When Sakura closed the office door behind them, Konan saw the trembling fingers in her right hand. The hand—it was a large hand, larger than the little chubby ones that used to cling to her side—had small scars that crossed over her knuckles and calloused skin that poked into sight from the skin under her joints. They were working hands, swordswoman hands, wrought from endless hours of fighting and training and killing.

The trembling only continued for a moment longer before they flexed and curled into a tight fist.

Konan's eyes softened. "Sakura."

The teen's shoulders stiffened as she turned her head. "Yes, ma'am?"

"Let me look at you."

Little Sakura would have smiled and spun sharply on her heel with the best approximation of a soldier as she could mimic. But this older Sakura didn't know what to do with herself, her spine going rigid as she slowly turned until they were face to face, though not quite eye to eye. Up so close and away from Nagato's intimidating air, Konan could clearly see the dark bags beneath those big green eyes. The swipes of blue ink along her left cheekbone were almost harsh against the tan cold of her skin, and the pink scars that peeked up the right side of her jawline were ragged, rippling things that stretched down her neck and disappeared under her shirt.

She was sure Kisame had a shirt the same color.

Konan reached up to cup one of Sakura's cheeks, her thumb brushing away a few pink strands of hair.

Sakura flinched, her glacial gaze staring straight ahead. Never meeting amber eyes. Never trailing to the woman's face. Instead, they were frozen and unfocused and chilling and defiant.

Mera bichara bacha.

"You look tired," God's Angel murmured.

"Main theek hoon," the girl replied almost instantly. The Amek dialect was rough on her tongue from the years it wasn't used, the eight years it hadn't needed to be used, and her mouth clicked shut quickly after. Her jaw tensed. "Leader-sama said you were handling everything. What do I need to know?"

Konan drew her hand back and Sakura finally met her eyes.

You look so, so tired.

Konan started her walk down the hall. "Come."

Sakura followed. Immediately, she matched the pace but lagged half a step behind the woman who, by all intents and purposes, had been the other person besides her father to raise her. God and his Angel were revered by the people; to walk shoulder to shoulder and assume equal standing was one of the higher disrespects. The Akatsuki were elevated in this village, yes, but just because Sakura had the designation didn't mean she earned it.

(When she was younger she wanted to wear the same pretty cloaks Dad always did. Now she could barely look at them.)

The halls in God's Pillar were empty and gray as they wound the sharp turns and descended the floors on metal stairs, and the only light that lit the space were strips of neon red and white that ran parallel along the ceiling.

"Tell me about your team," Konan said.

"... Ma'am?"

"I would like to hear your thoughts before I meet them myself." Her heels touched the ground rhythmically, but not a sound echoed. "You brought them to Ame, after all. You must trust them a great deal."

Konan could only imagine what life in Konoha was like for her. Sakura was a bright child—always had been—and that meant that she would have known to hide the Hoshigaki in her from the very beginning. While Kisame had not been directly correlated with the Akatsuki back then, his name was still well-known for his reputation as one of the Seven Swordsman.

Had Konoha known she was his daughter, they would have immediately leapt at the opportunity to sink their fiery fangs into her skull. Had they known, she wouldn't be standing in the Pillar pleading asylum for her teammates (not herself) as every centimeter the weathered shinobi her father wished she would never get the chance to be.

He would be thrilled, though, to see who she'd become. Poised, confident, calculating. And Konan knew him well enough to know that he'd wanted nothing more in his life than for her to be happy.

"I came here with my genin team," Sakura started quietly. Konan took a moment to listen to the low rumble of her voice, to the underlying strength and command that a younger Sakura would have never even thought to dream of. "Shino, Kiba, Akamaru, Kurenai-sensei. Tenzo-san was an ANBU member we'd befriended." They climbed down another set of stairs. "Shino's loyal, hard working, dedicated, and someone you can depend on for anything. He's willing to sacrifice whatever it takes for the sake of the team." Orochimaru's fingers digging in, blood staining his nails. "Kiba's more clever than you'll first take him for with sharp wit and a sharper tongue, and for him, the team is the most important thing." A forbidden seals text stolen in the midst of an invasion; pack before the village, pack before anything. "Akamaru, his partner, is a steady presence. Even if he's a ninken, it doesn't make him any less than us." A head held high at the abusive hands of one of the Coliseum's rampant CEOs.

Outside, the rain seemed lighter. Almost... indulging.

It didn't matter if Sakura had been trying to steel herself into a toneless explanation, but Konan could clearly hear the fondness in her voice. It wasn't like the times Kisame positively gushed about his pup, rather, she spoke about her team with a quiet pride.

"Kurenai-sensei is brave," she continued. "I'll admit that we've never given her an easy decision, but she always comes around for us. Her courage protected us in the beginning, her daring pushed us out of Konoha before they could apprehend us." Choosing cursed children over the only home she'd ever known. "And Tenzo-san believed in us when we did nothing to deserve it. In the... beginning—" her tongue twinged in warning— "we were just some genin who jumped into the deep end of things without considering the consequences. Even knowing that, he stuck by us and gave us his support no matter what." Paper lanterns and names no one thought to remember.

They slowed to a stop at the north side of the Pillar where great glass doors granted them the view of rain and gray and neon cranes that swirled around the building like a feathered hurricane, stunning white and black paints twisting in avian grace while the blood red spots on the birds' heads shone like warnings.

Konan watched as Sakura wrapped a hand over her left forearm, running her thumb over the bandages and along the length of her ulna. "And what of yourself?"

"Myself?"

"You speak so highly of your friends," she noted, "and you've grown since the last time we've seen each other. What good word will you put in for yourself?"

Then, Sakura's expression did the strangest thing.

The little warmth that had been in her eyes leached out, leaving them hardened like the cold steel punctured through Nagato's Six Paths. Spine still straight, chin still raised, she held herself like the sky weighed heavy on her squared shoulders.

"I have a genjutsu affinity and specialize in close range combat," she said. "I've signed a summoning contract, studied and implemented the Disturbance Taijutsu style, and wield one of the Seven Swords of the Bloody Mist."

Konan took a moment for herself. The genjutsu affinity she'd suspected the day Sakura had accidentally been attacked in the cemetery as a child, and the summoning contract she would expect out of any high-ranking shinobi. The Disturbance style, though, she had never even heard of and coming to wield one of the Seven Swords?

Kisame would be pleased. Nagato would be pleased.

"And?" she prompted.

"There's nothing more to say about me," the teen answered simply, and Konan couldn't help but feel there was something off about her thinking the world of her teammates and nothing much of herself. "Whatever Leader-sama expects of me, I will deliver."

"How can you be so sure?" slips out of the woman's lips before she could fully think it through. She would never allow herself to make such mistakes in front of the citizens, of course, but back in the company of the Kisame's pup, something inside her eased itself. It relaxed and softened and warmed at the familiar presence at her side.

(A little ray of sunshine.)

Sakura faced her fully, and spoke. "Because I will be an exemplary shinobi or I will be nothing at all."

She stepped forward first and held open the door. Konan stepped through with nothing more than the incline of her head, but the rushing sound of rain was lost to her as her ears rang with the words she thought she'd forgotten.

::

Akamaru's jaw was pillowed atop his crossed paws as he laid on the ground, his eyes staring straight down the hall from the hospital visitor's lounge. His partner was curled up in one of the chairs with his arms over his chest and his head against the corner wall, and he couldn't be anymore thankful that he finally convinced him to get some sleep.

Shino had been taken to one of the recovery rooms to rest up on his almost-severe chakra exhaustion and Kurenai had left for the Reproductive Health Ward shortly after, him and Kiba promising to stay behind to wait for an update on Tenzo's condition.

Akamaru lifted his head to latch his teeth around the raincoat blanketed around him and pulled it more over his shoulders. Sakura's scent drifted off the material and he pushed down a whine.

He should've gone with her. The village was filled with scents he didn't know and the rain felt wrong: too sharp, too cold, too full of something that shouldn't be there. It might have been her home way back when, but he'd felt her fear in the way her fingers shook when she ran her fingers through his fur. They'd only come to Ame because there really was nowhere else to go and even if everything looked beautiful, if Sakura didn't like it she shouldn't be forced to come back.

He pressed his jaw closer to the ground.

It hurt when Sai betrayed them to Kumo, but at least they met so many wonderful people because of it. But here? Here there was rain and the Akatsuki, and he didn't think they'd be as lucky this time.

He sighed quietly and got up on all fours. Carefully, he tucked Sakura's cloak on the chair next to Kiba before he silently tread up the hallway to the main reception area. No one was around save for the occasional nurse walking one way or another, and the receptionist gave him a quick once over before nodding his way and resuming their work.

Akamaru blinked.

Even though the Inuzuka were an old clan in Konoha, there were always those who worked in healthcare centers that were skeptical of accompanying ninken. Civilians would ask after them like they were common household pets that could contaminate operating areas or might act out and disturb other patients.

He bared his teeth just thinking about it. Every time their human partners would have to convince the workers for them to stay and every time they were allowed with obvious reluctance, as if they didn't understand that ninken were ninken for a reason.

But Ame was already interesting; they didn't question Shino and his kikai, they were letting him wander the hospital without a chaperone. From what Sakura said, this village was one of refuge. Criminals and missing-nin and wanderers made their homes here and as long as they didn't cause any trouble, they were allowed to stay.

He didn't blame her for not telling them much. He would be scared too if he had to come back to the place he was running away from.

His ears perked up as he peered out one of the front windows, his gaze piercing through the rain and the mostly empty courtyard. Two figures approached the hospital and grew less and less blurry the closer they came.

Sakura!!

His tail slowly started to wag.

She had no injuries as far as he could see, but her face was pulled taut and her stance was rigid as she took perfect strides behind and beside a woman he didn't recognize. Akamaru didn't see color the same way people did but Kiba was good at explaining the colors he could see, and the one that bit at him the most was how blue this woman's hair was.

At the entrance, Sakura took the first steps forward and held the door open as the woman stepped through. A piercing on her bottom lip, the origami flower in her hair—a quick glance at the receptionist and their eyes were glazed in awe staring at this stranger—and almost too late he took note of the clouds on her pitch black cloak.

(This is where it starts.)

"Ah," the woman said tonelessly as she looked at him. Her eyes were... her eyes were Sakura's, cold and blank as they regarded him with a subtle curiosity. "A ninken?"

He nodded shortly, warily, as a sopping wet Sakura came towards them. She didn't immediately reach out to pet him like she always did, instead she retook her spot half a step behind the stranger that bore her eyes.

His pack mate dipped her head. "This is—"

"Akamaru! Is—?!"

Kiba skidded into the reception area with two rain cloaks bunched up under his arms. His teeth clicked together with the force of his shut mouth as he quickly took in the situation, his gaze going from Sakura to him to the clouds on the cloak before finally reaching the stranger.

She was formal and apathetic and her skin shone the pallor of someone who the sun didn't spare the time to bear on her back. When she stared at them she was equally parts cool and curious, and even with her relaxed stance there was something screaming at him to never let down his guard.

"Then you must be Inuzuka Kiba," she told his partner.

"Y-Yes." Kiba glanced at Sakura once more before he lowered into a respectful bow. "Ma'am."

Akamaru dropped his head and upper body as well, and never took his eyes off the stranger.

"I am Konan," she introduced. She raised a hand and placed it over her heart as she inclined her head, "Kami-sama's Right Hand, though I am more widely regarded as Tenshi-sama. I enact Kami-sama's more public endeavors."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Tenshi-sama," Kiba greeted stiffly. It was the same stiffness he and pack tended to use whenever reporting to Tsuande-sama and other likewise authorities, but the way his partner forced himself to slow his tongue and enunciate every syllable sent an unpleasant shiver down Akamaru's spine.

He woofed, echoing, even thought he knew this Angel wouldn't understand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Tenshi-sama."

Konan acknowledged them both with a short nod. "Amegakure mein aapaka svaagat hai," she said, her words twisting in an unfamiliar form. Akamaru didn't quite know how to describe it, but it wasn't as tall as the Kumor dialect and not as round as the Sunese dialect.

This was Amek, now, and he and pack would have to learn it just like they had to learn Kumor.

Was this going to be their home now?

"Where are the rest of you?" Konan questions, and the ninken minutely cocked his head. From the snatches of Sakura's past he heard, he'd never known much about the Akatsuki. Her father she barely mentioned, Orochimaru he'd witnessed by accident, and Sasori he'd only heard about after his death, but Konan? There was never talk of a Konan or even a woman that had been a steady presence when Sakura was a kid.

And Konan was a huge part of her upbringing. He was sure of it.

Sakura wouldn't have looked so much like her otherwise.

Kiba's arms tightened around the rain cloaks as his throat bobbed with his swallow. "Kurenai-sensei's at the Reproductive Health Ward, Shino's in Recovery for chakra exhaustion, and Tenzo-san should be leaving the ICU if he isn't already out." Sakura's mouth twitched, and he caught the movement. "Uh. Ma'am."

Konan didn't spare another moment in walking over to the dazzled receptionist. The way this receptionist looked at her wasn't quite like a fan to a celebrity, but more a worshiper to the divine. They looked as if they were halfway to kneeling in prayer—in reverence or fear, he didn't know, it was probably a mix of both—but as she stopped at the counter the receptionist was already on their feet with their hands pressed together as they bowed.

"Shubh sundhyaa, Tenshi-sama."

"Shubh sundhyaa," she returned. "Status update on patient number—"

Behind her, Sakura seamlessly filled in her sentence. "Four-twenty-nine."

"—full detail."

"Yes, ma'am." The receptionist sorted through the stack of folders they had been in the middle of processing and selected one with a blue tab. "Patient #429. He wouldn't have survived had it not been for the healer that tended to him prior to his admittance. Caltrop fragments have been removed from his back, his halfway-healed burns have a minor infection currently being treated with antibiotics, and he has undergone an operation to remove bone shards from his organs and to repair his rib cage." They flipped a page. "He's responding positively to his care and is in Recovery still under heavy anesthetic in room 326."

Akamaru almost sagged. Good. That was good.

"There was also a colony of insects residing in his body cavity," they continued. Konan's eyes lit with intrigue. "They had been imbued with healing chakra and maintained system activity until our medics took over, then retreated to patient #564 residing in Recovery room 353."

"That's Shino," Kiba mentioned quietly.

"And that patient's status?" Konan prompted.

"Chakra exhaustion, fatigue. We've been informed that Patient #564 was Patient #429's healer and had expended himself on the journey here, ma'am."

She accepted the information like it was just another day, and maybe for her, it was. But then she lifted a hand and gestured her index and middle finger forward. Sakura stepped up, her hands held behind her back as she stood straight and poised. Akamaru knew her well enough to see that her ease wasn't real, and underneath all the layers of calm and indifference and discipline she was barely holding herself together.

Akamaru's jaw tensed.

"This is Hoshigaki Sakura, ID RA-zero-zero-eight."

Sakura tipped her head in greeting. The receptionist went white.

"Patient #429, Tenzo, Patient #564, Aburame Shino, the ones standing in this lobby, Inuzuka Kiba and his ninken Akamaru, and recent Reproductive Health Ward patient Yuuhi Kurenai will be supplementary to her designation. Adjust to this accordingly and distribute this information."

"At your order." The receptionist pressed their hands together once more and bowed. "It will be taken care of swiftly, Tenshi-sama."

Konan moved her heavy gaze away from the citizen and strode forward through the double doors and deeper into the hospital. Sakura quickly followed, taking that half-a-step behind the woman as she'd been doing before, and with a swift sign from her bandaged hand, he and Kiba trailed after them at a third of a step behind Sakura herself.

Quietly, Akamaru began to wonder.

Konoha had a system of ID numbers that were to be assigned to shinobi upon their Academy graduation, but other than it being written in their file and used for instances of registration, it was never a big part of the workings. But the RA ID meant something here, whatever it may be—he watched as doctors and nurses and patients alike made way for this Angel with respectful bows and reverent glances—and until he could figure out what, he'd have to blindly follow, wait, and see.

They entered room three hundred twenty six, and Akamaru almost looked away from the pale body tucked in white sheets, intubated and hooked up to the steadily beeping EKG by the curtained window.

Kiba immediately headed for the foot of the bed and picked up the clipboard hanging on the metal frame. Akamaru saw that Sakura wanted to look too, to stand by Pack's shoulders and see for herself what those slips of papers had to say about their friend, but she was still beside and behind Konan with her lips in a grim line as she stayed firmly planted.

He hated it.

He hated that no one in the world could hold her back—that the seal on her tongue never kept her quiet, that the brand on her neck never kept her on her knees, that the arm she lost never kept her from adapting—except this one blue-haired woman.

"Looks like he'll recover physically, but he's been out for a long time and they don't know how long it'll be 'til he wakes," Kiba sighed as he flipped through the pages and scanned all the notes, his relief loosening his tongue. "He's stable, though."

Konan observed the unconscious man with a keen eye. At her distraction, Akamaru slipped close to Sakura's side and nipped at her wrist until he managed to get her to glance down. Her and Shino would never get to understand the words that came out of his mouth, but they always tried their best, and when he stared and stared and never dared to break away, she ran a couple fingers up and down the length of his snout.

Delighted, he nosed her side.

She lifted her eyes to meet Kiba's worried stare and quirked a small smile.

A lot of those sorts of her smiles were supposed to allay their fears. She was stability and comfort and it was unfair that it was her, he thought, that it was always her. It was Sakura that made sure they didn't fall apart, it was Sakura that held them up so they never fell, it was Sakura that tried to sneak off with all their worries because she's stupid and selfish and she loved them more than she loved herself.

"I would do anything for you. I thought you guys knew that."

Akamaru did know. He'd known when they were nine and Sakura spent her days helping Kiba learn to read the math word problems without once making him feel like an idiot. He'd known when they were twelve and Shino still had night terrors about Orochimaru and she'd stay up all night to chase his bad dreams away.

He'd known when Sakura confided in him some late nights when no one else was listening, telling him things he thought she was too scared to tell the others.

"I hate how upset I make you guys when I get hurt," she whispered to him once. "But I would die a thousand times over if it meant one more day where you're safe."

She did so much so often that half the time, Akamaru felt like he didn't deserve it.

And, it wasn't hard to imagine dying for Pack.

He would do it any day, moment, second. But the fleeting thought of Sakura sacrificing herself for their safety never felt more bitter on his tongue; not when the threat was so real now that Ame had her now.

She was only fifteen like Kiba and like Shino and they shouldn't be here. They should be safe and happy and warm and the more he thinks, the more he wondered what good it did to fill his head with hopeful nonsense like that.

Konoha couldn't love them, Kumo couldn't keep them, and Ame—

Sakura reached around the bed, grasped Kiba's hand, and squeezed.

"Now that Tenzo-san is supplementary to my RA status, will I receive regular updates on his condition?" she questioned. Her hand slipped out of her friend's hold and returned to its place behind her back.

"Once you and your team have become fully registered within the village, updates may be arranged through missives and messengers." Konan assessed the three of them for a brief moment before her eyes drew back to Tenzo. "The Akatsuki will grant you living spaces, privileges given to citizens, and orders when they are decided." Her gaze flitted up to Sakura. "Am I correct in assuming you will be staying with Kisame-san?"

Sakura froze.

(The thought of her father had slipped from her consciousness until the sound of his name jarred her to the pitter-patter of rain and the sharp scent of antiseptic. Her father. He was here. Blue skin, pointed teeth, arms that shielded her, a promise that he'd always come back for her—)

"No."

Konan, curiously, pinned her stare on Kiba.

"We stay together, no matter what," he continued firmly. He stared straight into her eyes like a challenge, because he wouldn't let Sakura suffer even more, and if Orochimaru no longer plucked the chord of fear in his heart, neither should this Angel. "Kurenai-sensei and Tenzo would pro'bly appreciate their own place, but Sakura stays with me, Akamaru, and Shino."

Konan's face never changed, but when she looked at Sakura there was something else in that mix of expressionless steel. Something... softer?

Sakura didn't notice, her jaw clenching and her knuckles threatening to break skin behind her back. "Kiba's right," she added. "I'll be staying with them."

"I see," Konan replied simply, and Akamaru didn't quite know what he'd been expecting. Anger? Authority? But she's nothing but calm and cool and collected, and it only unnerved him even more. "Then two housing units will be granted for your use. They will be prepared for you by tomorrow morning."

Kiba's stance betrayed his defiance, but he still bowed. He knew where they were—who they were surrounded by. It wouldn't do them any good if he got himself killed in the middle of the hospital. "Thank you, Tenshi-sama."

"Thank you, Tenshi-sama," Sakura followed.

Her back went rigid when orange-painted fingers lightly settled against her cheek. Akamaru lowered himself, ready to spring forward, and senbon appeared in the gaps of Kiba's hand.

But then those fingers turned her head, bringing them face to face.

"It will always be Konan for you, Sakura," she tells her. She lingered for a scant few more seconds before she stepped into the hallway and tilted her head to address the room over her shoulder. "Come. We will visit your Aburame Shino next."

Sakura's eyes were wide and unseeing, locked on the place Konan had been standing until she'd dragged herself out of her frozen state and raked her eyes over to the other side of the room.

Kiba stared back at her, eyes just as wide.

Her jaw tensed as she sighed, pained and helpless, as she looked away and ducked in the hallway to follow.

Akamaru could only watch as she disappeared around the door jamb with no other explanation, no other reassurance, and he nudged his partner's knee.

"We'll lose them if we don't hurry," he woofed softly.

"Yeah I..." Kiba shook his head. "We'll figure this out later. Let's go."

:: ::

Kurenai sighed, her student stubbornly refusing to fall back asleep. At least he was staying in bed this time.

Her trip to the Reproductive Health Ward had been a... lesson in culture, she supposed; some insight to everything she didn't know about Amegakure. The ward sat up on the north wing of the grounds and wrapped around an open courtyard in a perfect circle. The halls that faced inward were seamless glass from floor to ceiling, and that very courtyard that could be seen at all angles all day was a slab of concrete with a neon white angel painted in the center, holding a bouquet of lilies while her wings spread out to greet the skies. Short hair, eyes peacefully shut, an origami flower pressed against her hair—Kurenai would have asked about it and about the cots and positioned about the courtyard, but maybe that would have been too telling.

But then she thought about how the nurses who registered her only asked for her name when she couldn't provide an ID # and helped her along for an appointment anyway.

Kurenai tucked a lock of tangled black hair behind her ear as she patted Shino's hand from her seat at his bedside. "You can rest up, you know. We're safe for the time being and I know how tired you are."

Shino shook his head. The IV attached to his arm swayed slightly at the movement. "My kikai have conveyed that Tenzo-san is recovering well, but you said Sakura had gone off on her own. What if something happens?"

"If something happens then Kiba, Akamaru, and I will take care of it." So many questions, so many possibilities, no one to give her an answer. Her kids obviously knew more than her if their reactions had anything to say about it, but if she remembered correctly, this had been Sakura's home once upon a time. Perhaps she had some family that the boys didn't trust? "You won't manage ten minutes out of that bed in this state."

"I—"

"You're a medic," she reminded him firmly, and he shut his mouth as he reluctantly settled against the bed. "You should know your limits better than anyone else."

"I understand, but..."

"Shino." She wrapped her hands around his colder ones and held them tight. "Konoha won't get you here."

I won't let them. Not again.

He exhaled through his nose and shut his eyes. His glasses she'd cleaned of the blood and left on his bed stand with the rest of Kiba's scrolls that kept their belongings and his jacket she hung on the back of her chair. A trembling breath crawled its way up her throat but she batted it down.

A part of her still couldn't believe she'd left.

Kurenai remembered the orange tree that grew by her parents house and the scratches on her knees she'd gotten from climbing all over it for most of her childhood. She remembered the hidden drawer where she'd kept her snacks at her desk at the Academy, learning her first genjutsu and learning she was good when she never got found out. She remembered baking in the apartment she'd had for years and her weekly visits to her retired father on the other end of the village and her unending excitement when she first found out she'd be given her very first genin team.

Home. It was a strange word to think when her home tried time and time again to kill the ones she loved.

She ran a hand up and down Shino's forearm, feeling every bump of every scar that raised along his skin.

She thought about Kiba's indignant shouts and Shino's snark and Akamaru's tail wags and Sakura's half smiles and Tenzo's arms wrapped securely around her and wondered how no one else in Konoha realized that the Will of Fire burned so brightly that it blinded them.

"I can hear you thinking," Shino murmured.

"And I should've known that you won't let yourself sleep until you know everything is alright," Kurenai sighed. "Is there a way for your...?"

"Not in this village." His brows furrowed as he glanced out the window, mismatched eyes tracing gray skies. "Why? There's something about the rain that my kikai keep managing to get caught in, immobilizing their wings and never making it past a few meters away from the hospital."

Another mystery to add to the list, then.

At her own glance at the window and down below, she watched the passersby stride this way and that, many covered in dark rain cloaks of their own but all of them with different reflective patches on their shoulders—like the ones Sakura had sewn into theirs—in endless colors and designs.

The door handle turned.

Kurenai swept her attention to the other side of the room as Shino moved his hand to rest against the kunai he hid under his thigh.

And in slipped the angel painted in the cement courtyard.

Her expression was just as calm as her neon visage, the same origami flower in blue hair, hazel eyes blank as they took in the room and the ones in it. She was a poised, stoic woman, and maybe it was the mix of her composure and knowledge that she had to have some sway over the hospital that Kurenai had just managed to stop herself from warping the room into a genjutsu at the sight of the same clouded cloaks she'd seen Hoshigaki Kisame and Uchiha Itachi wearing when she fought them a few years ago.

Sakura stepped in after her, then Kiba, then Akamaru, but the sight of them didn't ease her unfurling apprehension.

"Yuuhi-san and Aburame-san, then," the woman acknowledged. "I am Konan, Kami-sama's right hand. The citizens address me as Tenshi-sama."

Sakura pressed her lips in a line.

Kurenai pushed herself up to her feet and lowered herself into a bow. She could recognize authority as they come and had never been one of those shinobi who'd been flippant or eccentric in their mannerisms, but she didn't lower her eyes. "Tenshi-sama."

Akatsuki.

Shino forced himself upright and bowed as well as he could, repeating the sentiment.

Konan nodded once and hesitantly, Kiba stepped away from the door and to the end of the bed, silently thumbing through the clipboard with Shino's updates. Kurenai spied the taut muscles in his neck, his head held high with his chin slightly jutted out like he was holding himself out on a wire and trying not to fall. It was a look similar, but not quite, to the ones he wore around the Sandaime whether it be standing in his office, reporting at the mission desk, or seeing the old man greeting civilians on the street; this one held none of the anger or bitterness but every ounce of caution like he was ready to flee instead of fight.

Akamaru, on the other hand, didn't sit at attention with the look of the marble statues he'd grown to gain the likeness of over the years—calm and sturdy and patient and stone. Instead, he glanced from Shino to his partner to Sakura to Konan then to Sakura again, and settled with his head lowered slightly and his eyes raised to watch the side of Konan's head. Waiting. Listening.

"You are their genin sensei, correct, Yuuhi-san?"

The deep melody of Konan's voice broke the quiet of the room, words drifting through the air like a stream of paper cranes. Kurenai straightened and met that glowing, calculating gaze.

"Yes, I am."

That gaze traveled to Shino for a moment, taking in his pale skin and his dark bags and the way kikai were emerging from his skin, looping circles along his collarbone and settling in perches on IV tubes.

"The Aburame and Inuzuka are prominent clans," she said. She glanced at Kiba as he stiffened. "To what purpose would shinobi of such high standing have, coming to a refuge village? We have once been ravaged by your wars, overlooked by your forces, ignored by your authority." She tilted her head. "Or perhaps those are your reasons for turning to a village I am sure you have never previously spared a thought for."

The room fell several degrees.

Behind her, Sakura grimaced.

She was tall, just over six feet and broad shouldered and present, and this was usually the part where she'd stand up for her team and speak for them all. There had always been leadership and defiance in the way she moved, talked, killed, and Kurenai knew she didn't back down for anything or anyone regardless if they'd made an attempt at her life or not.

But now, it was... she was quiet. Still. She was holding her tongue and holding back and holding herself tight as she stood behind Konan like she knew and understood that she shouldn't talk this time.

What was going on?

"Konoha tried to set them up," Kurenai said. All eyes in the room drew to her, her kids' especially with their wide, attentive eyes. The only thing they'd concretely known was that they had to run and not look back, because— "At the very minimum. I was on errands and returned earlier than I expected, and came home to my colleague fatally injured and Kiba trying to save him." She clenched her jaw and drew in a deep breath. "There were blood trails on the walls, meaning he'd come in for refuge, and he was only supposed to attend in-village duties that day. There was no other explanation other than putting the blame on them."

"What makes you so sure it was your own village that plotted this?" Konan questioned. There was no accusation, no condescension, just... intrigue. As much as her cold visage would allow, anyway.

"This isn't the first time," Kurenai admitted, and the undivided attention the other was gracing her with spurned on her explanations. "The Sandaime Hokage sent mercenaries after them when they were twelve, tried to block their entrance to the Chuunin Exams, and had them held captive by Kumogakure for over a year."

"To what end?"

"Silence," Shino added quietly. "We had become aware of things we were not supposed to and—" twinge— "there were those who were not content with our knowledge. Ma'am."

"Corruption," Konan mused, though she wasn't completely surprised. "I would have imagined Konohagakure would be more subtle."

"The Sandaime Hokage was a coward," Kurenai stated tightly, her years of disillusionment at the back of her mind and rage bubbling as she sat in the middle of a hospital soaked in rain, "who deserved worse than his murder."

His kids were stunned to even further silence.

Hired mercenaries, cursed seals, deception, subterfuge—a shinobi's life was never meant to be a good life, and it was unfortunate not many of them knew what that meant until they'd already been gutted of their innocence and left with all the guilt they had no choice but to learn to live with.

But there was a difference between living a shinobi's life, and living this one.

"I see." Konan surveyed the room, cataloguing Kurenai's assured expression and the exhausted weariness that clung to the atmosphere.

(She refrained from turning to look at the one face she'd been itching to observe—at the stony facade she knew she'd see. But she knows there won't be much else, not initially, because of all the things Sakura could have inherited from her, it had to be the chill in her bones that never quite went away.)

"As I have mentioned to Inuzuka-san, two housing units will be assigned for your use tomorrow morning. I will come gather you from the hospital, explain to you the laws and privileges you may operate under, and any possible orders Leader-sama may have decided upon overnight."

At 'Leader-sama', Sakura's eyes flickered. Kurenai noticed.

"I will leave you to rest until the morning. This room is where I will meet you," Konan continued smoothly. She politely tipped her head. "It was a pleasure meeting you all, Yuuhi-san, Aburame-san, Inuzuka-san, Akamaru-san. May the rain watch you over your shoulders."

Kurenai's brows furrowed as the woman turned to step out of the room, Sakura stepping to the side to allow her passage.

Her student, one of her kids, drew up her green eyes to glance around the room. There was resignation there, maybe some fear and shame as well as her lips parted to say—

A voice drifted in from the hallway. "Sakura."

Sakura's shoulders dropped, and she mouthed, I'm sorry.

"Coming, Konan-san."

She turned to leave her pack in the hospital room and just as protests began to slip off the tips of their tongues, the door closed shut behind her.

:: ::

There was a stranger in his apartment.

He felt it the moment his hand hovered over the door knob. They weren't even trying to mask their intrusion and he bared his teeth—how cocky did they have to be to invade his space?

How'd they get past the seals without setting off the traps?

What did they have to gain snooping around him?

But it didn't matter the reason. He'd make them pay.

His hand reached over his shoulder as he shunshinned into the hallway and looked towards his room. The door was open and dark, just as he'd left it the last time he'd been around. When he glanced to the other room at the other end of the hall, a room that had been locked and sealed for years, he saw the soft yellow light glowing beneath the door.

White hot anger rushed him like nothing else before.

He didn't think when he crashed through the wood, nearly knocking it off its hinges with his weapon already halfway out its clasp. They could take his money, his sword, all the dignity he had left as a disgraced shinobi, he didn't give a shit—no one touched his pup's things, no one could ruin what he had left of her, no one could—

Then he saw the pink hair of who stood in front of the shelves of books he couldn't bring himself to put away.

Kisame stopped.

And Samehada slipped from his fingers.

:: ::

And here we end with a Sakura fanart by icejade03 on instagram!