course, the way he says it means that it’s not really a request, it’s an order.

"I… I…," she stammers, flushing with embarrassment and shame. "I… don’t know, Hatake-sensei."

"All right," he says. "Would you like me to make some guesses and you can tell me what’s closest?"

No, she thinks, glad that he’s not a mind reader but suspecting, from the look he gives her, that he might as well be in the here and now. "Yes, Hatake-sensei," Sakura says, because what else can she say?

Hatake-sensei nods slowly. "I can’t change what already happened," he says, "but my job, right here, is to make things better going forward. You’re scared of being left behind." He pauses. "Again."

Unwillingly, grudgingly, she nods.

"You’re jealous of Ino’s sensor-abilities."

Sakura hates nodding for this one but she does. It’s such an ugly, petty feeling.

"You’re worried you won’t ever catch up to your peers."

His words are like poison, bile, and that only because it’s the truth. Sakura hopes there’s a treatment somewhere in all of this because—she doesn’t know what to say. She’s a walking disaster.

He’s quiet then, as she waits for him to keep listing her problems. It both hurts to have them listed out, so very obviously, but it also feels…

Like maybe he doesn’t think it’s the end of the world for her to have all of these issues. She’s not really sure what to make of that.

"The way your team fell apart," he says. "I think you blame yourself for that, too, because you’re the only one left here in Konoha."

Sakura lowers her head.

"I wasn’t there for how your team was formed, how it grew, and how it fell apart," he says slowly. "And feelings like guilt and shame are nearly impossible be alleviated by an outside force. I could tell you that it wasn’t your fault until I was blue in the face but that doesn’t change the fact that I wasn’t there, and I don’t know. Maybe it was partly your fault. Maybe you could have changed it."

Sakura flinches, his words going bone-deep, but he’s not finished yet, as he continues—

"But none of that matters now."

"What?" she blurts out. "But how can you—if I’d been better, then—"

"Then we wouldn’t be here, right now," he says.

She opens her mouth, then frowning, closes it. "I don’t understand, Hatake-sensei."

He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, letting his hands dangle. She can’t read his expression.

"It’s probably going to sound strange coming from me, since I’m currently time-displaced, which proves that under some circumstances, you can actually go back in time to change things—as I imagine that’s what the Kakashi-sensei from this time, who now finds himself back in time, might think of to do, but—" He pauses and looks at her. "Yes?"

She’s a little embarrassed that her urge to speak had been noticed so obviously, but since he doesn’t seem mad, she asks, "What… what do you think Kakashi-sensei might change in the past?"

"I don’t know," Hatake-sensei admits. "It might be the outcomes of missions. That sort of thing. There might not be a big, unifying goal that drives him in the past."

"Do… do you think… maybe he’d save Sasuke-kun?" Sakura wonders, realizing for the first time, that her original sensei might be able to do so many things, if he wanted to. "Do you think he could… stop the Uchiha Massacre from ever happening? Or… if not, then maybe if… by not being alone sooner…?"

Her thought falters there because, because it’s not fair, really, if Kakashi-sensei goes and saves Sasuke that he couldn’t also save Naruto, and that’s the terrible thing about it, really, that she doesn’t know that he would. He’d stop them from being killed, she knows that. He’d die for them.

But… but could he live with them, raise them, love them as a family? Until Sasuke no longer thought of only revenge and Naruto would learn what it’s like to grow up ‘normal’.

And where would she be, in a world like that? Would she still be placed on Team Seven if Sasuke and Naruto were raised as basically brothers?

"He could do that, in theory. What ramifications that would have on this present—well, that’s for the theorists and philosophers to figure out. Their understanding of the intricacies of how timelines blend and change quite eclipse my own meager knowledge about the subject. It’s also equally as likely that he’s decided to just… go with the flow. But we’re getting off topic, Sakura."

Hatake-sensei still doesn’t sound mad.

"Sorry," she says, and he waves that off.

"It’s a good question," he says. "It’s just the wrong… time for it, so to speak."

For a very brief moment, she feels the mad urge to giggle helplessly. She doesn’t, though, because everything else is still all too raw.

"As I was saying," Hatake-sensei continues, "barring extraordinary circumstances, you can’t change the past. You can drown yourself in what-ifs, you can flay yourself with what you should have done, you can dream away pain and re-tread paths a million times to see if you can’t find a way where it all would have worked out perfectly.

"And you’re going to do that. You’ll hate yourself. You’ll hate them. You’ll stare at the ceiling during long sleepless nights, dwelling on might-have-beens. You’ll punish yourself for it, claw open your wounds again and again and again because of it."

Sakura stares at him, wide-eyed.

"But, you know, you can’t change any of it. The only thing you can do is what we’re doing right now—keep walking. Learn how to adjust and carry the new weight. Study the pain and learn the lessons you can from it, so that you don’t do it again."

"That… that… sucks," Sakura says.

He huffs something too soft to be a laugh. "Yeah, it does, and don’t let anyone tell you that it’s worth it, or you should be glad it happened, because it’s made you stronger. Pain might hone a soul into a blade, but sometimes the weapons it forms are brittle. You need to learn to work with it, work past it, but if it consumes you, Sakura, that’s when a shinobi truly becomes useless, no matter how skilled they are."

"Why?"

"Pain ossifies," Hatake-sensei says. "If left unchecked, obsessively consumed, it freezes the soul. If you don’t work at it, at the best, it’ll leave you the same as you were when the pain happened. At the worst…"

He doesn’t finish that sentence, but she doesn’t need him to do so.

Sakura sits in silence for what feels like a long, long time, though the sun doesn’t seem to move much. The soft breeze tugs at her hair and she reaches up, tucking a few pink strands back behind her hitae-ite, and catching sight of her bruises.

"Hatake-sensei," she says finally, "I want to grow."

"You already are," he tells her. "You've grown tremendously in the last month, Sakura."

She shivers a little, feeling the press of weariness deep in her soul.

"I don't feel like I've grown," Sakura admits. "I thought I had, last night, when I managed to do a watch shift all by myself. I felt… I felt good about it, Hatake-sensei, I really did. Then today happened and… and I failed and then I…"

Had lost her mind? Thrown a fit? She rubs her forehead.

"I took a hundred steps backwards," Sakura settles on. "Just when I'd finally started to feel like I was actually moving forwards."

"That's probably why today's failure hit you so hard," Hatake-sensei says. "And it's actually a good thing—"

"That I fell apart?!" Sakura protests, interrupting him without thinking about it and then flushing red. "Sorry, Hatake-sensei."

"That you fell apart," he agrees, waving off her interruption.

Her cheeks feel burning hot, like she's eaten something with too many peppers in it. "I don't understand how that's supposed to be a good thing."

"Because," he says slowly, "it means you're finally able to process and grieve for everything that happened. It means you finally feel safe enough to fall apart and figure out the pieces of how to put yourself back together. It means that, here and now, you're stronger than you were yesterday, for having cried it all out."

Sakura is quiet then, just thinking about that. It… it doesn't really sound like it makes much sense. How does crying something out of her make her stronger when she feels so much weaker for having done so?

But at the same time, Sakura realizes, even though she feels awful, embarrassed, and shamed…

That scoured feeling remains. Like she's cleaned house and flung the windows wide.

"What… what do I do now?" Sakura asks tentatively.

"You keep going," he says. "You keep learning. Keep trying your best. There will be good days and bad days, but I think that this, right here, means that eventually you'll be just fine."

She kind of wishes that there was a map or a guide or something that would lead the way. A place on a map where she'd know exactly when she'd be fine, once she'd completed the journey. From what Hatake-sensei says, though, it doesn't sound like there's anything like that.

Just… finding pieces and sorting them out as she goes. It seems like a really big task. Daunting, really.

"Do I have to do it alone?" she asks plaintively.

He looks at her. "Are you alone right now? Do you think you'll be alone in the future?"

She flushes, realizing that—no, she's not alone. Hatake-sensei is right here. Ino's been with her all along, since they put their friendship back together, though even before that, looking back on it now, she's not sure Ino ever really left her.

I think that maybe I left Ino more than she left me, Sakura wonders for the first time. Was I really that bad of a friend?

And then here she is, still being jealous of Ino for something that neither of them could help.

Sakura feels… really ugly, then, in ways that have nothing to do with her appearance.

Ino hasn't even said anything about before. She's just…

Kept on moving. Ino is always moving forward, Sakura realizes. She doesn't look back at all.

Maybe, eventually, could she be like that too? In another time, another place?

"No, Hatake-sensei," Sakura says quietly. "I'm not alone, even though the original Team Seven is… gone."

It is gone, too, smashed to pieces. Sasuke turned traitor, Naruto off on a training journey, Kakashi-sensei lost in another time.

It's just her.

And Hatake-sensei. And Ino. And Hinata and Tenten and all of the boys. It's Tsunade-sama and Shizune-san.

That's what the Will of Fire means, she thinks in wonder. She's always believed in it, like anyone raised in Konoha, but this is the first time she really thinks she understands it. We're all still here and moving forward. I just… I was the one that was stuck and I couldn't see it.

It feels like a revelation.

"As long as you know that," Hatake-sensei says and then he sighs. "However, Sakura, there is something I do need to talk to you about. It's a good thing that you fell apart, for your own healing."

"I'm sorry for attacking you, Hatake-sensei," she says contritely. "I didn't—I wasn't thinking."

"I appreciate the apology," he says, "but that's not… quite what I was getting at. I can take it. That kind of attack wasn't going to injure me."

She puzzles over that. Sakura can't even take offense to his words—he's a Jounin, she's… well, she's decidedly not, even if she's getting better training these days. Maybe one day she'll actually make Jounin.

It seems so far off. It seems closer than it had been this morning.

"Then… what is it…?" Sakura asks.

"Do you remember when I took your pouches?" Hatake-sensei says.

"Not when you took them," she admits, because even reviewing her memories of the fight they're… they're a mess. She hadn't been thinking at all. "I did notice when I went to use the—oh."

Was that it? Was that the problem? That she'd tried to draw a weapon and use it on her sensei? She flushes miserably at the thought of that. Calmer now, she can't believe she ever even tried.

A year ago, the very thought of doing something like that would have been absolutely unimaginable. Yet, here she is… with so much of the year having been beyond what she could have ever guessed.

And most of it a nightmare.

"You're on the right track," he says. "Let me put it to you a different way. Even though it's in incredibly poor taste to attack your sensei and mean it—when I took your pouches, I wasn't worried about me."

His gaze shifts to where Ino is still under the tree, in her trance.

"You weren't thinking. You weren't aiming."

There's a roaring in her ears as the true horror of what could have happened sinks in. She feels faint, like all the blood has rushed from her face, leaving her ghastly pale and nauseous.

"You could have killed your teammate while she's absolutely defenseless," Hatake-sensei says inexorably. "All it would have taken would be one wild throw. That's the part of what you did here today that is absolutely unacceptable, Sakura."

She stares mutely over at Ino.

All the times that Ino's saved her, helped her, trained with her, laughed with her, supported her—

And she could have killed her. She wouldn't even have known about it, until she'd come out of… her breakdown.

Sakura's entire being recoils from that thought. She can picture it all too well. A wild kunai having slashed her throat, blood slipping down her front, Ino never feeling a thing. Or it hitting her chest, leaving her to die more slowly and painfully. Slamming into her forehead, pinning her to the tree she's under…

"You're dismissed from training for the rest of the day," Hatake-sensei says, the words almost gentle, but she doesn't miss the steel underneath. "Go walk the perimeter, then do whatever you want. After dinner, I want you to tell me how you think you should be punished for attempting to draw a weapon while not thinking."

Sakura stands mechanically, her eyes still fixed on Ino. She feels a terrible, dreadful urge to go and make sure that Ino's okay now, even though Hatake-sensei had made it so what could have happened, hadn't.

From behind her, Hatake-sensei says, "And tomorrow, we'll continue your training."

Sakura barely hears him. She staggers over to Ino and stares down at her. Her blonde hair is loose and windswept, she's clean and healthy and breathing. The rise and fall of her chest is the most soothing thing that Sakura has ever seen.

Nothing happened.

She'd known that, she had, but the fact that… if it hadn't been for Hatake-sensei…

Sakura listens to her heartbeat, loud in her ears, and then bolts, crying again, but this time… this time because she knows exactly what she could have done.