Pulling My Weight

Chapter 14 || Developments

Sakura let Anko escort her to T&I, then marvelled as she was led far deeper into the building's bowels than she'd previously been allowed to go. She sent a curious glance at her senpai, which the woman caught and promptly snorted at. "There are over ten more levels below the one we're heading to, brat, so don't look so awed already." She remarked, and Sakura promptly gawked, then sighed internally – she wished Anko wouldn't be so... well, Anko sometimes and let her have her delusions. But she shook her head and smiled instead, grateful that the woman was willing to put up with her at all.

"I wouldn't be awed if you'd let me come here before." She grouched teasingly, as their relationship wasn't theirs without some banter. Anko made to elbow her, but Sakura, already used to sudden elbows or legs aiming to trip her up merely dodged and grinned, stepping out of the tokujo's reach and sticking her tongue out teasingly.

"Cheeky shit," Anko swore and lunged playfully, making Sakura yelp and stumble as she tried and failed to dodge and got a noogie for her troubles. "Now listen here brat, I bullied Ibiki into letting you take a shot at the Iwa-nin before we off him, so when you're there, remember that my reputation hangs in the balance. You screw up and you'll be doing dodge training with my snakes instead of sleeping for a week." Her senpai threatened and Sakura paled. Anko had made her do 'dodge training' before, and the rosette reckoned that there were few things she hated and simultaneously feared more than a repeat of that. Not only were the snakes slimy and disgusting, they were also deceptively fast and agile, and Sakura had ended up with more bruises and tiny puncture wounds all over her body than she could count, and with the rules Anko had set before she sicced her snakes on her, each 'hit' was ten sit-ups.

Sakura had not been able to move from her bed the next day.

Finally, after what felt like hours of wandering the dim corridors of T&I, Anko opened a door and gestured her in, following after and sealing the door once it closed behind them. Glancing around the room, Sakura noted Morino-san standing by the one-way window and a man she didn't know and then, once she actually took the time to peer through the window, she saw a bare cell, the walls a drab, gray concrete and a metal table with a chair on either side. One of the chairs was occupied by the prisoner – he was pale and drawn, his red hair hanging limply by his shoulders, his cheekbones far more pronounced than Sakura reasoned was healthy, his skin was sallow and of a sickly yellowish colour that spoke of weeks without going outside. There were manacles around his wrists and ankles, heavy and clearly too tight, and Sakura realised with a start that though she could see him, she couldn't sense him.

Chakra suppressants. She realised belatedly.

For a moment, Sakura felt sick. She'd seen how prisoners were held before, true, but they had mostly been low-level thugs which meant that they weren't kept for too long as they tended to break and spill any valuable information much sooner. This however... she chanced a glance at Anko, briefly entertaining the thought that her senpai had intentionally kept her away from seeing the darker side of their job because she knew it wouldn't sit right with her. Then she promptly dismissed it. Anko and concern for other people's feelings? If it hadn't been for that short time in the hospital, just after they got back from that dreaded mission where Tamaki- Sakura's thought process stalled for a minute, but she grit her teeth and barrelled through the instinctive stab of grief and guilt that came at the mere thought of the blond- where Tamaki died, she'd have thought that Anko simply didn't do emotions.

But she knew better.

Then, her gaze fell to the figure on the opposite side of the metal table and she smiled against her will. "Tonbo-san!" she breathed quietly, but loudly enough to alert Morino-san to her presence.