#making things again

Sakura had always had a mind keen enough for long games, so that’s why Naruto never saw her coming.

With all the love in her heart for her friend, Sakura could still admit the honest truth; that he hadn’t been a strong Hokage despite his prowess as a shinobi. The two jobs were too inherently and fundamentally different from one another, it was unfair to believe that the strongest fighter would make the wisest military strategist or diplomat.

Of course the hokage would have assistants who could fill in those gaps for them, Shikamaru was enough of a strategist and Naruto had plenty of others who would go off to sooth relations with the other villages to the best of their abilities, but at the end of the day everything fell on the shoulders of the hokage, and it was their decision to listen to such advisors and assistants.

What would happen if their foolish, hopeful, bright hokage didn’t believe in the grim truths of his expert advisors? What would happen if those expert advisors were ignored too many times? What if the hokage made decisions no one approved of for the sake of some groundless belief? What if, instead of honoring the sacrifice of his fallen allies, he made peace with their abusers and perpetuated the cycle?

Sakura was staring at two such answers in the privet office of her hospital, secured with only the best privacy protecting jutsu to ensure any patient’s medical condition stay between them and their doctor.

“Why do you think I would have something to do with it?” Sakura asked, casual as ever while Shikamaru and Yamato sat in seats across from her.

“Hn, you’re really good at lying,” Shikamaru sighed, fingers twitching for a cigarette. She had already swatted the first one out of his hands and deposited it atop her desk. Every so often she would casually roll it with her forefinger, watching the chief strategist for his reaction.

“Can a person lie when asking a question? I don’t believe I made an inaccurate statement.”

“This campaign of his will lose him political favor with the vast majority of the general public,” Shikamaru said without any concern in his voice. “You know him better than most.”

“Then you know there is no controlling Naruto. He’s never been one for listening to authority and it should be clear to you by now how much he respects me as anything other than a teammate.” Sakura pushed the cigarette up with her finger and then rolled it back, grinning at how Shikamaru’s eyes fixated on it. “You’re his advisor, Shikamaru, shouldn’t you be the one in charge of swaying him from this folly?”

When Shikamaru didn’t respond Sakura picked up the cigarette and turned it over in her fingers, careful to keep it where he could see it. Her eyes cut to Yamato, silent for all but his initial greeting. He had been quiet often, speaking less and less as he was forced to monitor his childhood abuser from afar on Naruto’s orders. More than once Sakura had urged him to seek some help with the mental anguish he was so clearly laboring under, but she might as well have been talking to a brick wall. She was curious why he was in her office now.

It had been a couple of months since they last talked, right after Sarutobi Hiruzen’s memorial day. To hear Naruto talk about the old man you’d think the third hokage never did anything wrong in his life. And true, to speak ill of the dead was in poor taste, but it was a choice to memorialize the old man and erect statues and name parks after him. It was hard to stomach this year after Sakura had started to see some of Hiruzen’s worst traits in his predecessor.

For Hiruzen it had been his blindspot for Danzo that led to the bloody Root- something Tsunade had lobbied and petitioned against. All her efforts to bring Danzo’s misdeeds to the public were shut down, even years later when they came up for review. Sakura had submitted the same proposal for the last four years to no effect. Neither Kakashi nor Naruto seemed keen on the idea of airing out dirty laundry for ‘no one’s’ benefit. For a while Sakura thought that was the most divisive issue between her and her old teammate, but that was before the Hyuga started showing up at her hospital in the darkness before sunrise.

“Tenzin,” she called, provoking Yamato for a reaction. It had been a while since someone last called him by his old name. Naruto instead on Yamato because that’s what he knew first. “Were you able to help the songbirds?”

He swallowed before nodding. “Only as much as you advised. Their seals are still in place but no longer mitigating their daily life like before.”

Shikamaru grimaced, looking between the two of them. “You didn’t tell me you had already spoken.”

“I only said we should speak to her,” Yamato cooly replied. “But you already knew we had talked.”

“You didn’t seem receptive to anything she said so I doubted your actual involvement,” Shikamaru admitted. “But it seems I miscalculated once more.”

“You thought either of us would stay still after learning what you already knew about Naruto’s dealings with the Hyuga?” Sakura scoffed. “Really?”

“In the absence of the Uchiha clan the Hyuga are arguably our strongest ally so it wasn’t necessary for me to pry into their business so deeply.”

Sakura almost snapped his cigarette between her fingers. “I’m tempted to throw you out right now for being such a placating coward. You’re smarter than that, you just didn’t want to look too deeply into the dark or thought yourself above it because it wasn’t you who was wooing the Hyuga heiress.”

Shikamaru forced his eyes up, though Sakura could tell it required some effort. “I’m here now.”

“Then,” interjected Yamato, “Are you ready to hear what we want to stop?”

“Even if you have a good idea you deserve to see it spelled out for you,” Sakura added.

The Nara clan head nodded, squaring his shoulders.

Without breaking eye contact or setting aside the cigarette between her fingers, Sakura reached underneath her desk and pulled out a file. It split open upon impacting the desk and showed off a number of reports and diagrams of the human body. Then there were the pages with jutsu spells and variations of the ‘Caged Bird’ seal Sakura had taken note of. Beneath those were mortuary reports.  

“In Orochimaru’s absence his sadistic traditions seems to have been inherited by the most powerful noble clan in our village. Conveniently, our hokage is willing to overlook this,” Sakura leaned back and snapped her fingers in front of the cigarette she had placed between her lips, lighting it. Over the smoke she locked eyes with Shikamaru. “But I’m not.”

“Is that why you baited him into a game of chicken with the daimyo?” Shikamaru asked, meeting her eyes between the smoke. “A game you know he can’t win?”

And he is such a sad boy

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