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30/14 Rayemars Sakura was fourteen. Tsunade had recently begun interspersing Sakura's medical studies with strength training; Shizune saw less and less of the two of them in the last few weeks, since Tsunade took Sakura deep into the Forest of Death to teach her. The technique was one that Tsunade inherited from her grandfather, and she was very careful not to let it be revealed to others--even Shizune had only figured out about half of it, from the glimpses that Tsunade had shown in the few battles and embarrassingly multiple bar fights she'd been involved in over the years. They rarely came back before dark. Shizune was already co-head of the hospital, but she took over what of the Hokage's duties she could, and set aside the papers and letters that were above her authority for Tsunade to examine when she returned. Shizune spent almost more time in the Hokage's office than Tsunade did or Sakura was supposed to; she was not too slow to realize that someone was going through the various files and scrolls brought in each day. It wasn't too hard for her to figure out the culprit, either. Sakura was fourteen, and Shizune was thirty. Shizune had studied with Tsunade a little, before Tsunade got her blood-sickness and was given permission from the Third Hokage to leave the Konoha and never look back, but she had never really been Tsunade's student or apprentice. Tsunade had been too busy with medical work to take on the responsibility of a genin group as her teammates had done, and though Shizune had been the best in seals and chakra focus in her class, a clear candidate for medicnin duties even before she graduated, the war had demanded too much manpower and Shizune rarely had the free time to train or study. Sakura was the first real student that Tsunade made time for. The war between the Sound and the Leaf was a cold one--there had been the occasional battle, but surprisingly few casualties and deaths for two years--so Sakura was more fortunate than Shizune had been. Tsunade didn't shelter her from missions, because the lack of battle experience would have gotten her killed, but she also quietly passed about a third of the assignments that Sakura would have been suitable for to others. Shizune noticed. She prevented anyone else from doing so, to keep the Hokage from being accused of partiality. Taking care of Tsunade was a life-consuming task, but Shizune had known what she was choosing when she'd nervously submitted her request to Sarutobi two days after Tsunade had knocked Jiraiya unconscious, closed up the doors of her family home, and left through the gates of Konoha for what all four of them had thought would be the last time. Sakura was fourteen, and she had no desire or intention of taking over Shizune's task. What Sakura truly, currently wanted, Shizune knew, was to have her team back. When Kakashi had returned from one of his constant missions with a twisted knee and had to visit the hospital, Sakura had been the one to treat him. Shizune found her on the hospital roof later, during her lunch break, leaning against the fence with her arms crossed beneath her chin and staring in the vague direction where Oto lay. Shizune learned that Sakura hadn't seen Kakashi in nearly a year, aside from the occasional meeting on the streets; Kakashi had been taking only solitary work lately, as though he'd become wary of being on teams in light of what had happened to his last two. Shizune hoped that Sakura had been focused on Oto simply because she had no idea where to look for Naruto. Jiraiya's correspondence to Tsunade was short, coded, and generally classified so high that even Sakura didn't dare tamper with them. And Naruto wasn't the type to write letters, partially from a dislike of remaining still for long and partially because he was the type too busy doing things to remember to write about them. Sakura worked with other teams over the months, moreso after she passed the chuunin exam under special conditions the third time around, and she didn't talk about team seven--but Shizune only had to look at the list of missions that Kakashi was slated for to recall how obvious it had to feel, especially as weeks turned to months which turned to a year and then some. Tsunade didn't talk about it, either; the one time she caught Sakura staring out the window while waiting for her to get back from a meeting, she'd told Sakura that if she was depressed, she should go train it out of her system. Sakura seemed to have taken the words to heart. Shizune rarely spoke to Sakura about matters outside of medicine, and thus avoided the topic of teams and history altogether. After all, Sakura was fourteen, and Shizune was thirty, and Tsunade was fifty-two; and it wasn't Shizune who had experience to speak from. But Tsunade had the sense and the respect for Sakura's intelligence to not mention either Sasuke or Orochimaru. She told Sakura to better herself for her own sake and the sake of all the people she would ever work with on a mission. Sakura was fourteen and Shizune was thirty and Tsunade was fifty-two--there were generations between each other. Tsunade had been in love with Dan before Shizune even knew her legend; that had never bothered her. It was a part of the only Tsunade she'd known. Shizune had been protecting that Tsunade before Sakura was born. She struggled for twelve days before finally coming up to Tsunade's office early in the evening, when many people would have left but before Tsunade could sneak out herself. She'd spent an hour deciding how to broach the subject beforehand. "I know," Tsunade replied, when Shizune told her her suspicions about Sakura going through the Hokage's private documents. "She's usually good enough to keep most people from noticing, but sometimes she gets sloppy. I make her do double the work the next day." Shizune hesitated at the casual tone in Tsunade's voice, because this was, at its core, espionage--Sakura knew things she didn't have the rank or the right to know, and she'd learned them by abusing her access to the Hokage's offices. When she didn't speak, Tsunade went on. "I'll teach her how to conceal herself better when I'm actually teaching it to her and she's not rifling through my files," Tsunade added, sitting back. "And she hasn't broken into any of the forbidden scrolls or heavily classified files. I'll discipline her if she tries. Don't worry about it." ". . . ." Shizune finally folded her hands in her lap, glancing down at them as she did. "Okay, Tsunade-sama." Sakura was fourteen and Shizune was thirty; she should have been old enough to be over these feelings. They were unbefitting of the kunoichi she had to be to deserve Tsunade's trust. But some days knowing that wasn't enough. Still, Shizune's responsibility was to protect Tsunade--and that included her reputation as much as it did her body and mind. She began storing the more important files in different locations, and didn't bring them to the office until after Sakura left for the day. Tsunade didn't notice. She also didn't notice when, after Naruto was given a mission against Akatsuki of possibilities and was given almost two full teams with him on that foolhardy assignment, Shizune began quietly speaking to various clan heads. Shizune was grateful to Naruto for what he had done for Tsunade years ago, and despite everything she appreciated qualities in Sakura. She didn't want to see either of them die, or to see Kakashi, who after two and a half years of choosing solitary work accepted an assignment on a team with nothing more than an exasperated look at Naruto's boasting, put in a request to return to ANBU and be permanently removed from all potential teaching duties. But most of all, she didn't want Tsunade to be remembered as the hokage who lost Konoha's most secret weapon over something as unshinobi as affection. It's an old story--the oldest we have on our planet…. |