"I'm gonna kill him."

Sakura brought a hand to her forehead and tried to stave off the oncoming pain. Eighteen hours into their first mission as chuunin and they were granted their first break, and honestly, she didn't know how Kiba had yet to burst a vessel.

"No, you won't."

"I swear to god, if that fucker calls me that one more time—"

"Mutt, Foreigner. Are you ready to continue to travel?"

She exhaled and dropped her hand. And there was the headache.

"Stop callin' us that!" Kiba snapped. "We have names! Kiba!" He gestured wildly to himself. "Sakura!" He pointed at his friend beside him. "Shino!" An arm flailed in the general direction his other friend had gone to run a perimeter. "Akamaru!" He motioned to his partner growling at his feet. "Use! Them!"

Sai smiled the same, bland smile that never seemed to leave his face. "It states in Traits of a Good Leader that a leader must try to bond with his teammates. I had been confused on the aspect of 'bonding', so I researched the term in Ways to Approach Others, and it suggested using nicknames as an attempt—"

Kiba groaned and rubbed his eyes so hard he started to see stars. "This guy can't be real, right?" he muttered mostly to himself. "Like, he's messin' with us. He's gotta be messin' with us."

Sai continued to speak though his primary audience was no longer listening and Sakura stood silently with her arms over her chest. Their current leader, for lack of a better term, acted alien. Reading books to make up for social interaction? Not knowing what the word "bonding" meant outside its dictionary definition?

That was not a typical shinobi.

Shinobi needed to learn how to blend in and mingle, act like they'd been in one place for weeks when in reality they'd only appeared for a few moments. Shinobi were actors, deceivers, the background, and even with her bright pink hair she had no trouble slipping in a crowd and lurking in its shadows.

But Sai?

His rigid stance screamed suspicion and his expressions weren't right.

That was the first red flag.

Shino re-appeared in their presence with nothing more than a whisper as his insects crawled down from his face and back into his coat. "The area is clear and all our tracks within a kilometer radius have been covered up. We are set to move out."

"You competency is noted, Four-Eyes."

Silence.

Kiba bristled and Sakura narrowed her eyes, but Shino took a calming breath and faced their leader.

"I do not understand your penchant for nicknames, but it would be appreciated if you changed mine to something different. Why? It would be... appreciated, senpai."

Sai tilted his head to the side, but this time his eyes didn't get lost in the crinkle of his smile. His eyes were as dark as they were flat, and he granted his subordinate with nothing more than an empty canvas of expression.

"It is merely a nickname," he said. "Nothing I say should bring any form of discomfort. A chuunin should be stronger than that, wouldn't you say?"

Shino swallowed and turned his head.

Rage blazed through Kiba like a fire in a forest, but before he could even open his mouth Sakura was across the clearing with a fist in Sai's shirt and their noses almost touching as she dragged him up to the tips of his sandals.

"All Shino's asking for is a new nickname, nothing that requires more than two seconds of thought on your part," she stated coolly. "I believe you'll find that your text on leadership probably lists that empathy is a desired trait, and changing your nickname for him is a good first step to take, wouldn't you say?"

Sai steadily met her gaze. "Ah, I see. How insightful, Foreigner. I suppose I haven't gotten to that chapter yet." His smile widened. "Though I will have to ask you to release your team leader, or it might be most unfortunate that I will have to pull rank."

"And what rank is that?"

"Currently, higher than yours."

Sakura eyes lit in challenge, but she set him down without another word and briefly squeezed Shino's shoulder before her arms crossed back over her chest.

Sai's expression never moved a centimeter. "We will travel non-stop for another two hours before we stop for camp. Another two days of travel after that and we will be at the docks to board the next boat to Nagi Island. From there, we will discuss the details of this mission. Are there any questions?"

With no answer but the feeling of four burning stares, he turned around.

"Then we will resume."

::

When Kisame took off his shirt and bared the ink on his left shoulder blade, Konan barely contained her surprise when she took to inspect it. Orange nail polish clashed against blue skin as nimble fingers prodded at the seal.

"So, I got caught up in a few things with Orochimaru while I was gone," Kisame sighed.

"It's in a mitsudomoe design, one I believe that calls its resemblance to the sharingan."

"Che. Wouldn't put it past the fucker t'have some weird Uchiha fetish." He rolled his eyes. An irritating feeling flares just beneath his skin, and his hand twitched with the urge to scratch at it. Konan blankly traced the movement. "Whaddya' think?"

She focused back on the seal, simply enough at its surface design with what she knew had a complex sequence layering beneath it. Orochimaru had always been peculiar about seals, and she hated to admit that he might have been the best seal master they'd had in the Akatsuki until his timely defection. The expertise had thus fallen onto both her's and Sasori's shoulders since, though she wouldn't go as far as to dub herself an expert.

"I had some insight to the formulation and practices Orochimaru employed in the past," she said. "He was quite interested in seals providing an increase in both chakra levels and physical ability." The sliver of chakra she sent through the seal reacted in a sudden branching out of ink. What was once a simple circlet now spanned across the shoulder like black fire crawling up from the depths. Kisame glanced at her with a tick in his brow. It must have stung. "And speaking from observation, there is a likely chance that Orochimaru has his seals containing both his own chakra and a part of his consciousness. The latter is not unheard of for such complicated, controlling seal work."

His lips pulled back in distaste. "Don't need the first two, and the third's another one of his sick perversions, so can I get this damn itching to stop or am I gonna have ta' shred it off with Samehada myself?"

"No need to resort to such measures, Kisame-san." The kunai she whipped from her thigh pouch dragged along her thumb and she began to write on his skin in her blood. "The Fuuja Hoin should keep the mark at bay." The seals continue down his back and down onto the floor to spiral around him. "It will only work if the will of the recipient fights back against the mark."

Scoffing, he eyed the seal placements along his floors. When was the last time he mopped? "I ain't an S-class rogue if I get doped up on some steroid-junkie seal. Won't be a problem."

As the seal completed, Konan's hands flew through a series of signs that ended in the rat form, and Orochimaru's seal screams a red-orange hue as her blood bleeds into its layers, flooding the matrix and raising invisible chains to clamp at the ends of each sequence.

Kisame's muscles contracted harshly at the pain that seared up his nerves, but he was calm while the mark was enclosed in a brand new seal that reached out in six different directions like some spindly, misguided star. He barely resisted the urge to flop onto the couch and groan in relief when the itch finally faded.

"Thanks, Konan-san. Thing's been botherin' me for days."

Konan strode over to the kitchen and pulled out the first aid kit she knew was in one of the cabinets. Never one to wind her way around words, she asked, "What were you doing in Konoha?"

"Business." He picked up his shirt from the back of the couch and walked up to the kit. "And somethin' I needed ta' attend to myself."

She couldn't help the minute frown that crossed her face.

Kisame was never the same since he'd lost Sakura. Sure, he was still cautious in battle and never ran onto the field with a blindfold and a death wish, but he'd grown wearier. Disappeared on his own more often. Gone subdued.

Yet, there were still things that never budged over the years: that he'd visit his wife's grave at least twice a week when he could, that he stuck to his principle of never harming or killing kids, that he never turned his back on those he considered his comrades.

But she worried about him from time to time, and as she watched him swipe a wide bandage, peel off the plastic, and slap it on the seal, her brow raised. "You don't want anyone to know what Orochimaru had done."

"More like I don't want anyone t' know I was even near that bastard ta' begin with." He glanced up at the ceiling, considering. "Or that I was anywhere near Konoha when it went up in flames. I'll let it blow over, but 'til then, nothin' 'bout this seal's gettin' out."

"Does Leader-sama know?"

And Kisame just gave her the look.

She took it with her usual inexpression but an old understanding ran between them, bone deep and warm, and they both knew she wouldn't mention anything to Pein unless it came up explicitly.

She shut the kit and stowed it away. "Then are you alright?"

"Alright 'bout what?"

"Everything."

Quiet settled over the apartment as he slipped on his shirt, rain gently pelting against the windows.

"When I find out, I'll let you know."

::

The next ship to Nagi Island didn't set sail for another twenty-four hours, leaving Team Sai stranded at the ports until the ship docked.

"So, like... can we just hang out around the city 'til then?" Kiba asked. "I mean, it's not a good place to talk about the mission and we'll be on the boat for another five or six days or somethin'. We won't get a jump on anythin' anyways."

Sakura stared out at the expanse of ocean and how the sun bounced off its rippling surface before turning back to her team.

"You may do as you please as long as it does not hinder the mission," Sai allowed with a smile. "We will be meeting back at the docks at 0430; lateness will not be tolerated."

"And where will you be?" Shino questioned. There was no accusation underlying his tone though his throat was coated in it, and he wondered if his dark lenses offered any sort of unsettlement. He knew it did for others.

"I will see you at 0430." Sai acknowledged each of them, "Mutt, Foreigner, Dog, Glasses."

He disappeared.

Kiba scoffed and scratched the back of his head. "What a dick."

Akamaru barked in agreement.

Sakura nearly rolled her eyes and pinched his cheek, ignoring his startled yelp. "You only have to deal with him for the mission or if anything comes up before that." She dropped her hand and turned away from his pouting face. "Now, lunch?"

They decided on some restaurant with a fried food-stuff specialty which happened to have a 20% off all menu items between 11 am to 4 pm on Mondays to Fridays, not that Sakura noticed.

(But she absolutely did.)

They settled themselves at one of the indoor booths, Sakura and Kiba on one side, Shino and Akamaru on the other.

Sakura propped her katana up beside her, light spilling onto her arm from the window they were sat against as she looked up at Shino. "Kikai?"

He grimaced and shook his head. "There was never an opportune time for a plant. Why? Our team leader is too cautious. He does not trust us, and frankly, the feeling is mutual."

Kiba groaned and sunk into his seat and Sakura hummed thoughtfully as she glanced out the window. The server came to set the glasses of water along with some menus at the table, but at the sight of Akamaru they retreated with the last glass and came back with a bowl of water instead.

"Thank you," Sakura bid politely. The server grinned and said they'd be back in a few minutes for their orders, and once their back disappeared somewhere in the front, Kiba slammed his hands on the table.

"So the dude's fuckin' with us, right? 'Cause no one's that socially constipated and the only person in this damn world who doesn't know how to talk to someone normally is Sakura—and she's not even that bad!"

She squinted at him from over her menu as she took a vial of murky black liquid and poured a drop in her drink. She swirled her straw, her drink darkening for a moment, then noted that it cleared up.

"You have a point."

"'Course I gotta point, 'cause if that dude wasn't born under a rock, then he's straight crazy."

Shino screwed off the cap of his own vial after dropping the poison indicator in his and Akamaru's water and mixed. "Or the mind has been corrupted."

"Which it has," Sakura said as she turned a page of her menu. This restaurant really wasn't kidding about their fried foods. Especially when it was the only thing they served. "And one we'll deal with accordingly once it decides to act on its influence."

"And if it doesn't?"

"Then we do nothing." There was another turn of page. "We aren't strong enough, and we'll act when we are."

Shino spied the faint reflection of his frown through the laminated menu and held in a sigh. He didn't need to take off his glasses to know the skin above his cheekbones were dark and tired—when was the last time he'd gotten an easy, few hours rest? Just before the exam finals?

"I understand that weaknesses are meant to be overcome through trials and time; the former we have an overabundance and the latter we will never have enough of." This time, he sighed. "My main focus is my clan jutsu and healing, and if I want to excel in such practices, it will leave me susceptible to other factors such as genjutsu and stamina."

Kiba rubbed the back of his neck. He'd be lying if he said he hadn't worried about the same thing. Seals took time and so did practicing coordination with his partner, and he'd never been good with brain things like genjutsu. How was he supposed to get good at something like that when he had other priorities?

Sakura waved off their concerns, eyes still glued to the menu. "Try your best but don't worry about being the best. Where you all struggle, I will make up for." Her eyes glanced up. "We're a team, and if I can't support you both where the enemy strikes, what good am I to you?"

There was no humorous undertone to her words nor an exasperated roll of her eyes telling them that it was something she expected them to already know, but she was as blunt and unconcerned as she always was, unapologetic in her stances and leapt to their defense regardless of the conditions.

Sakura was their pillar.

(And she would never let them fall.)

"Aw, you care," Kiba teased, waggling his eyebrows at her terribly unimpressed face. "Look at you, growin' up and havin' feel—ack!"

She jabbed his ribs without even looking up.

"Mean." He opened the menu to its first page, stopping short at first item. "... Fried butter's a thing?"

"Don't you dare."

"Fried butter—"

"If you put that in your body you better hope your clogged arteries will kill you before I do so myself. Do you not think me capable? Because I will. Why? Because I can."

The server wound back around to their table with a ruffled pad in one hand and a pen in the other. "I can take your orders if you're ready."

Sakura closed her menu. "One deep fried apple appetizer and the calamari bowl, please." Shino took it from her and stacked it beneath his.

"The deep fried eggplant bowl, please."

"And a deep fried tenderloin sandwich plus an extra tenderloin for my partner," Kiba said. He and Shino handed the menus over. "Thanks!"

The server smiled and headed towards the kitchen, and as Shino watched them go from the corner of his gaze, he couldn't help but endure the growing somber feeling in his chest.

The pack at his feet might hold rations, spare clothes, and extra weapons, but his heavy coat hid the poison kit Tenzo gifted him and the scrolls that held his favorite books and his entire personal medical inventory.

Kiba had hidden scrolls on his person, too. They held his seals texts including the forbidden one, his favorite jacket, and red Inuzuka paint to last him a year.

And Sakura hid her own scrolls in her bindings. Her trivia books, a small frog keychain from Naruto, and Kubikiribocho lay wrapped in ink and paper while her apartment back in Konoha sat cleaned and immaculate.

If they returned, it would be to fresh sheets and clean bean bags.

If they didn't, then they'd die with everything they held dear.

There was quiet at the table for a few moments, nothing but the surrounding din of other patrons and the hiss and bustle of the open kitchen. Sakura's eyes were out the window, ever vigilant, Kiba had a dropped head in a palm as his fingers tapped against the table, and Shino closed his eye as he leaned back against the seat and breathed.

"Do you think we would have been... happier... had we not found out the things we did?" Shino questioned haltingly.

Sakura's gaze flickered away from the window in interest.

The corners of Kiba's lips tilted down and his fingers stilled. "... Maybe?"

"If you could go back—if you could change all the choices you made, would you?"

The fingers tapped again, slowly, softly, with no sense of pattern.

"No," he answered. "And yeah what's been happenin' is pretty shitty and yeah, sometimes I wish others would've found out 'bout all that stuff before we did 'cause someone before us musta' thought this shit wasn't right—" Kiba bit his tongue and sucked in a deep breath to shove his rage back down his throat. "Point is, I hate it and it shouldn't be a thing. But..." He shrugged and rested his weight on his forearms. "But, I dunno. I don't think we woulda been pack if it all didn't happen, and you don't trade pack for anythin'. Not even the world."

The air around them warmed.

Sakura nodded at the server when they set a plate of fried apples on the table and took a slice, dipping it lightly in the caramel sauce it came with.

"And I'm the sap," she remarked dryly. Kiba gnashed her teeth in her direction before grabbing a handful of slices to shove in his mouth and moved his legs out the way just in time to miss Shino's swift kick to his shins for the action.

But even Shino couldn't bury his face far enough in his coat to hide his smile.

Though no matter how bright the scene was in their ever-darkening circumstance, Sakura wouldn't allow herself to lose her head in the clouds. She couldn't afford to—not until she knew they would be safe.

Not until they were free.

And for that, she couldn't let them waver.

She steeled her gaze. "Are you sure this is the path you want to take?" She tapped the metal of the hitai-ate on her head, calling up their display of the accessory after drawing out the Uchiha Massacre scrap by scrap. The way they'd rushed out of the exam stadium was still fresh on the brain—how reporting to the village had been the last thing on their minds as they stole from their own during one of Konoha's weakest moments yet. "Say we won't make it back, and if by chance we make it out of this alive, are you sure of your choice? Where you stand? What you would and won't fight for?"

Kiba lifted his head to meet Shino's steady gaze. It took only seconds for them to look back to her, all traces of jest drained from their faces and in its place the resolve they'd come so far to own.

"Someone has to take a stand against the wrongs no one admits," Shino said. "If it has to be us, then so be it."

Sakura chewed on her snack and considered each of their expressions. "Sharks start out as eggs, but they incubate and hatch in the womb," she started suddenly. Kiba's face scrunched and Shino reached for the apple slices. One for him, one for Akamaru. "Sometimes the number of pups that come out are less than the number of eggs fertilized, because once they hatch, the pups eat each other regardless of the blood they carry. They try to kill their siblings the moment they enter the world, viewing everything they see as nothing more than prey." She twirled her straw in her drink, but didn't take a sip. "Today, you've all made your positions clear. Despite living in a world of sharks and blood, the world will learn to be careful of us. I will make sure of it."

She let her words—her promise—sink in and allowed gravity to pull them from their ears to the pits of their stomachs. This wasn't a game they could back out of if they decided they didn't want to play anymore, and there was more at stake than just the lives Konoha could care less about.

For her, this was something she couldn't leave alone. Not when they were the only ones who knew why fifty-nine different children didn't get to grow up.

"Once, I was told that the sky is too vast for a person to live life alone," Shino murmured. "I didn't understand it at the time. Why? Perhaps I was too young, or I used to think there was nothing wrong with being on one's own." He glanced at Akamaru's wagging tail then at his friends across the table, his fingers curling around the fabric of his pants. "And despite the injustices we've witnessed, I'm glad I have ended up here, alive and with all of you."

"But if we can't do that..." Kiba breathed out a little laugh, both desperate and disbelieving as much as it was a bitter acceptance that hammered into his shoulders, refusing to let go. "Let's die together."

This was not the life Sakura wished for them.

But unlike her father, she would always give them the choice to stay or go.

(What she didn't tell them was how relief settled like sand in her bones when they didn't turn their backs on their beliefs—that the people who she'd grown to love wouldn't leave her behind this time.)

The server came back with the rest of their orders and all they could do was stare at the dishes for some moments, the exceptionally greasy foods slathered in sauce and served over huge bowls of rice staring straight at them.

Shino picked up his chopsticks and braved the first bite of the calorie monster bestowed upon him.

And almost immediately he slumped, already feeling cholesterol congealing in his veins and cringing at his medic side screaming about balanced diets. "This is delicious," he admitted morosely.

Kiba snickered and Sakura took a bit out of a ring of calamari with a quirk at her lips.

As Akamaru licked his chops and dug into his meal, his tail didn't stop wagging.

After all that, he knew he wouldn't stop loving pack for anything.

Anything at all.

::

When they'd boarded the Kaede Maru, they secured part of the lower deck to themselves and unraveled a map of the nations between their feet.

"The instances dubbed the 'Nagi Island Kidnappings' have all victimized civilians ranging from the ages ten to eighteen," Sai explained, pointing to an island on the map. "The first kidnapping has been reported a month ago and have continued since, taking those who've wandered too far from the village and eventually, taking the victims straight from their own homes. Seventeen total have gone missing thus far." He marks the west end of the island with a perfectly symmetrical 'x'. "Upon docking, we will travel to the next suspected village to apprehend the assailants: Sachiko Village. We will research the kidnapped and stand guard during the prime times of these kidnappings: 2200 and 0600."

Sakura's eyes flickered form the world map to the Nagi-specific map. "Do you have any current information on those taken?"

"Just names. Nothing substantial."

She glanced up at him, a careful blankness around her eyes as she felt Kiba tense like a spring beside her. "You don't think names are important?"

"Words hardly are."

Shino's hand latched around Kiba's wrist and kept him from launching at their temporary leader.

It was the second red flag raised and Sakura sighed, inwardly lamenting the fact they'd be stuck on the ship for the better of five days.

But the next morning found her staring into the ocean's rolling ways from the port bow, oddly enraptured by the clear blue hues and the absence of land for kilometers. Her father often spoke of waters like those, especially when he talked about all the sharks he knew and how there was no better feeling than losing yourself in the sun and the sea.

She turned her head upward. Sai sat on the foremast with a bound journal in one hand and a brush in the other.

He was... painting?

An image of wooden limbs and black pain flashed behind her eyes, a phantom of Sasori's cold artistry tainted with the obsession of the eternal.

Sai noticed her stare and smiled one of those rigid, plastic smiles. She inclined her head in acknowledgement before pushing herself off the railing and descending the stairs to the lower deck.

She wondered if she was the one to kill him, where would she bury the body?

The third day on the ship, Shino tested which poisons his kikai could devour while Akamaru whined pitifully from the warmth of his coat. While he wasn't necessarily the size of a 'medium' dog quite yet, the green coat that enshrouded him stretched slightly to accommodate two bodies—one shivering, one not.

Kiba sauntered over and crouched beside his friend to card a soothing hand through his partner's fur. "Seasick?"

Akamaru whimpered.

"More... uncomfortable on unstable grounds rather than bearing a sickness," Shino elaborated. Tens of tiny black beetles weave between his fingers and the vials on the floor sloshed, but never spilled. Of the eight poison compositions, four had been approved for immunity. "The healing chakra I administer every few hours helps, but it does not solve everything."

Kiba gave his partner one last reassuring scratch before he hiked himself onto one of the wooden boxes strewn about the bottom deck. "Just a couple more days, okay, bud? Then we'll be back on land." His feet kicked up to the stack of boxes beside him. "So Shino... whattya' think 'bout the temp?"

"My opinions on this authority don't matter. It's what he'll do and what he'll lead us to that will create my opinion of him." He raised his head, unimpressed. "But yet, due to his recent actions, I believe 'asshole' is an appropriate term to describe him."

Kiba barked out a laugh.

On the fourth day sailing steady waters as Sakura perched on the edge of the starboard stern with an eye to the water and Shino meditated in the shadows of the lower deck, Kiba ambled along the main deck with his hands in his pockets and his thoughts in the air.

He—they knew the mission they were on was just another trap. How could it not? Their standings in the preliminaries and the interruption of the finals didn't qualify any of them for a bump in rank even with the Third's bullshit new rule about the second exam. So the moment they learned just how far off from Konoha they'd be for the next month or two, they'd taken the few things they'd miss, said goodbye to their teachers, their families—

His shoulders dropped.

Saying goodbye to Iruka was hard. Thanking Tenzo for everything was harder. Doing the same with his mom and Hana was almost impossible with how far he had to push down how scared he was that he might not ever seen them again.

And yeah, of course he was scared. He could count all the times he'd almost been killed by his own village. He wasn't even a year into being proper shinobi! Who else had to worry about stuff like that? It shouldn't have been him, it shouldn't have been his partner, it shouldn't have been pack!

But it was. He couldn't change that.

And with what happened with Kurenai-sensei?

Kiba clenched his teeth when the backs of his eyes burned.

He was tired. So, so tired.

His feet carried him up to the bow. The mermaid carved beneath it had her color stripped by sea water, her hands outstretched to cup a string of bronze pearls. And at the very tip of the bowsprit sat a figure in black.

With a bound journal in one hand and some sort of crayon in the other.

Kiba leapt onto the bowsprit and walked forward. "So you draw."

Sai's crayon paused, and when he turned to address his subordinate, it was the first time he did so without a smile on his face. "Is there something you want?"

"Turns out you still got hobbies even with that attitude, huh," Kiba huffed, pulling his hands out his pockets to cross his arms as a salty breeze wafted through. "That's a surprise."

"You do not have quite a pleasant look on your face," he replied blandly. "Perhaps with no one here to hold you back, you will finally be successful in lunging at me."

Pointed fangs gleamed that went to complete an amused grin. "Maybe." But as soon as that grin came, it left, and Kiba took another look at the open pages on their temporary leader's lap. "But I ain't here for that. Just came to check out your work."

Tension bunched beneath the skin of his shoulders. Small talk? "... I see."

"What're you makin'? Abstract?"

Sai said nothing, running his orange oil pastel in calculated curves on his paper. Black, blue, purple, green, red, orange bled together in a curling harmony and it looked pretty nice, even when Kiba could admit to himself that all he saw was a bunch of color.

"Got a title for it?"

Silence again, then, "I have nothing like that."

"What?"

"For all the hundreds of pieces I've made, I have never given one a title," Sai said. He switched his orange pastel for a dark blue one. "So this will not have one either."

"'Cause names are words and words hardly matter, right?" Kiba mocked with a slight sneer. Empty black eyes were still trained on him. "Things like that don't fly. Least you could do's act normal, y'know?"

"And appreciating names will somehow lend credence to one's normality?"

Kiba rolled his eyes. "Well, your name's Sai, isn't it? Why wouldn't that matter if it's yours?" His arms dropped back to his sides and he started to walk off the bowsprit. "Nice drawin', or whatever."

Sai stared after him a little longer before blinking and facing back to his page.

On their last day on the Kaede Maru, the only time Sakura spoke to Sai was when she walked up to him, a single question on the tip of her tongue.

"What kind of animal do you like the most?"

Confusion struck him speechless for a brief, rare moment, but he quickly processed the question. "Liking animals is not required for me, therefore I do not have one I 'like the most'."

"If you had to choose."

"Is there a purpose to this inquiry, Foreigner?"

Her eyes flashed the same way they did their first altercation, but a small smile accompanied the chill in her gaze. "Humor me."

Animals. He'd never considered them outside focuses of some of his pieces or as obstacles if they ever got in the way of his assignments, but to pick a favorite one.

His porcelain mask, tucked and hidden in the depths of his small pack, hazily breached his thoughts.

"Lions." His mouth moved before he could stop himself, and she tilted her head.

"Hm," she hummed. "I prefer sharks myself."

She brushed past him to speak to the ship's captain. His eyes trailed after her and her stern bun of bright pink hair. Of all the things that ran through his head that he would never let surface for anyone to see, he locked them away in the corner of his mind and turned away.

::

Sachiko Village was a village with tens upon tens of boats docked in the harbor, bobbing gently with the waves as loose coils of rope dangled off their edges and into the sea.

Team Sai docked at night when the streets were dark and haunted by ghosts, and they were silent phantoms when they thanked the captain and his crew for the journey while they slunk towards the only house whose lights bled through the covered windows.

Kiba rapped his knuckles twice on the door before it opened a crack and a middle aged woman peeked out at them.

"Yes?"

"We have arrived on your account," Sai started with the small finesse for conversation he had. "Are you Hano Sakiko, the mayor of this village?"

She opened the door only wide enough for them to see the surprise on her face. "I am her wife, Yasu," she introduced politely, acknowledging them with a short bow of her head. "She's inside. Please, come in. Your journey must have been a long one."

As Yasu stood aside to let them in, Sakura cast one last look at the quiet blackness of the village behind her before bringing up the rear as the last to enter the quaint home.

She didn't pay much mind to the insects that crawled against the shadows.

It was warm when she stepped in, only a bit stuffy compared to the cool ocean air that glanced against her skin and the tops of waves outside. There was a maroon couch they were ushered onto in the living room and pictures of weddings and picnics and memories boasted quietly on the walls as she sunk into a cushion, accepting the warm cup of tea Yasu gently pushed into her grip.

When the woman's back turned, three separate sets of hands flicked black liquid into their cups.

And Shino hesitated before he reached over and dropped the poison detector in Sai's cup as well, answering their temporary leader's stare with nothing more than a tilt of his head.

Kiba's lips pressed together and he said nothing.

Sakura decidedly observed the shadow hurrying down the hallway towards them instead.

"My apologies for making you all wait, I..." Hano Sakiko bustled into the room, pitch black hair pulled up in a high ponytail and bangs swept over her green eyes; bright, light, almost pastel. She blinked in surprise at finding four children in her living room—children, why was it always children—but composed herself and cleared her throat. "I'm Hano Sakiko, mayor of Sachiko Village and the one who requested Konoha's services. Thank you for coming in our time of need."

Sai held the cup of tea chest level, arms bent, but made no move to drink it as his lips pulled up in a bland expression. "You may call me Sai. Please extend your information on these incidents."

"And I'm Inuzuka Kiba, and this is my partner, Akamaru," Kiba cut in, briefly side-eyeing their team leader.

"Aburame Shino," Shino intoned quietly.

"And I'm Sakura. It's a pleasure to meet you both." She jerked her head Sai's direction. "What senpai means to ask is if there's any more information you haven't disclosed in the mission description, and if there is, is it possible for you to share?"

Yasu took a seat beside her wife and grasps her hand as Sakiko sighs tiredly.

"The leaders of the other villages warned me of these kidnappings in our regular missives."

"You have correspondence with the affected villages on Nagi Island?" Sakura questioned.

"Of course," Sakiko replied. "On Nagi we're all on relatively amicable terms with one another and live in peace." She frowned. "Or, at least we try. These kidnappings sprang up suddenly, starting North and slowly following the coast line South, picking waterfront villages and it's feared we're next on that list."

"It's always children, too. The youngest reported had been ten and, the eldest eighteen. They'd been strong children, always speaking of wanting to travel to one of the mainlands to attend the Academies and become shinobi to bring pride to this small island," Yasu continued. Her free hand combed her blonde hair over her shoulder. "And there's been a surge of interest, you know, about wanting to be a shinobi."

"Why?" Shino asked curiously.

"Why what?"

"Why did they want to become shinobi?"

She shrugged a bit, a confused look in her calm eyes. "Why does anyone?"

He glanced away and towards the clock above the doorway. It was 1:14 am. "We apologize for our late arrival and, consequently, keeping you up as well."

"No, no, you're no problem at all," Sakiko smiled. She stood, gently squeezed Yasu's hand before letting go, and quickly gestured her guests up the stairs. "You all must want to rest after spending so long on a ship. I know I miss steady land when I take trips like those."

As they disappeared up to the second floor, Yasu cleared the cups off the low table.

And when she lifted the cup that pale boy held the whole time, she found the tea cooled and untouched.

Above, Sakiko led them to the two guest rooms they'd prepared for their arrival and left them with a promise of coming together once again in the later morning to continue their discussion. But before she could make her way back down the stairs, Sakura asked one more question.

"Has anyone else in the village been alerted of our arrival?"

Sakiko turned and smiled. "Not at all. I thought you would appreciate keeping your involvement as quiet as possible. Shinobi we've worked with in the past have always expressed their concern for it."

That being an accommodating action or having an ulterior motive, Sakura had yet to decide. So she kept her thoughts to herself and thanked their host before the team split into the rooms—Shino, Kiba, Akamaru, and her to one and Sai to the other.

But as the doors shut behind them, their windows opened, and Team Sai converged on the roof under the cloudless moonlight.

Insects crawled out of the cracks and crevices of tan shingles to wind around Shino's outstretched finger. He brought one of them close to his face and tilted an ear to listen. "No suspicious activity as of yet. We are free to speak."

Kiba immediately fell into a crouch and propped his elbows on his knees. "So this village is gonna get hit next 'cause—what'd Sakiko-sama say? Kidnappers are goin' down the coast?"

Sakura's gaze trailed along the maps Sai started to lay down in front of them. "It adds up. They're most likely using the water as an escape route if they're keeping to the edges of the island."

"Yet the reason is unclear," Shino murmured.

"Human trafficking? Seems like they're goin' for types, though, and they ain't goin' for easy targets if they're pickin' up people wantin' to be shinobi."

"Women and children are typically sought after targets, as well as both men and women who can perform physically intensive labor," Sakura remarked. Her eyes swiped across the map once more. "But that isn't the criteria these kidnappers are going for. Strong, perhaps. Young? Non-docile? Willing to cause trouble? I suppose it would make sense if they're catering to a specific clientele."

Akamaru barked and a grin overtook Kiba's face. "Ya' got a point there. So we'll probably never know what's actually goin' down 'til we actually see for ourselves, right?"

Sakura cocked a brow.

"What you're suggesting would most likely be dubbed a 'last-ditch plan'. Why? Because of the chance of danger that comes with it," Shino drawled. "Do you not think there are more viable plans to try before that one?"

"What 'bout the chance we fuck up and more kids get taken?" Kiba replied. Shino tipped his head in consideration. "You heard Sakiko-sama—they wanted to be shinobi, so that means not all of 'em were. We can defend ourselves. They can't. So we should get taken instead, maybe see if we can get back those other kids."

It was near impossible to read the expression on Sai's face, but Sakura tried to anyways. His dark eyes flickered between her friends, his smile dropped as he kept oddly silent.

It was like Kakuzu on his usual days, killing without remorse and pulling out hearts to study. She could recall an instance when he'd held a fresh one up to the sun, muttering something about valves and aortas and connecting veins to veins as his critical eye would run over each and every fiber as if to deem them worthy.

Most of them weren't.

But, Sai's face never neared the ones Kakuzu wore in his rages, when his partners took a step too far and ended up nothing more than organs in a cooler to sell.

'Organ trade,' she mused to herself. 'That's an idea.'

But then he finally spoke up. "Do you think it wise to put yourself in such unnecessary danger? Perhaps you overestimate your skill; could you truly shake a foundation when do you not know if it is made from straw or steel?" But unlike every other time, that smile never resurfaced. He stared Kiba down unblinkingly, a perfect mask of indifference. "You would do well to keep to the mission, as it does not entail we do more than investigate."

"And you'd do well ta' shut the hell up!"

Sakura leaned back against a hand as Kiba jerked to stand beside her and Shino exhaled quietly, taking a seat from his crouch. Akamaru's tail tucked between his legs.

"Least you could do's pretend you care!"

"Caring is not in the guidelines of this mission, and I have committed the mission detail to memory to perform at optimal capacity," Sai informed. He never blinked. "Perhaps this is the problem you have. We are not here to save those taken. We are here to prevent the kidnappings from continuing. That is this mission."

"They don't deserve that!"

"This is not about deserving. This is about fulfilling your duty."

"Screw duty!"

Sai was on his feet in a single smooth motion, and for the first time, their height difference was apparent when he pulled back his shoulders and his expression grew that more closed off.

Sakura hid a smirk behind her hand. Maybe not as indifferent as she first thought.

"And that's your whole fuckin' problem, ain't it? Duty this, mission that, do you even have your own head?!" Kiba hissed. "You don't give a shit! Not the team you're s'pposed ta' lead, not the kids gettin' taken, not even 'bout your damn self when you needed to look up what the hell a bond was! So what's your deal, huh? You too good for all this? You too good to be a person?!" He threw a hand out at the village. "People are goin' missing! What kinda heartless bastard do you gotta be ta' not wanna get any of 'em back? Ta' really stop everyone else from gettin' taken? Huh?! You tellin' me you're fine with this?!"

"What I want does not matter."

"Argh! You're so fuckin' annoying!"

Sai met his gaze evenly. "You do not have control over your emotions. This will be noted in the mission report."

"You—"

"So that's all you'll live for?" Shino interrupted. He pulled himself up to his feet, moonglow in his glasses. "You're content to tell me that it doesn't matter who you are?"

"Who I am does not matter. What I think does not matter. The mission is what matters, and the mission will be followed." Sai talked as if he was reading off a script, each syllable pronounced just as long and measured as the last without a single inflection. "If you do not follow the mission, then your insubordination will be noted in the mission report."

"Oh, I'll follow the mission all right." Kiba strode forward until their faces neared, his stature leaving him to crane his neck upwards. "Just don't make a stupid decision and we won't have a problem. Easy 'nough for you, right, senpai?"

"Kiba," Sakura warned softly. He flinched slightly under the slight reprimand in her tone before he met Sai's eyes again, gritting his teeth and hunching his shoulders.

"I'll take the west end of the village. Take a look 'round, see if there's a weird scent or somethin'," he stated. Akamaru got to his feet and poised himself by his partner's shins. His wet nose wrinkled once before he sought Sakura's gaze, and the small smile she granted him unraveled some of the tension in his muscles. His tongue flopped with the grin he sent her way and he took off towards the other end of Sachiko.

Sakura looked back at the rest of the team. "I'll scout the south end. Maybe keep an extra eye west, just in case." She nodded to Shino, an 'I'll take care of it' sort of expression etched in the dark bags beneath her eyes. She then nodded at Sai. "Senpai. I'll take my leave and make sure Kiba knows we're to regroup at 0600."

She took off next, leaving two on the roof and not much more to exchange between them.

"... Kiba means well," Shino said. "It's just he can't understand how you can act so cold. Why? It's in his nature to do the right thing. I don't disagree with him myself."

"He clouds his judgment with emotions. There is no 'do the right thing' when one is a shinobi. It is 'do what is ordered'." Sai bent down to re-fold the maps left on the rooftop. "We are tools. We are meant to be used. We will die when our purpose is fulfilled."

"Perhaps." Shino tucked his hands into his pockets and his fingers knocked against glass, startling him for a moment. He pulled his hand back and stared at the vial of black liquid. A few seconds passed and he tossed it at his temporary leader who caught it between two deft fingers. "But why would you succumb to that when you know there's something more you can be?" He shook his head and faced east, kikai already creeping across his coat. "Make use of that poison detector if you wish. Everyone on the team has one."

He leapt off the roof, leaving one last figure to stand in the chill of the early morning air with a set of maps in one hand and a vial in the other.

(Water the mustard seed of doubt with understanding, and it will begin to sprout.)

The vial dropped from pallid fingers and shattered under the crushing weight of a foot.

::

When they were taken, it was around noon.

To the team's surprise, they were to cast the guise of the mayor's low-ranking shinobi nephew, Sai, and his equally low-ranking friends visiting for the week. Kiba didn't comment on how their temporary leader came up with the plan all on his own and tailored to the argument they had on the rooftop, nor did he mention anything when they were supposed to act their parts to get themselves kidnapped.

Sakiko protested the plan.

They didn't listen.

They practiced throwing weapons in open clearings in plain view of the civilians and Kiba persisted in being rowdier than usual. He and Sakura took to wrestling on the side roads while Shino and Sai practiced basic kata not too far off.

Some kikai tried to make themselves home hidden somewhere in the folds of their senpai's black clothes.

None of them had succeeded.

Thirty-six hours after their arrival, they started to feel eyes they couldn't see.

Seventy-two hours after their arrival, masked assailants in gray rained down and clamped metal collars around their necks.

Seventy-six hours after their arrival, Team Sai woke up in the hull of a rocking ship.

::

Sakura was the first.

Eyes snapping open, she lurched forward from her sprawled position on wooden planks, her motion lagging slightly from the cuffs and chains around her wrists and ankles. The metal, though dulled and scratched, held up despite her yanks to try and snap the binds.

"Enforced," she muttered.

"A mild inconvenience, I suppose you would say."

Sai dragged himself up and crossed his legs, the chains an unflattering clash against his skin.

"Inconvenient in the sense that these kidnappings are bigger than we first assumed," she said. A glance left granted her the sight of both Kiba and Shino—whole, still, but breathing. But Akamaru—

Her gaze flew past boxes and tarps in an otherwise empty hull. Where was Akamaru?!

"We will proceed with the plan as usual. Nothing has changed." He smiled. "Though by the look on your face, it seems that you are realizing that you are in far deeper than your expectations."

"Probably," she admitted with a loose shrug of her shoulder. "But we adapt. Keep going."

"Are you not concerned?"

"Do I have a reason to be?" she countered. As she tugged at the collar locked around her neck she stared straight into Sai's eyes. He wondered how she could act like that—like a half-decent shinobi who didn't allow their emotions to dictate their actions—when she kept something as irrational as the Mutt or as sensitive as Glasses close to her side.

The door to the hull swung open before he could open his mouth to answer, and in sauntered someone clad in a hakama and a thick tan tunic that stretched to wrap around their face.

But Sakura didn't pay much attention to that.

Instead, she was fixed on the red-hot branding iron at the stranger's side.

::

Sorry for the wait everyone! And here we end this chapter with some awesome fanarts by—

macklinharmon on fanfiction.net!

bigboyjooheon!

Kimora-sama!

WattPearl!

ScarletShad0w!

gimmie-cereal on tumblr!

kariito-chii on tumblr!

HarukiMets!

and Michiko-Sama1811!