Disclaimer: Of course I don't own Naruto.

An Armed Truce

Part Eight: Hunter and Light

I don't believe in fate, I don't believe in destiny

I only see the you that is mine, the you that no longer exists.

In less than twenty-four hours, his world had not only been turned on its head, it had frozen like a block of ice, ripping the nails off his fingers as he grabbed desperately to hold onto what remained of his sanity.

Three years ago, it would never have occurred to him that Sakura--that small, insignificant thing that was always looking at him, like a bright piece of sunshine--was the only thing that prevented him from killing his brother and avenging his entire clan. And she wasn't even in his way; she'd told him, over and over again, to kill his brother. Itachi was a danger, a liability. He was the enemy; he was Akatsuki. He could betray them at any moment.

And if that wasn't enough, he still completely hated the bastard.

So why wasn't Itachi dead yet?

Sakura was the first one in the shelter, the rotting building that stood in the middle of nowhere, half drowned in plant life--in flowers that made him think, bizarrely, of that story she'd told them just that afternoon. She went in quickly, before he could, and checked around before giving the all's clear. And then she halfway carried Juugo into the room, despite the giant being almost completely awake by then.

Sasuke almost wanted to snarl at that. Sakura--the real Sakura, the one he'd known, who loved him--was his, and she had no right to touch anything that didn't belong to that side of his life. The past and the present should never melt together like that. He shouldn't be looking at her anymore, and he damn sure shouldn't be so uncertain all the time. Four minutes ago, he'd been positive that she was going to kill that man. That wasn't something that should ever have struck him as possible.

But this Sakura wasn't in love with him, wasn't allied with him. Was so separate from him, he would have thanked the gods if she'd only been like this years before.

And he knew without a doubt that she completely hated him.

Not for something he did. Not really.

She helped him onto the floor, her pale hand glowing green for a short moment, and Juugo collapsed again, unconscious. Sakura slid her bag off of her shoulders, dropping it onto the ground beside her, and managed to get the Juugo's bag off of him almost without shifting him. The bag, too, was set neatly beside the giant's head, with her prepping the corners to remove any wrinkles they might get slouched there, giving both bags--and the case she unceremoniously snatched from Itachi the instant he stepped in the door--a neat, homelike feel.

She didn't even wrinkle her nose at the mildewy scent--but he did. He also glanced at the ceiling, with its dark splotches, and wondered if the roof would hold up once it started raining. It certainly wouldn't be able to keep much water out, that was for sure.

He wanted to ask how long until the rain started, but with Juugo unconscious and his animal informers gone, there was no way to tell. Of course, then, with a crash of thunder, the rain started pouring, and he figured it was a moot point. At least the house was near the top of the incline; they were less likely to find the place fill with water. Provided that the roof held.

Sakura's sudden movement drew his attention, and he watched as she went into her bag to pull out a knife.

"Sakura," he said sharply. She didn't drop the weapon, but she did glance at him. "What are you doing?"

"Reinforcing our shelter," she said. And stabbed herself.

He swore, reaching for her--almost in unison with his brother, he couldn't help but notice. Her knife was knocked with a clatter on the floor, and he was momentarily distracted by the unusual color, the purest silver blurring with the deepest red. Her blood seemed to melt into the silver, and for an instant he was so dizzy that he almost threw up. He regained control swiftly, tightening his grip on her arm--he held onto her so tightly that he knew bruises would be forming on that pale skin under his fingers, and he immediately let go.

"It's fine," she reassured them--reassured Itachi, since he was still holding onto her. "Let go."

She stood and swiftly went to the frame of the shelter, holding her left hand up like an easel, using her thumb and fingers to stab into the cut on her palm and draw complex symbols on the wood. She drew swiftly, using more blood than she had to so that it wouldn't be absorbed by the mildew or be blurred by the rain that fell, as he'd predicted, through the ceiling. Still, it didn't take her very long at all. The instant she finished she started forming a rapid series of hand seals, and her blood started to glow--and then extend up the walls until it reached the ceiling.

In just a few seconds, the rain that fell from the ceiling slowed until it almost stopped completely, and she collapsed.

Itachi caught her--Sasuke was still too busy looking at the ceiling, the walls, in stunned disbelief. She was lowered gently to the ground and she sat there on her knees, holding onto consciousness with a monumental show of willpower. Sasuke turned to look at her.

"What did you do?" He demanded.

She took a deep breath, almost panting. She looked at him almost sideways, her eyebrow raised in that almost unfamiliar expression. "Blood contract," she said. She picked up the strange knife, cleaning the wicked sharp blade on fabric that had to be too thin for it, but still didn't tear, and put the knife back into her bag. "I turned back the tree's time. Lucky it's all the same kind of wood." She caught his stare and smiled. "My father's jutsu. And one of the treasures of the Suzuki clan."

"Blood contract?" He repeated.

"When you use the chakra in your blood to protect life," she said. She leaned over the giant's body, checking his body temperature with the back of her hand. "Luckily your friend here has so much chakra, or it would have been impossible for me to manage. I lost about a third of it when I was converting."

The hand on Juugo's forehead suddenly made sense. She was checking to see if she'd stolen enough to kill him.

"The wood in here is still alive?" Itachi asked curiously, glancing up at the ceiling. Sasuke agreed with the disbelief the question implied. Most living wood didn't mildew like that.

"In a sense," she said. "The growth outside covers the entire structure completely. You could say that the chakra I fed into the wood only made it more attractive to the vines climbing outside; they've been encouraged to grow in a short amount of time, and will eventually merge completely with the shelter. The shelter will then be classified as alive. And, of course, we'll no longer be in danger of having the ceiling collapse." He noticed that the last sentence had been directed at him, and at his look she smiled at him. "Your worries are completely transparent."

He almost slapped his hands over his face to hide it. He'd thought that he was completely without expression; his impassive face had been one of the things to intimidate his foes. And of course, Sakura could see right through him.

"And would this blood contract have anything to do with your last jutsu?" Itachi asked.

"My improvisation on my father's jutsu," she said. "A ring of protection. The amount of chakra in the things inside determine how high the protection stands, while the size of the circle surrounding it determines how wide. And, of course, what's inside cannot come outside, and everything but myself, or anything else with my blood, cannot pass through it. Anything that comes into contact is turned into pure chakra that is funneled into my body. The shield remains in place until I remove it, or until I'm dead. Of course, once enough mass is converted to chakra I develop an excess, which allows me to use other jutsu that I normally wouldn't have the chakra for. For example, a fan of chakra that can repel anything physical--weapons or opponents. The excess also allows me to convert jutsu used against me into more chakra, which then allows me to use more explosive techniques."

"So in other words, they have to kill you before you develop an excess," Sasuke concluded. "Or before you even draw that ring of protection. Or you're almost invincible."

She smiled. "Correct," she said. "And of course, you have to be a channel to use this ability effectively. Or you need something with a lot of chakra in a very small package, or your ring of protection may turn out to be only a couple of inches tall. You at least need it to be waist-high, or it's unlikely that your opponent will ever run into it. And if he or she notices you trying to get them into range of it, they're going to be extra careful to avoid it."

"How often have you used that jutsu?"

She shrugged. "Several times in practice, a couple in live combat," she answered. "It was originally designed to use when I was working in tandem with Shino. His bugs are faster than I am at both cutting into my skin and then drawing the circle. They're also there for the cleanup, which is almost as important."

"Cleanup?" Itachi repeated.

She actually laughed, reaching for her bag again, this time to pull out bandages. "As someone who tries very hard to remain invisible, you can't expect me to leave my blood everywhere, can you?" She asked. It was a rhetorical question. But the statement hidden within it had Sasuke's eyebrows rising.

"What have you done, Sakura?" He demanded. His voice was very low.

"Various things," she answered vaguely. "Same as you."

That was no answer and when he opened his mouth to tell her so, she interrupted him.

"I'm not answering anything else until you explain something to me," she said firmly. She nodded towards Juugo. "What's wrong with him? He goes berserk and he can't hold a form properly. He talks to animals, which I can accept, because hey, Kiba does, too. Or at least he talks to Akamaru. And he has about as much chakra as Naruto on a good day--when he doesn't start using the Kyuubi chakra. So what's his problem?"

"What does it matter to you?" Karin asked.

Sasuke looked at her quickly--but turned his attention almost immediately back to Sakura, who flexed her right hand. "Are you volunteering to give me what information I need?" She asked innocently, but there was menace in her words. "I'm telling you now, I've only used my Mother's jutsu once. I don't have the confidence that it will go as well this time."

"Karin," Sasuke prompted. He tried not to sound too irritated, but what was Sakura doing trying to intimidate her way into answers?

"He's the basis for the Curse Seal forms," Karin finally answered. She sounded irritated. "His natural abilities led to the Sound scientists using his DNA to develop the Curse Seal. Unfortunately, Juugo has no control over it; he goes into a berserker rage every time the ability activates. He reacts purely upon emotion and destructive desires. However, rather than attempting to remove this flaw, Juugo was locked up in a special chamber."

"That was actually very smart," Sakura noted objectively. Sasuke looked at here in surprise--he could have sworn that she would be upset over the imprisonment. "I would have just killed him, but if you're looking for a weapon of destruction, a creature designed for it is the perfect plan for revenge. Because honestly, you can't expect to let something like that out unless you're under attack with no hope to win. I don't imagine that he would gain anything if he attempted to correct the neural passageways of this person's brain."

Almost gently, she touched the sleeping giant's head, making gentle, lazy swirls in his hair with one long finger. She watched the movement as though it was entirely unrelated to her; she was thinking.

"My mother could do it," she said, thinking aloud. She quickly reached for her bag, throwing it open to look through it. All of a sudden she was hurrying, looking for something almost desperately. And then she pulled out a book. She smiled in satisfaction and left her bag lying there, glass jars, tiny boxes, kunai and explosive tags and also clothes falling out of the open top. She sat down next to Juugo's side yet again and opened the book. She started reading almost immediately.

Sasuke stared. But when she didn't glance up even once, proving to be completely engrossed in the book, he simply sat down and made himself comfortable. He just hoped that the reinforcements she had made held up through the storm.

Suigetsu wasn't quite as good at being patient, though. While the resident Uchiha sat on the floor in meditation, Juugo slept and Sakura read--looking up everyone once in a while to glare at something beside her that Sasuke couldn't see even with Sharingan-red eyes--Karin fidgeted in a way that he found completely annoying. Suigetsu cleaned his sword, slurped water, and then finally sat there glaring at Sakura.

After a moment she glanced up at him, marking her place and closing her book. "Yes?" She said impatiently.

"Did you really kill him?" He asked. He jerked his head towards Itachi. "He says that you did, but I don't believe it. How could someone like you kill Kisame?"

"The same way you kill anyone," Sakura said simply. "You beat him until his heart stops. Right?"

"So did you?"

"There's not much point in hunting Akatsuki if you decide to let one run free," she said, and shrugged. "So yes. I killed him. Some fish you have to let go to get the one you really want, but there was no benefit in me sparing him. He was too dangerous to leave."

"I can't picture it," he said, looking at her very closely. "How'd you do it?"

She simply looked at him for a long moment, and sighed. "Why? It's not as though you actually care, right? What do you really want to ask?"

"He's interested in the sword," Itachi answered for him.

Sakura looked at him sharply, both eyebrows raised in surprise. She looked at him for a long moment, and then turned her gaze back to Suigetsu.

"Why?" She said again, after an equally long moment. But then she looked away almost dismissively. "Never mind. It doesn't matter. Give me a minute to think. And a map."

"Would you be able to find it on a map?" Itachi asked with interest as Suigetsu immediately went to fetch his own. Sakura opened her bag yet again to stick her book back inside of it, taking the time to make certain that everything was in its proper place.

"I'm certainly not going into Earth Country to look for it, if that's what you're asking," she said. She closed her bag up tight, not looking up from the knots that she tied with swift fingers. "That place is built on blood, and I'm not going back into it if I can help it."

"Fire Country was built on that same bloodshed," Itachi reminded her.

"But Fire Country is natural," Sakura protested, looking at him directly for the first time. "The blood spilled nourishes and strengthens the trees that hide and protect us. It gives life. Earth Country is wrong. It kills everything. It only knows how to kill; how to destroy. If this land grows a single thing naturally, ten to one, it will be poisoned. Whatever eats it will spread disease. Death, and death again."

Suigetsu had brought the maps. He laid them out next to her and Sakura abandoned her bags without a care as she helped him lay several of them out. Almost the entire floor of the shelter was covered in map by the time they were done.

Not so they'd notice. Sakura and Suigetsu both crawled over the maps as though it was the finest carpet, matching lines from one map to the next so that they had the entire picture.

Sasuke didn't know why they had laid out the entire Five Countries when they were only going to look at the one for Earth Country. He didn't say anything.

It was a relief to know that this was one part of Sakura that hadn't changed over the years. Her desire to know everything had become a passion for maps and books of all kinds, and it was something he'd never been able to match. He'd been the warrior, she'd been the scholar and Naruto--he was the wild card. He would get them out of trouble just as often as he got them into it.

Sasuke felt a second of vertigo, as though the world had just cut him loose of its gravity. Naruto.

For him to be dead, that was impossible. Inconceivable. He was just Naruto. A complete loser, a complete idiot--the world protected idiots. But it wouldn't be able to protect him forever.

Who would protect him? Kakashi? What chance did he have against Akatsuki?

In his blood, suddenly ice-cold, Sasuke could only come up with one conclusion. The only one who was coming after Naruto was Sakura. Just her.

She was hunting Akatsuki, she'd said. All of them. Their numbers dwindled rapidly, in evidence of her willpower. She wouldn't lose.

But would it help Naruto?

Suddenly the walls felt too close.

He was horrified to realize that his eyes had focused on Sakura in his dilemma, and he was looking at her like she would have all of the answers. She had built his world and taken it down hundreds of times already, from the first time he'd met her. Just by being Sakura.

Just by being Sakura.

You'd think, after all this time, that she'd have lost the power to hurt him.

"His body's being sent back to Kirigakure, of course," Sakura said as her finger rested on the map, hovering just over Water Country. "It's perfectly preserved. The sword will be with the body. If Tokiwa is honest, and I doubt it, the most likely path will be here." She trailed a finger from Earth Country down. "Or possibly here." A less direct route, skirting around Fire Country.

"You went a long way for someone you don't trust." Sasuke looked up to notice that it was his brother speaking, and his eyes narrowed.

"I have a responsibility to the Suzuki clan," she said. "Tokiwa is necessary to them. I don't have to like it to do my job. In any case, I make a point to have several backup plans intact to cover up any mistakes. Such as," she tapped a finger to the map again, this time at the North-Western edge of Earth Country, as far from Mist as possible. "This is where you'll find both body and sword. There's a small village here, a fishing village with a ferry that runs only at night.

"The ferry is called Raicho, and the ferryman's name is Kitagawa. Kitagawa is very easy to recognize. He's short and stocky, very muscular, as you'd expect. Low forehead, high cheekbones. Ruddy skin. Short, curly black hair. He has a beard and moustache, both kept very neat."

Trust Sakura, he thought. She could always be counted on to remember a person exactly, to file that person away in her head for future reference.

"Raichou," Karin said thoughtfully. "That's a strange name. Arrival."

Sakura laughed quietly in response, not looking away from the map. Karin immediately bristled and, sensing that, Sakura waved her hand dismissively. "Sorry, I was just thinking that you and Sasuke-kun were perfectly suited. Do you really think that I would know so much about a person if his business was so innocent as that?" She lifted one shoulder. "I was sent to investigate him, of course. The ferry's true name is Raijin Cho--The Lightning God's Butterfly."

Sasuke felt his eyebrows raise, and noticed that the reaction was echoed on his brother's face. "An alliance between the Land of Lightning and the Land of Earth. I haven't heard of that."

"Don't be naive," Sakura said. "An interest, not an alliance. Spying is, by far, the oldest and noblest shinobi tradition."

"And this Kitagawa will know where the body is?" Suigetsu interrupted.

"Who knows?" Sakura returned, turning her attention back to the map with the slightest of shrugs. "All I know is that Kitagawa is Tokiwa's dog. Or that's what Tokiwa wants to believe. That's why he allows him to get away with a few minor indiscretions. He's wrong, of course."

"Of course," Itachi agreed. Sasuke looked at him again and was surprised--and slightly annoyed--to see a smile on his brother's face.

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "What sort of indiscretions?"

She smiled. "Anything short of murder, usually." She caught his expression and shrugged. "He likes children. Congratulations, you should blend right in." She laughed as she slapped Suigetsu's shoulder lightly, rocking back on her heels to stand away from the line of maps. She had to walk almost completely on her toes to get away from them, taking steps that should have been too long for her short legs backwards, and he was almost impressed that she was able to get to the edge of the room without staining the mess of maps.

His stomach clenched as he caught the meaning behind her sentence. Sakura had always been small and, even now, she wasn't particularly well endowed. It would be all too easy for her to look like a child. And she looked just exotic enough, with that pink hair, to draw his attention.

"Sakura," he said again. "What did you do?"

She met his gaze, weighing how much he really wanted an answer before she looked away. "It's safer if you don't know the details," she finally said. "Even if it wasn't, we don't have time to catch up. And before you let your overactive imagination take hold, it probably wasn't anything like that."

He aimed a flat glare at her. "I wasn't thinking anything," he said defensively.

"Not thinking is worse. It implies that you've already come to a conclusion," she made a face that, for a second, brought him back in time. It was a look she'd reserved almost especially for Naruto. Right before she ended up punching him. "Thanks a lot, Sasuke-kun. Glad you have such a high opinion of me."

"Not to intrude," Itachi interrupted, his quiet voice cutting through Sasuke's denial before it could even sound. "But how do you plan on confronting Pein?"

"Violently." She began rifling through her bag again, pulling out cooking ingredients with tense, shaking fingers.

Sasuke gave a sigh of disgust. "If you're tired, sleep."

"Not that easy," she said, and spilled rice into a pot. "We don't have that much time."

There was a split second of disorientation as he watched her, and then he got it. If there wasn't much time, it was still possible for Sakura to eat the rice balls that she'd already made. She hadn't opened the case she stored them in once since they were constructed.

Judging from that, it meant that the ones she was making now served a different purpose.

The clue here was time.

"Sakura," he said. Just that--just her name. And she turned to look at him, the same way she always did. Back when he thought that he could read all of her thoughts with a glance. Perfectly in synch. (That was why he left.) "What are you doing?"

"They can't come," she said. When he continued to look at her, she lowered her gaze, opening a bottle with a swift, efficient flick of her wrist. "There are reasons, Sasuke. Important ones. The short one is that I work best alone. Companions carry a weight, a distraction, that you can't afford out there in the real world. If you think that what happened an hour ago was an aberration, you're gravely mistaken. I have worked with people who wanted to kill me so many times. When I'm taking care of Pein, I won't have the time to be thinking, What's going to happen if someone tries to stab me in the back?"

Her green eyes were cold and flat, only the barest resemblance to how beautiful they used to be. In his dreams, he used to believe that there was a light shining out of them, identical to the light that shone out of Naruto. She was a symbol of everything that was pure and kind, and he was...

In the end, he'd been completely fooled.

Sakura lit the flame with the ease of long practice, seeming to pay no attention whatsoever to the fact that she lit it on the very floor of their soggy, wooden shelter. The flames rose quickly, giving off a steady, even heat, and didn't seem to suffer from the soggy material any more than it attempted to burn outside the neat circle Sakura had drawn.

As always, he was stuck somewhere between admiration and annoyance, jealousy. Someone like Sakura, how could he not acknowledge her?

"I'll say this again," she said as she poured the water into the pot. She stirred with a metal spoon that she suddenly pointed at Itachi, sending several drops of water flying. "Kill your brother, and come home. Save Naruto with me. Let's protect him together. After all, he's going to be Hokage one day."

"Didn't you already tell me that if I return to Konoha, I'll immediately be imprisoned?"

Suddenly, she grinned. "Naruto will protect you."

"It's not that easy," Itachi argued, breaking into their discussion with his quiet, perfectly reasonable voice. It was like a streak of darkness tearing through memories of noon. "If the Hokage was the only thing you had to worry about, it would be fine. But there are still the village elders to consider."

She nodded thoughtfully. "Of course, there are those who are suspicious of the Uchiha clan. But I'm not as simple as that." She leaned back and continued to gesture with the spoon. "Then, and even now, Konoha has been in a power struggle between opposing factions, with the Hokage caught in the middle. It's much the same in any village. But. I did a little bit of research, and almost all of the elders involved with your little story are either dead or discredited. Very mysterious. So I did a little more research, a little surveillance, and there it was--the monster's head."

"So you killed him."

This time she shook her head. "I didn't. That wouldn't accomplish anything. All that would do is prompt his followers to move, and I'd be on the run, if they didn't kill me first." She shook her head again, slowly. "No. Instead, I put together a neat little file, and gave it to someone whose name will never be attached to mine. The coup d'etat will be able to launch almost instantaneously. Tiny ripples that rise in power, coming from every direction. Of course, they'll know who did it--I'll make sure of that.

"He'll find himself in prison--if someone doesn't kill him first," she continued, and dipped the spoon into the pot to stir the rice before it burned to the bottom. "It's possible that he'll never enjoy the hospitality there. But if he does, I don't doubt at all that he'll quickly use his connections to get himself away, to plot his own coup d'etat. At that point he will have already played into my hands. He won't be able to reach his allies in Konoha--I've already made sure of that. His only hope would take him to outside; mercenaries or, if we're lucky, he'll have a solid, official connection to other villages. I'll have him on conspiracy, forgery, theft, murder. Wherever he runs, I'll find him. It's already in place."

"If he was that involved, Konoha will be in a state of political uproar," Itachi pointed out. "It will be impossible to predict the outcome."

"It's the perfect setup," she countered. There was an almost glazed look in her eyes, as though she could barely see what was in front of her. It wasn't entirely sane.

"Sakura," he said, and it was like someone had flicked a switch. Her eyes were green again, lucid, intelligent, and looking at him. And now that she was, he didn't know what he was supposed to say. He finally settled for, "In this future. Where are you?"

There was a moment of silence as she lifted the pot away from the heat, a thoughtful expression on her face.

"Well," she said finally. "I'm not sure. At first, in the idealized vision, I was doing what I always do. Working at the hospital. Assisting on missions. A few covert ops; business as usual. But, see, I'm on the run now, so--at the very least, I have to stay out of sight. A hand reaching out from the shadows. Something like that."

His eyes narrowed. "And you don't think I'm capable of that."

"Honestly? A slow-witted toddler could track you. You aren't very good at staying out of sight. Your only advantage is speed, and that you're usually traveling with someone who knows how to cover tracks and lay false trails."

He opened his mouth as if to argue, but she clearly wasn't finished. And yeah, she was only the second--possibly third, or maybe fourth--loudest person he knew, so she kept his mouth shut and let her talk.

"Your strategy has never been lying low and hidden, or changing your identity and becoming another face in the crowd. At best, your location is always a completely public secret--approach at your own risk." And now she was looking at him, using her eyes to underline this message. "Naruto doesn't need that. Whether or not he ever makes Hokage, and he will become Hokage, he needs you right there, watching his back, or even completely stealing the show, the way you always do.

"Nobody can complain about you coming home, being a part of that, because everyone who won't want you there is suddenly going to be under investigation. And the other half? Their children are the ones who were part of the Sasuke Retrieval Team. And Naruto did it," she said. "Okay? He did. He won them over. So unlike my mother, you probably aren't going to be locked in a building every day of your life, putting up blinds and curtains because there are windows everywhere, and you just want five minutes of privacy without looking ANBU in the eye. Not talking more than you have to, because they can read your lips, and you know that they're just waiting for you to say something other than pass me the soy sauce so that they can come in and kill you and your three-year-old daughter, because it's just a completely lousy assignment."

And he flinched, because the imagery there just killed him. He suddenly had a vivid picture of him telling her how lucky she was to even have parents, and it was true, but he hadn't know anything about this, about her. And yes, he'd known she was something of a drama queen back then.

But if even half of his were true, not just an over dramatized version of the truth? He'd been more than out of line.

So he cleared his throat, and he looked at her. "I still haven't said that I was going with you," he reminded her. "Or even going back."

"You'll figure that out on your own," she said, suddenly paying more attention than she necessarily needed to in shaping the rice into neat triangles. "You always do."

Sasuke nodded slowly in agreement. But he thought that it was easier, much easier, when he only had himself to consider.

It didn't take Suigetsu long at all to restart his conversation with Sakura once his maps were put away, except for the main one, the one he'd need. He was making his plans out loud--entirely on purpose, Sasuke could tell--and she would argue with him good-naturedly as she ate. There was the faintest hint of a grimace on the side of her face, and he thought that might have something to do with the strong spices she'd put into the rice ball.

An identical grimace was on his brother's face as he ate the one she'd practically forced into his hand, and Sasuke wondered if the chakra recovery was really worth the taste. She'd clearly told him that the chakra boost was also a kind of adrenaline boost that made a person capable of going without sleep for long periods of time, on top of everything else.

But he had a really good picture of Gaara in his head, so he knew how crazy going without sleep tended to make a person. It had been something that she'd pointed out to him, in detail, whenever Sasuke got too crazy.

Sakura had always, always, made sure she got her full six hours sleep a night, no matter where they were--with the exception of Earth Country, where she maybe caught ten minutes at a time, and he'd barely slept any better than she had because the second he closed his eyes she was in the beginning of a nightmare. After the third, he'd been more than prepared to smother her, and she'd finally given up just sat hunched over in front of the fire, across from Kakashi, both hands over her ears to block out screams that he couldn't even hear.

It was something that he wanted to ask Kakashi, wanted Naruto to ask Kakashi so that they wouldn't think that he, especially, cared, but the idiot didn't even notice it and Kakashi didn't say anything. Eventually, he'd just shrugged it off as another of his teammates' eccentricities, but the mystery of it still bothered him.

Of course, the only way he'd really know was if he asked. And he wouldn't.

Karin was glaring at him now with a kind of pout, a look that she was almost famous for. It usually preluded her using some method to attempt to sexually harass him, such as the full-body tackle that ended with her sprawled across his lap. And her chest really wasn't that large at all, but when it was pressed this close to him, it was kind of hard to not be aware of it--or her staring at his mouth with rapt attention.

It was an awkward as hell position to be in, as her arms wrapped around his back, hands memorizing the flesh and bone there through the fabric of his shirt, so that he couldn't fight her off without threatening to break her neck.

Which was a thought far more tempting than it had any right to be.

He met her gaze, knowing that she had questions. Suigetsu was more than willing to go with the flow, so long as it got him what he wanted, and Juugo didn't care as long as Sasuke kept him in check. But girls, he'd noticed, were almost always more talkative.

"What now?" She asked. And he almost sighed, because how the hell did he know? He was still trying to figure that out. "Are we really just going to march on the Akatsuki fortress and..."

"Don't worry," he said, because this part he did know. "You aren't."

"Then...what?" She said. "Are we going to go with Suigetsu to find that stupid little boat so that he can have another dumb sword?"

And the money that went with it. Sasuke didn't doubt that their esteemed companion was going to help himself to Sakura's bounty money, and well she knew it. Assuming that she thought she'd get a cut of it in the first place. Which she doubted.

In fact, she probably still considered it a win because the money wasn't going to find itself in Tokiwa's hands.

"We already said that once I found my brother, our alliance would end there," Sasuke reminded her. "You can do whatever you want."

"That's fine for that idiot," Karin said. "But I want to stay with you. And you know that Juugo can't be on his own without eventually losing it and killing somebody. You promised him that it wouldn't happen, but how do you plan to keep that promise if we all go separate ways?"

Yeah, that was something that Sakura had forgotten to take into account.

"Easily," Sakura answered for him. Karin hadn't made any attempt whatsoever to keep them from being overheard, and yeah--their shelter was the size of a shoebox. An abnormally large shoe box, just long enough for Juugo to lay flat, but it wasn't hard by any stretch of the imagination for anyone to listen in, if they so chose.

"You forget," she said. "I have my mother's notebook. She had a theory that she occasionally put into practice--she spent her life, both before and after coming to Konoha, studying the workings of the human brain. And she has about a million jutsus that I'm never going to even begin to start learning. Mainly because I don't want to risk friends, and I tend to prefer a more straightforward method of eliminating enemies. However, if you're right? And he really wants to fix this problem of his? I think that I can help. There's no guarantee that it will be successful. But."

"I got it," he said, and looked at Karin like, See? It was a plan, and if it succeeded, it solved one of his problems. "You should talk to him about it first."

"I was planning on it," she said. "The brain has a lot of stuff going on inside of it, and I'm going to need to get inside so, yes, him being unconscious is only going to make it harder to put the barriers in place."

And he had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. But what the hell. It wasn't his brain she was going to be playing with.

"And what am I going to do?" Karin demanded because she knew that, like Juugo, Sakura was going to figure out some way to take her out of the mix.

"I don't especially care," she returned without the slightest change of expression. Her smile was still just as friendly, but her eyes were completely cold and flat. "You can stay or leave on your own, or I can break your legs. Or if you get too stubborn and try to follow anyway, I can send a current through your brain and leave you for the dogs."

"Sakura," he said flatly, and she looked at him.

"It's her decision," she said with a shrug. "I don't know any of her abilities, but I do know that she's one of those people who would stab me in the back at the least opportunity. She is not welcome on this expedition. Afterward, if you want to look for her? That's fine. I don't care. We can meet back up here in three days, and she can come with us to Konoha. But you know as well as I do that unless she talks real nice to Naruto, and somehow wins him over completely? Or maybe convinces him that she's his long-lost sister? She isn't going to have a place there."

"Three days?" Karin demanded, a suspicious look in her eyes.

Sakura nodded. "Three days. Long enough to get there and get back with Naruto."

"You swear that you'll come back," Karin continued. She flashed a glance at Sasuke before looking away. "You know that if you aren't there, I'll find you."

"Three days," he said. "I'll be here."

"Deal?" Sakura prompted, and held out a hand.

Karin took it before he could tell her not to. But unlike he'd expected, she didn't suddenly collapse, and her arm didn't melt off. There was no outward change at all. And his eyes shone Sharingan red. "Deal."

Sakura slapped her hands together, as though attempting to beat the dust and dirt off of them, already turning her head to look at Juugo, who had yet to stir. "Well," she said. "I guess there's only one thing left to do before we're off. And I'm saying this because I know you'll be watching, Sasuke, but attempting to copy this jutsu is very dangerous. If you attempt it, and get it partially right, chances are whoever you use it on will bleed in his brain and die a very slow, very painful death. If you fail, he'll die almost instantly, because you just turned his brain into soup."

"And you?" He asked.

"Well, it'd be nice if I got it right," she said. She touched her fingers to Juugo's forehead, and his eyes opened almost instantly. She smiled. "Good morning. You woke up. I was wondering if you still wanted someone to fix your brain."

Sasuke choked on his own spit. And from the sound of things, he wasn't the only one. That was just kind of abrupt.

"Your friends told me that you don't really have much control over these sudden, sort of random murderous urges that you seem to get, supposedly from your ability to alter your form at will," she continued, her voice calm, quiet and reasonable, her expression completely sincere. The sound of her voice actually seemed to calm Juugo down, and he had to wonder how, exactly, she managed to do that. "And it's entirely possible that something happened to you when you were younger, possibly even in utero, that severely impacted your mental blocks. And you see, my mother developed this jutsu, even before I was born, to take care of these kinds of problems. I can show you the research on it if you want. I haven't tried it personally, myself--well, nothing more than the basics, and I wasn't particularly careful then. But. I think I can do it, and if it succeeds I know it will help you."

There was a pause as he registered the offer, and then Juugo glanced at him. And Sasuke didn't know whether to be surprised or not, because it was entirely in character, but if you added Sakura to the equation, there was no telling.

Slowly, he nodded.

Sakura's eyes flicked from him back to Juugo before she opened the journal again, taking one last look at the words and images printed on the page. Then she turned her body to face Juugo more completely, sitting on her heels.

"This is going to require a lot of my concentration," she said out loud, addressing the room as a whole. "So if anyone tries to stop me, at all, ever, I will treat it as an open attack and I will kill you. No matter who you are, get me? And also," this time she was talking directly to Juugo. "I'm sorry, but this is probably going to really, really hurt."

Sasuke watched as she lifted her hand to Juugo's forehead, and time stopped.

Note: Wow. That certainly took me a long time to write. I'd tell you what happened, but I haven't the foggiest. I wrote steadily for three days after the last chapter, got them into the shelter, showed off Sakura's knife--which she calls a blood knife, and makes a larger appearance in a different Naruto fanfic I have yet to write. FYI, it's also the fic that Kuriko and Matsu appear and have a larger role in (and for those of you reading Boys and Girls, yes, Aki is there, too).

But around the time they finished talking jutsus, I got distracted doing something or another. It's entirely possible that this was about the time Script Frenzy ate my soul. I got so used to writing scripts that I had writer's block for a month and a half--as if getting the Sims 3 wasn't distraction enough.

And on top of that mess, I seem to keep getting more and more depressed after every new issue of Naruto. I need to get myself a checklist started, because it is just killing my plot twists. I could live with being totally off the mark, but do I have to be right all the time? I mean, just look at Shisui's curly hair and cat eyes! And we're not even going into the rest of it.

If any ghosts start appearing, I will scream, because that means that Kishimoto-sensei and I share a brain. Seriously.

In any case, thank you to Takara Makoto, Hiei's Cute Girl, Fonrin, midnight000shadow, dark Alley, Hao'sAnjul, utoi, rebellious-and-ditzy-bookworm, Hesunohana, Hypnotized Angel and the general girl for reviewing. I'll try to get the next chapter up soon, because I want to at least be halfway finished with this story by the start of next year. (I knew a twenty-chapter story was going to be hard, but I didn't expect it to take two--soon to be three--years.)

And that's 7300 words. Next up is Sakura. And maybe some actual ItaSaku...seriously, this Sakura plays her cards way too close to her chest these days.