Shinobi (Sequel to Otokage)

What Brings You Here?

It wasn't the best idea to take his break in his office, Itachi decided five minutes into his lunch hour. All he wanted was to enjoy his plain seaweed onigiri and not be bothered. But the second he took his first bite, Deidara and Hidan burst into his office sputtering their usual nonsense.

"You should try coding!"

Itachi took another bite as he gave them a flat stare. Deidara rolled his eyes and planted both gloved hands on the desk.

"Sakura-sama's pretty smart, right, un?" Deidara questioned, "She studied medicine, became one of the top medics, and was able to create an antidote for one of Danna's specialty poisons."

Hidan sat in the seat beside the blonde and held up a paper with a diagram on it.

"So you should do something like coding. You know, put 'You're pretty fucking hot' or something like that, let her code it herself, and BAM! She gets the message. Literally." he grinned. Itachi was already taking lessons from Tobi on how to cook a simple, decent dish and found that time consuming enough.

"Are you that sure of this plan that you decided to type and print it?" he asked. Hidan blinked and looked at the sheet in his hands.

"Print? I wrote this shit out."

Deidara did a double take before snatching the paper from his hands and peering at the labeled diagram intently. He thought it was printed too.

"What the hell, un? How the fuck can you draw straight lines and write in Ubuntu Condensed font?!"

Ignoring them like always, Itachi finished his onigiri and threw his trash away in the bin beside his desk. That idea didn't seem all to bad to catch her attention. He wasn't much of a verbal man himself, and subtle things like these were sure to bring some things to light. He looked at the pair of annoyances in his office as he got out some of his work folders.

He would bide his time.

Surely she wouldn't find a significant other by then, would she?

::

Shino immediately knew that he wasn't going to be a huge fan of Ta no Kuni. He kept his insects to himself in fear that they'd get eaten by the ridiculous amount of owls that surrounded them. Granted, these types probably wouldn't take to eating his bugs, but there was no way in hell he was going to take that chance.

Their team walked down a snow-ridden path in deafening silence with Shikamaru at the front and everyone else following after. Shino expected this to happen. He clearly remembered the moment Lee tugged down a stranger's hood to reveal none other than Haruno Sakura. He didn't know her as well as Naruto or Ino had, but it was enough for him to feel that twinge of sadness at her passing. He couldn't say anything when he laid his eyes on her and kept his mouth shut as he and Lee escorted her to the Hokage's office. There, he stayed to listen to her explanation of the last eight years, leaving only when Lee started to get emotional.

Shino didn't blame her for leaving. If he had teammates like Naruto and Sasuke, a teacher like Kakashi, and no clan to fall back on, he would've done the same. How tiring it must have been to be constantly compared to people obviously on a different level. He imagined that Sakura felt like she was set to a higher standard because of how strong the people around her were.

She was a decent kunoichi. Maybe a little more than decent due to her intelligence.

But her team was comprised of monsters, to put it politely. They were menaces in terms of strength and power. It was only natural for her to decide that she wanted to rise above them and become better than the weak little girl everyone accounted her as-- he being no less guilty than the next person. What else could he say? There was something in him that wanted to apologize for even thinking that.

The sight of Otogakure's gates neared as the trail ended.

Shino questioned her action to lead everyone to think she had died, but he couldn't bring himself to be upset over it. With Sasuke's leaving and Naruto's path to becoming Hokage, they couldn't have expected her to take that sitting down.

Shikamaru slowed as they approached the village. Well, it looked much newer than Konoha with tall metal gates rather than wooden ones, Oto's symbol emblazoned proudly on the front. The team headed for the guard stand. They recoiled slightly in shock at the sight of a redhead sitting on the table. Sasuke grit his teeth.

"The dead just keep coming back, don't they?" he scowled. Sasori smirked.

"So bitter." he hummed, "Why not indulge in the sweet things like your brother?"

Sasuke's anger flared at the mere mention of the man, though he didn't notice the double meaning underlying those words. Sasori quickly changed the topic as he moved his eyes over to Shikamaru.

"What brings you here?"

"We have questions to ask of the Otokage."

"Regarding?"

"That's classified."

Sasori nodded and hopped off the table. He glanced to the side at the trio of young kunoichi that made their way towards them.

"I would love to escort you to her office, but luckily for you, I have a mission." he drawled, turning towards the kunoichi, "Keep to the main road and you'll find yourself at the building. The front is where the glass doors are-- go straight in. Sakura-sama's expecting you."

Ino flinched and Sasuke turned his head at the sound of her name. Shikamaru's eyebrows knit together as he cast a cursory stare at the group of girls who couldn't be older than twelve and led his team deeper into the village. Of course their arrival would have been accounted for. The owls were her intricate system after all. Though he had to admit he was surprised that Sasori, the man that turned sand red wherever he went, had become a genin sensei.

Ino tapped his arm.

"How did she know we were coming?"

"She has owl summons now. Kakashi-sama, Kurenai-sensei, and I met one of them at the Summit." he replied. He pointedly left out the part that owl summons were only a part of her information system and that she most likely had normal, everyday owls working under her command as well. How, he still didn't know.

Ino pursed her lips and kept her eyes on her feet.

'Forehead... what happened to you?'