-Chapter 32-

"Gai-sensei?" Tenten asked that night. "What the heck is wrong with Hatake-sensei?"

The bushy-browed man frowned to himself. "Kakashi isn't acting like himself," he replied. "But why, I have no clue."

"I don't think I've seen him smile once," Lee shivered. "And if he has, it feels off -- predatory."

Gai nodded slowly. "I don't think I've seen him flirt with Shizune for years. I thought he moved on from that, but... perhaps not?"

"Hatake-sensei had a thing for Nurse Shizune?" Tenten echoed, wrinkling her nose. "First off, how? Second, why?"

"It's... not exactly my place to tell," their teacher coughed awkwardly. "But as far as I understand... he has a... thing?"

"Eww." Tenten nearly gagged. "Oh my Kami. Eww. What the hell. I did not need that image, thank you."

"I can't say I kinkshame it," Lee shrugged, looking, for the most part, unbothered, save for the slightest twitch of his eye. "It's present day."

Thankfully for the three, a sudden knock at the door interrupted their discussion of Kakashi's, er, preferences.

"I got it!" Tenten volunteered quickly, jumping up to answer it.

She opened the door and frowned. "Sakura? What are you doing here this late?"

"No time to tell the full story," she answered, glancing over her shoulder rapidly. "Will you help me with something? I'm worried about Kakashi-sensei."

"Why? Is he hurt?" Gai was up immediately, a look of concern written all over his face.

She looked past Tenten to him with a pleading look. "Kakashi-sensei isn't himself, and I have a horrible feeling that something will happen to me if I stay in my cabin for the night."

"Of course you can, Sakura-chan!" Lee exclaimed, looking up at Gai for agreement. "We can protect her here, right?"

"Wait just a minute, Lee," Gai replied. "Sakura, you may wanna come in for this discussion."

She gratefully stepped in, and Tenten shut the door behind her.

"Alright, now why are you afraid?" He asked.

"He hasn't been himself at all lately," she admitted with a shudder. "I've never, ever seen him be sweet around Nurse Shizune, and something about him just generally seems off. He gives off this dangerous aura."

Tenten and Lee gave each other a glance.

"Well, you'd absolutely free to spend the night here," Gai said, scratching the back of his neck. "You'd have to share a room with Tenten, but..."

"Thank you. Just for tonight," she said, sagging against the wall in relief. "I promise I won't be too much trouble."

"Trouble? You? Oh Sakura," Gai chuckled, patting her head. "I have no worries about you. It's more... worrying about my best friend."

She grew quiet for a few moments and nodded her head. "Yeah... I know what that feels like," she admitted.

-line-

Later that night, while she and Tenten were getting ready for bed, her phone chimed.

Tenten frowned, in the process of untying her twin buns. "Who's that?"

Sakura inspected the message with a frown. "It's Karin. Weird. She didn't tell me that she was gonna text tonight."

"Well, what's she want?" Tenten asked, sitting down on her bed next to the pinkette. She peered over, reading silently.

"It just says that she has some urgent news and that I need to meet her somewhere." Sakura frowned at the phone. "Something about this feels wrong."

"Well ask her for a selfie!" The brunette offered, her hair falling to her shoulders as she took out the hairtie. She smoothed it down, threading her fingers through it some. She winced as her fingers caught on a few knots, and she reached over for her brush.

After a minute, a picture appeared. It was of Karin next to Juugo, supposedly on the couch in their cabin.

"It... looks legit," Sakura said, concerned.

Tenten glanced over it for a second before she stopped, staring weirdly at it. "Wait. Zoom in on her hand."

Sakura did as told and her face scrunched up into a frown. "Wait a minute..."

Karin had gotten a few scars on her hands from falling arms-first in a berry bush a couple of days ago, yet in this picture there was no blood nor scars to be seen.

"This isn't recent," she realized. "This must've been on her first night here! Look -- in the background!"

"That must be Suigetsu," Tenten guessed, when they both saw a hint of silvery hair on the corner of the screen. Based on the dimensions of the photo, it was obvious that whoever this was had cropped him out, but they'd somehow missed the very ends of his hair.

"I don't like this," Sakura groaned. "What do we do now?"

"Ask them to meet us by the flower patch on the main road to the cabins," Tenten instructed. She got up from her bed, walking to the door. "I'm gonna tell Gai-sensei."

"You're not serious about meeting them, are you?" Sakura asked, alarmed.

"Relax, we're gonna stake it out." Tenten scoffed, giving her a grin. "You don't honestly think I'm gonna let us get kidnapped, do you? We just need to get lucky and have them show up after we do."

Still uneasy, the pinkette nodded and sent the text as Tenten exited.

After a moment, she came back in, pulling on her jacket. "Gai-sensei said we can go," she explained. "But just as long as we're extra careful."

"Got it." Sakura nodded, pocketing her phone for the meantime. She grabbed her jacket from atop her backpack and they both went to the front door.

They slipped on their shoes and left, saying goodbye to Gai, who was reading a book on the couch.

As they went along the path, Sakura's phone lighting the way, they remained silent.

It took a couple of minutes, but they at last came to the main square, and hid behind a few trees, turning off the flashlight on Sakura's phone. They waited for a few minutes.

"What's taking them?" Tenten whispered, frustrated.

"Maybe some boys took Karin's phone and catfished us," Sakura mumbled.

They waited for a minute more, before they heard someone's shoes crunching up the path.

Sakura looked up and gasped quietly. "Tenten!"

They watched as Karin appeared around the corner, looking concerned about something.

Sakura and Tenten stepped out from behind the tree and the girl looked up, alarmed for a split-second, before she looked relieved.

"Sakura, hey," she greeted. "What are you doing here?"

Both girls looked at each other with twin looks of dread.

"Uh..." Sakura said intelligently, fumbling for a few moments before she finally replied, "Now you have my phone number?"

This time, Karin looked more confused. "What are you talking about?"

Sakura pulled out her phone and showed her the texts, and the redhead's face went from confusion to horror.

"Oh no, I knew this would happen," she groaned, pulling her glasses down to rub her eyes. When she looked up again, she was more upset.

"What happened? What do you mean?" Tenten asked.

"Someone took my phone earlier while I was in the bathhouse, and I've been out here looking for it," she answered irritably, glancing past them to the path. "Of all the rotten luck I've had this trip, this about tops it. My parents aren't even done paying it off yet!"

Sakura gave a tiny sigh, hesitating for a moment before reaching into her pocket.

"Karin, I'm gonna give you something, and when I do, you need to promise me that you won't show it to anyone." She began seriously, staring her right in the eye. "I'm serious. Don't you dare show anyone you have this."

"What are you talking about? Do you have contraband?" She asked, raising her eyebrows.

"No, not contraband." She shook her head, pulling out Ino's cell phone.

"That's...!" The words died on the redhead's tongue as Sakura handed her the phone. "Why do you have this?"

"Let's just say I picked up a souvenir on the road," she said, giving a wry chuckle. "No one knows that I have it, and in case we have a spy among us, not even the adults should know."

Karin gazed at the phone solemnly, watching it shimmer in the meager lamplight. "What do you want me to do with this?"

"Use it to contact me, what else?" She joked for a moment, before she went back to gazing intensely at her. "The passcode is 0415. It's... the day we met for the first time."

"If I remember right, my name is under the name 'Forehead', capital F," she continued to explain as Karin opened the phone and went to the contacts app. Sure enough, 'Forehead' along with a grinning emoji popped up. Karin laughed a bit at that and tapped it. Sakura's number popped up, along with a small note of "Yare yare daze, forehead-kun!!!"

"Don't ask, it's an inside joke," Sakura groaned when she saw it. "Can't believe she kept that in. Anyways, use this to text me or call me if you need to. Remember: DO NOT let anyone know you have that."

"I promise," Karin pledged, turning off the phone and holding it to her chest. "You can count on me. For Ino's sake."

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