Chapter 19
"Just Sukea? No last name?"
"You didn't give me one either, did you?"
"Haruno." She gave him an expectant look, an amused glint in her eyes. Not that he would know why.
What will you say now, huh?
"Oh, you know, Sukea is really just an alias. It's what I am called in my field of profession. Easier to remember than your generic name, isn't it? I guess it just slipped out of me when you asked for my name." 'Sukea' smiled in an awkward manner, as if he were giving away an embarrassing secret.
Yeah, right. He wasn't fooling anyone. At least not her.
"So, do you live here? In Konoha?"
"Not really. I travel around. But Konoha is definitely a favored location of mine." He chuckled. "I don't have a knack for fighting, or anything Shinobi, for that matter. But being here and having them around at all times helps with feeling secure."
"You travel? What do you do for work?"
Photojournalism had been his answer back then, Sakura recalled.
"Nothing much. I'm a journalist; I go around here and there, collect some interesting stories, and try to get by."
"What's your real name?"
Kakashi—because that's who he was, no matter how well he played the 'Sukea' persona—put a hand to his hip, leaning down slightly. "You are quite a curious one, Sakura-chan, asking all these questions."
"Don't call me that." Shisui was already one too much. And she hadn't been called that by him since she was a Genin. It didn't feel right anymore, even if she was technically young enough to have her name accompanied by that suffix.
"Only if you promise to stop the interrogation."
"You kept asking questions earlier too. An eye for an eye." She still wanted to find out how detailed his disguise of Sukea was. Finding out that this appearance of Kakashi wasn't just something he had made up on the spot back then was already surprising. "How old are you?"
He sighed. "Fine. But this is the last one. Nine-teen. And you?"
So Sukea was the same age as Kakashi? Was this how far his cover went?
"I'm turning five next March."
Why was he even in a Henge right now?
But she couldn't ask that. Not when nothing hinted to him being Kakashi, not when his cover was—so far—perfect, immaculate even.
It wasn't really a want to see how much he had prepared for Sukea's backstory. Not the type of necessity that was crucial to saving her friends, the type of thing that made her head heavy with burdens and thoughts, made her feel like every moment—every action—was part of a mission.
It was the lighthearted type of prank, the thing young, civilian children would title a 'mission' to look impressive.
Kakashi looked up at the sky, eyes widening ever so slightly. "It seems I have to leave now. Appointment with a client, you see."
Sakura nodded. "Oh, sure. By the way, what time is it?"
He took another look at the sky. "Quarter past three."
Finally, a crack.
"Thanks. Good to know."
She grinned. "Wow, did you tell it so accurately just by looking at the sun? I'd almost think you were a ninja."
Kakashi froze.
Amateur mistake.
"Well, you can't keep your client waiting." She tapped him on his coat, startling him out of his trance—though he managed to cover it up as a cough. "It was fun talking to you, Sukea-san! Maybe we'll see each other again!"
They'd meet pretty soon. She'd make sure of that.
Sakura waved a bit, getting back a raised hand from a still somewhat stumped-looking Kakashi—although his expression had mostly gone back to ''normal'—before she turned around to head to head towards the library once again.
Meanwhile, Kakashi was left behind in a state of emotions torn between being surprised, stupefied, and annoyed—at both himself and the girl who had somehow, unknowingly, tricked him. But, most of all, confused—at feeling like he had been played in a one-sided game.
And, as he watched the strange girl disappear among the crowd, a minute feeling of dread began to form in his chest.
It had been hard not to break down.
When she had noticed him standing next to her in that same disguise he had worn all those years ago, her mind and breath had stopped, along with any thoughts about the show before them.
Because Kakashi wasn't just another fallen comrade. He was a mentor, a teammate, family.
Team 7 had been family to each other in a way none of them had ever experienced before. And even though Sakura had been the only one to still have an alive, loving family by then, something about Team 7's connection had been inherently different from the one she had with her parents. Something she couldn't name that could cross bonds that were thought to be severed, reach people who were always too distant to touch, and connect them so tightly it became impossible to believe they had ever been apart.
And then Kakashi had died, and everything started falling apart.
"Good afternoon! How may I help...?" The man at the counter trailed off, his smile dropping in a matter of moments. The polite kindness on his face was replaced with a barely hidden expression of fear.
Sakura strode past him with slow, unwavering strides and an uninterested look in her eyes.
Though the man could only see one.
She passed half a dozen book shelves, walking past the storybook category, then the comics, and lastly the textbook section. A woman stood next to a door leading to the second floor. Her eyes, too, held fear as Sakura didn't spare her a glance, shoving the door open. The woman looked as if she wanted to say something—should say something.
But a warning glare from her made the librarian shoot her head to the side and stare intently at a book she had been inspecting on her desk before she had stood up abruptly at her approach.
'Sakura' wasn't stopped at the second level either, crossing the floor without so much as a word from the library workers there.
It only took her a few more glares and some inpatient foot tapping before she was led into the Jōnin and above section, where the most restricted books and writings were held.
That was easy.
No wonder Naruto had managed to steal the Forbidden scroll back then, when Konoha's biggest library could be tricked by one Henge of Kakashi Hatake.
Sakura breathed out, releasing her tensely held breath for the first time since she entered the building. She didn't waste chakra on checking her reserves; the impending feeling of tiredness closing in on her was enough.
She had about half left.
Had this been a normal Henge, Sakura would have been able to hold it for longer, which—even then—wasn't nearly as long as she would've liked.
Her chakra pool wasn't growing. But it should. Especially now, when she was a child and her pathways were unused and malleable. And she had been training diligently through meditation and chakra-enhanced movements.
Yet she always had the same amount of chakra in her supply. Why wasn't she making progress? Was she the exception?
Sakura sighed.
But that was one of the reasons she came here, wasn't it?
She didn't have much time left. Her Henge was different from the basic one they taught at the Academy. She had found it in a tome from the First Great Ninja War when she had been scavenging the remains of a basement in Kiri. It had been, or had been intended to be used for infiltration.
A normal Henge was a mask one wore, something that imitated change when in reality nothing was different except the way one was visually perceived. This technique, however, 'Advanced Henge' as one may call it, required much more chakra, for it was that much more detailed and changed not only the outside but also the chakra signature, physical abilities, weight, and such. Because, while she was confident in her ability to play a cold, menacing guy, she couldn't risk entering a place that was frequently visited by skilled shinobi, consequently giving her a higher chance of encountering said shinobi.
Sakura casually strolled around the floor, checking for any other people there while also looking out for anything that could possibly help her with her problem (multiple problems, actually, that all came together to ruin her attempts at expanding her miserable chakra reserves). Fortunately, the library seemed to be empty.
Maybe it was because she made sure to set those explosives littered outside Konoha to go off around this time. It should've helped with pulling the Shinobi to the edge of the Village, nice and on-edge and far away from the library at the center of it.
Choosing Kakashi as her choice of disguise was risky but immensely useful for infiltrating and walking around the place like she owned it. She'd have to count on the bombs being enough of a distraction to overlook the thing about the Copy-nin being at two places at once.
Well, once she got out of here, it wouldn't be Sakura's problem anymore.
'The Land of Wind—Three: Flora and Fauna'
The dusty book was hidden at the bottom of a cardboard box, having been laid there untouched for what must have been at least five years.
But that number didn't even compare to the date the book was written. It was a bit tricky to find out and took some deciphering, but in the end, she managed to read the faded text at the bottom of the first page.
'written approx. 40 BKF. commented by T.S.'
The book was at least a hundred years old. Strange how it wasn't kept on the proper shelf, next to the other scriptures written before Konoha's founding. There weren't a lot of them, just enough to fill a middle-sized bookshelf. And 40 BKF shouldn't be too common. Why had it been lying here, abandoned in a box at the corner of the library?
Perhaps she should put it back down. Sakura wasn't looking for this kind of stuff anyway. The 'Chakra Theory' section looked quite promising. Or maybe the 'Martial Arts' corner? She was planning to pick up something new either way.
Yeah, she should do that...
No!
Sakura disrupted her chakra, dispelling the strange fog that had overcome her and muddled her brain.
"What the hell?" she murmured.
The woman at the counter, sending her shy glances from time to time, shrieked and scrambled into the staff room.
As it turned out, there had been a reason why this book hadn't been stored the usual way. Quite an incriminating one at that.
Sakura sighed, putting a gloved hand to her forehead. Was she supposed to report this? Or give it to the people in question? There was no way this had been approved by them. She eyed the other books in the box, specifically 'The Land of Wind—One: History' at the top of the stack. If the third book had been camouflage, the first was probably one too, right?
Fuck. She shouldn't have pulled out that container behind the curtain. She should have ignored the other box beneath it and instead concentrated on the one she had grabbed in the first place, filled with interesting-looking texts on Chakra Rehabilitation. Texts, which were surely not written one hundred years ago, nor masked with a Genjutsu. And certainly not books whose possession promised to call upon some very angry people who also happen to belong to one of the most powerful clans.
She reluctantly glanced back at the cursed book in her hands, and, ah yes, it was still there.
'The Sharingan and the merciless, kin-murdering nature of the Uchiha clan' the words said, glaringly obvious and clear now that she had noticed it.
It was a wonder—likely enhanced by the Genjutsu—that she had failed to take notice of the huge text marring the top of the page. She had been too focused on her task to decipher the annotation at the bottom corner, so much that she didn't bother to do more than skim over what she had believed to be the same title as the one on the cover.
She couldn't put it back now. Not after she had seen it, been made aware of it. And Sakura couldn't just leave it at their clan gates, could she? Someone would surely find out if she weren't caught on the spot red-handed.
She couldn't give it to Shisui either.
There were many books about the Uchiha, simply because of their fascinating, powerful abilities and their long history with Konoha and the Senju. There were many derogatory books too, of course, mostly published by enemy nations or people that held grudges—though publishing or distributing those was illegal in Konoha.
The problem was the 'kin-murdering' part. Judging from the bold wording, the contents of the book would contain much more. But this was top-secret information. A majority of the Uchiha themselves didn't even know about the Mangekyō, which was almost certainly what the title was hinting at. Whoever had written this had known too much and was clearly not a fan of the Uchiha.
This T.S. guy should've burned the book or something. Or at least stored it away, damn it.
Now what?
If she were to give it to Shisui or Itachi—because, you know, clan heir—Sakura could guarantee that they wouldn't just accept it and let her go. And her shitty, albeit true excuse of 'I found it in a cardboard box at the library, dunno how it got there, haha.' was bound to stir up more trouble and questions and answers that implied her being a spy. She couldn't just take it home or something either...
...
Or could she?
I guess...
Well, wouldn't it all depend on the actual contents of the book? If the information wasn't too severe, she could try to pull one of the other stunts off, given she wouldn't really know anything detrimental.
And Sakura had already heard most of the bad stuff from Sasuke anyway. It would probably be fine.
She tightened her grip on the book and turned to leave. But, after side-eyeing the cardboard package that held at least two other books laced with Genjutsu—it was quite obvious, when you knew where to look, really—and much contemplation, she placed the book inside and picked up the whole box.
Three long strides, and she stood in front of the counter. The woman looked surprised and hesitantly began asking something whilst pointing at the box under her arm, but was swiftly cut off by a glare and a curt, "I'm taking this."
Then she left.