Shino's mornings had been running on routine since they came to Amegakure.

The times he gets up usually varies from day to day. If he's working that night he'll get up around three in the afternoon; Kiba and Akamaru would be snacking in the kitchen and Sakura would already be out on whatever orders Tenshi-sama had for her. If he went overtime he would get the next day off, and he spent those hours mutating his kikai generations in the living room while Kiba sketched seals and theories in the Archives and Akamaru skulked in overhang shadows. Every now and again, an insect would then wander in with one of Sakura's updates about the area in the village she'd be frequenting.

It was reminiscent of their Kumo days—these prison cells masquerading as homes.

Water dripped from his face as he braced himself against the sink in the upstairs bathroom. Routine was what kept his mind running in the absence of Pack anchoring him down; routine shackled his thoughts to work, to healing, to experimenting, to figuring out how he was going to live in the second foreign country he had no choice but to call home within the last few years.

(Kiba's throat cut open and weeping.)

He raised his head, eye meeting eye in the mirror.

It hasn't been long since everything started. Three years since their tongues burned, two years since their necks branded, one year since leaving Kumo. He was sixteen now, and he didn't think he could grow any more weary. Every day his bones felt like they were lined with lead even though every day he ran medical chakra down to his marrow to make sure they really weren't. Sunrise to sunset and all through the night it was the same, keeping Pack close as their pulses lulled him to sleep because one of the only things he could hold tight was the fact the people he loved most were still alive.

And he'd keep them alive. No matter the cost.

(Torune's blood crusting under his fingernails.)

Wanted dead by their own Kage as genin, pursued by one of their own councilmen throughout their chuunin career, Orochimaru in the far distance, rumors clinging to their backs, the Akatsuki looming—

Scarred fingers trembled against the edges of the sink.

Who sends ANBU into the Forest of Death to murder their own? Who hires mercenaries to attack shinobi on a C-rank mission? Who sends an operative to lead a team to the middle of enemy territory and leave them to die?

Who makes someone kill their own cousin in cold blood?

"Shut up. Get it together," he growled. His reflection bore an ugly sneer, and the faucet kept running. "Why are you falling apart now? Why are you letting this get the best of you? Pack needs you, but Pack doesn't need you worthless."

He swallowed past the dryness in his throat and covered his face with a hand. In the minute darkness he forced his breathing to even and didn't think about how close his vision was to blurring. His panic attacks were less frequent than they were when he was younger and there was little now that could bring him to his knees in a haze of phantom screams and blinding rage, but...

("S'me... one... ha... d... to...")

Shino's hand slumped back to the edge of the sink where his water-splashed glasses lay, and he shut off the faucet and headed straight for the hospital.

It was almost time for his shift.

:: ::

Deidara wandered almost aimlessly across the hospital's dark tiled hallways, flecks of crusted blood on his neck and one of his pant legs torn at the knee. He was far from any serious injuries and could've waved off his sprained ankle with a cap full of painkillers and a twelve hour nap, but Leader's words were simmering at the back of his head.

He flagged down a passing nurse.

"Shubh prabhaat, Deidara-sama," they greeted politely. "How may I offer my assistance?"

"What can you tell me about Aburame Shino, hm?"

Ash streaked his clothes here and there and none of them smudged across the clouds on his cloak. He'd been around Ame long enough that now his face was enough for recognition, and it still off-put him a bit at how high of a position he had just because of the ring on his right index finger. It was kind of an excess in trust on Leader's part, honestly, but he supposed all the other ring-eyed bodies that slunk around the skyline was threat enough against anything stupid.

"Aburame-sensei started his work here a month ago after becoming supplementary to RA-008 some weeks prior to that," they said. Deidara cocked a brow. "He passed the hospital entrance exam with one of the highest scores to date and is usually assigned cases in either Surgery or Research. He has a desk in the shared office on the upper levels."

He rubbed his chin. RA-008 had been inactive as far as he could remember, but it wasn't like Leader went around announcing all the things he did. It was his village or whatever, but a heads up would've been nice.

"Is he there now, yeah?"

The nurse checks the time on their pager. "I believe he's currently making his rounds in the Recovery Ward."

"Hm. Thanks."

"Of course, Deidara-sama. May the rain look over your shoulders."

"And may nothing other come to look back, hm," he returned absently as he headed off towards a different floor.

"Aburame Shino will be Akatsuki's new attending medic," Leader says as he accepts the report handed across the desk, eyeing the old blood that spots Deidara's forearm. "Hidan was torn apart in a way Kakuzu could not sew him back together, and Shino healed him to functionality in four days when it would've taken the average medic a week. He works primarily at Amegakure General. Look for him if any medical needs of yours arise."

Supplementary to an Akatsuki ID and skilled enough to reassemble Hidan's scraps? Who even was this guy? Extremely talented medics were few and far in between and all of them would have made a name for themselves one way or another. And Aburame... Had he heard that surname somewhere before? Not from Iwa, he was sure, and it was even less likely he'd be from a Great Nation if he was going to end up in a place like this.

Like, he was here too. But that was different.

Polite acknowledgements followed him until he reached the nurse's station in Recovery where he leaned against the counter and plucked a pen from one of the stationery cups.

"Is Aburame Shino here, hm?"

The nurse closest to him gestured down the hallway. "He'll be the young man with the dark glasses finishing up his duties in room 326, Deidara-sama."

"Right."

"Um, sir—"

His feet were already carrying him towards the private recovery rooms, pen twirling between sweat-dried fingers as his eyes roved over each room number until he was peering through the half-open door of three-twenty-six.

The man in the bed was pale and still and sickly, short brown hair brushing against his forehead as he lay utterly dead to the world. An oxygen tube up his nose, an IV drip out his arm, a catheter attached to a hanging bag—if this was a shinobi in a coma, good fucking luck to that guy.

But he wasn't here for the patient. He was here for the medic flipping through a clipboard by the EKG. Rust orange frames accompanied black lenses and it looked like he opted for a slate gray turtleneck under his white doctor's coat rather than the v-necked scrubs everyone else was milling around in.

Young man my ass, he scoffed as the medic lifted his head when he stepped into the room. He brushed his sore side at a faint tickle. He's even younger than me.

It was impossible to track his eyes through those damn glasses and Deidara's sure this guy knew that too, but he imagined it was the cloak, not his face, that got him recognized this time.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you must be Deidara-san," Aburame said. "I'm assuming you aren't here for a social visit."

"And here I thought hospitals were one of the perfect places to hang out. Get to know each other, yeah." Deidara ambled over to the chair by the bed and dropped into the seat, kicking his legs up over the armrest as he flipped some grimy blond strands over his shoulder. "Just kidding. You're Akatsuki's resident medic now, you know, so I'm here to check out the fresh meat."

The medic frowned but otherwise his words didn't pull any other reaction, and he narrowed his eyes. The weird get weirder and this one didn't even have a slashed hitai-ate for him to ogle; he was too calm to be a civilian and too practiced to be run-of-the-mill. So maybe he was part of one of the Great Nations whose defection was understated—typical in cases of low-rankers or those with confidential crimes—unless he was a talent picked up in the middle of nowhere? Akatsuki wasn't currently in active recruiting, and the task was typically left to everyone except Leader himself.

"So you didn't come to me so I could heal your sprained ankle, two broken ribs, and pulled bicep tendon?"

Deidara's gaze snapped back up to Aburame who had gone back to whatever he was reading on the clipboard.

"How the hell—"

"—did I come to know of your injuries? You favored one leg as you came in here, your breathing is slightly off, which suggests an ailment somewhere in your torso region, and you're careful in positioning your right arm as you move so as to not aggravate it further. As for how I know your injuries down to their specifics..."

There was a faint flare at his injured ankle and suddenly itchy and tickly and crawling and Deidara saw the thick ring of insects circling the white guard on his calf.

"What the fuck—!"

Aburame extended an arm and the insects lifted off in one, single-minded swarm. Thirty, maybe forty of them wiggled and writhed before they retreated into white coat sleeves and Deidara almost set off an explosive right in the middle of the hospital, almost, but then he stood up.

And felt no pain.

"... What the fuck," he repeated, staring dumbly at his used-to-be-sprained ankle.

"I will heal the rest of your injuries if you wish." Aburame walked around the bed to stand between him and the patient and took the pen he'd forgotten he was holding. There were more of those black insects on the other's neck and face, buzz buzz buzzing as they tinged the distinct minty green of healing chakra. "But it will have to be after the surgery I have scheduled."

Deidara huffed and peered at him a little more closely. "... I'll live. It's not like my arms are falling off, yeah."

Aburame signed the bottom of the last page on the clipboard before tucking it into the file holder on the wall and leading them both out of the room. "If you require my skills again, stop by the hospital, as apparently I am to operate as your resident medic." He muttered the last part more to himself. "Ah, forgive my rudeness. I'm Aburame Shino, formerly of Konoha, since that has been a common question asked."

He held out the blue ballpoint in front of Deidara's bewildered face.

"Thanks for the pen."

:: ::

Even after all these years, she still couldn't quite pin Leader-sama down.

He'd always been a distant figure in her life, though he'd had too heavy a hand in her upbringing to say they were strangers. One just didn't begin to know a self-proclaimed God who eradicated the remnants of the last era so thoroughly that anything even remotely related to Hanzo felt as if it were from a thousand years ago.

A tale of triumph and red skies led by a God and his Angel.

Sakura sat on the left end of the wooden divan with her hands in her lap and her shoulders pulled back in her perfected posture, a wary gaze on the man standing by one of the windows. He'd already been turned away when she took the exact same spot she had been these evenings and acknowledged her customary greeting with a quiet hum. Last time he'd been reading through what she guessed were stolen scrolls and their meeting before that he'd suddenly quizzed her about the village's security before she fully lowered herself onto the dark orange cushions.

Each day, it was different. Each day, it was something she couldn't predict.

Her fingers curled around a link of her kusari-fundo.

"You've been settling in well," he said, eyes trailing along the streets below. "Konan has deemed your work well done and I've seen your signatures on the documents under Kakuzu's oversight." He stepped to the other side of the window, but still didn't look her way. "You've always been particularly diligent. I expect nothing less."

She knew. She could still remember working through the haze of questions from all the tests he used to give her.

"But your diligence does not automatically equate to your capability," he continued. "It proves your intelligence, your wits, your competence, and though all those things lend to what you can provide to our cause, it doesn't quite meet all the necessities for survival. There's also your physical prowess to consider, and I've mulled it over once or twice. When you were a child you displayed none of Kisame's Hoshigaki attributes. He never cared much for them, but I imagined if they would manifest somewhere later in life."

Her fingers toyed with the metal links.

"You died, lived, killed Sasori, escaped Konohagakure, found your way back home." She dropped the chain, hands folding back in her lap even if he had yet to look at her. "Then Hidan challenged you, and I was able to see for myself that I imagined right."

Of course Leader-sama's reach snaked past the marshes to that abandoned factory. It was outside Ame's limits where the rain could never get too heavy and the locals didn't mind the muddy trek for a quick gamble. She thought Kakuzu's bookies would be enough oversight, but at least she knew for sure these piercings were doing their job. Not actively, not like his other bodies, but enough that sometimes she wished she'd stayed "dead."

She never told Pack about what the piercings really meant. They would never stand for it.

"You're efficient, yes, yet there's something else. Even when he was downed and your victory was clear, you didn't stop there, did you?"

Sakura's lips pressed together.

He clasped his hands behind his back and observed all the different sorts of patches the citizens wore on their shoulders. Animals are common with people's favorites drawn from bubbly caricatures to precise brushstrokes, or there'd be patterns that could span shoulder blades or necks or hoods. Many got as creative as they'd like and Sakura didn't mind admiring the view if she ever took breaks in the taller buildings. Leader-sama must have some appreciation for them too, with all the time he spent looking out into the rain.

He turned and strode past the bench to stop at a section of his wall somewhere between the two wrought iron lights that hung behind his desk and tapped his right hand against it. A stutter and a displacement, and there was a small passage that connected to another corridor.

Leader-sama glanced over his shoulder as he passed through.

Sakura's fingers twitched, and she followed.

The corridor wasn't anything special, but as metal and gray as the rest of the Pillar, but its wall of metal pipes stained with rainwater and puddles gathered all along the edge of the hallway. The air seeping through the cracks bit lazily at her with every quick stride she took towards the only place where cloudlight could pour through, and she found herself at the mouth of Leader-sama's favorite Shinigami.

He was already sitting at the tip of its red metal tongue past the warping braid of metal caught halfway between warning and artistic poise, orange hair soaked and rivulets sliding off the waterproof material that wove those red-clouded cloaks. One leg hung off the edge and the other propped up an arm—he was too comfortable.

Everything in her was screaming itself hoarse.

Leave, it begged her. Leave before he makes you lose more—

"When you look down at a village from its highest point," he said. "What do you see?"

She swallowed and stepped out until she was only a couple paces behind him.

"Its people," she answered after looking out for a beat. "Its art," she added in the endless swirl of colors from every street and corner and wall the downpour touched. "Its safeguards," she noted at last, as she recalled every hidden alcove she'd seen his other bodies stationed.

"All significant elements in what keeps Amegakure whole. To help maintain its peace."

Sakura pushed the wet strands out of her face. "It'd be nice if something like that existed."

Leader-sama stilled.

She ducked her head. She'd always taken care in not overstepping so she wouldn't end up with more metal in her body, and maybe she would end up hanging from the westward Gashadokuro statue, but he simply rose and finally, awfully, horribly, finally, he turned to fully face her.

"Peace will never come smoothly," he said, ringed eyes bright in the gloomy backdrop. "Motives for war are of no concern. Religion, ideology, resources, land, grudges, love, or just because. No matter how pathetic the reason, no matter how right the reason may be, war will never cease to exist. Human nature pursues strife."

He looked at her like she was five again and she didn't know it wasn't normal that everyone she knew had their faces plastered in the high profile pages of the bingo book, which she'd memorized so thoroughly even now she could see the print burned on the backs of her eyelids.

"Even a foolish child can grow up the right way, when she learns what pain is." Leader-sama took her chin in one hand and tilted her head towards the village skyline, all their points and wires and neon signs that cut through the dark clouds. "Even when she hasn't known peace because all the world tried to do was hollow out all the good she tried to keep." His voice lowered just as her heart jackrabbits against her ribs. "She has yet to realize that the one thing they can't control is her power."

The rain was a dull roar in her ears.

"And I," he told her, and there was a faint chime in her right ear, ringing, ringing, ringing, and it was like his voice was the only sound in her head, "will not allow her to let it go to waste."

:: ::

"How did your interest come to lie in seals, Inuzuka-san?"

Kiba paused in the middle of turning the page of a particularly hefty seals text, its title scrubbed off and the corners worn down until they rounded. Its excruciating attention to initial property formulations down to how much pressure needed to be applied to the brush had him on the edge of his seat, but three days since finding it he'd only made his way through the first quarter and his stack of notes and theory proposals was thick enough to make an echo every time he dropped it on the table.

So nestled in one corner of the private library out of sight from the single entryway among his book clutter and caffeine, he stood as Konan emerged from behind a narrow row of shelves.

"Tenshi-sama," he greeted, bowing politely as he mentally checked off every weapon he'd hidden and every escape route he'd planned. From his current position, Akamaru could either be at vantage point 3R, 2I, or 8F, but which one exactly he couldn't guess.

She motioned him to sit, her face ever unchanging. He did so. Slowly. And once he was back in his seat with his spine a little straighter and his gaze a little sharper, she lowered herself in the chair opposite him, folded her hands in her lap, and waited.

Kiba's leg started bouncing beneath the table.

Damn, what he wouldn't kill to have Shino and Sakura's calm under the heat. That wasn't to say he couldn't bulk up under pressure, because he absolutely could as was proven by his run-in with Orochimaru and his merry band of followers in Kusa, but this was a whole other level. Orochimaru was a text book bad guy with a slimy tongue paired with even slimier morals and it wasn't too hard to stare down those greedy eyes hungry for power, for control, for more, and metaphorically spit on everything they stood for.

Konan was different. She was the second highest rung on the Akatsuki ladder who told soft-spoken commands and had an entire village that prayed to her, as iron clad as the statues that towered over them. She was like a Kage, but Kages weren't as big as he used to think they were when he was small and his legs still dangled when he sat at the dinner table. Especially after the shitshow that was the Sandaime he'd taken every interaction with someone that powerful with a grain of salt, never to be trusted until proven otherwise.

But like he said, Konan was different. She was a Kage and an Angel and an Akatsuki all at once but it was none of those things about her that scared him the most.

She raised one of his most important people.

And she was still sitting there, cool and collected as she kept waiting.

"I uh, I like puzzles," he answered lamely. He waved his hand in front of his face, like he could somehow brush away what he'd already said. "Er, I'm just really good at them, turns out. I never did too well in school but for some reason seals were just somethin' else, and I ended up gettin' interested in inventing, designing, modifying." He bit the inside of his cheek. "Breaking."

Konan peered at his note stack and gestured to it. "May I?"

"Oh—um, sure?"

Akamaru slunk back into everyone's line of sight from vantage point 3R and planted himself by Kiba's legs. He was large enough that just sitting had his head peeking over the lip of the table and he'd be cautious for the rest of this weird visit. Check-up? Observation? He still hadn't gotten a clue as to what she wanted, but he doubted it was like, dismemberment.

He watched as she shifted through his half-thoughts and crossed out scribbles. Even if he couldn't catch a read on her yet, he also had to consider the Pein problem. The Sandaime was a bastard willing to sacrifice anyone not part of his own interest for a "greater good" that was only sometimes good, and Danzo was a different breed of asshole who might be doing something for his own "greater good", and that was a real strong fucking might when he had nothing to show for it. But Pein? He was younger than those two, calmer, shouldering an aura so thick it choked. There was no wise-ol'-grandpa persona to see through and he didn't wear his darkness on his sleeves as he crawled around the roots of the village, he was just... a figurehead. A God that Kiba's never seen away from his tower with eyes no one else had and a name Sakura wouldn't say.

No way he could blame her for that. It took a certain type of crazy to head one of the most notorious criminals in the world.

"Breaking seals seems to be the most focal point of your studies," Konan mentioned as she continued to peruse his work. "Your notes are very... extensive. Thorough." She lifted her gaze, and for the first time she was close enough to pick out her small details. Impeccable make-up, infallible expression, one or two fine lines around the eyes; a dreadfully experienced shinobi with too much power up her sleeves. "What are you currently trying to break?"

Akamaru huffed softly.

"... You know anythin' 'bout the Cursed To—" His mouth burned, and his teeth clicked when he shut his jaw. Fucking— "Er, just cursed seals in general?"

"Not about that particular one, but cursed seals can be designed for anything in the realm of control. I know Orochimaru had been pleased in fine-tuning his Heaven and Earth seals," she said carefully. "Removal is practically impossible, but sealing seems to work just as well."

(Kisame's never had any issues as far as she knew, and there was little now they didn't talk about.)

"Yeah, sealing's the best workaround to cursed seals, but the only conclusive removal is to kill the caster. I mean hey, at least there's an out, but that one out's just not good enough." His fangs glinted in one of his self-deprecating grins and he let the concealing seal he attached to his earring seals ripple and fade. Konan's eyes flickered to the dark lines that appeared on his tongue, trailing their ink as he spoke. "So the one I got's kind of annoying 'cause killing the caster's the only proven way to take care of it, so I'll find another. It's been a while, but I'm closer than I've ever been to solvin' this for us. The library's a great help by the way!" He cleared his throat. "Uh, thank you for the access, Tenshi-sama."

She met his gaze and prompted, "Us?"

"Ah—Akamaru n' I. Shino." He admitted. "Sakura." He also admitted, but after a short pause. He averted his eyes for the first time since she'd gotten there. "Some things happened when we were genin, this seal won't let us talk about it, and here we are." His tongue twitched with a phantom prickle, and his jaw tensed. "Sakura probably didn't say nothin' 'bout it, but getting rid of this solves a lot of our problems."

And she'd kick his ass if she ever found out how much he was telling Tenshi-sama, but... but the nights they collapsed bone-tired on the bed in Shino's room because it was the closest one to the stairs, Sakura's face would be buried in either one of their shoulders as she stayed silent during their usual nighttime murmurings. She hasn't been the same since they'd stepped foot in this village and when he wasn't busy worrying about her he'd be worrying about Shino and how he hasn't looked like he'd even given a thought about leaving Torune's body in the street.

They were dying here. And for Pack, figuring this out before gutting Danzo was the least he could do.

All while at the mercy of the Akatsuki. Fucking insane.

He couldn't tell the types of emotions quietly flitting across Konan's face, but the few of them that came in quick succession softened the edges around her eyes as she stood back up with a graceful swish of her cloak. "Then I'm glad you are able to find a true refuge here in Amegakure. Please, don't hesitate to let me know if there's anything you need for your research. Supplies, space—I can also provide shinobi should you have need for an information recovery mission."

Kiba stared blankly. A couple of his pencils clattered to the floor. Akamaru was too stunned to pick them up.

"Th-Thank you? I mean—" He stood and offered a short bow— "Thank you for the offer, Tenshi-sama. I promise I'll only use it if I get really desperate."

Her lips quirked up, barely a shadow in the lamp-lighting. "And if you decide to do it before that, it would be no issue at all. Inuzuka-san. Akamaru," she bid. She nodded their way and began her retreat, but she cast one last look at them before she disappeared behind the narrow bookshelves from where she first appeared. "Shubh kaamnaayein. I truly hope you find what you're looking for."

And she was gone, her and her fading scent of lightly perfumed paper.

Kiba looked at his partner. "She seems nice but in, like, the most intimidating way possible."

"She's Sakura's mom," Akamaru replied. "I don't know what we expected."

:: ::

She's pinned him to the dirt with his own scythe and crushes her knee through his chest, and her arm—darkened with the jutsu she could've only ever learned by watching him—reaches past the skin, vein, muscle of Hidan throat to grip his spine and yank—

"Is there something you want to say to me?" Sakura asked, her gaze never lifting from the paperwork Konan delegated to her. He raised a brow. It was an interesting question, he dryly admitted, considering she'd forgone the spare offices at the Pillar and the pangolin complexes entirely to sit and work at the black lacquer table in his home office.

Kakuzu considered her. No, that wasn't quite the right wording. An hour ago she'd knocked on the capiz windows along the wall to the left of his desk with a stack of accounting documents kept dry by a seal the Inuzuka no doubt created. Konan usually dropped them off herself, asked for the soonest time he'd have them finished by, then took her leave. But Sakura had already gone through the papers that didn't need his signature and made short, neat notes for each one. He couldn't be bothered to go through them himself if she already knew what to do, so he waved her off to fix them herself before giving them to him.

It took about fifteen minutes for him to realize she was doing exactly as she was told, just at his other table.

It took about thirty seconds after that to return to his own work and finalize all the Akatsuki's numbers for this quarter before he raised his head once more to blatantly regard the teenager across the room.

First, he thought, was that she wanted something.

Second, he knew, was that he had nothing she could be here for.

"Your kenjutsu is proficient even in the absence of Kubikiribocho and Hidan wasn't thrashing," he said, paper-clipping together related documents and setting them in a neat pile on the corner of his desk. "What did you do?"

Sakura slotted one of her papers into a folder and looked up. "Hidan-san is a close-combat fighter, he needs to be in order to draw blood regardless of how he's extended the range on his scythe. Him moving would've made it messier," a trace of humor slipped through her tone, "so there were enough opportunities to attach chakra strings to his person without him noticing. He's not a sensor."

Chakra strings. You've taken after Sasori too.

"Besides," she said as she turned back to her work. "He wouldn't have died no matter what I did, and Shino would've wanted to see how well he could put Hidan-san back together again."

Bones ripple out in a splash of red chunks that soak through the bandages wrapped around her left arm, and Kakuzu thinks he's surprised as her eyes gleam through the rain, the grass darkening around her.

Aburame tilts his head like he's observing an experiment, Inuzuka watches like they're back with the salamanders, the dog never perks at the gore.

Her violence was peculiar.

Konoha had their Will of Fire and self-righteous perceptions of goodness—as if being "good" meant anything to people paid to kill—and indoctrination worked best the younger they were. He could easily imagine preaching teachers in sunlit classrooms who simultaneously told their students never disobey an order while never abandoning a comrade, and their teachings would have never let Sakura get this far.

Chuunin. Un-noted. Not a "promising" shinobi of interest.

"Huh," she says. Hidan spits and garbles and chokes through a mangled body and exploded vocal chords. Her shirt is stained. The rain is cold. In the distance, a giant salamander roars. "You really don't shut up after all that."

Completely hidden in plain sight until it was too late.

"I told you, didn't I?"

"I wanted to see for myself."

Sakura lifted her pen close to her face and it took a moment for him to notice the tiny black beetle sitting on the cap. It spun in a circle before fluttering down onto her papers and continuing to skitter about in a pattern he couldn't decipher. When he raised his gaze back up to her face, there was a slight pinch to her expression. Her eyes briefly met his and turned away just as quickly. The beetle's movements grew more insistent the longer it took her to reply.

"Okay," she murmured. "But let him know I'm only giving it a day."

A fang-shaped trinket hung from the red corded rope around her waist—another blatant call to whatever affiliation she had with the Hachibi's jinchuuriki—made of white stone that refracted the same way the patches on her rain cloak did. An inked array covered its surface in no doubt another one of Inuzuka's designs, and she unknotted it from its place and set it flat on the table.

Then.

She reached for the top of the bandages on her left bicep and began to unwind them.

Kakuzu had no grand expectation of the things she'd been hiding since returning to Amegakure. All he needed to know was that she wasn't that same little girl who smiled while the skin on her knuckles were torn, so it was curiosity that left him watching as the bandages loosen and loosen and loosen until he saw wood and metal in place where skin should be.

It was strikingly human in its artifice that matched her other arm in almost identical fullness and build, and he tried to skim through all notable Konoha-nin that could've aided in its making. None come to mind, and by the time she pulled the last of the bandages from her dark alloy fingers, he spied the engraving of a lizard in a box in the center of the palm.

A Suna master's signature.

Sakura was an amalgam of knowledge, or traits, of lessons she only cared to keep half-hidden. Scars, brands, tattoos, prosthetics, rage and bloodthirst that ran her through battlefields all wrapped together into what he assumed was Leader's approximation of the perfect, homegrown soldier. And it was true, at the very least displayed in the way she tore Hidan to ribbons because of the simple fact he couldn't die.

But he wouldn't have thought all that could culminate into this one, unusual position.

Konoha.

"It was during my imprisonment in Kumo that I learned under him."

"I was also the one who killed Sasori-san."

"Where you've been puts you in direct contact with four separate jinchuuriki. You've lived in a village with one, defended another, and became a student of the third in a village that holds that one and a fourth," because wasn't Uzumaki around her age, and weren't both of them part of the convoy Kisame and Itachi were sent to intercept after the Ichibi's extraction? She'd willingly gone against Sasori whether it was to genuinely protect the Godaime Kazekage or not, and if Leader knew all that— "Which jinchuuriki have you been assigned to?"

Sakura splayed her hand on the border between flesh and not then twisted, the office filling with a soft, mechanical schnick.

The muscles in her neck seized as she lowered the arm atop the fang ornament. "I told Leader-sama I would abide by his orders except for any in regards to the tailed beasts. He acknowledged my request." Pale, calloused fingers curled tiger-bird-ram before she drew blood from her thumb and streaked it against one of the prosthesis' metal cylinders. A short wisp of smoke and it was sealed, and she looped the fang back on her waist with another inked line on its surface. "Don't expect any help from us if it comes down to it."

"Your ethics aren't worth the trouble."

"It's not trouble."

"Really?" He questioned. "Even when you've become everything they've wanted?"

Sakura propped her elbow up on the table. She was at ease and unconcerned like she hadn't just cracked one of her secrets wide open in the office space between them, and he had to commend her.

Years ago when he could still speak of Takigakure without a vile hatred in his chest, he tended to the tayabak that grew along one side of his childhood home. Each year their reach would further, those insufferably resilient vines fortified by rich waters cultivated by chakra and time. Bright, turquoise, unyielding, they dug their roots in stone and wood foundations and never withered.

It was easy to look down on flowers.

Especially the small pink ones that never looked like they stood a chance.

"If I had become everything they wanted, then I would already be out there with my sword through a jinchuurki's gut," she said. "But I won't be ripping a beast out of anyone—not Bee-sama, not Naruto." Her jaw tightened. "I can't stop the Akatsuki from doing what they want so I won't waste my time trying, but I'm not going to sit here and pretend to root for you." She paused. "No offense."

Resilient. Unyielding.

And so damn fucking bold.

He blamed the relative comfort of his own home for the amusement that bloomed and pulled against the stitches on his face.

"None taken," he replied, and his honesty probably surprised them both in equal measure.

They worked in silence for the better part of an hour before Kakuzu opened his mouth again.

"You speak highly of the jinchuuriki you know. While I don't share your sentiment, I know you won't change your mind just as the Akatsuki won't change theirs," he started. Sakura looked up. "Adding you to the equation has made things more... interesting. There's no reason not to make it moreso."

She narrowed her eyes, yet, "What do you have in mind?"

"Hidan and I have been assigned to obtain Nii Yugito."

Her jaw ticked.

"If we manage her capture or the capture of other jinchuuriki, I want you to take Sasori's place during the removal. Without him it'll take longer, and I have more important things to do than waste my time in the extraction chamber because Sasori couldn't handle himself against you."

Her lips twisted. "Your terms could span years and would have no benefit to me."

"Within the next month, then," he allowed. "The conditions will last over the duration of the next full thirty days starting at midnight tonight."

"What do I get if you lose?"

"What do you want?"

It was out of his convention to prompt these sorts of games, but it had to be the lack of decent players that the thought never occurred to him, especially since he was the one who constantly kept track of the betting. Her violence drew his curiosity, her daring kept his attention; she was splashes of red in the rainy backdrop of a gray and neon village from the tips of her fingers soaked crimson to the ends of her hair damp and tea rose pink.

There was a raging fire in the rain, and it fascinated him that it wouldn't snuff out.

Sakura took a few moments to think.

Then with the same hardened resolve he saw in her when she stopped Hidan's scythe with her left hand and didn't bleed, she told him—

:: ::

A narrowed his eyes at the updated Bingo Book dropped smack in the middle of his table. He didn't budge from his relaxed posture on the couch, but it didn't seem like Bee expected him too with that suspiciously happy smile. C and Darui regarded the interruption warily—because when was the last time anything ran smoothly when he waltzed into the Raikage's Office looking like that—and Mabui sighed quietly as she finished writing up the last of her notes, shut her notebook, and resigned herself to watch.

"I took a new book to cast a look at the catches of the day," Bee said, his giddiness overflowing to the point that the Hachibi was probably already grumbling his protests. "And you wouldn't believe what I've seen and what it's supposed to mean." He poked the cover. "First couple pages. Brand new entries."

That only served to convince A even less, but he sighed and flipped to those first few pages.

Then paused.

Mabui peered over his shoulder. "Is that...?"

"Bringing your misjudgments back under to my attention is the last thing your pighead should—"

"Ah, come on, don't tell me you're still up in arms about that? Sit back and relax, get your head outta that spat," Bee waved off. A rolled his eyes and pushed the book towards C and Darui. "And don't tell me this ain't the least bit interesting because you just wouldn't believe that out of all places you get missing-nin, it's Konoha that they'll leave."

"Not that we're that surprised," Darui muttered. A glared at him, and he held his hands up. "Sorry, sorry, I didn't say anything."

"What are our orders?" C questioned as he turned a page, the attentive guard he was, but A knew that even the best of his shinobi had their loyalties. His brother might be the worst example of that.

"What orders?" A scoffed and turned back to his work. "This is Konoha's problem, so their dogs can handle it themselves. Kumo won't have any part in it."

And if that was Bee grinning as he kicked his feet up on the other end of the couch, he was just going to punch him out during training later.