Chapter 6
Grain requisition was important. The city of Konohagakure could not produce enough food to feed its citizens on its own: that was what the countryside was for. But villages near the border were always possible havens of deliberate treachery during wartime. Quotas had to be met, hoarders sniffed out, wreckers dispatched. It also wasn’t really about grain, there were plenty of fruits and vegetables needed for a balanced diet! Sakura had already squabbled about this with Naruto more than once.
It was an important job, but Sakura thought it was fun too. It made her feel powerful.
Their job was simple: logistics set the quotas, transportation collected them, and, in between, requisition made sure the quotas were met.
The head of the outpost, the jounin from the tower named Takahashi Renji, had told them that requisition was the link that kept the chain together, the essential element that was almost invisible as long as the process was working as it should. It all sounded very professional to Sakura. Very noble, in that understated way that all true shinobi were.
A normal day on duty went like this:
At 0650 Sakura, Sasuke and Naruto would muster in the courtyard to wait for Koji, who had been assigned to lead their squad.
Hana, Hyuuga Hiroji, Nobu and Koji were technically assigned together as a chuunin squad under Hana (who was in turn under Renji), but now that Team Seven had arrived they served different duties.
Thanks to their clan techniques, Hiroji and Hana were too important as scouts to be spared around the countryside, especially now that everyone was waiting for the Suna squad to appear. Sakura had learned that Hana’s three dogs were constantly patrolling on the River side of the border, and reported back at every new human scent.
Nobu tagged along with them on occasion, more out of boredom than anything else. Mostly he swapped gate duty with the single other kunoichi at the base, a pretty purple-haired girl that avoided their company. Sakura had seen her from afar but never spoken to her – the girl did not even seem to come back to the barracks to sleep.
The two older men at the base were more experienced chuunin and made their own requisition runs alone. Sakura was on alright terms with them, but they never made the effort at friendliness that the others, closer to her own age, did, and most nights they were content to keep to themselves instead of mingling with the chatter and games of Hana’s squad.
At exactly 0700 Koji would appear with their assignment, sometimes with Nobu in tow. Then they would set off together for the village in question.
Sakura’s impression of the region had not changed from the first, painful journey there. The rolling, empty hills, with their tall grasses and dark hollows were as spooky as ever. The lack of tree cover made her feel constantly exposed, and the unfriendly, sideways looks of the ragged civilians they passed only ever added to her sense of paranoia.
Once they arrived at the target location, Koji would take charge. Sakura had come to like him: he was friendly and quick with a joke on base, though sometimes rude, and definitely too forward, but on duty, he was always professional – he even talked more professionally, without his usual drawl. His blond-hair was too dark to be Yamanaka, and though he still had something of those too-distinctive features that proved a history of inherited chakra manipulation, his last name didn’t ring any bells in her memory. She liked that: it was nice to look at him and imagine, yes, this was possible, this was a goal, a standard, she could reach. (Kakashi was nowhere to be found, he was busy, busy, busy and they hadn’t seen him in so much as weeks).
Most of the time their targets were small nearby settlements; she always felt it was an exaggeration to call them villages. A group of squalid huts, meager fields, a few large barns, scrawny, dirty children underfoot and a single representative, the only villager with whom the shinobi were to have verbal communications.
Naruto tried to disobey that rule, at least a few times, but Sakura privately thought the rule was much more for the villagers’ benefit than their own. Maybe Naruto was so used to people being afraid of him that he couldn’t feel their fear, but she found it almost stifling.
Their job was simple: arrive, summon the representative, wait while Koji read him the list of requisitions, find a suitable location to activate the large sealing scroll (it was better if it was done inside, in case of rain, but only the largest of barns ever had enough area to unroll it, and most frequently they just cleared out the flattest ground they could find, and pitched a tarp if necessary), and supervise good collection. When everything was gathered in its correct location on the scroll, Koji would seal it, and they would return to base as unburdened as they had left it. Fuinjutsu was truly incredible.
She had mentioned as much to Sasuke, but she seemed to have angered him somehow, and he steadfastly ignored her. Naruto wasn’t really an appropriate target to gush to about it, either. She ended up trying to interrogate Koji as to how it worked, but he seemed just as clueless as she. The only thing he was clear on, was that such scrolls were rare and expensive, they had exactly one of them, and that she better not muck it up during activation.
She didn’t really understand what that could mean.
“Just be careful,” Koji responded. “Seals can be fussy, if you know what I mean.”
He didn’t look at Naruto, but he didn’t have to.
Since then, she’d been doubly careful about the ink, and had insisted they set up the tarp no matter what the weather when there was no suitable location indoors.
Today seemed to be lucky, though. Their target was on the larger side in comparison to previous settlements, just a mile or two off a well-worn dirt road leading towards the border, and they had quickly found a place to settle in a fairly large grain barn.
The wizened elder who represented the settlement had already hobbled off to give directions to his people by the time they finished, but the surroundings were still quiet.
Her team split silently by habit, but it was a short wait for the first civilians to appear. Sasuke took the central section of the scroll, Sakura the left, and Naruto the right, as always. She had a series of vegetables and quantities, and patiently guided the civilians to put their goods in the right location, after a quick inspection of course.
“We don’t have it!” A women refused.
She was probably no older than Sakura’s mother, but with the leathery, worn skin of a farmer that made her look much older.
Sakura sighed. For goods to fail quality inspection was one thing – and even fairly understandable, in a region as desolate as this. Koji had instructed them to be fairly lenient in these cases, and they sometimes even allowed the target to keep its supplies if the goods in question were of too poor a quality to be sent to the Konoha. It would be marked, of course, and they would run a site inspection later to insure that they hadn’t been simply shown the worst product, but as long as the settlement could redeem itself by the next requisition, a miss or two was forgivable.
Failing a quantity inspection, however, was not. Requisition norms for a region were decided in the center, but the local distribution was decided at its nearest operating base, and they had a Hyuuga at base, like, come on, who did these civvies think they were fooling?
“You’re a good five kilos short,” Sakura said, aiming for tonelessly. She tried to imitate the same impatient, supremely uninterested way Kakashi discussed almost anything – from the weather to the Hokage’s orders. Unfortunately, it seemed her tone wasn’t nearly as intimidating, because the woman refused to back down.
“I’m telling you, we don’t have it!” The woman refused to release the last sack of radishes in her hands. “This is the very last! If you take it we won’t have anything at all, my children will starve!”
Sakura resisted the urge to scoff, but felt an uncertain pressure as heads began to turn in the direction of the woman’s shouting.
“There’s no need to make a scene,” she urged, speaking firmly, but in a softer voice.
It was too late, and she heard discontented murmurs in the line behind her troublesome target.
“Listen, ma’am,” Sakura began. “Put down the sack, and if you insist you can’t meet your norms, our squad leader will inspect your settlement.”
She was interrupted before she could finish (with a reminder that, hello, lying to a shinobi of Konohagakure is a crime!)
“Sakura,” Naruto was suddenly next to her. “Listen, we don’t really need that, it’s not as though Koji checks, y’know?”
He had reached a hand out to her arm, and she jerked away from him in a snappy movement. “Are you kidding? Get back to your side! Who’s watching the seals?”
“Listen to the boy,” Came a voice from the line before Sakura, but she couldn’t identify who had spoken.
Great, Naruto was fermenting a literal rebellion. What else.
She glanced at Sasuke, who was looking in their direction from his place at the head of his line. He didn’t say anything.
“It’s just a little girl,” another voice came from the crowd before her.
Sakura couldn’t hold back. She needed to act decisively to put this to rest. They had a duty, and just because Naruto had no one he cared about in Konoha didn’t mean Sakura was going to be responsible for her mother going hungry.
She snatched at the sack of radishes, held tightly in front of her, pulling it from the woman’s arms in own movement. The civilian’s grip was weak, and Sakura almost overbalanced, expecting more resistance.
“Monster!” The woman hissed, spittle flying from her mouth.
Sakura flinched away – water near the seal, it was dangerous!
It was a mistake. The movement was taken as a weakness, and suddenly a crowd was surging forward, hands reaching for the bags already carefully stacked around the appropriate seals, with cries of “don’t be scared, it’s just a kid!”, various threats, calls to “pass it along, Hiruko!” and most of all: “hurry, hurry, hurry, before the older one gets back!”
Sakura only hesitated for a split second, dropping the sack where she stood, before pushing forward to meet the crowd. She didn’t bother looking to Naruto for support, pushing herself into the path of a tall, burly man, now leading the crowd, before he could step onto the scroll.
“Return to order!” She shouted, but he was still moving forward, towards the scroll, towards her, and her voice sounded high-pitched and weak, like a child’s.
He took one more step, then another, and suddenly he was reaching forward, but not for the goods, for her, and his hand was closed into a fist and she felt a stinging sensation in her chest and the air went out of her in one large rush and she was falling back onto her butt –
She fell, instinctively lashing out with the katana that was never far from hand. The unexpected shock of hitting the ground brought her back to her senses, and she rolled herself back to her feet with much more grace than she had shown in falling, hand to her stomach, feeling for damage. A half-second of reflection and she realized her stomach didn’t even hurt, it had been a weak blow for such a large man, it had only been unexpected.
She huffed, feeling encouraged, and looked back up at the civilians that she had forgotten in her moment of shocked tunnel vision. They had fallen silent and faded backwards, out of the danger zone of the scroll. All their eyes were on her, Sakura realized, wide and shocked, as shocked as she had felt.
“Sakura-chan, you…” Naruto’s voice was heavy with some feeling Sakura couldn’t name.
A gurgled noise interrupted her thoughts. The man who had hit her was lying on the ground, blood flowing from the gash neatly bisecting his torso. His hand twitched, still extended in a mockery of the weak punch. His body thrashed once, twice, then went still.
Mizuki-sensei’s voice floated through her mind. When mission parameters are exceeded, refer to the nearest superior officer. And Suzume-sensei’s: a shinobi never shows emotion.
His body wasn’t touching the scroll. It was okay.
Sakura made eye contact with the woman who had refused her the radishes.
“Go away, Naruto,” she hissed. And then, louder: “Return to order. I need five more kilograms of radishes. Next item is onions. Get in line.”
She stood still, unwavering, until the crowd slowly reformed into its previous orderly line. Naruto’s presence by her side faded, but she didn’t turn to look.
She substituted outside the barn, lighting a blue flare, and returning before she saw it explode.
Hands faintly trembling, she reached for the outstretched sack, laying it neatly into place amongst the others.
She very carefully didn’t look at the thing on the floor.
Someone found the missing sack of radishes. She nudged it into place unthinkingly. They moved on to onions.
She flinched back at the touch to her arm, expecting Naruto. Koji smiled down at her.
“Well done,” he said. “Why don’t you go outside? I’ll take it from here.”
.
.
.
The journey back was uncomfortable. Naruto had attached himself to Koji almost immediately when the man reappeared at the fence, bringing an impassioned speech to bear. Koji seemed to ignore him completely, bringing them into formation with a sign, but made no move to actually shut Naruto up.
“We can’t take so much, squad leader!” He was protesting. “You saw how skinny they are, it shouldn’t have to come to that! It’s not right, they won’t have anything left for themselves, they could starve! We should be helping them, not making it worse!”
“It’s necessary,” Koji said in a tone that brooked no discussion.
Naruto was uncowed.
“Come on, y’guys, you’ve got to agree with me, you saw! They were just desperate!”
Sasuke was staring at Sakura. She could feel his gaze heavy on her back and it excited her, but made her too embarrassed to form any sort of response.
“We do what we’re told. It’s our job,” Sasuke said, without any sort of audible emotion.
She risked a glance in his direction, but couldn’t read anything in his dark eyes.
Naruto gave an angry squawk, but didn’t respond. Then he was racing forward, out of formation, fists clenched tightly. Koji made no move to stop him.
The rest of the journey back to the barracks with quick and silent. Sakura focused on the chakra in her feet, the road ahead of her, and very intentionally did not look into the gloomy, rolling hills around her.
When they arrived at the barracks, Naruto immediately disappeared into their room, even as Nobu rolled off his bunk to greet them.
Sakura was in no mood to stay and chat. She moved to follow.
“Wait,” With a poof of the smoke of an unsealing, Koji extended a bulging sack towards Sasuke and Sakura. “Got extra. Pears again, only really sweet shit there is this time of year, but I can’t complain, they’re good here, aren’t they?”
Sasuke shot Koji a look of complete disgust.
“That was unnecessary.” He left the room.
“Well, what can you do,” Koji smiled, scrunching up his short nose. “It’s impossible to make friends with an Uchiha, huh? Typical. Anyway, they’re both pretty dramatic, huh? If they’re gonna starve, a dozen fruit won’t save ‘em. You want?”
Sakura looked at the open bag, thinking of the soft juice flowing easily from pierced skin. Thinking of how easy it was to pierce a stomach the same way. Thinking of the civilian woman surrendering her pears to Renji, the exhaustion in every one of her slow, clumsy moves. Thinking of another woman, holding fiercely to her radishes.
“You’re wrong.” She met Koji’s gaze, but didn’t share his commiserating look. “About my teammates.”
They were both sitting on Naruto’s bunk when she entered the room.
Naruto asked if she wanted to play cards.
What she wanted to do was go home and sleep, sleep in her bed, with her pillows, that smelled like her house, and close her eyes and not see the dying civilians’s surprised frown behind her eyelids.
“I think I’d like that,” Sakura said.