Early Is On Time

“Respect the young and chastise your elders. It's about time the world was set aright.” ― Vera Nazarian

The desk outside Tsunade’s office is still empty. Some days the Hokage would already be here — the invasion has left quite a mess for the Godaime to clean up — but it’s not Tsunade in the Hokage’s office at the moment.

Tsunade is going to be pissed that someone was in her office without her permission while she was busy in surgery, and especially upset that it was Shimura Danzō. Kakashi ponders the best way to arrange a front row seat to Tsunade tearing Danzō a new one as he strolls past the empty desk and trickles chakra into his ears to catch more of the conversation he can hear spilling out of the half-open door of Tsunade’s office.

“You’re outranked,” Danzō is saying.

Shikamaru asks, “Aren’t you retired?” indicating that he definitely has no idea who he’s dealing with.

Danzō would never retire.

“Look at him, of course he’s retired.” Naruto, of course. Kakashi has missed him. Kakashi can almost see the dismissive gesture that must have accompanied that rude remark.

Kakashi actually hesitates to interrupt, as he so rarely gets to watch Naruto manipulate anyone into anything besides a deep and lasting friendship or at least substantial character growth. Not that the usual isn’t fascinating and enjoyable, but it’s good to get a chance to see his cute little genin use his powers for evil for once.

“You will watch your tongue or I’ll have you dropped to the genin corps, Uzumaki,” Danzō threatens, in his particular this-is-a-promise-not-a-threat old man growl, “and you will tell me what you learned on your mission.”

“Well,” Naruto says. He draws the word out for several long moments. He’s probably squinting like an idiot, as if trying to remember something worth mentioning.

Danzō doesn’t say anything, but Kakashi can hear the implied, Well? in his complete silence.

“Ah!” The sound of hand hitting hand — probably the bottom of Naruto’s fist hitting his palm, like he’s suddenly thought of something good.

Kakashi could die of anticipation. He knows it won’t be real intel, but still. That’s just going to make it better.

“I learned that a group of ferrets is known as a ‘business!’” Naruto announces, cheerfully, as if that was probably exactly what Danzō maneuvered them into the office to learn about.

There’s a brief lull in conversation, but Naruto doesn’t add anything else.

Flatly, Danzō demands: “What.”

Shikamaru takes in a sharp breath, clearly biting back a laugh.

“When you got a buncha ferrets,” Naruto explains, a little slowly, like he’s wondering why Danzō doesn’t understand. “That’s called a ‘business.’ A business of ferrets, y’know, instead of like... a herd or a flock or something? You’re really old, shouldn’t you know this kind of thing already?”

“This has nothing to do with your mission,” Danzō accuses him.

“Sure it does, we were looking for a missing ferret,” Naruto says. “I mean, only the one ferret, but he could have run away to make some ferret friends and join a business. Clear communication in the field is important, so Shikako-chan made sure we’d know what a group of ferrets is called. And speaking of Shikako, old man, we’re going to go to the hospital! The mission went fine and you’re just being weird.”

Naruto has reached critical levels of frustration, it seems. He sounds ready to go through Danzou just to head to the hospital, and that’s definitely not a fight Kakashi wants to see. Yet. Maybe in a few years.

Danzō starts to say something like, “You know perfectly well that I’m asking about the invasion in Wind,” but Kakashi chooses that moment to swoop in, coffee and all, appearing in the middle of the room via shunshin. This happens to position him between Danzō and the kids.

“Sorry I’m late!” he says cheerfully, as if he’d been invited, speaking over Danzō.

Naruto and Shikamaru both turn to look at him. “Kakashi-sensei!” Naruto exclaims. He sounds so happy. It just warms the heart.

“Hatake, this is a mission debriefing,” Danzō says. “Your presence is unnecessary. Wait outside.”

“This isn’t even your office,” Naruto tells him. “You wait outside.”

Yeah, Naruto is done with this conversation. Danzō probably failed to convince Naruto that he should be respected the moment they met and has been fighting a losing battle ever since.

“I took charge of this team when I met up with them in River,” Kakashi says. “I haven’t even dismissed them to report in yet. They were supposed to meet me at the hospital.”

Danzō doesn’t look like he wants to debate with Kakashi about the rules, no. He looks like he wishes Kakashi would drop dead, but that’s really nothing new. It’s almost a compliment, coming from Danzō.

“This isn’t over,” Danzō says. He likes to feel in control of situations.

“Yes it is. I have command of this team and you have no authority to demand a report of any kind.” Kakashi steps forward and puts Shinku’s coffee on Tsunade’s desk. He doesn’t break eye contact with Danzō. “Anyway, I think you need this more than me,” Kakashi continues, forcing cheer and friendliness into his voice where it certainly doesn’t belong. “I know it can be hard for someone of your advanced years to get up so early. Have a good morning.”

He doesn’t even bother herding Naruto and Shikamaru out of the office — letting them move under their own power would just give Danzō time to argue. Instead he just grabs one kid under each arm and shunshins straight out the window towards the hospital. It’s kind of a waste of chakra that he doesn’t actually have to waste, but he lets the shunshin go as soon as they clear the window sill so it barely counts.

“I hate that guy! I hope baa-chan kicks his ass,” Naruto says, while they’re definitely still within hearing distance of Danzō.

He considers letting go of the kids immediately, but considering how hard they must have pushed themselves to make it back to the village that seems like it might be a mistake. Naruto’s probably already recovered a substantial amount of chakra even if he was almost dry when they got to the village, but he and Shikamaru are both still clearly exhausted and for all Kakashi knows Shikamaru might be totally dry.

No one would be impressed by Kakashi dropping a chakra-exhausted Shikamaru from several stories up, especially Shikaku and Yoshino, who would then have both kids receiving medical attention.

“Uh.” Shikamaru squirms a little under Kakashi’s arm when he lands and starts walking towards the hospital. “Let us down?”

Kakashi gives a negative hum. “You might wander off again. Or get snatched up by some other old man.”

“Ugh, Kakashi-sensei,” Naruto whines, pulling the word ‘sensei’ out like a bratty Academy student. “How many old men who don’t want us to go to the hospital could there possibly be?” He flails with more enthusiasm than Shikamaru.

“I refuse to take unnecessary risks,” Kakashi says. “You never know when an overly-involved old man is going to try and meddle in your business. And they tend to work together. Always expect another nosy geezer.”

Shikamaru says, “We did meet two of them today.” He’s gone limp, probably having decided that he might as well enjoy not having to walk somewhere. Lazy Nara practicality.

Naruto struggles for a little longer before giving up when he finds he can’t twist out of Kakashi’s hold. He starts looking around, eyeing anyone who might be elderly suspiciously, and asks, “Hey, hey, what’s the group name for a buncha geezers?”

“A conspiracy,” Kakashi says. “Like lemurs.”

Not long after Kakashi leaves, Tsunade exits the surgery bay. She’s dressed down, her hands freshly scrubbed — “It’s not that chakra won’t get your hands clean, they just don’t feel clean if you don’t wash them, you know?” a field medic acquaintance had once told Aoba over drinks. “Plus that chakra trick dries your skin out but it’d be weird to keep lotion in all the surgery bays.” — and she doesn’t look especially grim or sympathetic, so the surgery probably went fine.

Aoba had known it would be fine, even more so than the rest of the people waiting who’d be going on faith based on Tsunade’s skills rather than future knowledge, but Aoba still finds his shoulders relaxing.

“We won’t know for sure until she wakes up, but Shikako should be fine,” Tsunade says. “Shikaku, Yoshino, please come with me.” Tsunade eyes Aoba and Anko. “Aoba, you too.”

Aoba sets aside his now-cold coffee and stands as well while Anko sighs and stretches out on the bench on her side of the hallway, empty now that Aoba has stood up. She lays on her back, legs crossed at the ankle

“Naptime,” Anko says, with great satisfaction. She folds her hands behind her head. It’s impressive that her coat is well-tailored enough that the action isn’t indecent at all.

“Have fun,” Aoba tells her.

“You know I always do.”

She’s probably asleep before Aoba, trailing after Tsunade, Shikaku, and Yoshino, turns the corner.

Aoba waits outside the secure examination room Tsunade is using to talk to Shikaku and Yoshino. She doesn’t use the security seals, but Aoba doesn’t bother eavesdropping. It’s not really any of his business — unless his kohai wants him to know, assuming Shikako is still his kohai, in which case she’ll tell him herself.

Migaki comes along a few minutes in and Aoba gets to waste time talking to him instead of worrying or losing himself to memories of things that haven’t happened. They swap gossip for a good ten minutes. He learns that Raidō is still bemoaning the meaningless fight that made him break up with his girlfriend. Ichiraku was able to order and received an extra shipment of ginger thanks to the Akimichi. Satō Tōma, the chūnin who’d come back from a mission with a sprained ankle on the 17th, would be back on missions before the week was out.

Aoba finds that his own string of gossip in return is somewhat lacking. Much of the gossip he wants to deliver is 11 months too early. What he does remember from this period of time is less and less likely to be accurate the longer he’s around to change things. And he just... hasn’t been talking to people in the past couple days.

Except Anko, but Anko doesn’t count. She’s Anko.

“Anyway, rounds are about to start and I don’t want Tsunade-sama catching me out here loitering,” Migaki says eventually, eyeing the closed exam room door like it might break cover and attack him. “But, hey, a group of us are going out tonight. You should come! You could even... bring Mitarashi?”

“Bring Anko,” Aoba repeats, trying to parse this phrasing. Not that Anko doesn’t deserve to be invited places, but Migaki’s group really aren’t the kind of people one thinks of as being Anko’s People.

“People keep spotting you with her going out to eat,” Migaki says. “Congrats!” He claps Aoba on the shoulder and leaves.

Anko will probably just find the assumption funny. Anko will probably flirt with him for weeks if he tells her.

Shikaku and Yoshino exit the room not long after and head back upstairs to collect Sasuke (and maybe Anko, although they might let her sleep) and find the waiting room closest to whatever room Shikako is being moved to. Aoba enters the exam room, and Tsunade raises the security seals when he closes the door.

“Shikako remembers,” Tsunade says. “Not that I was really doubting you at this point, but she confirmed what you remember.”

“I guess I’ll have company for my endless debriefs,” Aoba says. He’s relieved, but not sure that that’s the appropriate emotion.

On one hand, the Shikako he’d gotten to know isn’t dead. But on the other hand — coming back hadn’t been easy for Aoba and his life is mostly settled.

It’s good to know she wasn’t killed by that thing, though. She escaped. They both escaped.

“Likely,” Tsunade says. “But it’s doubtful she’ll have Inoichi sorting through her memories. For... medical reasons.”

Aoba raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t protest or ask for detailed. There aren’t a lot of reason to not use Holding Door Mind Transition on someone, especially with the T&I equipment, and none of them are the kind of thing Tsunade will tell him about without a good reason.

“You’ll have fun writing reports together, I’m sure,” Tsunade says. “You can have your reunion when she wakes up.”

It strikes Shikaku as odd that Aoba’s conversation required the security seals be activated even though Tsunade’s conversation with them about Shikako’s surgery hadn’t, indicating that they’d come all the way to the secure exam room for Aoba’s conversation with the Hokage.

Shikaku’s looking forward to finding out what’s going on with Shikako and Aoba that requires security seals and keeping secrets from the Jōnin Commander — and he will find out — but for now he and Yoshino are content with sharing meaningful looks.

They return to the hallway outside the surgery bay where Sasuke is waiting and Anko is sleeping. Sasuke is bent forward, elbows resting on his knees, trying to stare a hole in the tile. He looks up when they turn the corner and come down the hall. His expression is anxious and tense. If Shikaku saw that expression on Shikako or Shikamaru’s face, he’d tug them into a hug ASAP. Unfortunately not appropriate with Uchiha Sasuke, although Shikaku thinks that Yoshino is working on that.

“She’s going to be fine,” Yoshino says. “Tsunade-sama removed an obstruction from her chakra system. The surgery went well. We’re going to move to a waiting room upstairs close to her hospital room. She should wake up in a little bit.”

Sasuke nods. He’s still tense, but Shikaku understands — it’s a relief to hear good news from Tsunade, and no one could doubt her opinion, but it won’t feel like the wait is really over until they actually lay eyes on Shikako, awake and recovering.

Yoshino grabs the box of pastries that Aoba and Anko brought; Sasuke picks up the cardboard box of coffee and frowns.

“It’s almost empty,” Sasuke says.

“Probably cold, too,” Yoshino says. “Just throw it out.”

They both speak quietly; Anko is still stretched out on the benches on the other side of the hallway. Shikaku thinks that Anko could probably sleep through them having a rousing argument as long as no one starts throwing chakra around, but it’s nice for them to try and facilitate her nap. He’s still not really sure why she’s here — even less so than Aoba, since Mitarashi Anko really isn’t the type to wait around outside surgery bays even for people she knows and likes — but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve to take this nap she pretty clearly desperately needed.

(She would probably like Shikako, if they knew each other, but they don’t. Also, maybe Shikaku’s opinion is a little colored by Shikako being his daughter. Maybe.)

“I could go get more?” Sasuke offers.

It’s on the tip of Shikaku’s tongue to encourage Sasuke to stay. Shikako put her team first in her clan vows when she made genin and has very clearly followed through with all of them, but especially with Sasuke. She wouldn’t want Sasuke feeling unwelcome in the waiting room with him and Yoshino. She would want Sasuke to be there when she wakes up.

But then Shikaku reconsiders. They won’t be able to see Shikako immediately once she wakes up — Tsunade mentioned there was still some debriefing to do regarding her mission that they hadn’t been able to do before her surgery. Maybe something with Aoba, maybe not. Either way, more coffee wouldn’t hurt, and Sasuke is probably just looking for something to do.

“Thank you,” Shikaku says. He tells Sasuke where to find them on the third floor when he comes back and to tell Akimichi Hironobu that he or Yoshino will be by to pay for the coffee later.

Sasuke nods, and then glances at Anko. “Should we... wake her up?”

Shikaku shrugs. “Seems like Aoba’s problem, and he knows where to find her.”

“What he means is that we should let Mitarashi-san sleep,” Yoshino says, with an exasperate glance at Shikaku. “She can ask around if she needs to find us when she wakes up.”

That seems to satisfy Sasuke. In the stairwell, Shikaku and Yoshino go up one flight of stairs. Sasuke splits off and takes the stairs down to the first floor.

The waiting room is more comfortable than the hall outside the surgery bay. The chairs are badly padded, but at least they’re padded at all. Yoshino slumps into one of them with relief and Shikaku takes the chair next to her. Trading clan and village gossip acceptable for sharing in public passes the time. Shikaku flags down a passing genin and asks her to stop by his office and let someone there know where he is.

He should probably go into work, but... not until he can see Shikako. And get some answers.

The sun has started to come up when Sasuke exits the hospital. It’s still a couple hours until the morning shift starts, but the streets aren’t as empty as they were when Sasuke went to get the Nara earlier and followed them to the hospital. Akimichi Hironobu’s bakery, when he gets there, is practically packed — but standing in line waiting to order is better than sitting in the hospital at this point, so Sasuke will take it.

As the line crawls steadily forward, Sasuke becomes aware of the conversation going on far to the left of the counter, where an Akimichi woman Shikako has previously called Chinatsu is decorating sugar cookies and carrying on a conversation with the people standing on the other side of the counter. They’re gossiping fast and furious in a way that draws the attention.

The Akimichi who’s not working but is instead dressed in chūnin blues and drinking an elaborate iced coffee beverage of some kind, is telling the other chūnin she’s standing with about a confrontation she saw earlier.

Chinatsu says, “It was so dramatic! Too bad you guys missed it.” She uses about the same tone of voice that Ino had used in the Academy when divulging gossip about a petty fight between two classmates. She’s able to speak clearly to her audience; the glass on the edge of the countertop is only two feet tall, just enough to protect the cookies from anyone watching without impeding gossip. It’s usually the bakery’s owner, Hironobu, who stands there kneading dough or decorating cakes and chatting up a storm, but today Hironobu is working the register.

“It was kind of scary.” The other Akimichi is younger than Chinatsu, maybe, with the plump, strong stature of an active duty Akimichi focused on combat.

“I wish all my shifts started like that,” Chinatsu says. Whatever it was — maybe Kiba’s mom getting in a fight with that R&D guy again? — it’s probably the most excitement she’s had since she retired, which she definitely has been for several years.

Sasuke had first came to Hironobu’s with a gaggle of classmates, swept along with them after school, unwilling to break off and go sit in his new apartment alone when hassling Naruto was so much more engaging, when Shikako had turned to include him in the invitation to get tea and snacks automatically, as if she couldn’t possibly imagine him saying no. Chinatsu had been around even then, indulgently pointing out which items in the bakery’s display case weren’t sweet.

“Well, the dog was really cute,” says the younger Akimichi, “but Hatake-san probably could have been more professional. He was leaking intent.”

Kakashi is supposed to be finding Naruto and Shikamaru. Chinatsu and the other Akimichi have been discussing it like it happened this morning, probably after Kakashi left the hospital — unless this is where Aoba had been when Kakashi had gone looking for him, but Aoba had definitely implied that hearing about Shikako’s surgery from Kakashi is why he and Anko had stopped at Hironobu’s.

“Maybe you and Nobira could tell me what actually happened, instead of dancing around it, Tatsumi,” says one of the other chūnin. Sasuke recognizes him as a mission desk chūnin. Ebisawa, probably. He’s not overly prone to flinching away from or grumbling over the paperwork Sasuke hands in, which makes him less annoying than average.

The last chūnin, who must be Nobira, explains, “Hatake almost snapped and murdered some other jōnin, apparently.” He says this like it’s to be expected of Kakashi.

He says Kakashi’s name in a tone of voice Sasuke might expect to hear from Naruto talking about Mizuki. Sasuke has never before in his life wanted to interrupt a bunch of gossiping strangers, but he wants to know where the hell that tone comes from.

“Don’t say it like that!” Chinatsu snaps. “You’ll give him the wrong idea.”

Nobira shrugs. “Why? You know he would have done it if there weren’t so many witnesses. Mayaso said they call him Comrade Ki—”

“They being the Nohara in general, Nohara Daijirou and Mayaso in particular.” Chinatsu interrupts Nobira forcefully, speaking over him so well that even Sasuke’s chakra enhanced hearing can’t pick up the tail end of whatever Nobira was trying to say.

She’s pulled her pastry bag away from the butterfly wings she’s been filling in with runny frosting, nailing Nobira with a gaze that could make an Academy student cry. “She should stop listening to him and you should stop listening to her. Cut that out or get out of the shop.”

“Jeez,” says Nobira.

Sasuke doesn’t even know what it was that Nobira was going to say about Kakashi. Nothing good, it seems like, and something that would support Nobira’s opinion that... ah. Comrade Killer, maybe? Shikako would know for sure, and would know exactly how to ruin Nobira’s life immediately so that he never thought that sort of thing about their sensei again.

But she won’t be in any shape for that for any time soon, probably. Hard to ruin lives from a hospital bed, and whatever she’s in surgery for must be serious. Sasuke will have to rope someone else into helping. Not Ino, though. People will start to get ideas. Naruto would prank the guy, but that’s not good enough.

Maybe he could get Naruto to set Iruka on the guy for one of his loud, public lectures on proper shinobi conduct. Or Maito Gai — Sasuke’s certain that he and Kakashi are friends.

Hironobu says, “Sasuke-kun?” and Sasuke looks up and realizes that he’s next at the register.

“Ah, sorry,” Sasuke says. “I need, uh. A box of coffee? Shikaku said he’d come by and pay for it later.”

It’s hard to tear his attention away from Chinatsu and Nobira’s debate about the safety and ethics of shit-talking elite jōnin in public based on a grudge that Nobira apparently “doesn’t even have a stake in.” What grudge? Between Kakashi and the Nohara, apparently, but why?

“Sure, Sasuke-kun,” Hironobu says. “Are you all still at the hospital, then? How’s Shikako-chan?”

“Tsunade said she’ll be okay.”

Hironobu expresses his relief and sympathy and then tells Sasuke that they’ll need to brew a new pot of coffee for the box. He calls Chinatsu away from her argument to make the coffee so that he can see to the next customer in line.

Sasuke loiters by the bakery display — a long glass case set into the counter between the register and the section of countertop where Chinatsu has been decorating cookies and gossiping — and watches Chinatsu pull out a folded cardboard box. She assembles it quickly into the same kind of slope-topped cardboard box that Sasuke had thrown out in the hospital. Apparently the coffee will just.. go in it. Ten cups, the side of the box announces. Sasuke needs to stop staring at the box; no one else seems to think it’s weird.

He wishes someone at the hospital had had information about Shikako’s surgery, so he’d know if she’d want  — if she would be allowed — non-hospital food when she wakes up. He looks down at the bakery case, mostly full of sweet things he’s not inclined to eat and isn’t sure Shikako will be able to have. In the reflection on the glass of the bakery case, Ebisawa looks exhausted. Maybe from the early hour, maybe from the argument about vaguely referenced Nohara vendettas he was just witness to. It seems like Nobira has finished his last point and Chinatsu is focusing on measuring coffee, so maybe the conversation will be informative again.

“Shit, though, sabotage is a serious charge, especially accusing someone in public,” Ebisawa is saying when Sasuke tunes back in. “Which jōnin?”

Accusing someone of sabotage is one of those things that necessitates an investigation. False, malicious, public accusations get the accuser dropped down a rank. Sasuke hopes no one was enough of a moron to accuse Kakashi of sabotage, but that would explain why he was ready to kill the guy.

“Yeah you never said,” Nobira puts in. He’s apparently been having this whole conversation without finding out even basic facts like exactly who was involved. It’s probably a hint towards why the guy is still a chūnin.

“It was more of a question than an accusation,” Tatsumi says. “He said it could have been incompetence instead. The other jōnin was older, he was wearing a sword like...?” Tatsumi gestures over one shoulder, indicating where the sword hilt would stick up so it could be drawn. “Hatake-san called him ‘Shinku’.”

Chinatsu looks over her shoulder. “Yūhi Shinku,” she says. “Large coffee with an extra espresso shot, room for cream. He’s not welcome in Akimichi establishments anymore.”

Ebisawa makes a sound of disgust, loud enough that several people turn to look at him.

“Yūhi-sensei,” hisses Nobira, like Yūhi Shinku is his nemesis.

At least Sasuke isn’t the only one out of the loop, because Tatsumi asks her fellow chūnin, “You know him?”

“He’s Head Instructor for the Genin Corps,” Ebisawa says. “He’s a nightmare.”

Nobira says, “I’ve changed my mind, Hatake was completely right and is my new favorite jōnin.”

It makes more sense for Kakashi to accuse someone of sabotage than of someone to accuse Kakashi, but not by much. He was supposed to be looking for Naruto and Shikamaru. Maybe Kakashi thought this Head Instructor did something to them, but that seems far fetched.

“At least this kind of explains why I saw Hatake jumping from the Hokage’s office with Uzumaki and the Nara boy under each arm,” Ebisawa says.

At the mention of Naruto and Shikamaru, Sasuke finally has to break into the conversation. It’s awful, he doesn’t want to talk to any of these people, but—

“When was that?” he asks Ebisawa.

The drip machine behind Chinatsu beeps. She turns to pour the coffee into Sasuke’s box, but the other three turn to look at him. They do it slowly, like discovering that he’s standing about four feet away is horrific.

“Uh,” Nobira says. “Hi, Uchiha-kun, I didn’t realize you’d come in.”

Sasuke ignores him, and focuses on Ebisawa. “When did you see them? What the hell were they doing in the Hokage’s office? Why were they being carried?”

Ebisawa looks bewildered, but Sasuke doesn’t really see why. So maybe Sasuke is being a little intense, but chūnin should be used to giving quick reports. And of course he wants to keep track of his teammates! They’re all disasters. Equally. And Shikamaru will just go along with anything out of laziness. Someone needs to keep track of them.

“It was just before I came in,” Ebisawa says, looking bewildered. “Maybe they were reporting in?”

“Who knows why jōnin do anything,” Nobira says.

“Maybe they were hurt?” Tatsumi suggests.

Which, thanks; Sasuke had been avoiding speculation on that, but it’s not like he deserves nice things, clearly. Maybe they are hurt, and sensei is rushing them to the hospital. Maybe they were at the Tower looking for Tsunade because it’s urgent.

(A selfish, relieved part of him thinks: if one of them is seriously hurt, it must be Shikamaru. Nothing hurts Naruto.)

“They were supposed to meet Shikamaru’s parents at the hospital,” Sasuke says flatly. “Kakashi rushed ahead to bring Nara Shikako to have surgery under Tsunade’s supervision. There’s no reason for them to have been anywhere but where Kakashi told them to be when the team split up; they were given orders in the field to report to the hospital and they knew Tsunade wouldn’t be in her office.”

“Okay,” Ebisawa says slowly, like he has to process all that information. “I guess that explains why Hatake-san was so pissed off. But Uzumaki was chattering a mile a minute. I don’t think they were hurt. So things must be fine. I’m sure they’re fine.”

Sasuke does not find himself reassured.

“Here you go, Uchiha-kun,” Chinatsu says.

She sets the box of coffee down on the top of the bakery display case — the counter is all covered with cookies, and the piece of glass keeping people loitering by the counter from breathing on the cookies or anything would get in the way anyway — and Sasuke snatches it up immediately. The box is basically boiling hot, but a thin coat of chakra protects him from that and lets him hold it much more securely than the cardboard handle on the top would.

Freedom.

“Thank you,” he says to Chinatsu. Then he glances at Ebisawa and, stiffer, thanks him too. He doesn’t glance at Nobira or Tatsumi, who weren’t helpful at all and who he hopes never to meet again.

Sasuke is never speaking to strangers again.

When Kakashi comes back — and he was gone longer than Shikaku had been hoping but not so long that he’d started to worry that Kakashi might have had to start looking outside the village — he’s got one kid under each arm. Yoshino mutters a quiet, appreciative, “Aww,” and Shikaku knows she’s thinking about how Kakashi treats the kids like puppies again.

Shikamaru looks ready to nap right then, right there. He’s probably only being kept awake by Naruto’s endless stream of questions.

“A murder? That’s so rude!” Naruto is saying when Kakashi plops both kids down in front of Shikaku and Yoshino.

“That’s just how it is. But I’m sure the crows don’t mind,” Kakashi says to Naruto, with an apathetic shrug. To Shikaku and Yoshino, he says, “I found them, they’re late because there was a conspiracy.”

Naruto laughs. Shikamaru snickers.

Shikaku is still trying to work out why Kakashi felt it was necessary to actually carry both boys here himself, since they find their feet perfectly well once he unceremoniously lets them go, and doesn’t really want to try and puzzle out how much Kakashi is joking versus how serious he is. It’s doubtful that asking outright at this point will get any clear answers. He’s clearly set things up so that the kids will interpret it as a joke, which is a clear sign not to bother asking in front of them.

“How are you both doing?” Yoshino asks, looking them both over anxiously. They’re both grubby from their mission, still, and wearing backpacks. The one Shikamaru has on looks to be Shikako’s.

“We’re fine,” Naruto says. “Is Shikako-chan okay? Is she really in surgery?”

Interesting.

“She’s out of surgery but she’s not ready for visitors yet,” Yoshino says. “But she should be fine, Tsunade-sama was confident that the surgery was a success.”

“What did she need surgery for?” Shikamaru asks. He has the same strained, anxious look Shikaku remembers Ikoma having whenever he had to visit Shikaku in the hospital.

It’s weird how the uncle the kids never met shows up in their expressions and body language all the time. Unsettling and reassuring to watch Shikako wrinkle her nose just like Ikoma.

“A minor obstruction in her chakra system,” Shikaku says. Shikamaru doesn’t need to know that it was heart surgery to remove something from Shikako’s eighth gate. Shikako will be fine.

“So she’ll be able to use chakra again now that baa-chan fixed her?”

“She’ll be fine.” Yoshino turns to the seat next to her and picks up the box of pastries from Hironobu’s that Aoba and Anko had brought. Sasuke is still out getting more coffee, but there are still a few items lingering in the box. “Here, breakfast. Sit down. Nothing exciting will happen immediately.”

The boys divvy up the remaining food like starving urchins. They must have run all night; Shikamaru’s stamina has clearly improved since graduation. Shikaku will have to mention it to Asuma.

When they’re mostly through eating, Shikaku pokes at the curious thing Naruto had implied earlier: “Naruto, who told you that Shikako was in surgery?”

If it had been Kakashi, Naruto would have just believed it instead of reaction to confirmation that it was true.

“This dumb old geezer,” Naruto says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “He was awful. Is there some way for baa-chan to force grandpas to retire or something? He should be playing go.”

Kakashi makes a set of hand signals, where no one else can see, indicating that he’ll report later. That just makes this even more interesting, but if Kakashi thinks they really should talk about it away from the kids (and maybe away from Anko and Aoba?) then Shikaku won’t press.

“You should ask her,” Shikaku says.

“I will.” Naruto looks so pleased by the idea that Shikaku almost feels sorry for whoever it is Naruto is going to try to have forcibly retired. Almost.

Naruto finishes his last few bites of pastry and then stands up to throw away the napkin he’d had his food perched on. On his way back to his seat, he pauses by Anko. She’d shuffled upstairs from the benches outside the surgery bay awhile ago, pushed two chairs together face-to-face, and collapsed in to them to resume her nap. Aoba still hasn’t returned, but Shikaku assumes that that’s what she’s waiting for.

“Uh,” Naruto says. He gestures at Anko. “What’s Creepy Snake Lady doing here? Is she okay?”

“She’s just tired,” Yoshino says, although none of them actually know that that’s the case.

There’d been that stretch of time years ago when Orochimaru had been building up Anko’s resistance to common poisons and venom. Then the period when Anko had been inoculating herself against uncommon poisons and venoms.

“Should I find baa-chan or Sakura-chan and make them get her a bed?”

“I’m fine, kid.” Anko has cracked an eye open, although she doesn’t really look annoyed with Naruto. It’s possible she never really fell asleep. “This is just what being an adult is like.”

Sometimes Shikaku worries about the future of the village.

“Can I have a bed?” Shikamaru asks. He’s slumped in his chair, boneless, his food half-finished on the table next to him. He’s always preferred naps over food, although in this case he looks like he really needs both.

“You can sleep anywhere,” Naruto says. “And you slept on the way back. Suck it up.”

Shikamaru grumbles something unintelligible. Probably something that would get him in trouble with Yoshino if he actually vocalized it.

Waking up is an awful, familiar feeling. Grit in her eyes and dry hospital air scraping her throat. At least this time she didn’t embarrass herself by collapsing in Tsunade’s office, she just got put under for the surgery, and Kakashi-sensei’s arrival in River had spared her much of the long, slow walk home so her entirely body doesn’t ache, but it’s not a pleasant feeling, even still.

There’s someone in the chair next to her bed. Not Kakashi. Not, technically, someone who should be here at all. Shikako rolls her head to the side to look at Aoba.

He’s looking back at her. His skin is tight with dehydration, his eyes exhausted like he hasn’t slept in days. She can see the way his eyelids move a little slow. She can see the start of bags under his eyes, the skin there thin and darkening in a way that might be mistake for shadow from the harsh light of the hospital but definitely isn’t. She can see all of this because his sunglasses are in his lap. She’d woken up and caught his attention in the middle of him rubbing his eyes.

Horrifically, Shikako feels the beginning of tears, creeping up on her. It starts in her chest. A terrible pressure, like being pinned down under an enemy. Like a hand around her throat.

They’d broken his glasses, is the thing she keeps thinking. They’d taken his glasses away. She’d never seen him without them before, and now this is the second time—

She pushes the feeling back. She throttles it, stuffs it down. Aoba is clearly fine.

Everything is fine.

“You remember,” Shikako says. Tsunade had told her before the surgery, after Kakashi left.

“I do.” Aoba scoots to the edge of his chair. It’s one of the regular visitor chairs the hospital uses instead of the nice one they dig out of storage for her mom. Her parents must not have been in yet.

She doesn’t try to sit up — why waste the energy? — but she does dredge up a fraction of a smile. “Good, it would have been really annoying to break in my senpai again.”

“You’re the only kohai for me,” Aoba says to her, like a promise. “The best one I could ask for.”

“Am I?” The words well up in place of the tears she’d done away with. “I couldn’t save you.”

She finds herself speaking without much inflection, emotion leached out of her voice. Of course she’s known she could lose a teammate at any time to injury or death. She’s even come close before — Ino against Kidomaru, or Shikamaru in Land of Moon — but this had been different. This had been so much worse. She’d seen the light go out in his eyes. His blood had been thick on her tongue, cloying in her throat, drowning her.

There’s been no time to process since it happened. No time to just shut down and think, or not think, and then move on. Having Aoba here the moment she wakes up is reassuring in a lot of ways, but Shikako still wishes it had waited. She could have done with a do-over of that conversation with Kakashi-sensei.

Aoba gives a shot, humorless laugh. “I was thinking the same thing. And I didn’t even really manage to fight them. But we didn’t die. We made it out. ”

She’d seen him die. She’s sure he did. If he doesn’t know... or if he’s ignoring it, if he doesn’t want to talk about it... she’ll never mention it. Not even in the full, post-surgery debrief she promised Tsunade.

“All I wanted was for you to get out,” Aoba says. His body language has changed. Softened. He leans forward. “You did more than that, you rescued both of us, and not being dead is pretty great, don’t get me wrong. But when you slipped your restraints I was hoping you’d leave me behind, Shikako. I wasn’t expecting you to save me, I just wanted you to live.”

“I couldn’t have left you behind. But I didn’t take you with me on purpose. I’m not even sure exactly how I did it.” Or at least, not sure about any part of it that she can actually tell him about.

“You should have left me behind,” Aoba says.

“I couldn’t—”

“Shikako,” Aoba interrupts. His voice is so painfully, terribly gentle.

Like he knows she doesn’t want to hear what he’s about to tell her. Shikako is pretty sure he’s right. She doesn’t want to have this conversation. Couldn’t they just pretend it never happened?

“Shikako, I wasn’t sent on that mission because Tsunade-sama thought you couldn’t investigate well enough on your own. I was sent on that mission to make sure you’d come back from it. We weren’t prepared for what we ran in to, I couldn’t help you escape, but you should have left without me.”

If a shiver crawls up her spine... that’s just a side effect from the chakra exhaustion. It’s not like this is news to her. It’s not like she didn’t know that this sort of thing must happen, that any good leader has to be able to prioritize their resources and that Tsunade is a good leader.

The Yamashiro aren’t a clan. Shikako’s not even sure Aoba has any family. Tsunade would never throw a life away casually, but as well-liked as Aoba is, there’s no political disaster lurking behind his death.

“And even if Tsunade hadn’t made that clear in my briefing,” Aoba continues, “I promised Kakashi months ago — months from now —  that I’d look out for you. That I’d teach you whatever I could.”

Right. Because Kakashi-sensei had been dying. Is dying, again. Had looked for people to entrust his student to and picked Aoba.

And really, out of the heat of the moment... Shikako is the only one who knows what’s coming. Pein. Madara. She probably won’t make as much of a difference as she wants in the actual fights, but in the lead up? The planning and preparation? There’s so much that need to be done and Shikako is the only one who knows it. Aoba is important to her, but not more important than that.

It hadn’t been a necessary choice this time. Shikako would work hard to always have and take a third option. But it might come up again.

“Okay,” Shikako says. “Okay. But rule one is no dying, okay?”

“Deal,” Aoba says. He leans back a little, the tense moment over, relaxes into the chair again. After a moment, Aoba adds, “Now I have eleven extra months to see if we can do an Intel mission that sticks to procedure,” with good humor in his voice.

Serious talk time is over, thank god.

“We’ve used a procedure,” Shikako says. “The ‘kill it with fire’ procedure. It worked great.”

“I’m going to make you reread the handbook,” Aoba threatens. Not that there’s a handbook.

Serious talk time will probably return soon enough for the after-surgery debrief that Tsunade promised her, but that’s later. Teasing her senpai is now. Being glad they’re both alive is now.

“I’ll rewrite the handbook,” Shikako threatens right back. “I’ll make the storage scroll debacle look like a minor restructuring.”