The Lost Children of Konoha

Haruno Sakura watched the evening wane.

The drone of summer cicadas began to mellow as the crickets twitched to life. Their songs came slow. It would be a warm night.

Sakura shivered.

The sliding door to the back balcony opened, and her husband stepped out onto the deck beside her. Their apartment sat five stories above a busy market street, and below, the last of the day's shoppers were scurrying home, cursing the heat. Sakura kept her eyes on an bare laundry line stretching over the road.

Sai sighed. He did not reach out to her, but he kept his eyes trained on her figure. Through the open door, he listened to Kyosuke whine a little before he finally said, "She took my scrolls."

"You should have never made them," Sakura replied, but her voice was tired, unafraid. Ready. She'd always known, and maybe Sai had too, and that was why he'd made them. Just for her. For Satsuki.

"They were always for her," Sai reasoned. "Do you remember how much she loved them when she was little? Back then, it was like magic. They were harmless then. Bunnies. Puppies, because we'd decided on no pets. Remember?"

Sakura's smile was slow. "You had to have known," she said, and maybe Sakura had always known, too. "You had to have figured that one day, she would realize she could use them for more than playtime. You didn't slave away figuring out how to seal your art just for playtime."

Sai said nothing, but he stepped closer.

"Is that why you taught her how to fight?" he wondered.

Sakura smiled. "She still doesn't know enough." She bit her lip, gut twisting.

Sai looked out to the village horizon. The evening was spilling over the Hokage cliffs. He only said, "Shikamaru's daughter is missing."

Sakura slumped over the balcony railing. She scoffed. " You should know better by now. If Shikadai ever heard you call him Shikamaru's daughter, you'd be in for a real treat. And I'd love to see that take down. But...I know. I've never seen Inojin so upset...or Ino so speechless."

The doorbell rang. Sakura glanced at Sai. He smiled, just a little, and she moved away from him after reaching for his fingers, quick. Sai squeezed her hand reassuringly. Kyo began to cry then, and Sai let go, disappearing inside, down the short hallway into his sons' bedroom. Shun was already calling for him, poking his head out the bedroom door. Sakura strode across the living room, into the kitchen, toward the front door.

"Dad, Kyo's crying again. Mama, who's at the door?"

The doorbell rang once more.

"Shun," Sakura called, not once looking over her shoulder, because she could picture his curious expression perfectly, "go to bed."

Sakura opened the door only after she heard the bedroom door close.

There was a cloaked group of three waiting in the hall, under the blinking, staticky light of the hallway that the landlord still hadn't bothered to fix. Sakura figured she'd have to do it herself.

"Come inside," she urged, after looking the hall up and down. There weren't many neighbors on the fifth floor. Only old Mrs. Matahara and her cat, but she rarely went outside. Tonight, the nephew who often came by to help the old woman shop and clean was absent.

No one was nearby. Sakura's visitors hurried inside. Sakura waited one long minute before closing the door, chatting idly about nothing at all. Dinner plans, and how "the kids are already in bed!", before locking the door swiftly behind her.

"Sakura," a woman whispered, and she removed her hood. Sakura stared into her white, unblinking eyes.

"Hinata," Sakura greeted softly. Hyuuga Hinata had changed since the last time Sakura had seen her. Her hair was shorn short in a neat, even cut that framed her round face. She'd lost weight, Sakura noticed with a frown, but she put the medic behind her, just for tonight.

"Did you have much trouble?" Sakura asked, drawing her curtains closed.

"Not as much as expected," Hinata admitted.

Her husband, a Hyuuga by the name of Souma, continued blithely, "It was easy to skirt around the compound tonight." He took his wife's coat from her.

Behind them, Hatake Kakashi snorted, but said nothing, only helped himself to cookies. He didn't much care for Hyuuga Souma, Sakura knew, as Souma was even less skilled at forty-two than Hinata herself had been in her genin years, and had proven more than once to have been a clumsy third wheel. Quick, but clumsy. Sakura swallowed a chuckle. To Souma's credit, he'd improved since the last time Sakura had seen him. He'd learned some basic chakra control, and no longer needed his wife's, or Kakashi's, help scaling a wall. In the kitchen, Kakashi opened and closed cabinet drawers and doors.

"The dog biscuits are in the pantry," Sakura reminded Kakashi offhandedly, and Kakashi grunted, poking about.

For a long minute, silence stretched on. Hinata jerked when Kyo's soft whines became angry yells. Her expression softened.

"Everything is ready on our end," Hinata blurted, and Sai chose that moment to walk out of Shun and Kyo's little room, nodding his hello, a sleepy (but happier) Kyo on his hip. The baby rubbed his face against his father's chest, stuffing the blanket thrown over Sai's shoulder into his mouth to gnaw on.

Sakura felt an ache in her chest. She wanted to hold out her arms, wrap around her son. But she didn't.

"Excellent," said Sai, not waiting for Sakura to answer. "But I'm afraid Sakura's mother is running a little late." He glanced at the clock.

Hinata watched Kyo. "I left Himawari with my grandmother," she said quietly, just to fill the silence. Sakura remembered Hinata's youngest, an eight year old girl.

"How are the children?" Hinata's gaze wandered past the baby, down the hall. She wrung her hands, and her face crumpled before she pulled herself together.

Sakura pretended not to notice. Hinata would only feel exposed. They weren't that close. "Kyo's as cranky as ever," she joked, "Shun is excited for school to start next week. Is Himawari?"

"Oh," said Hinata quietly, and she seemed to ignore the rest of what Sakura had said. She never answered. There was a tension in her voice. Souma placed an arm around her.

"We'll find Boruto," Sakura assured her, gently. "Now that we know where to look."

Hinata's jaw tightened. Souma rubbed at his face and leaned more heavily against his wife.

It had been months. Hinata had not seen her son in six long months.

Sakura had not seen Satsuki for one evening. Her stomach was still twisting, her hands shaking when she wasn't looking. Sakura never prayed. But she had that afternoon.

Kakashi stopped looking for biscuits and was watching from his perch on a kitchen stool, chin in his hands.

"Do you think," Hinata whispered, "do you think he'll even want to come home?"

It was everyone's greatest fear.

Sakura thought of her daughter. What did Satsuki think she was fighting for, out there, on her own, with Shikadai? Or was it all for Boruto? Having nothing to do at all with what was right or what was wrong? Would Satsuki still be out there, with Shikadai, if Boruto hadn't been drafted?

Shikadai wouldn't have left if ChouChou hadn't been drafted. But she had been, and he had.

It was a unique case. Most drafts were solely within bloodline limit clans, and beyond a clan's control. In ChouChou's case, she'd been sighted practicing a clan technique. Instead of facing punishment, she had been recruited.

The InoShikaCho alliance was left standing on eggshells. The children's split had created tension within the clans, Sakura knew. It was the latest village gossip. The Akimichi were in turmoil, Chouji and his wife, Karui, in distress. Karui had been arrested in the streets, brash and brave and wild after the draft of her daughter. No one spoke of it. No one talked about it. They only remembered it. Sakura had last seen Chouji at a bar. But he hadn't been drinking, only whispering to Karui, who'd had her head in her hands, newly bailed out of jail. Sakura remembered the Guardians in the shadows. Watching. Chouji had looked pale. Tired.

Sakura hadn't gone over.

"He'll come home," she said quietly, but if Hinata heard, she didn't answer.

"We'll be gone over the weekend, possibly longer. It's a day's journey, maybe longer. Border patrol's kicked up a notch."

Satsuki had been missing for hours now. Sakura would reach the village by mid morning, maybe early afternoon.

Sakura closed her eyes. She could hear the muffled shuffling of Old Mrs. Matahara's slippers against the course burnt-orange rug in the hall. Her nephew was dropping off groceries.

The doorbell rang.

Sakura flinched.

"I'll get it." Sai's hand slipped over her shoulder as he passed, and Sakura had to keep herself still, so she wouldn't grab his fingers.

"Sakura? Sakura are you home?" called Mebuki from behind the closed door. Sakura sighed.

"Yes, Mom," she called back, right as Sai opened the door with a genial "Hello". Mebuki looked him over critically for a moment, as she often did, before plucking Kyo from her son-in-law, planting a kiss on Sai's cheek as she did so.

"Oh, Sai, have you gotten any sleep lately?" she chastised. "You're as pale as ever."

"Mother," said Sakura testily, and Mebuki harrumphed.

"You too, dear. Remember to nap when the baby does! My poor little Kyosuke! Are you sure he isn't gassy? And don't you worry about getting a nap in every now and then. Shun is a good little boy. You don't have to worry so much about him. So well behaved. Where is my little boy-?"

"Mother-"

"Hyuuga? Is that you? Oh, how lovely to see you! How is your grandmother? I saw her the other day in the market. I can only hope to high heaven I look as good as she does once I hit seventy."

"Mebuki-" cut in Sai, politely, as Hinata bowed her head and floundered for words.

Mebuki placed Kyo in his play-pen in the living room. She rewrapped her shawl around her shoulders with a flourish, like an expensive scarf. "Why I had no idea we would have such esteemed guests tonight. Sakura! How could you not tell me! I could have arrived earlier. There's no dinner at all-" She busied herself by pawing through the cabinets, reaching for pots and pans.

"Mother!"

"Nothing like a little home cooking to set the ambiance, Sakura!"

Sakura sighed. "Mother, we're leaving."

Mebuki paused, just as she began to light the stove. Confused, she looked over her shoulder at the huddled group.

"Leaving? Oh! Is this a night out? Have you put Shun to sleep already? Is Satsuki in her room? I was just about to say-it's unlike her to be in bed this early..." Mebuki paused once more, her voice trailing, mouth pursed. She turned off the stove burner, her brow furrowed in confusion.

Sakura looked to the floor. Sai placed his hand on her shoulder, and this time, she grabbed it, lacing her fingers through his. He held on tightly.

Sakura felt sick. "No. It's not. And Shun's already in bed."

A moment of silence passed as Mebuki fiddled with the cast iron skillet, as if she still hadn't decided what to do with it yet.

"Sakura...what's going on?" she finally asked, and Sakura thought her mother looked as ill as she felt.

It was Sai who answered. "We're leaving tonight. We may not be back in the morning. Or the next. Please. We do not want you to worry."

Mebuki covered her mouth with her hand, and Sakura pretended she could not see the fear in her mother's eyes. "I-I thought you weren't doing those sorts of things...not anymore."

"I don't," lied Sakura, and she stared at a scuff mark on the linoleum. "We're just going away for a couple of days. Think of it like a weekend vacation." She wasn't lying to pacify her mother. Mebuki knew this too, and she glanced at the door, as if any moment, someone might knock. She gripped the oven handle with her right hand. Her knuckles were white.

"Mother?"

Mebuki wrung her hands. She wrapped and rewrapped the shawl around her shoulders. "No. No. I won't allow it."

Sakura shook her head. "We won't be too long, Mom."

"Sakura..." and now Mebuki was looking down the hall. "Where is Satsuki?" she asked again, seeming to catch on.

"It's just a weekend trip," Sakura began, and Mebuki's eyes widened. "Okay? Shun's in bed, and Kyo is already sleepy. They shouldn't be any trouble."

Mebuki's eyes grew red at the corners. Sakura knew this look. She'd seen it often as a little girl. Whenever Sakura pushed her buttons too quickly and Mebuki would tell her that that was enough, to go to her room, and Sakura would sneak down the stairs after pretending to close her bedroom door, to watch her mother nurse a cup of coffee, her eyes red and swollen.

"It's just a weekend vacation," Sakura repeated, and she wondered if this was how she looked too. A smear of pink and green and red at the kitchen table, with the scuff marked linoleum floor to stare at, surrounded by long evening shadows. The only thing she was missing was a coffee cup.

She didn't stop the tear that tracked down her cheek.

"Right," Mebuki agreed, subdued, and her eyes were brighter, redder.

Kakashi was the first to stand. There was a scratching at the door, and Mebuki tensed until Sakura rose to grip her mother's hands firmly in her own.

"Just for the weekend?" whispered Mebuki as Kakashi opened the door for a pug-faced dog. Sakura watched her mother's fingertips go white as her grip tightened.

The ninken licked his jowls, glancing morosely around the apartment before yipping, "Don't got all evening."

Kakashi clucked. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Pakkun."

The little dog rolled his eyes and asked for a biscuit. Sakura looked to her mother.

"Just for the weekend," she said, and hugged Mebuki goodbye. When she let go, Sai was nearly out the door.

"Sakura," he called. Sakura paused in the kitchen. She looked to the playpen in the living room, where Kyo now slept. She glanced to the closed door in the hallway, where Shun likely was lying awake, listening to everything.

If she took a step toward the playpen, or the door, she wouldn't leave as quickly as the others wished. She had held Kyo to her chest, closely, before lying him down in the crib earlier that evening. She had swept Shun up in a hug he had silently protested against (because Shun didn't have time for hugs when there was a new salamander in his room that he wanted to spend the time before bed looking at) until her nose had smashed into his scalp and he'd held her back. Sakura bit her lip.

"I love you," she whispered.

She didn't look at her mother when she closed the front door.

She already knew what she would see.

A/N: This was part of a larger chapter, but I'm not getting where I want in time. I said I would put something up on Sunday (now it's technically very early Monday morning) so here we go. It's something. If I don't get the next part up in a couple days, expect it next Sunday. Everyone's about to clash and meet, we're gonna get some reunions (Team 7 will look upon each other again. Sasuke will come face to face with his old comrade Juugo, as what happened to him was never discussed) we now know some things about Satsuki and the others, and we'll get to our last climax here as the problem progresses on Naruto and Sasuke's mountain home, and of course, get to some fights.