Characters: Sai, Karin, Naruto, Sakura, Tsunade, Kakashi
Summary: Questions passed between people who ought to create a chemical implosion upon contact, and everything in between.
Pairings: Sai x Karin
Author's Note: Okay, this ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would be. I hope you all like it; it takes place after the close of the Fourth War.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

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"Once you go forward, you can never go back. Do you understand?"

Sai stares blankly at her, and just shakes his head. "No, Karin-san. I don't."

The sound of loud sighing can be heard echoing through the hospital room.

In truth, Karin doesn't need to stay in the hospital anymore. She's been well for weeks, enough so that she's now pacing around the room while Sai sits on the edge of the bed and watches her, staring eyes unblinking. It's fascinating to observe the way her muscles tense and relax in the space of a few seconds, then repeat the process. She's garbed in simple gray clothes, the sleeves drawn across her scarred arms self-consciously; the clothes make her seem even more pallid and her hair, by contrast, even more vivid than normal.

Karin is well, but she'll be kept in the hospital until Konoha figures out what on Earth to do with her.

In truth, the request she made, to be allowed to integrate into Konoha society and its shinobi force, startled all, even those who have grown to like her during her stay. It's greeted by most suspiciously, and even Sai has to admit that though Karin has done absolutely nothing that could be construed as questionable since entering Konoha, he's inclined to try and divine some ulterior motive beneath her request.

Except that as far as Sai can tell, there is no ulterior motive at all.

Most of the higher-ups would be quite happy, more than happy, to see Karin imprisoned, except that, technically, they can't legally incarcerate her in Konoha's prison. Due to a tenet of general shinobi law, a shinobi guilty of a crime can only be tried for crimes in the country they were originally affiliated with. The only shinobi nation Karin has ever been officially a member of has been Oto no Kuni and, for obvious reasons, Karin can't be sent back to them—there isn't an Oto no Kuni left to send Karin back to, not really.

Though many eyewitnesses will attest to having seen Karin in a Kusa hitai-ate at a Konoha-hosted Chunin Exam, the year Oto and Suna invaded, Kusa no Kuni holds the firm position that they have absolutely no idea who Karin is, and there is no record of a girl named 'Karin' from Kusagakure having ever visited Konohagakure for a Chunin Exam. All that anyone knows is that a twelve-year-old girl who looked very much like Karin once attended the Chunin Exams in Konoha several years ago.

So even though Karin is well-known to have been the accomplice of at least two notorious missing nin originating from Konoha in the commission of various crimes, she can't be legally tried for any of said crimes. Not that that's ever stopped Konoha before when the higher-ups have been feeling particularly vicious, except that Tsunade, far more than any other Hokage before her, refuses to subvert the law in this area.

Sai can't help but think that someone else might have found the resounding screams that followed the Hokage's pronouncement to be quite amusing. Karin, he's sure, would have laughed.

Well, she's not laughing now.

Then again, Sai doesn't think he's ever seen Karin laugh, except a forced laugh to mock something. Though the deeper workings of emotions are at times still an utter mystery to him, he knows when someone is or isn't laughing genuinely. Karin has her genuine smiles, but he's yet to see her laugh.

Karin shakes her head and stares out the window, bracing an elbow on the sill and using her free arm to rest a hand on her forehead. Her bangs will end up sticking out, as per usual, if she does this for more than a few seconds. Sai would point that out, except that Sakura has been—more so than usual—impressing upon him the need to be 'polite' in these situations.

Politeness, apparently, demands that Sai not tell Karin that she'll mess up her hair again. Personally, he's not sure what makes the advice rude in the first place.

"Don't you get it?" There's an edge to Karin's voice that betrays her nerves, her tension—again, Sai doesn't comment, and just sits on the bed and stares blankly at her like a puppet whose strings have been cut. "This isn't easy. But I know I have to. There's no "if" about it. But I know that if I go down a certain path I won't be able to double back." Her voice thickens with frustration. "Don't you understand?"

Sai feels as though there is a significance to her words that goes far beyond the simple act of trying to meld herself into Konoha, but for the life of him, he can't figure out what that significance is.

Answering to the deeper motive he can't fathom instead of what he should be answering to, Sai just shakes his head again, silently.

"Ughh."

So this was the wrong answer. Sai logs this away in his mind, reminding himself, for next time, to perhaps do something other than shake his head when he doesn't understand.

Brow scrunched up and eyes squeezed shut (she looks remarkably like Utatane Koharu when she does that, apart from the fact that Karin is neither gray-haired, overweight nor wrinkled), Karin waves a hand dismissively at him. "Whatever. Just… Just go away, Sai."

What? Bewildered, Sai gets to his feet, and starts for the door.

"Come back tomorrow, but just leave me alone for now."

Sai blinks when he steps into the hallway and closes the door behind him. Through an inch of wood he can hear the hollow clip-clop on the floor that tells him that Karin is still pacing.

So he has somehow managed to offend her—Sai still isn't sure how—enough for Karin to tell him to leave, but not enough for her to tell him not to come back. Quite the opposite, really.

How odd.

-0-

Before the death of Shimura Danzo, Sai resided, as per usual for a member of Root, in Root quartering in the wild, outgrown outskirts of Konoha where no one would ever think to look for them. The quartering was small and hardly secure, being in previously abandoned buildings—the roofs leaked constantly; the heating never worked in winter and the air conditioning was nonexistent in summer—but it was the only home Sai had ever known. And even now that Root is no more and he is no longer bound to anybody, he still thinks of that place as home.

This small apartment near the heart of Konoha is just a place where he sleeps, where he lies down, where he eats, and where he does his painting.

Sai blinks a little when he steps into the apartment, eyes adjusting to the light; it's night outside. The light fixtures are all on which combines to create a perfectly plastic lighting, so false and artificial that it couldn't be mistaken for anything else if Sai tried to. Someone once told him that this sort of overly bright lighting suited him, since he was so artificial-looking himself. Sai can't remember who it was who said that to him, but he can remember the tone of their voice: dry and bitter like coffee left out too long in the sun.

Pictures plaster the walls to the extent that not so much as a single square inch of ugly, fading banana yellow wallpaper is left visible; the was Sai's intent from the start, since that particular shade of yellow is too bright and makes his eyes ache when he looks at it, like they're about to start bleeding on the floor or something.

Sai's eyes travel around the little apartment, tracing out familiar lines in his mind. In the small kitchen, there are five white ceramic plates, five white ceramic bowls with a single row of china blue dots at the rim, five spoons, five forks, five knives, and five clear glass cups (One has a crack halfway down the side from the rim; Sai likens it to a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky. Coincidentally, this cup is his favorite.) All are clean and put away.

The bed is pressed up against the left hand side of the apartment. It is a simple twin bed, low to the ground, the frame found at a secondhand store—it cost very little thanks to the termite damage on one of the legs; Sai simply sawed that leg off and bought three thick books to be placed where the leg should have been; the jury's still out on whether that will be at all effective—and the thin mattress salvaged from an abandoned apartment. The sheets are white cotton, starched and pressed smooth each morning; there's an ink stain on the edge of one as black as sin and no matter how much bleach Sai puts in the wash it simply won't come out.

Behind a smooth, unadorned door to the right is the bathroom. The bathroom is a place that looks as though it is at least once daily sprayed down with bleach and smells as though it's sprayed down several times a day with antiseptic. Even when the door is shut the sharp, penetrating medicinal smell wafts out and when Sai finds himself awake in the middle of the night counting the stars he can find hidden in the plaster the smell hits him like one of Sakura's fists: fast, hard and brutal.

There are no mirrors in the bathroom. There are no mirrors anywhere in the house. Sai has painted the windows over with soft, light gray paint so it won't reflect and thus he keeps the windows open often so he can see what it looks like outside. Sai is discovering certain things he dislikes, and he has discovered that he dislikes the way his face looks in any sort of reflective surface.

Sitting in the middle of the room, pressed up against a wall and veering just a little off to the right of the window, there is a low, battered chest of drawers. The wood is old and scratched and has plainly seen better days. It has three drawers. The bottom and deepest drawer is where Sai keeps his clothes. Shirts and pants and underwear all folded neatly, spare pairs of shoes off to the side. The middle drawer is where he keeps painting supplies when he's cleaning or if it gets broken—there are many a broken paintbrush sitting at the bottom of the drawer. In the top drawer, there are many rows of sharp, bright kunai, shuriken in stacks, scrolls stacked neatly on top of the other, stacks of explosive notes, two tanto, and a wakizashi lying apart from the rest of them.

And on the top of chest of drawers, alone, lie a sketchbook and a small pack of pens.

Though Sai mostly paints, Sakura a few weeks earlier got it into her head that Sai needed to take up pen and ink drawing. She held out the sketchbook and the packet of pens to him with such a fierce expression twisting her face that Sai decided that for his own sake he may as well just take it, even though the sketchbook flips up vertically and he prefers sketchbooks that flip over right and left like a novel.

This gesture is something of an apology on Sakura's part. It was two days before she gave Sai the sketchbook and the pens that Sai said something to Sakura, completely offhand and unaware of the gravity of his words, that made her lose her temper and punch him in the jaw. Sai can't even remember what it is he said; the shock of feeling a small, clenched fist collide with his skin obliterated all memory leading up to the pain.

Even without using chakra-enhanced strength, Sakura can still hit very hard, but Sai didn't skip a beat. He stood slightly bent over for a few moments, before straightening, and blinking blankly at her, not even bothering to wipe the blood away from his mouth.

"I know that I have a tendency towards annoying others, Sakura." This is as close to an apology as Sai can get—he knows he must have done something wrong. "I am not sure what it is I said, but I am sorry."

Sakura's lower lip quivers, and then she's sobbing, her whole body trembling.

For the life of him, Sai can't figure out what's going on.

Now, Sai picks up the sketchbook, and the pens, and sits on his small bed. He's done a few small drawings in the sketchbook—preliminary works to see if he can get a handle on ink drawings. Apparently, he can.

Flipping open to the first blank page, Sai takes out the pen with the finest tip, and puts it to the rough paper, already seeing the finished image in his mind.

-0-

Though he wears all black as usual, Sai, sitting on a chair at the far corner of the all-white hospital room, can practically melt into the walls without anything resembling difficulty. He is washed out completely by the three considerably more vibrant personalities in the room.

Sai is not the only one who visits Karin in the hospital. Naruto and Sakura come too, relatively often, usually alone but today they have arrived together, at just the time that Sai himself was in the room. Sai retreated into the background and was quickly forgotten, as he usually is in any sort of social situation. Frankly, for the most part this is how he prefers it.

But it today makes him feel just a little displaced.

Naruto has mentioned before that he thinks it's a little scary how well Sakura and Karin get along. He said it (proving that he's just as uncaring of his own well being as the majority of the world tends to believe) in the company of both girls, causing the latter to roll her eyes and attempt to, with dignity, ignore Naruto's stupidity (Later she mentions that she had practice with a boy named Suigetsu and that she learned how not to react to stupidity when responding to his antics). Sakura is different, but then Sakura has never been one for dignity. The resounding shout of "What's that supposed to mean?" can probably be heard in Sunagakure.

Today, Naruto suddenly stops his chattering and, still grinning absently with the dregs of pleasure spotting his face, goes and props his elbows on the window and is plainly thinking to himself—Sai cocks his head and stares long and hard at him, wondering what on earth it could be he's contemplating so intensely, given that Naruto's not terribly given to deep reflection. Oh, well. Sai has barred himself from asking these questions since Naruto gave him a very long and highly explicit fantasy involving a girl he didn't name. While there is virtually nothing that can embarrass Sai, Naruto's reverie became rather repetitive after a while and Sai would rather not repeat that experience.

Meanwhile, Sai's attention is drawn to the conversation of the two adolescent kunoichi.

Sakura and Karin are both sitting on the bed, hiding their mouths behind their hands like fluttering flesh-fans, their eyes drawn up but neither of their mouths convulsing in the song of laughter. Sai is still denied the sight of Karin laughing.

Then, the mood changes. Sakura draws her hand from her mouth and props them both on one of her knees, and tips her head back slightly to take a good look at Karin. Profuse apologies spill from her mouth like an unexpected tide.

"I know this is rude, and I'm really sorry, but, honestly—" Sakura reaches forward and plucks at one of Karin's sleeves "—gray isn't your color, is it?" A kind gleam enters pale emerald eyes, Sakura's honest, earnest and noticed attempt to be kind and inoffensive. "You look so pale. There's no color in your skin at all."

Karin stiffens for a moment, and Sai narrows his eyes and wonders if she will respond with a violence of words. But then, she just relaxes, and nods. "I know. But it's not like they've offered me anything else, and I've gotta pick my battles somewhere, Sakura. It's just not worth complaining about my clothes."

Sakura nods her assent, and Sai frowns.

He was under the impression that, when about to speak a truth that one considers rude, the speaker apologized as profusely as Sakura has after the target of their rudeness has shouted themselves hoarse and made it clear that they are not at all pleased with the words of their companion, and not before. However, Sakura has just turned his assumptions about how to apologize for rudeness completely on its head.

But, from the perspective of an artist with a critical eye, Sai can see Sakura's points.

Karin isn't made for dull colors.

-0-

Thin strokes of the pen are starting to come around to the suggestion of a complete picture, but Sai can still only see something like the finished product in the renowned mind's eye. On the paper, the grooves bending to his fingers, Sai is still only aware of the barest of an outline. Not enough to give credit to flesh. Just a mockery of the flesh, really.

It is night, and Sai has extinguished half the lights in his apartment. A soft, summer's wind leaves the papers, hanging from a thin line wound at either end of the ceiling, secured by clothespins, shivering softly in the breeze. Everything seems a little less unnatural in this dim, dark golden light, the shadows making everything appear less artificial to even Sai's highly trained eye.

He can almost believe that this is what a home looks like, in this lighting. But when the harsh sunlight of morning comes to him again, truth will return and he will no longer attempt to fool himself on such matters.

All is silence, how Sai prefers these things, until a soft rapping comes from the window (the painted glass has been lifted), and he starts, craning his head around and, as a matter of automatic instinct, he reaches for a kunai strapped inside of his sleeve.

From the windowsill, Kakashi's familiar smile, just as false as the ones Sai used to wear and still occasionally dons, greets Sai's unflinching eyes. A sharp half-wave stabs the air. "Hello, Sai-kun."

Immediately, Sai takes the sketchbook from his lap and slides fluidly from the bed, dipping in the deep bow he owes the older man. "Kakashi-senpai. To what do I owe—"

"Get up, Sai." The levels of weariness in Kakashi's voice is what spurs Sai to settle back on his bed, again resting the sketchbook on his lap but not opening it. He does not like to have outsiders observe his work until it is completely finished. Kakashi himself slides into the embrace of the small dwelling and stands in the center of empty space where no furniture lies.

"Since you seem to have taken such an interest in her, I figured I should tell you." They both know who the "her" Kakashi is referring to is. "Hokage-sama has decided to pass judgment on Karin-san. However it goes, it will happen this Friday."

In four days.

How soon, Sai notes. Yet, it is not so soon as he might have thought; the long weeks that have passed since things have settled down enough for the fate of one girl who really fits nowhere have shimmered like some interminable mirage. It's felt like it would never end.

"Should I—"

"There's… no need." Kakashi shakes his head. "My guess is, she already knows."

-0-

And yes, Karin knows.

Standing in a single shaft of moonlight in an otherwise dark place, crumpling a piece of paper in her long thin hands, she knows.

The ANBU agent who perched in her window and held out the paper was direct but not impolite; so apparently he doesn't have enough of the measure of what her fate will likely be that he doesn't know whether he can afford to be dismissive of her or not. Karin resists a humorless smirk at this; normally she loves this sort of atmosphere of uncertainty, but now it's eating her alive.

Eyes sheathed in glass that shimmers silver in the night stare down on the slightly yellowed paper, dry and fragile in her grasp. The handwriting is somewhat spidery, gender-neutral to an untrained observer but Karin can see that it's feminine; the letters are far too delicate to be written by a man's larger hands.

'At Friday of this week at four in the afternoon, an ANBU agent will arrive to escort you to the Hokage's office. There will judgment on you be passed.'

Karin's jaw tightens. The paper crumples and tears in her vice-like grip.

So, finally, an answer.

-0-

It is Tuesday.

There was a little bit of rain that morning, and the light that filters through the window of Karin's hospital room is still soft and bluish gray. That seems to suit Sai just fine, and Karin as well—her weeks eyes are accustomed to the dark and the shadows of underground laboratories and mortuary chambers, not to the bright sunlight that blisters everything it touches and makes the facades peel back from flesh. Sai, having been ANBU, having been Root, would have been more used to the kindlier light of the moon than the unforgiving sun.

"You… had a brother."

It is not the sort of thing that one usually says to start a conversation, but silence rankles at Karin and makes her uncomfortable. She doesn't like silence; it's a threat to her, a place where the lack of words threatens to swallow her whole and never let her back again. Ruefully, Karin admits to herself and no one else that her greatest fears have always been more than a little irrational. Except, except for the one where the people she loves—there have always been few of those, but those whom she loves she loves fiercely, at times unreasonably—abandon her, and leave her all alone in the dark.

Karin's not afraid of that anymore. It's already happened.

But silence still unnerves her, and if she is honest, she is curious—morbid things like dead siblings always pique her curiosity, Karin never having had any siblings of her own. It's not like morbid curiosity was ever discouraged in Otogakure.

Though Karin knows quite well that Sai is possibly the most emotionally contained person she has ever met, she still braces herself a little bit, expecting anger or at least a snappish response to such an invasive request. Just because she knows it will evoke a negative reaction, doesn't mean Karin will—or even can—stop herself from asking inappropriate questions.

Instead, Sai behaves true to form. Standing with one hand pressed flat down on the windowsill, he had formerly been staring out the window on the puddles shimmering like mirrors on the rooftops of buildings, perfectly content in the silence where Karin was writhing in it. His eyes were lost in their observations, but now they turn on her readily enough, and all Karin sees in ink black depths is what in someone else might have been surprise. In Sai, it's just an empty hint of surprise.

Slowly, he nods, as if answering a question of what he thinks the weather will be like in two days. "Yes, I did. His name was Shin."

Karin nods too, stupidly. Idiot. Can't you think of anything better to do than just nod? "Oh… Yes, I mean…" She forces a toothy smile on her face, having never felt more awkward in her life. "… Naruto said something about him, and I was wondering—."

"He's dead." Sai's flat interjection cuts off any doubt Karin might have had about the subject. Sai turns back on his heel and goes back to staring out the window, his silences so resounding that they could leave the oceans undone for their roar. This is the closest to openly curt Karin has ever seen him.

"I'm… sorry." And Karin is surprised to find that she actually means it. Some regret blooms in the depths of her stomach, spreading its tendrils throughout her body. This is strange; she can't remember the last time she felt sorry over the death of someone she's ever known.

Sai whirls around so fast that Karin, sitting on the edge of her bed, can't stop herself from stiffening.

But there's no anger in his eyes. No grief. Or if there is, it is well-hidden.

Only curiosity, and real surprise this time. His dark eyes are open wide and round as coins. "Why?" Sai whispers. Karin winces at the sound of his voice; that voice, betrays all the emotions she knew he had to have. But it is worse, because it is not saturated with emotion. There, there is only an emptily bereft note, a suggestion waiting to burst into life.

Karin bites her lip, hands fiddling on her lap. "Because I am," she whispers, unable to meet his gaze, and Sai nods.

It's plain to her that he doesn't understand.

-0-

It is Wednesday, or rather, Wednesday night. It's nearly the stroke of midnight, with the crescent moon hanging high in the sky like the gleaming silver earring to a massive, unseen ear.

Karin bites back a sigh, telling herself that she will not indulge in such a display; she's nearly a grown woman now and even if she still has issues, as can be expected of a teenaged soldier who grew up around Orochimaru and Yakushi Kabuto, some degree of propriety has to be arranged.

Sai's still here. Karin has dropped several subtle, and several more not so subtle hints, that maybe he should leave so she can lie down and get some sleep—God knows she needs sleep; she hasn't been able to sleep well since she received the note detailing when the decision of her fate will be decided. But Sai is completely clueless, as usual, and Karin is debating whether to just tell him outright to leave again.

She doesn't want to, though. The blank look of his face when he's told to do something is somehow devastatingly effective in making Karin feel guilty, more so than a deliberate expression of injury ever could.

One crimson eye flickers to where Sai is sitting on the very edge of the bed, staring out the window, again; that seems to be an activity Konoha nin engage in a lot, staring at the sky. She's not entirely sure why. He has been silent and, for once, Karin is happy to let the silence stand and be maintained.

She is moving back to her bed, after having washed her hands at the sink. Karin sits down, and starts to quickly roll her sleeves back down her arms when Sai looks over, and stares hard at her exposed skin. Karin feels dark color flood into her cheeks; her teeth grit.

"Why do you always cover your arms?"

That, at least, was not quite the question Karin was expecting. She is still inclined not to answer and tries to roll her sleeves back down her arms to hide the scarred flesh, but then, Sai does something that prevents her from doing such. He catches both of her wrists, one in each hand, and stares down at the pale flesh heavily covered in crescent scars ranging from silver to pink to scarlet with brow furrowed and eyes raking her flesh, as if reading messages written on her skin.

If there are words there, Karin certainly can't see them.

Their eyes lock in the darkness, and Karin doesn't answer, her mouth open but no words passing from her lips. Her eyes, she hopes, are suitably veiled by the moonlight glimmering off her glasses lenses, but she can see, from the particularly piercing quality of Sai's gaze, that they are not.

After maybe half a minute of this, of silent staring, Sai takes the initiative and asks another question, his voice, soft by nature, especially soft now. There is no emotion there, and yet Karin senses, perhaps, just a hint of reproach. She stiffens even more. "They're just scars," Sai intones in his empty voice. Still empty, but now with some quiver underneath. If Karin didn't know better, she would think it was understanding. "Nothing but scars. Not something to be ashamed of, but just the sign of a life spent in military service."

Karin narrows her eyes. She doesn't think that anyone has ever had this lack of reaction to the teeth-mark scars on her body before. It's refreshing, actually, to have someone who doesn't look on them with shock or revulsion or, even worse, something resembling pity. But still, the thought of eyes on them, on the crescent that are like little moons to the big one outside, is something that sparks some deep, guilty shame in her.

"I…" Karin falters, and then swallows hard and devours what cowardice might keep her from speaking. "I," she says, very softly, "am from a kekkei genkai clan in Kusa no Kuni. Our bloodline allows us to heal the wounds of others by biting into our skin.

"Whenever someone does this, they are leeching away from me all of my energy. My bloodline enables those who bite into my skin to suck my chakra right out of my veins." Karin's mouth spasms in an expression somewhere between pain and resentment. "What's more, I'm only a half-clan child. I can heal others with the kekkei genkai, but—" Karin grimaces, an ugly gesture "—I lack the immunity to the bacteria that resides in the human mouth that my kin possess. That's been… inconvenient, usually at the worst of times."

That's an understatement. In Otogakure, Karin quickly lost track of the number of times Kabuto had to prescribe antibiotics to her to head off blood infections after one of the bite wounds on her body became infected—for all that he was rather obviously a sadist, it was amazing that he could also show genuine concern for those under his care when operating in the capacity of a medic.

Sai says nothing though slowly, finally, he relinquishes his grip on her wrists. Karin takes his silence as an opportunity to fill the air with words and release her own tension. "It's seen as a perversion." Karin snorts and actually finds herself looking out the window now, at the moon—Oh, delightful. The Leaf's habit of staring out windows is rubbing off on me. "I don't like to be judged on that." Her throat grows just a little tight. "I don't like being looked at like I'm a freak."

Light reflects off of Sai's eyes like twin black mirrors. His unnatural stillness makes him seem like a corporeal shadow now. "What you work with, you become?"

Karin's shoulders droop, and she rests her arms, her arms that are bare from the elbow down, on her lap. She doesn't blink. "You work with art. You draw, you paint. Do you bleed ink?" she asks softly.

Slowly, he shakes his head. "No."

"Exactly."

-0-

It is Thursday afternoon, and Sai can tell that Karin is having an especially hard time keeping calm. In nearly exactly twenty-four hours, her fate will be decided. In twenty-four hours, Karin will either be a kunoichi of the Leaf, a prisoner despite the fact that she is not of the Leaf, cast out from the village, or dead. He can not blame her for being nervous. He can almost taste her nervousness; it is permeating the air like the stale smell of rancid sweat in an abandoned gym.

Karin is pacing again. Karin paces a lot, driven by some urgent, manic energy that needs desperately to be expended, or else there's a very good chance that she'll collapse on her bed. Sai's not sure what the more likely outcome is: it'll either be a heart attack or a brain aneurysm. He's never known someone to be possessed by such uncontrollable energy; even Naruto at his worst isn't quite like this.

Then, comes the question that, in all of his factored scenarios, Sai was not expecting.

"Why do you come here?" Karin's eyes are bright and wide open, not with weariness or wariness but rather just with curiosity, like a child who's asked why the wind blows when it whips through her long hair.

He looks up at her, face slackening just a little as his eyes watch her carefully. "Could you repeat the question, Karin-san?"

Long pale fingers reach up to pinch the bridge of her nose, and Karin sits down on the bed—this, Sai understands, is the sort of move made when entering into serious conversation. He doesn't know why, but people like to be sitting down when discussing matters of importance.

Karin wears the sort of expression that says You're not stupid and neither am I. Not a particularly good sign. "You, Sai, are one of only three people who seems to want to be anywhere near me—I guess they figure I've got some sort of infectious disease or something," she sniffs disdainfully. "Naruto comes because he's lonely, because there aren't a lot of people he feels like he can comfortably talk to, and for some reason that I'll never understand—" she's speaking sincerely; Sai can tell "—he seems to count me as one of those few. Sakura comes because she partially oversaw my treatment, back when I still needed treatment—" now there is a roll of the eyes "—and because of the dreaded "girl talk."

Sai opens his mouth and Karin cuts him off hurriedly. "You don't need to know," she answers hastily. Then, she props her chin on one closed fist and twists her mouth speculatively. "So why do you come here?"

"I… like you?" Sai's answer ends up being framed as an uncertain question, and the openly perturbed expression on his face is such that Karin can't hide her amusement.

A small laugh sings in the air.

Sai immediately looks at her with more interest, but, disappointingly, Karin has chosen to hide her mouth behind her hand, and at any rate, she soon sobers, all suggestions of a smile dying from her face. "The Hokage wants to see me tomorrow."

Sai nods. "I know."

Karin snorts exasperatedly. "Why am I always the last one to be informed of these things? Don't answer that!" she adds when Sai opens his mouth. Her brow creases anxiously. "Do you have any idea of what Tsunade-sama will decide?"

The young shinobi shakes his head. "No, I don't."

"Okay." Karin is nodding so vigorously that Sai can't help but think that maybe she's trying to tell herself that it's "okay". She smiles weakly. "Well, if all goes well, I'll see you tomorrow, I suppose."

"I suppose."

-0-

Sai blinks as he stares down at the sketchbook balanced on his lap. Light spills from the open window, light that's starting to fade. His stomach growls and, absently, Sai acknowledges that he's hungry.

But he's almost done.

Just a few more pen strokes.

He's almost done.

-0-

The Hokage Senju Tsunade, Karin takes note, is not a particularly big woman. Both standing with their feet flat on the ground, Karin's taller than she is. But Tsunade, standing in the butter-gold sunlight in her well-lit office, has an aura of power that makes her seem much taller than she is, and her great beauty, not at all exaggerated, has no effect except to make her seem even more impressive and imposing.

However, the bored, even childishly disinterested expression on Tsunade's face tends to take away from that somewhat.

A languid smirk steals over the older woman's full mouth. "So you're the infamous Karin?"

Karin is standing straight and tall, one hand pressed on top of another in front of her. Tsunade can't possibly mistake it for anything but a defensive posture, and she does see it, her smirk deepening, causing a few lines to open up on one cheek. "Yes, Tsunade-sama. I suppose I am."

Tsunade chooses to ignore the slightly impertinent—Karin couldn't help it, as much as she tried to—note in the girl's voice, and goes on. "It's amazing, you know." Her tone, incongruously light for such a huskily hoarse voice, is as conversational as two old friends discussing the weather. "I think you've actually gotten Morino Ibiki to respect you—somewhat."

It's difficult to restrain a derisive laugh at this pronouncement. When they first met, Karin got the impression quite quickly that Ibiki wasn't used to someone being quite so blasé and utterly unafraid of him as she was. Morino Ibiki has a reputation as long as the flow of a river and it travels like one too—there's probably not a single shinobi anywhere in the nations who hasn't heard of him. But Karin has seen worse, and she was decidedly unimpressed by that great dark bear of a man.

Her spine goes a little tense, just a shallow reflection of what she's feeling. "Tsunade-sama," she answers, tension making Karin's voice slightly clipped, "I served under Orochimaru for several years. The menace of Morino Ibiki is a far cry from the menace he was capable of exuding."

"I can imagine." Tsunade's face grows more serious. "Unless Shizune messed up on the letter, I'm going to assume you know why you're here."

Karin nods, dipping her head deep out of deference—no harm, she realizes, in being just a little obsequious. "Yes, Tsunade-sama, I know."

The fair-haired woman's nod is brisk. "Good. At least someone's up to speed around here," she mutters. Someone, evidently, is currently out of favor with Konoha's Hokage. Tsunade goes on to standing and staring out the window—Even she does it!—arms braced behind her. Her voice and smile are absent. "Everything's been ridiculously backlogged lately; I'm at least two weeks behind on all this damned paperwork—" she waves a hand behind her at the desk which is, sure enough, loaded down and groaning under the weight of maybe a dozen stacks of paper; Karin can't tell what color the wood is underneath "—and Shizune isn't any help at all…"

Karin feels as though her blood is going to jump out of her veins. Her throat and all the muscles in her face constrict until the latter seems utterly mask-like. Is Tsunade going senile, or what? Am I going to stand here all afternoon? Is she ever going to tell me what's going to happen to me? Or is this just some sort of Konoha torture device Ibiki-san hasn't told me about yet?

I wonder if she'll start talking about the weather.

Tsunade goes on with her (in Karin's humble opinion) inane chatter. She could be talking about the weather, for all that Karin cares; she's not listening to a word Tsunade says at this point.

She's tried to be polite.

But eventually, her temper wears out like a conveyor belt used too often.

"Tsunade-sama, are you going to get to the point or not?" Karin snaps, and even when Tsunade fixes her in a sharp amber-eyed stare, Karin can't regret it. Even Senju Tsunade hasn't the right to keep someone in suspense like this, especially not someone whom she holds a blade over the neck of.

Tsunade's face grows sharp and shrewd again and Karin can see that, again, this was just someone pulling on the invisible chain around her neck. "So you're impatient, are you?" The mocking humor in the Hokage's voice is such that Karin can't help but bristle.

"Yes, I am."

Manicured hands brace on the edge of the desk as Tsunade leans against it. A few papers flutter to the floor, but they are unnoticed and forgotten as autumn leaves; it's plain she doesn't care. Amber eyes are still narrowed shrewdly on Karin. "So, Karin… I've read reports and I think you would agree with me on this… I am to take it that you don't have any intention of rejoining Uchiha Sasuke?"

Now we're getting somewhere. Karin's lip twists. "Absolutely none." And she marvels at how quickly her emotions can turn a complete one hundred and eighty degree turn. At one point, she was so enamored of Uchiha Sasuke as to be utterly obsessed with him, and now she would gladly kill him if she ever had the chance. If she ever sees him again she'll at least try to do the job, anyway.

And she realizes that this is the first time she's thought of Sasuke in over a week.

Tsunade nods, and her pale gold bangs half-shield her eyes. "And your skill level is, roughly, at chunin level, isn't it?"

Karin nods. "I'd say so, Tsunade-sama."

To this comes a sharp shake of the head; gold hair catches the light and shimmers as it quivers. "No. You call me 'Hokage-sama'."

-0-

Sai is waiting, standing in the grass outside the Hokage's tower at the door, holding the sketchbook to his chest—all the ink inside is completely dry, as though it was taken down years ago. He is waiting for that door to open, to see someone, anyone, though what he's really waiting for is the flash of violently scarlet hair. It could only be Karin in that case; red hair is such a rarity in Konoha.

And he is not kept waiting long.

The heavy door is thrown open and the sound of it is like a bomb going off or the shattering of the earth to Sai's ears. He looks up sharply, and sure enough his eyes is met by a flash of bright red.

The perfectly buoyant expression on Karin's face tells Sai everything.

"I take it that all has gone well, and that you are now a shinobi of Konohagakure?"

This is the first thing he does to make Karin aware of him. She turns on her heel, the wind catching in her hair and letting it flutter across her face like a ragged flag. "Yeah, I guess I am."

And then, she laughs.

It is like the ringing of bells in the air, some foreign church singing their songs.

Sai blinks, mouth dry. Karin looks exactly the way he thought she would when she laughs. Her eyes glimmer the way he thought they would.

Karin notices Sai's expression, and the laugh melts off her face. "What?"

Sai flips open his sketchbook, and holds it out to her. "Do you like it?" he asks quietly, avoiding her question.

A pale pink tinge of color rises in Karin's cheeks as she looks at what Sai has drawn. A picture of her laughing, the way he envisioned she would appear. Done simple, stark black and white, even those are Sai's colors, or rather lack of, and Karin is more a violent riot of color than just those two.

A shy smile spreads over Karin's lips as she looks at him and, gently, closes the sketchbook and holds it back out to him. "Yeah… I do."

Black and white can't capture the reality of her. Karin only exists in bright color, not in ink.

Sai decides he wants to see Karin laugh more.