Eight

A New Perspective

"I don't want to hear it," Izumo snapped. He set his mug on the countertop with a sharp clack, the coffee inside sloshing close to the rim. "First I go to the hospital to find that you've checked yourself out while you clearly still need to recover—"

"I—"

"And then right when I get back home you're telling me that what? That Sakura wasn't the one that did this to you?" He rubbed his forehead and sighed. "I know you don't want to believe it, but what other explanation is there? You said it yourself; she was the last one that saw you, she was scared she was going to do something, and she ran off. Next thing you know, someone's in your apartment and you turn around and see her just before you lost consciousness." His mouth curled up into a snarl, incensed. "She almost killed you. If Makaro hadn't come to check why you hadn't shown up for your shift, you would've..."

Kotetsu pressed his lips together and looked away, one of his hands coming up to brush against the bandages wrapped around his head. They said they'd found him on the floor of his apartment, everything around him untouched but his skull fractured and a pool of blood around his head from the thick gash on his scalp.

When he'd woken up to find himself in the hospital, a shinobi from investigations had come in shortly after to take his account.

Did you know of any intention to inflict harm on your person?

Who was the last person you saw before your attack?

Would Sakura have any reason to attack you?

Who? No, we wouldn't know.

Why?

Yuuhi Kurenai's Team Eight consisting of: Aburame Shino, Inuzuka Kiba, Ninken Akamaru, and Sakura, have fled Konohagakure. They have been charged with two counts of assault against you and Umino Iruka; one count of theft from the Hokage's Library; two counts of first degree murder for the deaths of Aburame Torune and Operative Tenzo, where the latter's body had been taken for the assumed purpose of kekkei genkai acquisition. They have committed treason against this village by failing to uphold both their loyalties and the title of honorable shinobi. They are wanted dead or alive.

Thank you for your time, Hagane-san. Please get well soon.

The thought of Sakura being involved with anything like that left a horrible taste on his tongue. No matter how many times he ran it all through his head, all the suspicion and accusations against Sakura felt... felt justified. She was indeed the last person he'd seen and she'd been fidgety and lost before her hasty departure and then—then fleeing right after she knocked him out and helped kill an Aburame and that Tenzo guy?

None of that made any sense. What the hell did Team Eight have to prove if they did something like that? What the hell could they have possibly achieved by becoming wanteds in the Bingo Books?

"None of this sounds weird to you?" Kotetsu asked. "She was my student! A kid!"

"She is—was—a Konoha chuunin who helped take down Akasuna no Sasori. She's not a kid, 'tetsu, she's a goddamn shinobi." Izumo took his hand and squeezed. "I don't know why she wanted you dead, but—"

"She didn't want me dead. Doesn't. I just... I just don't know what the hell was going through her head, okay?" Because her getting the drop on him like that didn't explain why she'd come over to the apartment in the first place. If she was trying to trick him into some false sense of security—which he severely doubted—she wouldn't have huddled in that seat and talked about her father.