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moorPAIRING: Itachi/Sakura, age-swapped Sakura/Minato
RATING: M
WARNINGS/SQUICKS: omegaverse, dub-con, non-con, manipulation, coercion, hard lessons learned, first love, loss of virginity, family loss, coming of age, mention of war, puberty, recovery, suffering, sex and sexual themes, self-sacrifice, forgiveness, assault*
AUTHOR'S NOTES: More fics can be found on my Patreon.
*This list is not exhaustive and may vary according to chapter and story development
Chapter 5
“We don’t have classes in this wing,” stated Kakashi from beside Minato.
“I know. I just want to check something.”
“Like what?”
“A thing.”
“What thing?”
Minato scowled at Kakashi. “Do you need to know everything?”
Kakashi shrugged from behind his book.
Minato’s ire sagged. Kakashi was just being Kakashi. Minato went back to his route and they soon reached the place he’d been seeking. He placed a hand against the mismatched stones and reached with his magic. His eyes widened at the vibration as his magic rebounded off that sealed within the stones themselves.
Decades later, the power still thrummed there, against his palm… Gods, how strong was—
“Does this have something to do with Master Haruno?”
Minato’s nostrils flared as he pressed his lips together in a thin, white line. “Not everything is about her.”
“No, but the magic resonating around here is hers.”
Minato’s hand paused in its examination of the layered stones. “You can tell?”
Kakashi shrugged again. “Everyone has a different magic. Like a tag or label that makes it theirs. Sometimes it leaves trails, if you know what to look for.”
Blinking, Minato straightened. “Is that how you always find me?”
Kakashi shrugged a third time, but Minato pinned him with his icy blue eyes.
“Maybe,” said Kakashi, rocking on the balls of his feet and avoiding Minato’s gaze. His nose wriggled. “There are other things that help.”
“What does your sense of smell tell you? It’s that developed?” asked Minato, turning to his friend, genuinely curious.
“Hmmmm. I can sometimes tell what someone’s emotions are, where they’ve been, what they’ve been doing…”
Their gazes met for a moment before both looked away, heat on the back of their necks.
“You could have said something,” muttered Minato, staring hard at the wall.
Kakashi sighed. “I told you now.”
Minato’s shoulders sagged. Then another thought crossed his mind.
“Could you tell who someone else has been around?”
“If I knew the individuals, probably.”
Excitement curled through Minato. “The next time we’re near—”
“Namikaze, Hatake; are you not supposed to be outside with Master Haruno for extra credit study?”
The boys froze as their Crested professor’s smooth voice caught and trapped them. His tall, imposing build formed from the shadowy darkness before them.
“I can explain—,” began Minato, but he wilted as Master Uchiha’s lips fell in disappointment.
“Perhaps we should arrive together,” suggested their professor. His tone implied it very much was not a suggestion but a direct order. “So as not to waste any more of Master Haruno’s precious time.”
“Of course, sir.”
###
“You found them,” said Sakura with a grin as Itachi arrived with their two wayward students hot on his heels.
Itachi nodded curtly and came to stand at her side, though a half-step behind her. These were her lessons to teach. The boys came to a stop before them, glancing around.
“Is Rin here?” asked Minato, looking beyond his professors.
He took a moment to lean forward, hands on his knees, to catch his breath. Sweat beaded at his blonde temples and both he and Kakashi’s chests rose and fell from their expedited pace.
“She may join us in the future, once I have a better idea of her magical ability,” said Sakura.
In front of her, Kakashi and Minato caught each other’s gaze from the corners of their eyes. Sakura mentally sighed.
“For everyone’s safety, it’s better if we start in a small group so I understand very well what each of you can do. A-guador magic can be very dangerous to the caster and recipient if not managed by a Master. Even the slightest miscalculation can lead to disaster, dismemberment, amputation, magical core nullification, partial beheading, blinding, disfigurement, cognitive dysfunction, impotence—”
The boys froze.
So did Itachi, Sakura noticed curiously.
“—among many, many other terrible fates,” finished Sakura cheerfully.
The males’ shoulders sagged.
“So, we’re going to take this very slowly and very carefully.”
“Yes, Professor Haruno.”
“Good. Stop me at any time, ask questions as soon as they come to mind, and pay very close attention. We’re starting with a focus and balance exercise. Close your eyes, put your palms together, reach them as high as you can over your head, and start counting backwards from 4,592 in sevens. Aloud,” instructed Sakura.
Kakashi’s expression fell but he dutifully did as he was told; Minato met Itachi’s eyes in challenge for a moment before following suit and calling out numbers in time with Kakashi.
Itachi gave Sakura a look, his brow arched, before she winked at him.
“Yes, you, too,” she mouthed, amusement curling her lips.
He looked heavenward a moment before shaking his head and joining in, eyes closed, hands lifted.
After a minute of them chanting aloud, Sakura spoke again.
“Good. Now raise your right foot to your left calf, standing on your left foot. Don’t tip. Continue.”
She barely held back her grin as Itachi’s brows furrowed in a mild scowl at the direction. Luckily, the boys kept their eyes closed and didn’t notice.
“Now count forward by sixes,” she said, walking around them.
They did.
“Now pat your head with one hand. No stopping or breaks,” she said when Kakashi started to put his foot down. He pulled his foot back up with a small grunt.
“Now count back first by three, then by nine, then by four, then by three,” said Sakura. “And repeat.”
Kakashi’s sigh was audible and Minato stumbled in his counts, accidentally putting his right foot down before Sakura swatted his knee.
“Focus,” she said. “Every three calculations, do a deep knee bend. Keep going.”
After several minutes, the boys’ voices began to grow hoarse, but Sakura made them continue.
“Every seventh number, hop a quarter-turn to the left. Every fifth hop, a quarter-turn to the right.”
Another few minutes passed, though the mistakes gradually increased.
Minato fumbled. Had he been on the counting back by four, or by three? He paused to listen to Kakashi.
Sakura swatted him on the back. “Keep going.”
Beside him, Kakashi lost his balance on his hop. He reached out to catch himself and shook his head, listening to Itachi for the next number.
“Keep going,” repeated Sakura, swatting at Kakashi next.
“Are we on the left or right turn?” asked Kakashi, bobbing his head a bit to help him keep count.
“The left,” said Itachi.
“The right, actually,” clarified Sakura.
The men paused, opening their eyes to stare at her.
“Take a break,” said Sakura, folding her arms in front of her.
Kakashi and Minato looked at each other, then back at Sakura, waiting for the next round of instructions. None came.
“Do you understand what this exercise was about?” asked Sakura, taking a seat on the grass and gesturing to her companions to do the same. The boys slumped down to the ground in front of Sakura, Itachi a little to her right, and they gratefully caught their breath before answering.
“To teach us to focus?” ventured Minato.
“On what?”
“Math, cardinal direction, changing instructions all at once?” asked Kakashi. He wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve.
“You’re getting closer,” said Sakura. She turned to Itachi. “Your thoughts, Professor Uchiha?”
Itachi sat cross legged, resting his arms in his lap. After a few seconds, he nodded.
“To pay attention to changes in a patient as we heal them, in spite of what our basic senses detect.”
“Correct. To attend to the many systems at work and constantly, actively re-calibrate to meet your and your patient’s needs. Magical healing is an ever-changing calculation or situation; I was giving you the instructions of what to do; in a real-life situation, you may not know what is wrong with someone until you start working on them and discover something new or different. For example: The counting could be to monitor blood pressure or changes in life force; the balance was to mind our own energy levels so we continue to work at an even pace; patting our head was to teach us to maintain a constant connection to our environment; and the hopping was to remind us to go back and check for changes in a patient that we may have missed on our initial scan or to check for new changes or problems that may have developed since we started.”
Sakura took a breath and was gratified to find her students paying rapt attention.
“These are just some of the systems we must pay attention to. Can you think of more?”
“The patient’s magical strength or magical health?”
“Excellent,” said Sakura to Kakashi.
“The physical stasis of the medic, whether they’re getting weak or tired or magically exhausted,” piped up Minato.
“Yes.”
“The magic other medics may be performing at the same time, if you must work in tandem with another healer,” said Itachi thoughtfully, looking to her for confirmation.
Sakura smiled softly at him, her eyes glowing.
“Exactly,” she said. “You must communicate your intentions to your team, constantly, so you each know your part and place.”
Silence spread between them and Sakura leaned back on her hands, letting her magic sink into the earth to listen to what it told her of their surroundings, of the nearby life in the forests and rivers, of the susurration of magical signatures humming from the stone walls of the Academy, and the spiking curiosity of her students.
Her lips twitched when her fingers jolted mildly at a sneaky ping of Itachi’s magic through the grass and stone against her palm.
Ah, so he was watching her, in return?
“Does it help if you know the other healer you’re working with?” asked Minato at the moment Sakura sent a faint tap of magic back at Itachi through the ground.
Sakura nodded. “Very much. You start to recognize how you each work and to maximize your cooperation. It’s why most magical healers work in teams for years. Or… they used to. The teams are much smaller now, sometimes being composed of pairs rather than a full healers’ complement.”
“What happens if you don’t get along with your healing partners?”
“Generally you’re given a choice. Some teams form organically over the course of their training. In the case of a combat situation, you may be paired with someone whose skills are opposite yours, if you specialised, as needs require,” explained Sakura. “Some healers focus only on the respiratory system, or the digestive system, while others focus on the skeletal system. If you couldn’t overcome the personal issues you had in order to function professionally, though, you would be separated. I rarely saw it come to that.”
“Did you specialize?”
Sakura swallowed imperceptibly, forcing herself to smile. “Initially, triage. Then recovery but almost as soon as I started in that area I moved to surgery and then curse breaking.”
“That doesn’t sound like a ‘system’,” said Minato, folding his arms loosely in front of him. He cocked his head to the side, eyes narrowing as he looked into the middle distance. His lips moved but it was a moment before he spoke aloud. “Or, is it?...”
“There were extenuating circumstances at the time I learned,” said Sakura.
Seated before her, Kakashi straightened, nodding, before Minato mumbled something to himself before pausing mid-word. His chin lifted sharply and he gazed at her, eyes widening. It was his turn to swallow and her pulse quickened beneath her skin.
The Battle. The war…
“How long did it take you to master healing?” asked Itachi, breaking the unspoken tension
Sakura’s fingers released the dirt she’d unconsciously dug them into, smoothing them over the grass, drawing comfort from the solid earth beneath them.
“Several years. Though I was apprenticing to the best A-guador Master to ever live,” she added. “And there’s never been much room for failure under her roof.”
He gave her a soft smile, amusement lighting his eyes. ‘No room for failure’ under Tsunade was a bit of an understatement.
They went through several more questions before they all closed their eyes to breathe deeply three times to cleanse their focus.
“Is everyone ready to try again or would you like to sit a few more minutes?” asked Sakura, looking them over.
Kakashi swallowed his sigh and rolled to his feet, though not as quickly as Minato who was already puffing up his chest, eyes shining.
“Again! I’m going to go twice as long this time!” the blonde boy boasted and reached out to help her up.
Sakura grinned at him and stood, instead accepting Itachi’s hand when he offered it, being closer. Her eyes softened on her fellow professor for a split-second and as such she missed the stutter in Minato’s expression.
Kakashi bumped into Minat’s side as he passed by him to take a new position, shaking him out of his distraction. Minato stared at Kakashi a moment before nodding to himself and taking his own position up again.
“Everyone’s up? Good. OK. We’re going to add sounds this time,” said Sakura.
She laughed aloud at Minato’s groan.
“Twice as long, Namikaze, wasn’t it?” she teased.
He flushed and she ruffled his hair.
“Let’s do this!”
Kakashi scowled at Minato but shook his hair and joined in without a word as she led them through the next exercise.
###
Rin stared at her friends at the supper table that night, her jaw falling open at finding Kakashi snoring lightly, head down on his folded arms atop the table. Beside him, Minato rubbed at his sunken eyes, his normally bright, fluffy hair dull and limp against his skull. His narrow shoulders sagged as he tried to prop himself up on his elbows in an effort to stay awake.
“What happened!” she demanded, hurrying over and gently shaking Kakashi’s shoulder. “Are you both alright? Were you hit with sleeping spells?”
“So… tired…” yawned Minato, his jaw cracking. He stretched his arms above his head and looked around. “They’re not back yet?”
“Who? You two haven’t looked this exhausted since the magical relay in our first year,” said Rin.
“Masters Uchiha and Haruno,” mumbled Kakashi sourly. He pouted like a child who’d stayed up past his bedtime. He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palm and sniffed. “‘M gonna go to sleep,” he added, taking a roll from the dinner plate that had appeared before him. He hopped down from the table and slowly shuffled off towards the Alocasia dorm.
“Good night,” said Rin, staring at his back. She turned back to Minato.
He lifted a hand.
“We spent all afternoon outside,” he answered her original question. “Professor Haruno made us do focus exercises. For hours.”
“Us?”
“Kakashi and me. And Master Uchiha,” he added, reaching for a spoon that felt far heavier than usual for his soup.
The drop in Rin’s tone had Minato looking up when all she said was, “Oh.”
His back curled and he slumped further forward, leaning against the table’s edge.
“She said she would maybe invite you out later, once she had a better idea of your magic levels,” he said lamely, pushing his spoon around the cooling lentil stew.
She nodded, glancing up at him from under her lashes. Too casually reaching for her glass of juice, she said, “You know… you’re a good teacher… you could probably—”
“I can’t,” he blurted. Her accusatory chestnut gaze squeezed his heart’s ventricles, but he pressed on and tried to keep his voice steady. It was better to say it now rather than avoid it later. “Neither can Kakashi.”
He winced at the betrayal welling in her eyes.
Silence stretched between them.
After a deep breath, Rin nodded and focused on her supper. After a few bites, her grip white-knuckled on her cutlery, she took another deep breath, let it out slowly, and left the table.
“Rin,” he called, voice cracking.
“Someone should make sure Kakashi made it to the dorm OK,” she said tersely.
His hand falling from his hair to the supper table, Minato nodded.
“OK. Goodnight, Rin.”
Her nod was curt as she turned her back on him and followed the route Kakashi had taken out of the dining hall.
Minato debated chasing her down to explain, but his legs were still trembling beneath the table and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand, let alone run with any coordination. He shouldn’t have pushed himself so hard that day but his drive to impress Sak—meet Master Haruno’s expectations had overruled his common sense. It hadn’t helped that two other alphas, Professor Uchiha and Kakashi, had both been present, too. Of course they had all extended themselves; they had unconsciously competed with each other.
The notion made him pause.
… had that been her plan, he suddenly wondered, blinking. To use their dynamic against each other to motivate them to learn faster?
His mouth fell open as he turned to look at Master Haruno at the teachers’ dais where she was engaged in an intense debate with the comparatively calmer Master Sabaku, Master Uchiha at her side—as he always was, since her arrival to their campus. Master Uchiha leaned into the conversation to say something and to Minato’s surprise Master Sabaku’s lips curled into a small grin and he looked away, covering his mouth as Sak—Master Haruno—’s head whipped around to glare at Master Uchiha.
The raven haired hero’s equally dark eyes danced and he smirked at her softly.
She didn’t turn away from him for a full thirty seconds.
Minato knew because he counted each torturous one.
A long moment later, his tense jaw aching, Minato’s breath came quicker and he realised he was staring. He swallowed and looked away. Exhaling slowly, he unclenched his teeth and turned back to his cold, tasteless supper.
###
That night in the dining hall, Itachi rose with Sakura when she finished her supper and she laid a hand on his arm, the table concealing the gesture from the students.
“I need to run an errand before I head back. There’s no rush to leave on my account,” she said.
He lifted his eyes to hers and nodded.
“Have a good evening, Master Haruno,” he said.
“And you, Master Uchiha, Master Sabaku.”
Gaara nodded at her and Sakura left through one of the teachers’ exits concealed in the rear panelling of the dining hall, behind a series of tapestries and banners. Activating the sigil inscribed on the stones in the dark hallway, Sakura followed its path, steeling her heart. After nearly a quarter hour of climbing stairs, breathing in alternately muggy, musty and stale air, she reached her destination, a stone alcove adorned with nothing but a cracked and faded A-guador escutcheon discarded in its far corner. There was no exit apparent.
She swallowed, recognizing the shield as her own from The Battle. When she’d let it fall from her broken-nailed fingers, all those years ago, her hands bloody and shaking, she’d hoped to never need it again.
… had she set it down too soon?
Placing her palm over the new sigil that appeared to her in the air at elbow-level, she mentally spoke the release. The alcove’s curved stone walls faded away with a soft grind, a stanchion dragged aside to allow her entrance.
Inside the cool, candle-lit antechamber Sakura entered, the sagging, bruise-smudged eyes of her normally ethereally beautiful mentor appeared in her wan visage. Tsunade’s loose, honey hair fell over her shoulders as she leaned over the body laid out in stasis on the raised oak plane before her. Her hand clasped the larger one of the victim on the table.
“Your clone is holding up well,” said Sakura softly.
Her mentor exhaled and nodded slowly.
“Thank you for coming,” said Tsunade.
“Sorry it took a few days. It couldn’t look like anything was wrong, or like there was any other reason beyond me taking a simple teaching position. Sasuke’s our eyes and ears on the outside,” said Sakura.
“Is he still as full of himself as he was when he was three apples tall?” asked Tsunade.
Sakura approached the table and stood opposite Tsunade on the other side of the glimmering stasis protecting the man between them. The woven reed mat beneath him cushioned him against the hard wood surface. A cream silk shroud so fine Sakura could discern the man’s features beneath lay overtop him. Only his hand extended from its protective concealment, the one Tsunade had been holding.
“He’s come around a little,” said Sakura. “A lot, actually,” she admitted. She bit back the urge to confess his worries about his brother. This wasn’t the time. “You said… it appeared like a natural death? You don’t think it was?”
Tsunade’s chest lifted with her deep inhale.
“Something isn’t sitting right,” said Tsunade. “He had many years left. Too many.”
“Would you like me… to take a look?”
Tsunade’s jaw tightened and she bobbed her chin.
Against her better judgement, Sakura glanced at her former teacher and was surprised to find a deep rooted, barely leashed anger simmering behind her golden eyes. Tsunade had lashed down her grief tighter than a ship’s tarpaulin in a storm, but her anger was stronger and threatening to snap the stays at any moment.
“Tell me if you see what I saw,” said Tsunade cryptically.
Sakura’s rose brows drew together and she glanced down at the man between them. His life always was so full of secrets, why would his passing be any different, she thought with a mixture of irritation and fondness.
Also, how dare he pass and leave her Master alone?
She swallowed over the lump that swelled in her throat and lifted her wrist in the air, the memorial shroud and stasis lifting gracefully with the gesture.
The peaceful expression on Master Jiraiya’s face caught her by surprise. It looked like he was sleeping. She’d never thought of this near-indomitable, larger-than-life man doing something as common as sleeping, ever. Laughing boisterously. Carrying on like a child. Leading a charge with a roar of a battle cry… But never still. Never silent. Never quiet.
Queasiness and unease rippled through her before she tamped it down with professionalism. It was just like any other autopsy. She had lost track of how many she had performed, whether during the Battle or after. That she knew the life attached to the face before her didn’t change anything.
Her throat worked over a lump.
She brought her glowing hands to his magically tattooed cheeks and closed her eyes, focusing on the nothing inside him. The lack of pulse. The lack of breath. The lack of cell regeneration. The nothing. The nothing she expected, anticipated, was in a small way, grateful for.
So, at first, the nothing reflected the peace of his passing.
But Tsunade would not have summoned her for ‘nothing’ and she pressed a step deeper, brushing the lightest stroke of her magic against his expired magical core.
—Then she spun to the side, the surprise retching shooting up in her gorge and out of her mouth to splash against the stone floor underfoot without warning.
Her guts tore apart inside her, her eyes straining with the violence of the visceral shredding, her muscles exploding from their sinews and tendons, the air choking her like a noxious gas, her wheeze wet and in the next moment something wrapped itself around her neck and torso, squeezing her, her eyes bulging further—
Then her magic took over and Sakura yanked herself back into the present, into the antechamber, into the sour aftertaste in her mouth, the trembling of her limbs, the sweaty clothes that stuck to her back and sides as she gasped for air. Loose locks of her hair stuck to her clammy face and the back of her prickling neck.
Stubborn pride refused to let her knees buckle, but Sakura spit and waved away the mess on the floor before glaring at the place it had landed.
Gathering her composure, her rage bolstering her, Sakura straightened her back.
“That snake,” she hissed, nails digging into the solid oak platform; stress cracks appeared at the edges and it groaned in protest. “I thought he was dead!”
“So it’s recent? Not a latent curse?”
“It’s as latent as my sick,” snapped Sakura, rising taller. She understood her mentor’s emotions, now. “Is this a cruel joke?”
“I would never joke about this. I needed someone else to confirm it,” growled Tsunade.
Sakura’s heart went out to her. “When did he really go missing?”
“Nearly six weeks ago. When he didn’t come back after his two weeks of vacation, Itachi offered to go looking for him. He left a clone to teach but we couldn’t risk it indefinitely. When he found him, he summoned me and I called for you. We brought him back here.”
Releasing the table, Sakura stalked away and thrust her hand sharply through the air. In spite of the vicious nature of the move, the silk floated gently back down to cover Jiraiya, folding at the top like a blanket to leave his peaceful face uncovered.
“That monster remade him, when he was done with him,” said Sakura tightly over the thickness in her throat.
“I thought so, too.”
“To hide what he did. To make it look like…”
“Like I would be crazy if I said it was anything other than natural. I’d be called a senile old woman who couldn’t let go of the past, or who was looking for excuses to deny her friend’s passing,” said Tsunade, a lethal edge to her words.
Her very dearest friend, thought Sakura sympathetically.
The closest thing Tsunade ever had to a love since the passing of her soulmate, decades before.
“Would you like me to expel it?” asked Sakura after they calmed somewhat.
“Not if it will kill you.”
For the first time since meeting her true mentor—and not one of her clones—since her arrival at the Academy, Sakura smirked at her.
“You taught me better than that.”
Tsunade’s eyes sparked; it was very little, but it was there. Humour. Hope. Pride. “I did.”
Settling her anger-fluttering heart, Sakura planted her feet and brought her hands together and undid the magical seals that held back the wells of her magical core. The flare of magic whooshed through her and spread through the castle like a tsunami of power setting her eyes and her own, normally camouflaged, tattoos glowing and rushing across her skin.
“You owe me, you old pervert,” muttered Sakura, lowering her hands.
Instead of simple touch, however, she cradled his cheeks, leaning down to press a kiss to his forehead and connect their cores.
The sickness rushed through her once more and she set about debriding him of the poison, akin to removing a burn victim’s charred flesh.
If he’d been alive, he would likely have been screaming.
The fact he wasn’t left heat streaming down Sakura’s cheeks and she let the saltiness expel and express her own grief.
I promise I’ll make you whole before you go.
Farewell, Master Jiraiya.
###
Still seated at the supper table, Minato gasped in concert with the other assembled students, the hair on the back of his neck and arms shooting to attention like an electrical charge had exploded through the room.
The surprised yelps and murmurs around him sounded like the forest wind rushing through the winter-heavy branches but he couldn’t make out the words. His senses were suddenly aflame and he couldn’t figure out why.
Panic, relief, surprise, fear, gut-wrenching need pulsed through his body with the beat of his pounding heart for several minutes and only then did he find he could control his panting enough to look around him.
The other students’ shoulders were raised to their ears and several shivered, looking around like he did.
What was that?
He swallowed and glanced up at the professors still at their own table to find them murmuring amongst each other. A certain generation were looking at each other, not speaking, expressions grave. Masters Uchiha, Sabaku and Hoshigaki, in particular, sat very still, their gazes now sweeping across the students, assessing.
Master Haruno wasn’t there.
The moment he recognized her absence, and the familiarity of the magic that had coursed over and through the room—possibly the whole school, he wondered—his arousal careened into him so hard he swayed in his seat.
He planted his hands on the table to steady himself, his pulse quickening. Was it his alpha inside him, reacting? Was it his magic reacting to hers? Was it the vestiges of his presentation still simmering in his blood?
It was her.
It was so her that he suddenly wanted to lick her magic from the air, from the stones, from the arch of her foot and the crook of her neck.
A soft moan threatened to escape his now oversensitive lips—thinking of his lips made him think of her lips, made him think of her smile, made him think of her teaching him, teaching him magic, teaching him to fight, teaching him all the things a man yearned to experience and know and discover under her, on her, inside her—
He swallowed and blinked, shaken.
He needed his dampeners. Now. Now now now—
Desperate to escape the crowded hall, he pushed his seat back. But then he throbbed and he nearly bent at the waist, his nails going bloodless as he gripped the table again to hold himself still.
Closing his eyes he held his breath, counting backwards from a thousand in sevens, then eights, then back to sevens. The pulsing of his blood in his ears deafened him to his surroundings. This couldn’t be normal. This was insane. How was anyone else able to stand it? This couldn’t be happening to him, there, in full view of the rest of the school.
He tried to take a deep breath but it hitched when he thought he smelled her. His body jerked and he bit the inside of his cheek.
You’re imagining things, he told himself firmly. Get a hold of yourself.
His fist clenched and shame flooded him at the thoughts that had raced through his mind a half-breath before. Was this humiliation and debilitating sexual hunger just his life, now, as an awakened alpha? This was ridiculous. It was distracting. It was dangerous. Who could possibly think through this fog of need and…
And he realised exactly why Sakura had provided him with the suppressors. She had recognized the threat of his burgeoning instincts. She had anticipated it. Most importantly, she’d given him the tools to manage it himself.
Now it was his responsibility to make sure he remained a functional member of society instead of a mindless slave to his inconvenient biology.
It was overwhelming. It was intoxicating. It was dangerous.
But he hadn’t known magic could feel like that…
But she, it slowly dawned on him, had.
Was this what it was like for her, at her presentation, he wondered suddenly. Her panic and flight made sense to him. He sympathised with her. More than that, he could now intimately identify with her need to escape from everything if this is what it felt like.
His legs were noodly, his mind bounced between self-recrimination and the gutter, and his energy spun like a top. He needed to get away from the other students, the noise, sounds and smells. He was far too stimulated. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone to deal with him.
Gods, he needed to get outside. He needed open sky. Clean air. Freedom.
The more he mulled it over, the more the outdoors appealed to him. Where before dinner he’d been exhausted, now he fought jittery anxiety. Was this how others felt, this rush of endorphins and lust and recklessness?
If he’d been able to gather his composure, he might have noticed the scuffles breaking out between other tables of students, the shouting, the random bouts of whimpering and tears. But he was too consumed with his own overwhelm.
Deciding that he’d go for a run around the grounds before returning to his dormitory for the night to double up on his suppressors, Minato scrawled a short note to the staff to advise where he intended to go—and when to come back—and left it beside his plate.
Taking a final deep inhale, holding it, and letting it out slowly from between his teeth, he slowly stood. When the worst of the dizziness passed, he left.
He was so distracted he didn’t notice Masters Uchiha, Sabaku and Hoshigaki had slipped out of the hall and the other professors had descended into the rapidly increasing interstudent chaos.
###
“Most were spooked by it,” said Gaara quietly. “But not all.”
“I’d forgotten what it felt like,” admitted Kisame ruefully, rubbing the back of his neck. “Do we have enough dampeners, if they go into a rut?”
“We lock down the dormitories an hour early tonight,” said Itachi. “All professors on watch for the next eight to ten hours. Pair up any omegas.”
“Should we send a guard to… her?”
“Normally I think she’d be able to take on the school, but she was training your lot outside earlier, wasn’t she?” remarked Kisame to Itachi. “And she’s been healing the Uchiha kid, and brewing, since she arrived?”
Gaara frowned. “That’s a lot, even for an experienced battle-mage of her skill.”
That she had also been expending herself to heal Itachi at night ate at Itachi now like a feral, rabid rat.
“I can send a clone for the time being,” said Itachi. “The focus must be on the students.”
“Hopefully it is restricted to a few scuffles and nothing more,” said Gaara, though he didn’t sound confident. Behind them, another fight broke out and Gaara frowned, glancing over his shoulder.
“A quick dunk in the lake ought to help resolve that quickly enough,” grinned Kisame.
Gaara gave him a bland look before heading in the direction of the beast barracks. The other professors would need to handle the cafeteria. He couldn’t leave his students unsupervised.
Kisame waved, Gaara waving back with a small nod.
Gaara turned the corner down the hall before Kisame gave Itachi a knowing look.
“How bad is it?”
“Hm?”
“What’s really going on? Master Jiraiya disappears for weeks. Sakura, retired war hero, suddenly shows up to replace him even though we have a staff supply list as long as the lake is deep. The kids are cursing each other. Now Sakura’s releasing blood-seals in a school full of kids and adolescents,” said Kisame under his breath, glancing around them. “You know something is going on. Is this… Should we be armouring up?”
His tongue tracing the inner seam of his lips, Itachi considered Kisame, his oldest friend and former comrade-in-arms.
“There have been several coincidences that are unlikely to be purely coincidence,” said Itachi. “Nothing points to a greater danger to the general population.”
“Yet,” said Kisame, reading between the lines.
“I don’t have all the information.”
“That Senju Tsunade called in The Haruno Sakura to be on site here is enough of a declaration,” said Kisame, stepping closer to Itachi and speaking directly into his ear. “Is the threat internal or external?”
“It is unclear if there is a threat.”
“Fuck off.”
Itachi huffed but didn’t turn away. “Perhaps Sakura requested a position.”
Kisame’s bitter chuckle was scathing. “She’s been knee-deep in training battle-medics and trauma surgeons to rebuild the medical corps. She wouldn’t suddenly change direction in her career without damn good reason,” countered Kisame, leaning back just enough to meet Itachi’s eyes. “Unless…”
Itachi held his ground.
“She has been staying in your quarters often enough, and you in hers, since she arrived.”
“Old friends catch up.”
“What happened to ‘we decided no more helping each other through hard times’? Are times getting hard again?”
Aloof, Itachi patiently waited for Kisame to get to his point.
Kisame’s brows furrowed over his deep set eyes. “The old battle ax never disbanded her spy network, did she? Who’s still out there, who could be strong enough, to pose a threat that the headmaster herself couldn’t handle it?”
Itachi measured his words, realising the truth was more frightening than a lie, but choosing the truth anyway.
“... We don’t know.”
###
Sakura conjured a blanket and lay it over her Master’s shoulders as Tsunade slumped over the oak plane, still clutching Jiraiya’s stiff, cold hand. Her even breaths had calmed once Sakura purged the curse from Jiraiya’s magical core. Both her Master and the man now at final rest would find peace. Gathering up the sheet once more, she settled it nicely, then she left Tsunade to say her final goodbyes in privacy. Tsunade would return to them when she was ready; Sakura would never rush her in this.
Running a hand through her mussed hair, Sakura sealed the alcove again behind her, navigated through the secret hall, and returned to the main thoroughfare of the Academy, slipping through a pair of faded standards in the darkness. Her sluggish footsteps echoed through the darkness and she yawned, swallowing a mild groan when she reached the next staircase to climb.
A faint chuckle sounded behind her.
“Need a lift?” asked Master Kaguya.
Sakura shook her head, waving him off. “No, thank you.” Then she paused, looking around again. “You’re still patrolling? I thought it was Master Hoshigaki’s turn to patrol this area this week.”
“There was an…” He cleared his throat. “A disturbance that affected the students earlier. Master Uchiha extended the patrols for the evening.”
A disturbance?
She hadn’t noticed one. But then again, she had been in the bowels of the Academy, and she’d been…
She bit her lip. Oops.
Understanding whacked Sakura hard and she winced. “Sorry. I didn’t realise the Academy didn’t have magic-mufflers… The hospitals are mandated to have them and it didn’t occur to me that the school wouldn’t.”
If she hadn’t been so run down from so much healing, and teaching, and not-dealing with the emotional load of having Minato in her life again, and then poor, young Obito getting hurt because she had missed something so vitally important during the war years, and leaving Sasuke, and reuniting with Itachi, and—
“The stone can be deceiving. It is more natural than magical in some areas, which creates corridors for the magic to pass through. There are benefits and drawbacks.”
“I’ll see if there’s funding for an allotment of mufflers to be applied to the main structure,” said Sakura apologetically. A wave of guilt washed over her as she considered how such a burst of magic would have impacted such young, impressionable students. Her throat closed up for a moment and panic tried to take its place but she shoved it down. Now was not the time.
She had to get a hold of herself.
She had created a mess, which happened when mistakes were made. It wasn’t malicious. She would take responsibility and help with patrols, as she should, and apologise ot the staff the next day. She just had to help out for a few more hours—the notion tripled her exhaustion and brought heat to her eyes—and then she could go to her room and face her grief, or at least bathe and drink herself into several hours of oblivion like the mature adult she was. And she would bake everyone cookies and give them all wine, too, to soothe any hard feelings. Would it be enough, after a blunder like this, though? They were adults, they were tired, they would not be happy with her for making them go without sleep for something that could have been avoided if she had only known, or even thought to ask…
She cleared her throat to dislodge the lump forming there. “Are you taking shifts? When can I rotate in? This is my fault.”
“You can go to bed and rest,” said a deep voice from behind Sakura.
She and Kaguya turned as another professor approached.
“It is your fault, but it was not malicious and you’re exhausted,” said Gaara, crossing his arms and coming to stand equidistant from Sakura and Kaguya. He nodded to the other man, who gave him a tired nod in return. “You and Uchiha can discuss future rotation schedules to compensate.”
Her nose itching, Sakura rubbed her face and stared at Gaara.
Her pride made her want to take a stand, to demand a route to patrol, to pay penance for her mistake which had put the other staff out for an entire night.
But she sniffed and could feel her eyes burning.
She had made him whole. She had returned him to his old self. He could pass gently in his final goodnight, now.
Stupid, old letch, dammit.
She swallowed, pressing her lips together. Tighter. Tighter. Her jaw shook as she sniffled.
The men stepped closer in unison and she lifted a hand, forcing herself to rein in her composure.
“It’s fine,” she croaked, very much not fine. “Just a second.”
Rubbing at her face, she gaped at her palm coming away wet.
“Sakura—,” began Gaara more gently.
When had she started crying?
Damnit, her hormones were reacting to the stress. And grief. And exhaustion.
No wonder she was crying.
She really wasn’t any good to anyone that night. Anyone living.
Then a memory of Jiraiya’s belly laugh floated to her memory and she unconsciously wrapped an arm around her middle as the emotional hurt manifested and grew.
“Um. Actually. No, no, I’ll just go to bed. You’re right,” she said, faking a smile that was more grimace than glad. “Please, stay there.”
Gratitude poured through her when they listened.
“Thank you,” she said, turning away and stumbling up the stairs.
She had nearly reached the corridor that led to her rooms when she heard footsteps approaching her again.
“I said I was—”
“I just wanted to make sure you got back to your room,” called a young male voice.
Sakura turned.
Minato, hands stiff at his sides, watched her from ten feet away.
Her eyes widened.
No.
Not him.
Not now.
“Go. Now,” she said firmly, pointing the way back to the Alocasia dormitory.
“Go inside your room,” he growled, baring his teeth. “And I’ll go.”
“I’m already on my way. Go to your dormitory, immediately,” snapped Sakura, her temper rising. “You should have been in bed hours ago at curfew.”
“I needed to go for a run. I left a note saying where I was going and I came right back. You were very distressed, though, so I had to make sure you got to your room safely,” he repeated. “I couldn’t help it. It’s… I just can’t help it. Go inside, please, Sa—Master Haruno.”
Her chest rising and falling fast, Sakura’s emotions crashed against each other inside her. Her grief. Her despair. Her guilt.
He was the very last person she should see at that moment.
“If you don’t start walking to your rooms right now, you will serve detention every day until the snow falls,” said Sakura, fingers trembling.
Her omega was begging her to capitulate to her emotions, to seek comfort from an alpha, to put aside her pigheadedness and focus on healing herself so she could fulfil her role as teacher and leader and provider again as soon as she could.
But her need to ensure that her student was safely tucked away in his room threw everything inside her into chaos. It was worse that it was Minato, the boy she’d had to leave behind, the one she’d sworn to protect, the one whose family she failed to save. It was why she needed him to turn around now, before she grabbed him by his glowing blonde hair and dragged him to safety wherever she felt she could protect him best, in spite of her good sense and the teaching code of conduct because the closest place was her room and he absolutely could not step inside her personal space, not when they were both suffering from their overstressed biological influences.
He took a step closer.
Her nostrils flared.
His emotional distress seeped into his pheromones like enticing perfume, summoning her instinct to care for and comfort him. Worse, his hormones were reacting to her distress, bringing out his territoriality and urge to protect her, in return.
Not now, she begged her body.
Tsunade’s clone had been right, when she welcomed Sakura to the Academy that first day. Sakura had underestimated the effect being around newly presenting young adults would have on her cycle, combined with the recent (and in some ways, long-standing) emotional trauma. Her body was going into heat because of her agony, as a way to summon an alpha for support, whether physical or otherwise.
Minato took another step closer while she tried to gather her thoughts.
He wet his lips, his hands fisting. He stood taller, straightening his shoulders to appear broader.
Sakura’s throat tightenened.
“You need to calm down. So I can go. Or you need to go to your rooms,” said Minato, swallowing thickly. “P-please.”
She had to stop this. She summoned all her self-control and planted her feet.
“If you don’t turn around now, I will never acknowledge you as my student again,” said Sakura coldly.
He froze.
He panted, chest rising and falling quickly as he fought for control of himself. She could just barely make out the sheen of sweat across his brow and upper lip in the low light of the hallway. He was suffering terribly and she had made it worse for him. But he had to learn self-control. They all did. Fighting one’s basest instincts and needs—hunger, safety, fear, warmth, biological imperatives—they all must conquer them to thrive.
But knowing he was still enduring the tail end of his presentation, the magic spike, this unfortunate meeting must have felt like torture to him. It wasn’t his fault, at all.
… It was hers.
After a full minute of silence between them, Minato struggled to contain his frustrated, angry whimper. He tried to shuffle back from her, his shoes scraping against the stones as he dragged his feet. A few inches at a time, his arms shaking, his fists clenched tight. He did it.
“This isn’t fair,” she heard him whisper harshly, mostly to himself. His voice was on the edge of shameful tears.
She wished she could apologise to him, but worried he would interpret it as her seeking consolation from him.
“You’re doing well,” she said instead aiming for remote yet proud of his accomplishment.
As the distance increased back to ten feet, then a dozen, then a dozen more, Sakura’s self-control stabilized bit by bit, though her stamina flagged.
When Minato’s blonde head disappeared from view, Sakura sagged against the nearest stone wall, her head in her hands.
From above her, a bat floated down from the coffered ceiling.
“You both did well. Go inside,” encouraged Itachi’s voice.
Sakura shook her head.
“There is soup, a hot bath and a cuddle waiting for you,” said Itachi.
Sakura’s laugh sobbed from her chest. “Soup isn’t going to fix this. I didn’t mean to—”
“No, but it’s a start. I’ll be there as soon as I can swap with my clone.”
Sakura shook her head. “You patrol. I’ll be alright.”
“Sakura—”
“Sorry you have to clean up my mess,” said Sakura quietly, head down as she pushed herself off the wall and stumbled to the door of her room. “Again.”
“There’s nothing to apologise for,” said Itachi softly. “Ever.”
The door clicked shut behind her, between them.
He waited a moment, listening with his heightened senses, but she shuffled through her rooms to the washroom, as he’d expected. Needing to see to his duties, he flew away down the hall to continue his patrol once she was safely inside. It was unlikely anyone would attack her in her own rooms, with the wards they had each placed on their doors.
If Itachi had turned in the other direction to go down the opposite hall, however, he would have found Minato pressed against the wall, listening. His eyes as wide as saucers, his fist in his mouth to keep from exclaiming at the injustice of it all, his heart thundering in his chest at the realisation.
It was Itachi who had ‘helped’ Sakura during her terrible first presentation… And it sounded like the man had never let her go since.
###
TBC
