"So I just check these guys out?" the informer asked, holding the note Sai had handed him. With his shaved head and missing eyebrows, it was impossible to guess his age. Sai couldn't even begin to estimate.
They stood in the woods just outside the village. Sunlight filtered through the trees, casting shifting patterns on the ground.
"Exactly," Sai said with a nod.
"The Kiri rogue ninja Tenzen. Genba the Soul Remover. Baraki, head of the group they call The Deceased. These are heavy hitters. Not exactly easy to track." The informer's voice stayed low, masked by the murmur of a nearby stream.
"They're the ones I want eyes on. Anything you find—no matter how minor—I want it."
"Got it."
"You memorize the names?"
The informer nodded. Sai formed a simple hand sign, and the characters on the note vanished, evaporating into nothing. Ink of his own making.
"But why these guys?"
"You don't need to know."
"This is related to that attack on Master Homura?"
Sai's eyes lingered on the man's face. He gave a thin smile. "Huh. You're aware of that."
"Information's my thing. You think one of these guys was behind it?"
"I said you don't need to know." Sai's tone hardened.
"Right. Forget I asked." The informer raised his hands slightly. "Tracking people like this'll take time," he added before disappearing into the trees.
Sai left the forest and walked the road back toward the village.
He had no illusions. The informer might bring something useful, but it probably wouldn't tie back to the attacks. Still, the man was in motion now. It was worth the shot.
A daimyo in recovery and a senior advisor had both been attacked. Kakashi didn't think it was random, and Sai agreed.
The day Kakashi gave the order, Sai had gone to the Anbu records and pulled details on both incidents.
The daimyo had been guarded by Anbu during the journey and at the onsen. Yet somehow, a kunai had slipped through and nearly struck him in the bath. If it had carried an explosive tag, the result would have been catastrophic.
Homura had been accompanied by two shinobi—not Anbu—when three masked men attacked. One slashed his arm before the group fled. The guards gave chase but couldn't catch them. The attackers had been wrapped in a light purple chakra.
They'd outmaneuvered pursuit and managed to injure a veteran like Homura. These weren't amateurs. Their motive was still unclear, but Sai recognized skilled ninja when he saw them.
And when powerful shinobi crossed into criminal territory, it made sense to check the Bingo Book. Sai had filtered out the ones who weren't involved and passed the rest to the informer.
But he doubted this wasn't already under Anbu investigation. Kakashi's secret order implied there was something deeper at play.
He thought about where to go next. The onsen? The training ground? Or maybe dig into the Bingo Book again?
Then he froze.
He was well out of the forest now, walking near a quiet industrial block. A concrete wall flanked the road. No one else was around.
The attack came fast.
A shuriken flew at him. He batted it aside and spun to face his attackers.
Two figures in black masks stood about twenty meters away. It could be the same ones who had struck Homura. Maybe more were nearby.
One threw a kunai. The other dashed forward, kunai low in hand, clearly aiming to strike the moment Sai dodged.
Their timing was sharp.
Sai leapt back, dodging both attacks, scroll and brush already in hand.
Art of Cartoon Beast Mimicry.
Two tigers sprang to life from ink and lunged.
That should've been it. But no.
One enemy sank a kunai into a tiger's skull, turning it back to ink. The other leapt onto his tiger's back, slashed its throat, and dismounted in one fluid motion.
Sai's eyes widened. They were better than expected.
Without hesitation, they charged again. One hurled weapons. The other followed closely, ready to strike the moment Sai moved.
He had no room to counter. Just pressure from both sides.
He dropped a smoke bomb. With a bang, the area filled with thick smoke. Sai slipped out and started sketching.
The smoke cleared slowly. The masked attackers waited, tense.
Six tigers this time. Smaller, but more agile. They darted low, pounced high—their movements chaotic.
The attackers started losing rhythm.
Now.
Sai lunged with his kunai at the closer one.
Then it happened.
His enemy's chakra surged, doubling in intensity. A cloak of light purple energy flared up, blowing away two of the tigers.
A tail formed. Sai's breath caught.
That chakra… It had a tail.
Before he could think, the enemy rushed him. They clashed—punches, kicks, kunai. It was tight, fast, vicious.
The second attacker swept in low and knocked Sai off his feet. A kunai plunged toward him—
But the blade pierced the ink.
The real Sai struck from behind, a clean kick to the back. The enemy flew, hit the ground, got up fast—but didn't come back. He bolted, chakra lending him speed.
Sai's focus shifted.
The second attacker was pinned by the remaining tigers, struggling under their weight. His chakra cloak was gone.
Sai walked over.
The man turned his head. Fear flickered in his eyes behind the mask.
"Who are you?" Sai asked.
No answer.
"If you talk, that'll factor into what happens next." Empty words. Sai didn't have that authority.
"Really…?" the man croaked. Then his body jerked violently. His eyes flew open. A groan escaped his lips.
He convulsed under the tigers, almost breaking free.
Sai dismissed the beasts and crouched beside him.
The man's breath was ragged. He tried to speak, but nothing came out.
Sai reached for him—and saw it.
A strange symbol, like Sanskrit, lit up on the back of his neck.
Damn.
Sai jumped back.
The man exploded.
Blood, flesh, and bone flew through the air.
Sai landed a distance away, let out a slow breath.
This was no ordinary mission. This was something else.
And it was only the beginning.
---
When they arrived at Sunagakure, Sasuke was there—standing at the entrance to the village, wearing a turban and a coat, waiting for her.
Coincidences did happen.
Or maybe it wasn't a coincidence. Maybe it was the power of Sakura's feelings bringing about an inevitable reunion.
"Sasuke!"
Sakura raced over to him. For a moment, she was concerned that Ino wasn't there, but her joy at seeing him again was greater, and she quickly forgot all about it.
"How've you been?" he asked.
"Good! You? How's your arm?"
"Nothing to worry about. I'm getting used to it. It's working pretty well." Sasuke moved the prosthetic arm made from Hashirama's cells for her.
"Make sure to say something right away if anything feels weird, okay? I'll take a look at it."
"Yeah, thanks," he said, and patted her on the head. The gesture alone made her so happy, she nearly stopped breathing. She wondered again where Ino was. After all, Sasuke was finally here with them.
"Looks like you're working hard, huh, Sakura? Doing all this stuff to take care of kids' minds."
"I'm surprised you know about that, Sasuke."
"Yeah, well, we're from the same class, after all. I just wondered what you were up to while I was gone from the village. Actually." He paused for a moment. "I wasn't wondering just because we're from the same class. I had another reason."
"What?"
He looked at her. Their eyes met; he held her gaze.
"Sakura," Sasuke said.
She was surprisingly calm.
I'm not a child anymore. I don't get so worked up anymore. I've been waiting for this moment for so long…
"Sakura."
"Sasuke…"
She felt a slight breeze on her cheeks. Strange. There was no wind. If the wind was blowing, the sand around them would be moving, but it wasn't. And yet, Sakura felt a breeze.
She soon understood the cause of this strange sensation. Sakura's mind was attempting to pull itself back to reality from a dream.
Standing face-to-face with Sasuke at the entrance to Sunagakure was a dream; the real Sakura was napping in the woods, not yet arrived in the sandy village. And the wind was caressing her cheeks while she slept.
On the border between dream and reality, Sakura panicked.
I don't want to wake up. I want to stay with Sasuke. I want to hear what he's going to say next. Sasuke's—
Sakura opened her eyes.
It was night. She was in the woods. Thanks to the moonlight, it wasn't dark. Ino was napping nearby. Today was the third day since they had left Konohagakure. It was only a little farther to Sunagakure once they made it through this forest, and since the sun was setting, they had decided not to push themselves.
When they entered the woods in the evening, they made a simple meal of their rations and quickly decided to rest for a while. If they had been in a war zone, they would have taken turns napping as a precaution, but now they only set barrier-type tags around them to detect any enemies. Fortunately, the tags had not reacted even once during their journey.
Inside her head, the echoes of her dream lingered.
The fact that Sasuke had shown up in her dream made her happy and sad all at once. The sadness was the greater part—the way she felt his absence all the more keenly when she woke up.
A sigh slipped out naturally.
A dream like that, she thought. I guess I am panicking a little, maybe.
While they traveled, Ino had told her about Shikamaru and Temari. And about Choji and Karui. And about how Ino herself liked Sai now.
All these different loves were sprouting and growing around her.
Sakura knew it was pointless to think about it happening sooner or later for whoever. Finding love wasn't a winner-takes-all competition.
But still, in her heart, she felt a frustration that resembled panic.
I hope it's a dream that comes true, Sakura thought suddenly. The dream I just had comes true, and Sasuke is there when we arrive in Sunagakure tomorrow or something.
"Or not," she murmured out loud, and laughed softly.
Her sigh was carried off by the wind.
---
The next day, Sakura and Ino arrived at Sunagakure right on schedule.
Coming to meet them were the senior members of the Sunagakure medical team.
"You must be tired," an older man with a wonderful beard said. "After you've rested a bit, we'd love to hear what you have to say, if you don't mind."
"That should be fine. We're looking forward to it," Sakura replied, and the man with the beard led them to the village hospital.
They were shown to a large multipurpose room. After they had relaxed for a short time, the meeting attendees—apparently medical personnel—started trickling in.
Sakura spoke first to the twenty or so people gathered there about the children's therapy center in Konohagakure, the problem points in setting it up, and the current results.
No matter how many times she did it, she could never quite get used to speaking in front of a large group, but thanks to Ino stepping in from time to time to offer additional information, the talk went very smoothly.
When she was finished, it was time for the group to exchange opinions and ideas. Because of differences in village cultures and administrative systems, Sunagakure couldn't simply adopt Konoha's methods as they were, but the senior-level ninja remarked that if they made some adjustments before introducing the system, they would likely see significant results in Suna as well.
The entire meeting, including the exchange of opinions, was over in about two hours.
Once the attendees left, the bearded man who had shown them to the room in the first place came over.
"I apologize for asking this of you when I know you must be tired, but could I ask you to take the trouble of visiting the Lord Kazekage? He says he wishes to speak with you. Lady Temari is also with him."
"Certainly, we'd be delighted."
"After all, to come all the way to Suna and not see those two!" Ino said, and laughed.
"Well then, please come this way." The bearded man stood up and began walking. His expression was hard somehow, which made Sakura curious.
They left the hospital and headed toward the center of the village until they came across a spherical building, the character for "wind" inscribed on one wall.
Sakura and Ino were shown inside. In the center of the large room was a round table, before which Gaara sat. Temari stood beside him.
"I've brought the Konoha ninja," the bearded man said, and at Gaara's nod, he bowed and left the room.
"Sakura, Ino, thank you for this," Gaara said.
"Gaara, Temari, how have you been?" Sakura asked.
"Very well." Gaara nodded.
Temari simply replied, "Good."
Both of them seemed unhappy. Gaara was basically always wearing his poker face, but his countenance that day had a faint hint of severity to it.
"Um…has something happened?" Ino asked.
After exchanging a glance with Temari, Gaara turned back to Ino and Sakura.
"Uchiha Sasuke was in the village."
---
Sakura's eyes flew open. "Really?!"
What? That dream. It can't actually be coming true?
For a moment, a smile very nearly floated up onto her lips, but from Gaara's tone and expression, she assumed that this situation was not all smooth sailing and kept her grin in check.
"Sasuke's here?"
"Why?"
Sakura and Ino voiced their questions simultaneously.
Gaara clasped his hands together on top of the round table and let out a deep breath.
"I'm not quite sure where to start. I suppose it would be best to simply tell you what happened as it happened," he said. "Two days ago, Uchiha Sasuke contacted terrorists hiding themselves in our village."
"What?!" Ino shouted, her voice wild. "Hold on a minute. Why would Sasuke talk to terrorists—"
"Ino." It was Temari who interrupted her. "Gaara will talk first. Save your questions for after."
"Sorry."
Gaara nodded and continued. "Two days ago, members of the Anbu and I surrounded the terrorist base. Normally, the leader of the village would not directly accompany such missions, but the situation being what it is…"
The terrorists were originally ninja from Sunagakure, but they opposed Gaara's appointment as Kazekage and left the village to form an antigovernment group. For a long time, Gaara hadn't been able to pin down their location, but a month or so earlier, one of the Anbu had discovered their base, and the group had been placed under Anbu monitoring.
The group had made a move about a week earlier.
A lone man visited their base to talk with the terrorist leader. The member of the Anbu on monitoring duty had reported that the man visiting the base soon exited the tent and disappeared.
The meeting had been so short that the Anbu hadn't been able to eavesdrop on their conversation. But a concerning report from one of the Anbu was brought to Gaara.
"The man who appeared at the base very strongly resembled Uchiha Sasuke of Konoha."
Sakura quietly drew a sharp breath. But her questions would have to wait.
"I thought that it was a mistake, an accidental resemblance," Gaara remarked. "But I was reluctant to simply dismiss the matter so easily. So I decided to join the Anbu the next day on their monitoring mission."
Gaara would have been able to peek inside the tent with his sand eye, and if he manipulated the sand, it was an easy matter to plant a listening device.
A few days after he joined the monitoring team, Uchiha Sasuke appeared at the terrorist base. Once he was there, he began negotiating with the terrorist leader.
"Sasuke pushed at the leader and demanded that they become his subordinates."
"Subordinates?" Ino furrowed her brow.
Gaara nodded. "Sasuke came to them with the idea that they become his subordinates and help him destroy Konoha. If they did, he would help them with their own terrorist attacks."
"But that's—!" Sakura cried out reflexively.
Gaara ignored her. "The terrorist rejected Sasuke's demands. So the negotiations broke down. But rather than leaving then and there, Sasuke killed the terrorist leader. He said he couldn't let him live now that he knew Sasuke's plan to destroy Konoha."
Witnessing this with his sand eye, Gaara had given the order for the Anbu to charge in. A melee soon broke out between terrorists and Anbu, and in the midst of the chaos, Sasuke escaped. Gaara took off in pursuit, but at some point Sasuke hid his chakra, and Gaara lost him.
"This happened two days ago."
Sakura closed her eyes. But her mouth didn't open. Silence descended on the room.
"Hey, wait a minute," Ino said, finally, half-laughing. "You think we'd believe a story like that?" The situation was simply too far from reality.
Sakura could empathize with how she felt.
A family's tragedy. A hatred that made him want to leave the village. Sasuke overcame this; he was their friend, he fought with them in the Great Ninja War. Why would Sasuke now need to join up with terrorists and plot revenge on Konoha? She would never have expected this of him.
"Hey, Gaara, you're completely sure that it was Sasuke?" Sakura asked.
"Right," Ino said. "I mean, like, with a transformation technique or something, someone could have turned into Sasuke…"
"I'd like to believe that myself. But it's hard to imagine that's the case." Gaara shook his head lightly. "Even if someone were able to use a transformation technique to resemble him, they wouldn't be able to make their chakra the same color and type. The Sasuke I saw at the base two days ago had the exact same chakra as the Sasuke I know so well."
"I'm sure I heard about a ninja in the Konoha Anbu who can mimic chakra. Any connection there?" Temari said.
Sakura had also heard about the existence of such a ninja. But that ninja probably had nothing to do with this.
"I don't think so," Sakura replied. "Sasuke has no point of contact with that ninja, and I don't know why he would do such a thing in the first place."
"In that case, there's a very good possibility that the Sasuke who Gaara saw is the real Sasuke."
"Temari! How can you say—"
"I'm just stating a fact," Temari said, turning sharp eyes on Ino.
"White Zets—" Sakura started to say, and quickly dismissed it. "No, of course not."
"I thought that for a minute too," Gaara said. "It also had the ability to mimic chakra. But given that Otsutsuki Kaguya has been destroyed, I can't imagine it survived."
"So then…what about the possibility of Impersonation Jutsu?" Sakura asked. She had read in the Archive Library that the leader of Akatsuki, Pain, had used this jutsu—a technique to split a person's chakra with a vessel, which the person then controlled as if it were their own body.
"True, that jutsu could explain why his face and his chakra were the same. But Pain's gone. And if there were someone else who could use that technique, that still leaves the problems of why Sasuke would be in touch with such a person and why he would let that person make a copy of him."
Gaara was right. Even if the Sasuke he had seen was a copy instead of the real Sasuke, that didn't clear Sasuke of suspicion.
"Can you get in touch with him?" Gaara asked. "I heard he left on a journey."
Sakura shook her head helplessly. "There are these contact spots all over where we can leave a message, but…"
"But we don't know when he would get to them," Ino picked up where Sakura left off.
"Suna has no intention of leaking this matter to the outside. We plan to take care of it internally. The only people who know about it are the members of the Anbu assigned to this mission, along with Temari and a few senior ninja, and me. The terrorists we arrested at the base are also currently imprisoned, so no information will get out of the village."
"There's no way Uchiha Sasuke would try and join up with terrorists. Gaara and I think so too," Temari said. "To begin with, I have a hard time believing that Sasuke would be so sloppy as to abruptly demand anyone be his subordinate in a negotiation."
Sakura nodded.
"Sakura, Ino. I think you should hurry back home and ask Kakashi for his judgment," Gaara said. "Although I do wish you could have a bit more of a leisurely stay, since you've come to Suna."
Naturally, Sakura intended to return to the village. Coming to Sunagakure, she had a lot of things she wanted to do. She wanted to learn more about the medical system in the village, and there was a specialist she wanted to talk with about poison research.
But right now, returning to Konoha was their priority.
"I'll send a messenger falcon to Kakashi outlining the situation. I'd go myself and explain the situation, but given my position as head of the village, I can't exactly leave so easily."
"I understand."
We took four days to come, but we'll make it home in three, Sakura told herself.
---
To Be Continued