Clean Through

AN: Just in time for the holidays! Er, okay, so it's a few hours late. >_< This chapter didn't turn out how I planned it would. Or rather most things I planned got bumped back to next chapter. Sorry for the long wait! School has been really busy and stressful lately, but I should have plenty of time for updating over Christmas break.

Hahahaha, evil cliffhanger of angsty doom... THERE WILL BE FLUFF NEXT CHAPTER! I promise. ^_^

Naruto cups his swollen cheek with one hand as he stands before the Hokage's desk, waiting for the final member of their team to arrive. He doesn't know why Tsuande's summoned him, but he can make a pretty good guess. It's possible that she's going to reprimand them for the previous night (it wouldn't be the first time she's told him to stop bothering Sakura at work) but if he has to, he'll stand up for Sakura and try to take the blame.

But more likely, she's got a job for them to do.

“Any news?” he asks because he's anxious for action and too impatient to wait any longer on Kakashi.

As usual, Tsunade ignores his outburst. Instead she sighs, “Is it too much to ask for you boys to get along?”

She sounds tired and not at all like her normal, fiery self.

He doesn't have to glance at Sai to know his face is just as tender and bruised. “Hmph.” The bastard deserved it, too. “Don't blame me, Tsunade-baa-chan.”

It's a childish response, but he doesn't care. He's pissed and scared and doesn't know how else to hide it.

Tsunade lifts a small sake bottle to her lips, looking less than amused. “Is that so?”

Truthfully, Sai had taken a far worse beating than he had. He'd seen the blood Sai coughed up when Sakura landed a blow to his gut. But really he'd brought the punishment on himself. The diversion had actually worked until Sai had gone and opened his big mouth to correct Sakura's assumption.

“I believe Naruto was referring to your anger, dog-face.”

As soon as Sakura found out that he'd told her parents that she and Naruto were sleeping together, it had literally been like a volcano erupted in his home. A volcano with molten fists.

It might be pushing it to ask Sakura to heal him later; she had refused to speak to him on the walk over, but the throbbing in his face is distracting and he thinks he feels a cracked tooth in the back.

If she keeps giving him the silent treatment he's not sure what he'll do.

Tsunade looks questioningly to Sai but when he only winces an attempt of his fake smile, she turns her gaze to Sakura instead. Naruto glances to Sakura, too, not sure what to say or how long she'll be mad at him, but she only averts her eyes, refusing to acknowledge his presence. Was she considering breaking it off already? Suddenly the thumping of his chest rivals the throbbing of his face for painfulness. God, he wasn't even sure they were really together.

Tsunade purses her lips, and he has a good idea of what she's about to say. Please, don't bring it up, baa-chan. Not now.

“Yo.”

Kakashi tips a wave from his perch in the window, and Naruto has never felt so relieved to see his jounin teacher.

“You're late!” Tsunade snaps in response, arms crossed over her large bosom.

Kakashi slips into the room with agility and ease. His visible eye crinkles—his own version of a fake smile—as he nods apologetically. “Well, you see, about an hour ago I—”

“Save it, Hatake.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Kakashi falls into line before the desk, instantly serious, and Tsunade finally begins, though she first shoots Naruto a glare to tell him she's not done with their conversation.

“I'm sure you know why I've all called you here.” She sets down the sake bottle with an audible clink as she continues, “Team Kakashi, I'm sending you on an A-ranked mission to our border with Grass Country. You'll meet up with Team Eight and go from there. They should have gathered enough intelligence to track any enemies involved in the recent attack. It's been indicated that the attack was from a member of Akatsuki capable of casting high level genjutsu.”

“Itachi.”

Naruto says the name with such bitterness that Sakura actually looks to him in concern. It's unusual for her blond teammate to give into darker feelings of loathing or ill-intent, but she can hardly blame him, considering. The thought that there are men out there who are waiting for the opportunity to kill Naruto—it's enough to make her tremble with anger (and fear) as well. If he ever lays a hand on her precious teammate she'll make sure he fully comes to regret it before he dies. And then there's the immense pain he's caused Sasuke over the years. There aren't many men she'd willingly torture (and heal and torture again), but he is certainly one of them.

“Sasuke's after him too, right? So if we find him first. . .”

Hearing Naruto talk about bringing Sasuke back so often makes her a little sad—she knows now that he's suffered from the loss so much more than she has—but it also gives her hope. If anyone can save their former teammate it's Naruto.

Tsunade looks down at her desk. She rubs a finger around the rim of the sake bottle, voice softer when she answers, “Naruto. . . You should know, there are recent reports that Sasuke's defeated Orochimaru, and that he's formed his own four-man cell.”

Sakura's stomach drops leaving her with a cold, tight feeling in her gut, but Naruto's whole face lights up at the news. “Really? That's great! Then he's coming back finally. To Konoha.”

The medical hokage doesn't answer, but her silence is heavy with the truth. Even still it takes a moment for the realization to set in.

“Naruto. . .” Sakura can almost hear his heart breaking in the quiet of the room.

He lowers his eyes, mouth winced to keep from crying as he realizes aloud, “He's not coming back.”

“Naruto.” Sakura steps toward him, arm outstretched to touch his shoulder, but he pays no attention to her as he continues, voice shaking, “He's not coming back until he kills Itachi, is he?”

She wants to say, He's never coming back, but the knot in her chest is too hard and painful to force to words around. She hates him. She hates him for leaving her, and she hates him for leaving Naruto more. And she misses him. But if Naruto gets himself killed trying to take down Itachi for Sasuke's sake, she might not be able to go on.

“Please, Naruto.” No more, let's give up. She takes his hand, and he finally looks at her. His eyes look intensely blue and reflect a range of emotions.

“I swear to you, Sakura-chan. I'll kill Itachi and then I'll bring Sasuke back.”

He forces a wild grin, confident and determined like he could take the whole world on and win, and in that moment she wants to believe him. But he's gripping her hand so tight it hurts.

Before she can answer, Kakashi clears his throat.

“As wonderful of an ambition that is,” he drawls, “It might be more fruitful to capture him instead.”
It's too much—too much for her in one day. Naruto and Sai and her parents and Naruto and Sasuke and Itachi. And Naruto. In the course of only a few hours, she's felt blissful and enraged, betrayed and worried and hurt and afraid. . . She just couldn't bear to feel anymore, even if she knew it was her teammate who was asking her to.

After the meeting she'd left immediately under the guise of needing to pack for the mission. Naruto had tried to follow her out of the office, (Should she have comforted him? What if he'd wanted to talk about the situation with her parents?) but Tsunade had barked at him to stay, and she'd thankfully taken the opportunity to slip away. Didn't he understand? She didn't have any answers to offer him, but the look on his face when she broke his hold on her hand was enough to make her heart break.

“I heard you've got a mission first thing in the morning, Forehead girl. Thought I'd stop by and see if you wanted some lunch.”

Sakura glances up from the medical text and sighs. In the last two hours she hasn't even made it half-way down the page. It's truly a rough day when Haruno Sakura can't find the drive to study. She tilts her head to one side, massaging the back of her neck with one hand as she considers Ino's offer. “How'd you know I'd be in the neurology archives?”

Ino hums noncommittally and closes the large book with one hand. The resulting sound shatters the atmosphere in the room, irrefutable—the loud smack of finality. “Maybe because it's the only place Naruto never thinks to look when he's searching for you?”

“That's not funny, Ino-Pig.” She can feel herself scowling at having been so easily read. Was their relationship really that transparent to everyone?

“You keep frowning so much and you'll get a wrinkle between your brows.”

Ino's impervious attitude is (irritatingly) refreshing in the way that it always manages to cheer her up, regardless of everything, regardless of the ups and down of their past—it's one of the few constants in her life, so she smiles weakly as she relents, “Barbecue or Dumplings?”

But of course, she already knows the answer.

Thankfully, the other members of Ino's team are tactfully missing during the lunch. Ino, on the other hand, has always chosen the more abrasive route.

“You shouldn't avoid him.”

Sakura nearly chokes on a half-chewed piece of meat at the opinionated accusation. She grabs for her water, draining the glass completely in her desperation to swallow the lump down.

When she can speak again, she complains, “I didn't ask for your advice, Piglet.”

Ino shrugs an I-don't-give-a-damn, and it's a somehow soft and feminine gesture. “I'm right on this.”

“You don't even know—”

“He deserves better than that, Sakura.” He's invested too much into you to be played around with that way. Her blue eyes darken with the thought, her face a clear indication of what she won't say, but it's not meant out of unkindness or spite.

It's sobering to hear her friend speak so seriously; it makes the situation seem wrong, so very wrong. Ino's expressions are bitchy-sneers or the pretty fluttering of eyelids, meant for gossip and rumors and back-handed compliments or beauty advice in the form of snide remarks—not concern for others, and most especially not concern for Naruto.

As unlikely as it seems, she has to check: “Did Sai talk to you about this morning?”

Ino stops pushing the barely-eaten rice around in her bowl, lowers her chopsticks to the table with a slow, deliberate gesture. “You're not getting this through your thick forehead, are you?”

Of course I get it, I'm the smarter of the two, she wants to snap, but she can't bring herself to say anything.

After a solid minute of silence, Ino gives for once and redirects the conversation in an attempt to salvage her friend's emotional state. “Is it true your team is aiming to take down Uchiha Itachi?” she asks, quietly.

Well, so maybe it's not the best topic she could have chosen, but it's too juicy of information to pass over.

“Yeah.” Sakura continues to stare at the wooden table top, rubbing circles over the sweat rings ingrained by her cup.

More minutes pass between them.

Ino sighs, seemingly coming to a contentment. “I've decided. When you bring Sasuke-kun back, I'll give him to you.” If anyone can do it, it's you.

Sakura's green eyes widen.

“Don't think that means I've lost,” Ino snaps, feeling embarrassed over her mangled attempt at reaching out to her friend. “I've just found someone more worthwhile to set my sights on.”

When Sakura rises to leave, Ino is quick to add, “You should, too.”

“Yeah. . .” Sakura hunches into herself subconsciously, back turned to the table. She hovers, uncertainly, stalled for the barest of moments before she jerks toward the door.

“Sakura.”

“Yeah?”

“What are you going to do?”

When Sakura finally looks back, her jaw is set in a hard line. Her lips twist in a grim smile. “Isn't it obvious?” she says, loud enough for the whole diner to hear, so loud that she hopes the strength of her voice will have drowned out the fear. “I'll protect him, no matter the cost.”

It's what she's been training for all these years. Maybe she didn't realize it at first, she'd simply been terrified of being left behind (both physically and in skill level by both her boys), but somewhere along the line her focus shifted slightly, imperceptibly, to where the sweating and the pain and the long nights were no longer hers but for the sake of someone else. Someone with bright blue eyes and an unrelenting smile who was more easily wounded than he liked to admit. Someone who needed her more than she needed him.
Sakura almost wishes she'd been lying about needing to pack for the mission. If the majority of her clothing and supplies weren't located within her parent's house she could potentially have avoided them forever.

At least the fight hadn't been until after dinner.

She'd been surprised to find herself standing up for her potential feelings for Naruto nearing the end of the screaming match. Her mother had broken all three dinner plates against the wall before the fight moved out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Her father had threatened to “speak with the Hokage on the matter,” among other things.

It was unnerving, defending emotions she barely understood herself. But she knew it: Ino was right, so she told them, “Naruto deserves better than that” which made no sense at all in the context of the conversation and only served to further incense her parents. But she'd felt a bit triumphant tossing the remark at them like a worn kunai just before disappearing out her bedroom window, shoulder pack slung single-handedly across her back.

They couldn't keep her in the house, and if they wanted to kick her out, she'd deal with it later. First, she had a mission (and a teammate) to attend to.

As she leans over the bridge's red, splintered railing to peer into the darkness of the stream below, she thinks for the first time that night that she has done a very foolish thing. She lets the backpack drop to her side and sighs heavily, chin resting on top of her hands. Was she really that stubborn—to follow through with her threat to move out?

She loved her parents and didn't want to foster a bad relationship. Why couldn't they understand the importance of certain aspects of her life?

She can hear the soft footfall of sandals scrapping the slats of the bridge and doesn't have to turn to know who it is. The pace is slow, reluctant and stops several feet away.

When he doesn't join her by her side, she turns green eyes in his direction, questioning.

“Ah, Sakura-chan. I checked at the hospital, uh, I thought I might walk you home.” He fidgets, looking uncomfortable in his skin. His pain seems nearly tangible where it hangs about him in the air.

She feels burdened and sad, realizing that he must be terrified she'll let him go so easily. Had he taken her answer seriously when she relented to being 'his' the previous night? Had she taken her answer seriously?

Have you been looking for me all day?

She doesn't say it, doesn't even want to think it for the guilt and even worse—happiness it brings (She's a horrible person, really. How can she feel pleased to know that Naruto cares about her 'that much' when he's here before her in such obvious pain?), instead sauntering forward in silence till she's standing at his side, facing the opposite direction. After all, the answer's already written on his face.

He doesn't speak either, just continues staring straight ahead into the distance, slightly wide-eyed and back so tense she thinks he'll snap when she finally passes him by.