Chapter Eleven

P.O.V. Sakura Haruno

After Tsunade's phone call, without much question and against Itachi's loud opinion in the background of the phone call, I transported Naruto and myself to front gates of the village hidden in the leaves. The moment the brisk wind broke around us, my head erupted in pain on the left side of my skull, I bend down praying gravity could somehow take the whipped pain away.

"Sakura!?" Naruto sounded worried, I opened my glowing eyes quickly deactivating them and after a few moments the pain inside my head began to ease. I breathed out relaxing as I slowly stood. "What-!?" Naruto was panicked.

"Using my eyes or seal still takes a toll on me." I faked a smile as the dull throbbing of needle like pain played inside my left temple traveling all the way into my teeth.

Naruto and I walked towards the Hokage tower figuring that would be the best place to start. I looked around the leaf village feeling a strange sense of a home coming wash over me as I gazed around at all the building and seeing a few familiar faces stare shockingly at me.

Naruto and I were greeted quickly by Itachi and Ibiki Morino. I vaguely remember details about Ibiki from my time living inside this village, he is the head of the interrogation force or something. What made this situation even more curious was when Itachi turned to Naruto and told him to go home, he was not to follow us.

"Itachi." I said, "Why can't he-"

"Tsunade's orders." Itachi breathed turning to gaze down at my face, "Sakura please, we don't have much time."

"What is going on?" I shook my head,

"Not now-" Ibiki's husky voice called rudely over mine.

"Someone tell me something before I get bored and go home." I snapped back.

"Sakura." Itachi sighed, placing a hand on my shoulder, "Please come with me." I glanced over at Naruto, shooting him an apologetic look before nodding my head at Itachi.

"Lead the way sunshine." I said, Itachi smiled before turning and jogging off with me and Ibiki close on his heels. I felt bad about leaving Naruto behind, but this wasn't my village and it wasn't my call, I didn't even have a clue on what was going on or which part of the freaking sky was falling apart.

Itachi led me down through the leaf village jail into their prison inside their underground tunnels, I looked around at the dark cave halls. Lights were stung up along the walls giving off a low glow of light to see, but they failed miserably.

"I am becoming a regular customer down here." I muttered,

"I am sorry." Itachi closed his eyes looking pained.

"For what?"

"Bringing you into this mess."

"At least the mess isn't me this time." I shrugged, "Are you going to fill me in on what is going on or leave me in suspense?" I glanced past an old door with faded words written into the rusted metal, 'The Honest Room' I raised my eyebrow as I glanced back at Ibiki. "Is that where you take all your dates?"

"This is not a laughing matter." Ibiki snapped, I rolled my eyes.

"Well not with that attitude." I muttered seeing Itachi stopped walking and was now holding open a door for us to walk through.

Inside the room was a standard stone interrogation room I was used to. It had a round table with wooden chairs place around it, the window to view into the next room had its blinds lowered. I saw Tsunade and Inoichi, Ino's father who I knew to be the head of the leaf's intelligence department were already inside the room looking like they were waiting.

"Sakura." Tsunade smiled, standing from her chair once she saw me walk in. "Thank you for coming."

"Yeah." I nodded, "Anytime, I love getting random calls and being rushed into a creepy basement, there is no red flags there."

"Commander Haruno-" Inoichi rose to his feet, "-we did not call you here to make jokes and goof off-"

"Oh, I didn't realize I was talking to you." I bit in his chilled direction.

"Sakura-" Tsunade sighed, "Please, I didn't want to call you, but this was our last resort."

"Aw-" I said turning to her, "-don't I feel so special."

"We know your still in recovery." Itachi clarified the late call, "We didn't want to bring you in unless we absolutely had too."

"Bring me into what actually?" I repeated for the third time to be told why I was here.

"What do you know of the Lock Village?" Ibiki asked, leaning against the only exit out of this depressing room.

"The Lock Village?" I repeated feeling my brows furrow at the name.

"Yes-" Ibiki nodded, "-have you heard anything about them while you were in command over the Waterfall Village?"

"Mm..." I hummed trying to recall anything I had on them. "...no." I realized, "They were a quite village, we left each other alone."

"What do you mean by that?" Tsunade wondered.

"They wanted nothing to do with my village, they wanted no alliance. The Lock Village wanted to be left alone and so I did just that. I heard the Star Village tried messing around with them but shortly after they almost got destroyed by the Lock so-" I shrugged, "-they left me alone and I did the same."

"I see..." Tsunade muttered under her breath rubbing her chin in deep thought.

"Why is the Lock Village being brought up?" I wondered, moving to sit on the one of the creaky chairs. The four shinobi who stood inside this dreary room appeared to all be in deep thought about what I had said, so I found a better question to ask. "What do you know about them that I don't?"

"We thought the same as you did." Inoichi crossed his arms over his chest.

"What changed?" I wondered, feeling curious like a cat around a new box.

"Sakura-" Itachi called out my name, "-how is your health?"

"My-My what?" I laughed, "Why the hell-"

"Sakura." Tsunade was oddly stern, "How is it?"

"I am fine." I groaned, "I am recovered about as much as I probably can."

"What does that mean?"

"It means tell me why the hell I dropped everything and rushed over here." I snapped turning to glare at Itachi and Tsunade who were stalling.

"Very well." Tsunade breathed, "But promise me one thing: you will not freak out."

"Sure." I shrugged,

"Sakura, I am serious." Tsunade warned.

"So am I. I have seen almost everything this world can throw at me." I rolled my eyes, "There ain't much left that can shock m-" Tsunade pulled the blinds up to reveal the next room. I stood from my chair quickly walking to the clear glass.

"What-?" I breathed; my lips parted as my eyes widened as I turned to look at Tsunade. There was a woman strapped down to a chair inside the other room, her forehead had blood still leaking from the fresh open wound, her arms looked as if she got into a fight with a garbage disposal and I could see blade marks along her toned torso. "What in the hell did you do?" I turned to glare at Tsunade.

"Why-Why do you automatically assume it was me!?" Tsunade sounded offended.

"That's-" I cut myself off, to finish that sentence I felt I would have to dry heave it out of my mouth.

"That is Hanare Takeda-" Inoichi stepped in, "-of the Lock Village."

"Lock Village?" I breathed staring at her bloodied and bruised face. "What-?" I shook my head, "-but she's-"

"She is Kakashi Hatake's girlfriend, we know." Ibiki nodded with his eyes closed.

"What the fuck is going on!?" I snapped looking into Tsunade's eyes.

"Hanare is a spy."

"A spy?" I laughed at the absurd idea, "You got me." I said, "This was all a really good-"

"This is no joke." Inoichi snapped, "That woman in there has been spying on our village for months!" I turned from Inoichi and locking on Itachi.

"You said she was good." I said,

"I thought she was." Itachi looked to the floor.

"No." I shook my head, that was not good enough. "You said she was great, you claimed her to be kind and a fucking trickling river, you cleared her to be around this village and around-!" My stomach felt like it was strapped to a drop tower as it pulpit into my lower abdomen.

"I am sorry, I truly thought-"

"Where the hell is Kakashi?" I looked around the room.

"He doesn't know she is here." Ibiki answered, "We don't know what Hanare got out of him, we need time to-"

"You don't really think he would leak information-"

"We don't know." Ibiki's voice was stale.

"What the fuck you mean you don't know?!" I snapped, taking steps towards him. "Kakashi Hatake is one of your most dedicated shinobi-"

"He was going to leave the leaf village to follow you." Inoichi calmly said. Well he got me there... "We simply don't know what Hanare has gotten from him, or from anyone else from the village. She has been here for months undercover-"

"Why?"

"We have reason to believe that the Lock Village sent Hanare to gather information about the fire nation."

"Why?" I repeated.

"Because they want to bring us down." Tsunade said. "We got reports of her being inside multiple other villages with the same MO-"

"What MO?" I asked,

"She will get with a man, generally a shinobi who is high up in the ranks. Hanare will act like she loves them until she gets whatever information she needs out of them and then she vanishes from the village without a trace." Ibiki explained,

"Her pictures have flooded the surrounding area; four villages are desperately searching for her right now as we speak." Tsunade said as I glared through the glass.

"Why am I here?" I asked.

"We can't break her." Itachi said,

"What?" I laughed turning to Inoichi. "You have literally one job and you can't do it?"

"Now is not the time." Tsunade lectured, "We need to find out what information Hanare has collected."

"Why the time crunch?"

"We don't have enough time-" Tsunade explained, "-because the lock village has one of our own."

"Really?"

"Yes, Riichi." Tsunade closed her eyes, one thing I thought I knew about Tsunade before being banished was she loved her shinobi, she always wanted to see them come home, maybe that hadn't changed.

"We believe Hanare had to call her contact inside her village at a certain time and when we contained her, she missed her window and not even a full day later we get a message from the Lock Village." Inoichi explained.

"What did the message say?"

"They want to trade their spy for our man." Inoichi answered, I felt the level of hatred Inoichi held for Hanare. I understand she was a spy and has been watching the leaf village from the inside but that didn't explain why Inoichi blared at her the way he did.

"Why do you say you can't break her?" I questioned.

"I can't find anything inside her mind when I look into it." Inoichi spat, spit flying from between his lips as he glared through the glass. Hanare sat strapped to her metal chair, her head tilted downward, and her eyes closed. I tilted my head studying her, she didn't appear tired or to be in any real pain.

"How long did you work on her?"

"Hours."

"Really?" I sounded shocked.

"What?" Inoichi turned to me.

"Nothing." I shrugged, "You claim to have tortured that girl in there for 'hours' but she looks like she just took a stroll through a park-"

"What are you saying Reaper?" Inoichi narrowed his eyes onto me, making me grin.

"I'm saying you don't swing it like you use to, Inoichi." As the words left my mouth, he barreled his way towards me, flames sparked his eyes. His short temper matched his daughters down to the last eye twitch, I guess the apple really doesn't fall to far from the tree, but Itachi got in between the fun.

"We are not here to fight each other!" Itachi lectured, "We have no idea what Riichi could be going through right now!"

I had been right about the strange feeling I got from Hanare, it wasn't simply just because she was dating Kakashi and I wasn't...Kakashi...what the hell was he going to think when this gets out through the village? My heart ached for the pain he was going to be in, I wanted to shelter him but I knew I couldn't.

"Sakura?" Tsunade broke my train of thought, "What are you thinking-?"

"I am thinking Hanare here was trained for this."

"Trained for what?" Itachi asked,

"To do what she does for a living." I answered, "She as trained to endure torture, so it doesn't surprise me that she can hold out against Inoichi."

"Do you think you could break her?!" Tsunade breathed, her eyes were almost pleading with me to sing to her what she wanted to hear.

"I won't know until I get there." I said, "I don't know how skilled she is, and to have been living among you all for as long as she was...well, she has to be good."

"Are you sure you can do this?" Itachi's voice shook with worry, I shrugged.

"This is what I was built to do." I said,

"Sakura, no-" Tsunade's eyes filled with sadness.

"If I am going to do this-" I rudely cut Tsunade off, "-no one can interrupt me."

"Why would we-"

"Because I know you." I said, "If I go in that room, we are going to do this my way since yours had failed, got it?"

"Yes Reaper." Ibiki nodded, "Everything you should need is already placed inside the room."

"Fantastic." I sarcastically commented turning to exit the room.

"Sakura-!" Tsunade breathed catching my eyes with her, "-be careful."

"Always." I smirked as I moved out of the room, I took in a deep breath trying to steady the rage I felt building up inside my chest before entering the conjoined room.

It was time to get this show on the road. As I pulled the screechy metal door open, Hanare was so close within my reach and I had to do everything necessary to break her into spilling her guts, I was really going to enjoy this.

The metal door slammed behind me as I moved to sit across from Hanare, she didn't look up nor budge hearing my chair scrape across the floor. As I took a seat the chair groaned under my weight, it being too old for use it cried as I moved around to get comfortable.

I could feel Tsunade and Itachi squirming around behind me watching with anticipation for someone to say something, I almost wanted to smile at their swirling fresh misery.

"They sent in you?" Hanare laughed, her voice cracking at the high notes.

"Why wouldn't they?" I wondered.

"Sending in Kakashi's ex-fiancée to interrogate his new girlfriend is just...hilarious...how many strings did you have to pull to get in here?" Hanare pulled her head up to gaze at me, her eyes were darkened almost mixing to a sucking dark abyss. Her facial features were tight, and her skin looked almost gray. If I didn't know better, I would say this was a completely different person.

"I don't care about you enough to pull strings." I answered,

"Right." Hanare scoffed, "Why are you sitting here then?"

"I was asked too." I said,

"Asked?"

"Mhm." I hummed.

"By whom?"

"The Hokage of the village you snuck into and have been spying on."

"That little man from earlier-" A sly grin spread across her face, "-is he watching us now?"

"Well I wasn't here earlier; I don't know who your referring too."

"The ugly mutt with the scar across his face." Hanare spat out, lightly shocking me. Where was this trickling river Itachi talked about that was so peaceful to be around.

"Ibiki is his name, and yes he is watching us now."

"He couldn't get it up so now he has to send in a girl to do his job-"

"Oh, he isn't watching because he wants to." I smirked, "He is supervising."

"Are you on a leash or something-"

"Not a damn thing on this earth can put me on a leash." I grinned, "Unlike yourself, Ibiki is here watching over you, to make sure I don't kill you."

"You're not-"

"Your forgetting-"

"I know who you are-" Hanare rolled her eyes, oh how I was going to enjoy ripping those orbs from their warm sockets.

"Who I am is not what you should be concerned about-" I leaned backwards in the chair, "-it's what I am that should have you shaking in your seat right about now."