2

1

“So I just have to check these guys out?” the informer asked, holding the note Sai had given him. His shaved head and eyebrows made it hard to tell exactly how old he was. In fact, Sai had no idea how old the other man was.

They were in the woods just outside of the village. The sunlight filtering through the trees dappled the ground around them.

“Exactly.” Sai nodded.

“The Kiri rogue ninja Tenzen, Genba the Soul Remover, Baraki, leader of the criminal association known as The Deceased—these are all pretty big game. They’re basically impossible to find,” the informer noted. His voice didn’t carry far, perhaps covered up by the sound of water flowing in the nearby stream.

“Well, they’re who I want you to find. See if they’re up to anything. I want any scrap of information you dig up, no matter how trivial.”

“Understood.”

“You memorized their names?”

The informer nodded. Sai wove a simple sign with one hand, and the characters on the note the informer held disappeared, evaporating into thin air. They had been written in Sai’s own special ink.

“But still, why these guys?”

“You don’t need to know that.”

“Has this got anything to do with the advisor Master Homura being attacked?”

Sai stared at the informer’s face and smiled thinly. “Huh, so you know about that.”

“It’s my bread and butter. So you suspect one of these guys for it?”

“I’m pretty sure I said you don’t need to know.” Sai sharpened his gaze for a moment.

“Whoops, excuse me.” The informer looked startled. “I’ll keep that in mind. Anyway, these people being who they are, it might take a while to hunt them down,” he noted before leaving.

Sai also left the forest and set out along the road back to the village.

He had set his pet informer to work on the case, but he had a feeling the man would come back empty-handed. The informer might bring him some dirt on the three big-shot criminals, but whatever information he brought, it wasn’t very likely that it would be connected with the recent attacks. But he set the man in motion just in case.

A recuperating daimyo and an observing advisor had been assaulted. Kakashi said that he didn’t think it was simple thuggery, and Sai was inclined to agree.

The day Kakashi gave the order for this secret investigation, Sai had headed for the Anbu reference room and checked into both incidents.

The daimyo was under the powerful protection of the Anbu, both while he was traveling in the palanquin and after he arrived at the onsen. A kunai had shot in through some tiny opening in that guard and nearly hit the daimyo in the onsen. He couldn’t ignore the significance of this lone kunai. If it had been attached to an explosive tag, the damage could have been enormous.

When he was assaulted, the advisor Homura also had two shinobi standing watch—although they were not Anbu—as he made his observations. His attackers were three masked men. One of them sliced the advisor with a ninja sword, giving him a shallow wound on his arm. The trio had quickly fled, and the guards had given chase but failed to catch them or learn who they were. The guards said the fleeing villains had been cloaked in light purple chakra.

Given that they evaded the security that went in pursuit of them, and managed to injure an old veteran like Homura—however slightly—these men were strong ninja. The aim and scope of the enemy was unclear, but Sai was glad to see that in terms of ninja skill at least he was up against a worthwhile enemy.

And if powerful ninja were dirtying their hands with criminal activity, then his eyes naturally turned to the most wanted, most malicious criminals of the Bingo Book. Which was why Sai decided to get in touch with the informer and have him hunt down the top-level people in it. Naturally, he couldn’t have the informer track down every single one of those criminals, so he excluded the ones he could be sure had nothing to do with the attacks.

But the Anbu were probably already investigating at this level at least. Given that Kakashi had given him a secret order to start a separate investigation, Sai was sure that Kakashi had a hunch that someone much more mysterious was behind the incidents.

Sai considered his next move.

He could go to the onsen and the maneuvering ground where the attacks had taken place, or he could go through the Bingo Book again. Suddenly, he felt a presence behind him and stopped in his tracks.

He was a distance from the forest, already in a block of town, but it wasn’t a busy part of the village. The concrete wall behind the factory ran alongside the road. There was no one else on the road. The enemy may have concealed their auras and waited until he had come this far before revealing themselves.

The fight came quickly enough.

A shuriken flew at him from behind. He knocked it to one side and whirled around to see how many people he was up against.

Two people, twenty meters or so away, in black masks. Probably the masked thugs—the ones who had attacked the advisor. He didn’t know if there were others still concealing themselves.

Then came the follow-up attack.

One threw a kunai. The other one moved at the same time, a kunai held in an underhand grip. Clearly, he planned to attack Sai when his guard was down after dodging the flying kunai. Their coordination was impeccable.

Sai dodged the kunai and leapt backward to avoid the attack of the other man pressing in on him. As he flew, he pulled out his scroll and brush.

Art of Cartoon Beast Mimicry!

The two tigers outlined in his black ink drew life and charged toward his enemies.

That’s probably the end of that, he thought, but his hope was betrayed.

A kunai pierced the forehead of one ferocious attacking tiger, turning it into a spray of black ink, while the target of the other tiger deftly evaded the beast’s jaws, leapt onto its back, plunged a kunai into its throat and returned it to ink.

Sai gasped. They were stronger than he thought.

Having defeated his tigers, the enemies came at him again without dropping into any kind of defensive posture. One of them launched kunai and shuriken, and when Sai dodged these, the other jumped at him.

It was a simple combination play, but because the attack was so on point, Sai couldn’t even find the thread of a counterattack.

He threw a smoke bomb at the ground. Smoke billowed out accompanied by an explosive pop. He hurriedly stepped out of the smoke and started drawing a new picture on his scroll.

As the smoke gradually cleared away, the enemy readied their kunai and braced themselves for his attack.

The first tigers Sai had drawn rushed toward the enemy. These tigers were smaller than the other two. But he had increased their number to six.

Some ran with heads low, some leapt up into the air; the unpredictable movement confused his enemies.

Now that there were more tigers, his opponents seemed to lose the initiative.

All right! Kunai in hand, Sai flew into the maelstrom of battle. First, this guy…

He went after the closer man with his kunai.

But in the next instant, his enemy’s chakra doubled, swelling up like a sudden flame to envelop his entire body like a robe. The explosion of chakra turned two tigers to ink with the sheer force of the change.

Sai’s eyes flew open.

These two weren’t just fairly decent ninja. Given the amount of chakra on display, they could easily be jonin class. But what surprised him more than the sudden burst of chakra were the chakra robes blanketing their bodies.

Is that…a tail?

The light purple chakra cloak had grown a tail about thirty centimeters long.

But that was as much observing as he got to do.

Slipping through the attack of the tigers, one of the ninja closed the distance between him and Sai. Before Sai even had the chance to blink, he was tangled up in some close-range martial arts fighting. He exchanged punches and kicks and kunai with his enemy.

The other man abruptly bent over and swept his legs out. On the receiving end of the sweeping kick, Sai tumbled to the ground.

The enemy was on top of him immediately, plunging his kunai downward. Unable to dodge, Sai watched the tip pierce his chest. Instantly, his body turned back into ink.

Having used his ink self as a pawn, the real Sai appeared and threw himself into a counterattack. He danced through the air to land a solid kick on the back of an enemy still bewildered by the abrupt disappearance of his clone.

A perfect hit. His enemy went flying, tumbling to the ground several meters away. He then pulled himself to his feet, but didn’t move to counterattack. Instead, he leapt backward and started to run away. The chakra increase gave him swift feet.

Go after him, or… Sai’s eyes flew to his other opponent.

Apparently, being left alone to take on four tigers was no easy ride. His enemy appeared to have defeated two of the inked beasts, but the remaining two had him pinned to the ground. The chakra robe had disappeared.

Sai gave up on the fleeing man and walked over to the man pinned to the ground.

Belly to the earth, the man turned his face to the side and let out a pained groan. Beneath the mask, Sai could see eyes glaring at him. But those eyes also contained a hint of fear.

“Who are you?” Sai asked.

The man didn’t answer.

“If you answer honestly, I’ll take that into consideration when deciding what to do with you after the inquiry,” he said, but that was just bait. Sai had no authority alone to decide what to do with the man.

“R-really…?” the man said, hoarsely. Which was followed immediately by a strange cry of “Oh!” and his eyes flying open.

The man’s entire body was quickly racked with convulsions, so strong as to almost break free of the tigers pressing him down.

“What’s wrong?!” Sai returned the tigers to ink and crouched down beside the man.

His breathing was shallow and growing distant. He was trying to say something, but his voice didn’t quite become a voice; it was simply a creaking sound in his throat.

“Hey!” He reached out to touch the man and understood the danger. On the nape of the man’s neck, a pattern like Sanskrit characters popped up.

Crap, this guy’s—

Sai leapt backward as if shoved by an invisible giant as the man’s body exploded, blood and flesh and bone scattering.

Sai quietly let out his breath in the place where he landed.

It wasn’t at all unusual for a ninja who had fallen at the hand of an enemy to end their own life to avoid having their information stolen by the enemy through torture or visual jutsu. There were also some who feared dissection after death and chose to die in an explosion instead.

Of course, Sai thought resignedly. Doesn’t look like this is going to be an easy case.

2

When they arrived at Sunagakure, Sasuke was there—at the entrance to the village, in a turban and a coat, waiting for her.

Coincidences do happen, though.

Or maybe it wasn’t a coincidence, but the power of Sakura’s feelings bringing about an inevitable reunion.

“Sasuke!”

Sakura raced over to him. For a moment, she was concerned that Ino wasn’t there, but her joy at seeing him again was greater and she quickly forgot all about it.

“How’ve you been?” he asked.

“Good! You? How’s your arm?”

“Nothing to worry about. I’m getting used to it. It’s working pretty well.” Sasuke moved the prosthetic arm made from Hashirama’s cells for her.

“Make sure to say something right away if anything feels weird, okay? I’ll take a look at it.”

“Yeah, thanks,” he said, and patted her on the head. The gesture alone made her so happy, she very nearly stopped breathing. She wondered again where Ino was. After all, Sasuke was finally here with them.

“Looks like you’re really working hard, huh, Sakura? Doing all this stuff to take care of kids’ minds.”

“I’m surprised you know about that, Sasuke.”

“Yeah, well, we’re from the same class, after all. I just wondered what you were up to while I was gone from the village. Actually.” He paused for a moment. “I wasn’t wondering just because we’re from the same class. I had another reason.”

“What?”

He looked at her. Their eyes met; he held her gaze.

“Sakura,” Sasuke said.

She was surprisingly calm.

I’m not a child anymore. I don’t get so worked up anymore. I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long…

“Sakura.”

“Sasuke…”

She felt a slight breeze on her cheeks. Strange. There was no wind. If the wind was blowing, then the sand around them would be moving, but it was not. And yet Sakura felt a breeze.

She soon understood the cause of this strange sensation. Sakura’s mind was attempting to pull itself back to reality from a dream.

Standing face-to-face with Sasuke at the entrance to Sunagakure was a dream; the real Sakura was napping in the woods, not yet arrived in the sandy village. And the wind was caressing her cheeks while she slept.

On the border between dream and reality, Sakura panicked.

I don’t want to wake up. I want to stay with Sasuke. I want to hear what he’s going to say next. Sasuke’s—

Sakura opened her eyes.

It was night. She was in the woods. Thanks to the light of the moon, it wasn’t totally dark. Ino was napping nearby. Today was the third day since they had left Konohagakure. It was only a little farther to Sunagakure once they made it through this forest, and since the sun was setting they had decided not to push themselves.

When they entered the woods in the evening, they made a simple meal of their rations, and quickly decided to rest for a while. If they had been in a war zone they would have taken turns napping as a precaution, but now they only set barrier-type tags around them to detect any enemies. Fortunately, the tags had not reacted even once during their journey.

Inside her head, the echoes of her dream lingered.

The fact that Sasuke had shown up in her dream made her happy and sad all at once. The sadness was the greater part, the way she felt his absence all the more keenly when she woke up.

The sigh slipped out naturally.

A dream like that, she thought. I guess I am panicking a little, maybe.

While they traveled, Ino had told her about Shikamaru and Temari. And about Choji and Karui. And about how Ino herself liked Sai now.

All these different loves were sprouting and growing around her.

Sakura knew it was pointless to think about it happening sooner or later for whoever. Finding love wasn’t a winner-takes-all competition.

But still, in her heart, she felt a frustration that resembled panic.

I hope it’s a dream that comes true, Sakura thought, suddenly. The dream I just had comes true, and Sasuke is there when we arrive in Sunagakure tomorrow or something.

“Or not,” she murmured out loud, and laughed softly.

Her sigh was carried off by the wind.

∞

The next day, Sakura and Ino arrived at Sunagakure right on schedule.

Coming to meet them were the senior members of the Sunagakure medical team.

“You must be tired,” an older man with a wonderful beard said. “After you’ve rested a bit, we’d love to hear what you have to say, if you don’t mind.”

“That should be fine. We’re looking forward to it,” Sakura replied, and the man with the beard led them to the village hospital.

They were shown to a large multipurpose room. After they had relaxed for a short time, the meeting attendees, apparently medical personnel, started trickling in.

Sakura spoke first to the twenty or so people gathered there about the children’s therapy center in Konohagakure, the problem points in setting it up, and the current results.

No matter how many times she did it, she could never quite get used to speaking in front of a large group, but thanks to Ino stepping in from time to time to offer additional information, the talk went very smoothly.

When she was finished, it was time for the group to exchange opinions and ideas. Because of differences in village cultures and administrative systems, Sunagakure couldn’t simply adopt Konoha’s methods as they were, but the senior-level ninja remarked that if they made some adjustments before introducing the system, they would likely see significant results in Suna as well.

The entire meeting, including the exchange of opinions, was over in about two hours.

Once the attendees left, the bearded man who had shown them to the room in the first place came over.

“I apologize for asking this of you when I know you must be tired, but could I ask you to take the trouble of visiting the Lord Kazekage? He says he wishes to speak with you. Lady Temari is also with him.”

“Certainly, we’d be delighted.”

“After all, to come all the way to Suna and not see those two!” Ino said, and laughed.

“Well then, please come this way.” The bearded man stood up and began walking. His expression was hard somehow, which made Sakura curious.

They left the hospital and headed toward the center of the village until they came across a spherical building, the character for “wind” inscribed on one wall.

Sakura and Ino were shown inside. In the center of the large room was a round table, before which Gaara sat. Temari stood beside him.

“I’ve brought the Konoha ninja,” the bearded man said, and at Gaara’s nod, he bowed and left the room.

“Sakura, Ino, thank you for this,” Gaara said.

“Gaara, Temari, how have you been?” Sakura asked.

“Very well.” Gaara nodded.

Temari simply replied, “Good.”

Both of them seemed unhappy. Gaara was basically always wearing his poker face, but his countenance that day had a faint hint of severity to it.

“Um…has something happened?” Ino asked.

After exchanging a glance with Temari, Gaara turned back to Ino and Sakura.

“Uchiha Sasuke was in the village.”

3

Sakura’s eyes flew open. “Really?!”

What? That dream. It can’t actually be coming true?

For a moment, a smile very nearly floated up onto her lips, but from Gaara’s tone and expression, she assumed that this situation was not all smooth sailing and kept her grin in check.

“Sasuke’s here?”

“Why?”

Sakura and Ino gave voice to their questions simultaneously.

Gaara clasped his hands together on top of the round table and let out a deep breath.

“I’m not quite sure where to start. I suppose it would be best to simply tell you what happened as it happened,” he said. “Two days ago, Uchiha Sasuke contacted terrorists hiding themselves in our village.”

“What?!” Ino shouted, her voice wild. “Hold on a minute. Why would Sasuke talk to terrorists—”

“Ino.” It was Temari who interrupted her. “Gaara will talk first. Save your questions for after.”

“Sorry.”

Gaara nodded and continued. “Two days ago, members of the Anbu and I surrounded the terrorist base. Normally, the leader of the village would not directly accompany such missions, but the situation being what it is…”

The terrorists were originally ninja from Sunagakure, but they opposed Gaara’s appointment as Kazekage and left the village to form an antigovernment group. For a long time, Gaara hadn’t been able to pin down their location, but a month or so earlier one of the Anbu had discovered their base, and the group had been placed under Anbu monitoring.

The group had made a move about a week earlier.

A lone man visited their base to talk with the terrorist leader. The member of the Anbu on monitoring duty had reported that the man visiting the base soon exited the tent and disappeared.

The meeting had been so short that the Anbu hadn’t been able to eavesdrop on their conversation. But a concerning report from one of the Anbu was brought to Gaara.

“The man who appeared at the base very strongly resembled Uchiha Sasuke of Konoha.”

Sasuke quietly drew a sharp breath. But her questions would have to wait.

“I thought that it was a mistake, an accidental resemblance,” Gaara remarked. “But I was reluctant to simply dismiss the matter so easily. So I decided to join the Anbu the next day on their monitoring mission.”

Gaara would have been able to peek inside the tent with his sand eye, and if he manipulated the sand, it was an easy matter to plant a listening device.

A few days after he joined the monitoring team, Uchiha Sasuke appeared at the terrorist base. Once he was there, he began negotiating with the terrorist leader.

“Sasuke pushed at the leader and demanded that they become his subordinates.”

“Subordinates?” Ino furrowed her brow.

Gaara nodded. “Sasuke came to them with the idea that they become his subordinates and help him destroy Konoha. If they did, he would help them with their own terrorist attacks.”

“But that’s—!” Sakura cried out reflexively.

Gaara ignored her. “The terrorist rejected Sasuke’s demands. So the negotiations broke down. But rather than leaving then and there, Sasuke killed the terrorist leader. He said he couldn’t let him live now that he knew Sasuke’s plan to destroy Konoha.”

Witnessing this with his sand eye, Gaara had given the order for the Anbu to charge in. A melee soon broke out between terrorists and Anbu, and in the midst of the chaos, Sasuke escaped. Gaara took off in pursuit, but at some point Sasuke hid his chakra, and Gaara lost him.

“This happened two days ago.”

Sakura closed her eyes. But her mouth didn’t open. Silence descended on the room.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Ino said, finally, half-laughing. “You think we’d believe a story like that?” The situation was simply too far from reality.

Sakura could empathize with how she felt.

A family’s tragedy. A hatred that made him want to leave the village. Sasuke overcame this; he was their friend, he fought with them in the Great Ninja War. Why would Sasuke now need to join up with terrorists and plot revenge on Konoha? She would never have expected this of him.

“Hey, Gaara, you’re completely sure that it was Sasuke?” Sakura asked.

“Right,” Ino said. “I mean, like, with a transformation technique or something, someone could have turned into Sasuke…”

“I’d like to believe that myself. But it’s hard to imagine that’s the case.” Gaara shook his head lightly. “Even if someone were able to use a transformation technique to resemble him, they wouldn’t be able to make their chakra the same color and type. The Sasuke I saw at the base two days ago had the exact same chakra as the Sasuke I know so well.”

“I’m sure I heard about a ninja in the Konoha Anbu who can mimic chakra. Any connection there?” Temari said.

Sakura had also heard about the existence of such a ninja. But that ninja probably had nothing to do with this.

“I don’t think so,” Sakura replied. “Sasuke has no point of contact with that ninja, and I don’t know why he would do such a thing in the first place.”

“In that case, there’s a very good possibility that the Sasuke who Gaara saw is the real Sasuke.”

“Temari! How can you say—”

“I’m just stating a fact,” Temari said, turning sharp eyes on Ino.

“White Zets—” Sakura started to say, and quickly dismissed it. “No, of course not.”

“I thought that for a minute too,” Gaara said. “It also had the ability to mimic chakra. But given that Otsutsuki Kaguya has been destroyed, I can’t imagine it survived.”

“So then…what about the possibility of Impersonation Jutsu?” Sakura asked. She had read in the Archive Library that the leader of Akatsuki, Pain, had used this jutsu, a technique to split a person’s chakra with a vessel, which the person then controlled as if it were their own body.

“True, that jutsu could explain why his face and his chakra were the same. But Pain’s gone. And if there were someone else who could use that technique, that still leaves the problems of why Sasuke would be in touch with such a person and why he would let that person make a copy of him.”

Gaara was right. Even if the Sasuke he had seen was a copy instead of the real Sasuke, that didn’t clear Sasuke from suspicion.

“Can you get in touch with him?” Gaara asked. “I heard he left on a journey.”

Sakura shook her head helplessly. “There are these contact spots all over where we can leave a message, but…”

“But we don’t know when he would get to them,” Ino picked up where Sakura left off.

“Suna has no intention of leaking this matter to the outside. We plan to take care of it internally. The only people who know about it are the members of the Anbu assigned to this mission, along with Temari and a few senior ninja, and me. The terrorists we arrested at the base are also currently imprisoned, so no information will get out of the village.”

“There’s no way Uchiha Sasuke would try and join up with terrorists. Gaara and I think so too,” Temari said. “To begin with, I have a hard time believing that Sasuke would be so sloppy as to abruptly demand anyone be his subordinate in a negotiation.”

Sakura nodded.

“Sakura, Ino. I think you should hurry back home and ask Kakashi for his judgment,” Gaara said. “Although I do really wish you could have a bit more of a leisurely stay, since you’ve come all the way to Suna.”

Naturally, Sakura intended to return to the village. Coming to Sunagakure, she had had a lot of things she wanted to do. She wanted to learn more about the medical system in the village, and there was a specialist she wanted to talk with about poison research.

But right now, returning to Konoha was their priority.

“I’ll send a messenger falcon to Kakashi outlining the situation. I’d go myself and explain the situation, but given my position as head of the village, I can’t exactly leave so easily.”

“I understand.”

We took four days to come, but we’ll make it home in three, Sakura told herself.