Deadication: For Miss Dany, a wonderful encourager and godsend, at your request, here are those Kiri boys. :)

Sakura could hear the voices in the steel long before she knew what this meant. Years later she's nearly killed for this reason and is sent running out of the Land of Fire and into the neighboring country of Water for refuge. But her life is still not safe and very well never will be considering that's she's one of the only Sages alive, a person with the power to animate the nonliving as human soldiers. In her hands blades become warriors more fantastically loyal than any human born legion. She's a dangerous player in the world of warring shoguns, but all she wants to do is dirty her hands and make beautiful blades in the forge.

In order to stay alive Sakura animates several Kiri treasured blades and is a little surprised with what happens next.

Touken Revolution
刀剣 -革命

刀
Tou = a word for swords/knives/bladed weapons

剣
Ken = usually refer to swords/katanas
刀剣

Touken = (multiple) swords/bladed weapons and katanas

revolution : [rev-uh-loo-shuh n]

noun

1. an overthrow or repudiation and the thorough replacement of an established government or political system by the people governed.

2. Sociology. a radical and pervasive change in society and the social structure, especially one made suddenly and often accompanied by violence.

3. a sudden, complete or marked change in something: the present revolution in church architecture.

Part 1

When she had been a child in the slum villages Sakura had heard the stories of evil people with voices in their head who were hunted and killed to keep everyone else safe. When she started hearing the voices of weapons in her head she didn't tell anyone.

Maybe it was unwise, but the Wise Woman told Sakura her thread of fate was a tassel on the hilt of a sword, so she grew into a piece of the forge, learning the craft by a master too good for her meager origins. It was only through virtue of her skill he took her on, but never once did he regret it.

Before she was sixteen, she was fulfilling custom commissions for short blades and tantou with her seal next to her master's. A year later, she was the one fashioning the swords without his seal. By the time she was twenty, so was almost as sought out for her Uchigatana or striking swords as her master. Though it was her Tachi blades that she devoted herself to the most, and by the time she was twenty five, she made a small name for herself with those too.

"The demon is at it again."

Sakura looks up from the plates of kera steel that will be layered like puzzle pieces into the shape of a block. She knows the steps by heart by now, knowing that once the pieces are all assembled they will be wrapped in paper to keep together through the ash and the mud. Her fingers are already black at the tips and her knuckles are rough.

Sakura frowns at the shadow of one of the apprentices. His name was Idate but she called him Chip and he hated it almost as much as she hated being called a demon.

"I thought I smelled something reeking," she said. "You have commissions you have to help master with."

Sakura huffed, looking back down at the flakes of steel that hum like whispers in her brain, telling her how they will work together in secret languages that haunt her into her dreams.

It's taken her hours to find half the pieces out of her boxes of jewel steel. There isn't much left and she has to be careful if she wants to make a matching tantou next month. Jewel steel won't be restocked for another two months. She needs to make it last.

When he doesn't reply right away she looks up and frowns. Chip's glare is cutting. "He sent me to fetch you for it. I'm working on the tatara forge."

"What, so soon? Why would you do that ahead of schedule?"

"You think I ask master pointless questions like that?"

Sakura rolled her eyes and forgot to hide it. "No, I don't think you ask many questions at all, to be honest."

"We can't all be haughty know-it-alls," he retorts. "Some of us have to do the ugly work that actually requires discipline, if you know what that is."

A part of Sakura hates Chip, but she also pities him. Working on the tatara is a labor just to build it, but then there is a week long process where iron sand and charcoal is consumed to make the precious kera steel that's as treasured as jewels.

Sakura ignores the part of her that hates and pities the younger apprentice and focuses on her work once more. "Whoever ordered from master didn't request my hands in his steel, so I won't put them there. If they want my work they can ask for it."

Chip's sneer is almost audible. "You're quite full of yourself for being as young as you are. Just because you've made a few fancy blades for the Diamyo you think you don't have anything to learn from master."

Sakura looked back at the steel chips, hating how so many of them didn't want to work together. Sometimes they were loud and angry when settled next to each other, and that didn't make a legendary blade. Their voices needed to resonate, their voices needed to sing, not squabble like angry children until her brain felt like bleeding. The chattering of the metal was almost as annoying as the chattering from Chip.

"Sarutobi will call for me himself when he needs it. I'm busy, leave me to my work."

"You're not his son or his grandson so who do you think you are using his first name so-"

Sakura threw down a piece of kera steel and it chimed loudly as it fell back into the box. The sound made Chip stop and take a step back, almost cowering under the heat of her glare.

"You're damn right I'm not his son or his grandson. Neither of them are here, but I am, so I'll call the old man whatever I want. Go work and leave me be."

He held her glare a moment more before ducking his head and tucking in his chin. Without another word, he turned and headed off in the direction of the field where they built and tore apart different tatara over the months. Some masters only made three a year, but Sarutobi used his apprentices to fashion seven to eight in a since year.

"We live in dangerous times, more than you know," Sarutobi once told her when she was smaller and thinner and complained more often about the labor of building a tatara.

She knew what his words meant a little better now.

It's twilight when Sarutobi comes to her and she doesn't look up when he sits down on the edge of a chair left in the corner for exactly that reason. Sakura doesn't look up from her chips, but continues to sit lotus style in front of her drawers, listening and watching.

"Are they speaking to you today?"

Sakura looks up from under her lashes and her expression is baleful. Sarutobi laughed shamelessly and it was enough to pull her out of the lull of murmuring voices heard only in her head. They were still a noise, nothing cohesive.

"The brat said you wanted my help on a commission."

Sarutobi nods slowly. "I do."

Sakura tilts her head to the side ever so slightly. "I wasn't asked for in the commission, was I?"

She knows she sounds short and she knows he notices, but the smile doesn't falter.

"No, you weren't. The Shogun wouldn't ask for a woman to craft him a blade from what I know of him."

The attitude washes out of Sakura and she's left with a cold feeling in the normally warm forge. "The Shogun asked you?"

"Well, his retainer commissioned a 'fine katana worth admiring' as a birthday present, but I thought best to present my katana with a wakizashi of your own. The Shogun was once a fearsome samurai, and the picture of your wakizashi worn together with my katana…"

"Old man, you're crazy," Sakura breathed. "You'll lose your head for presuming too much."

"Or we'll lose all our free time filling orders for his men. Why do you think we build so many forges?"

Sakura hated the idea of fashioning a blade without being commissioned, but in all the land the only one more noteworthy was the emperor himself. And between any of the local daimyo and the Shogun, the one more likely to admire the truth of a blade was the one who actually was trained for one.

"When is this due?" Sakura asked.

"We have nine months."

She smirks. "It'll be like birthing a child."

His smile is ancient and ageless all at once and Sakura is reminded of the monkey he wears for his family crest. "I'll fashion the mother blade, then. You will birth the child?"

Sakura stares down at the materials she has to work with and then looks back up at her master. "Let me use some of your kera for the wakizashi."

"You can help yourself to what you like as long as it's for the Shogun."

He turned away from her and stared out a the dim sky where the last few sharp glares of sunset made the world disjointed in a way they said invited demons. Shadows stretched longer and went deeper one last time before melting out of shape.

Sakura never admitted to loving twilight best.

"Help me with the katana first. You should know what sort of personality it will have before you fashion a wakizashi to go with it." Sarutobi moves to stand and his body cracks as he straightens. "I think I will end the day with a smoke. Will you join me?"

Sakura didn't smoke, but she got up and walked him back for the sake of being close to the old man who is probably kinder to her than she deserves.

In hindsight, she should have taken that smoke and told the old man to go fuck himself.

It was raining like she knew it would, but nothing like she thought it would be in the land of fog and moors. The rain is a cold feeling like bites on her skin and she knows her face is red and raw where it isn't pale from the cold that comes out of everywhere. Her only solace is that for as miserable she must be, the hunters tracking her through the dusk and rain will be just as miserable.

The whisper of uniform swords is far and distant, but it wasn't far enough that she couldn't hear their words in her head, and she knew that meant they were closer now. There were dog barks and she wondered if they have spotted the blood. She was still seeping in places but without an extra pair of hands to hold pressure on the wounds, Sakura could do little more than keep the largest from draining her dry. She couldn't even draw her tantou to defend herself if they caught up.

'What were you going to do if they did?' she snarks to herself, feeling cynical and angry. 'You only make swords, you don't know how to use one.'

But even if she could defend herself against the average thug, these were samurai who served under the Shogun. She wouldn't last ten seconds. Sarutobi certainly hadn't.

Sakura crossed a vein of water that branched off from the larger river, picking her legs up to keep the sound as low as possible. With the rain there was a constant hiss in her ears, but she still didn't want to take chances in giving away her position to anyone.

The land was muddy and dull, looking like the same thing no matter where she turned. There was nothing for her to use as a guide and nothing to save her from doubling back and accidentally running into the men who chased her. She almost cried, but there was no time for tears or self pity, she had to move.

The vein of water she crossed over reconnected with the main river and Sakura grimaces at the strong rolls of white foam she saw where water broke upon rock. It roared a dull roar only, but she didn't doubt it was powerful enough to sweep her away if she fell in.

It was the stupidest thing she could have done and she knew that. But she also knew that her pursuers would think that as well. So, Sakura stepped into the water.

An arrow dug onto her shoulder from the side and she staggered sideways, crying out and dropping the cloth around her wound. The world spun dizzy and she feared the bloodless would finally do her in. She had run so far with so little already.

Sakura felt her whole body shake as she reached up to grasp the shaft sticking out of her shoulder and wince at the hurt sensation. Her other hand reached for her tantou, smearing blood over the dark handle. It wouldn't do her much good, she didn't have the energy to even raise her arm, much less swing it.

The dog barking grew louder and Sakura closed her eyes to the sound of it, recognizing the whispers behind the noise. Their swords were coming for her, drawing ever closer. Another arrow landed in the water a few feet away, followed by two others. They couldn't spot her exactly, but they knew she was somewhere close.

If only she could have gotten to the docks. If only she had made it as far as they told her to go. She would have been safe there, where Kakashi waited for hr. Maybe she was close, maybe she wasn't, but as she lay bleeding out, Sakura couldn't help her thoughts be anything but critical. She should have been faster, smarter, quicker.

With effort, she drew her tantou and held it with her bloody fingers till her knuckles gleamed white underneath the blood.

"Please," she whispered, through clenched teeth. "I don't want to die like this….not here, not now…not like him." She could still see her teacher, old and dead and red, red, red, red…. For as long as she lived, no matter how short that may be, she would never be able to forget that scene.

The tantou that often whispered back was silent. She didn't blame it. She was pathetic to blubber for her life without any pride. She wasn't worth whispering to anymore. Not even her best tantou, the only one worth naming, would comfort her in her final moments.

"Sorry, Sai," Sakura breathed, closing her eyes and letting her head roll to the side on the riverbank, half turned into the water.

She felt the knife slide out of her hand but didn't look up. She could hear the footsteps close enough to trample grasses on the riverbank. Someone crouched over her and Sakura let herself fade a little more.

"What are you doing here, kid? We've got a-ugk!"

Hot blood spilled onto her ankles.

"Get him, run him thought!"

"Set loose the dogs, Mirai!"

Sakura forced her eyes open once but all she saw was shadows without shape. Her heart stuttered in her chest and she felt her face fall the rest of the way into the river. She didn't bother to lift it again, keeping her nostrils just above water, she drifted out.

Shikamaru grimaced at the sight before looking off to the side where his captain should have been, only to see that spot empty, as usual.

"I'm going to take this loss personally," Shikamaru grumbled, stepping over the stain spread across the floor's wood grain. "Sarutobi made my Temari and his apprentice made its brother, Kankuro. She was supposed to be working on a tantou to complete the set."

"You are not the only one who will have to endure the loss," Neji replied sternly, hands clasped behind his back. "The pair had a great number of clients they were crafting for. Be grateful you received one of her last works. The value on their swords will surely skyrocket because of this incident."

Shikamaru shook his head mockingly. "Oh, well at least we have that, don't we?"

"You are not the only one upset, so don't act like it," Neji snapped in a rare show of agitation that even made its way into his eyes.

Normally the paragon of a perfect ward in the noble family, Neji never showed much emotion to the rest of the world. Few things irked him enough to cause him to snap and Shikamaru doubted the loss of investment property was really what bothered the young man.

"Did you have her working on a commission as well?" Shikamaru guessed. He lowered his voice and muttered the rest to himself before moving to a new end of the room. "Figures, she's your type."

"That's not important enough to discuss right now," said Neji, staring down at the blood designs that stained the wood floors. "We have villains to track down. In addition to Haruno, we may suspect there to be several others involved in the plot."

Shikamaru glowered. "Your language is a bit too strong for this sort of situation. Sarutobi is already dead so Orochimaru shouldn't have any more demands from us. He was the only one with evidence dating him as an usurper. Unlike the intel he provided us with, the Nara have been unable to substantiate any evidence of dissension."

"It's not my place to question that. I am sure our Shogun has his reasons," said Neji.

Shikamaru watched the taller male from across the room, hands lax at his sides. Neji's posture was pin perfect. Like the girls at court claimed, he was princely and serene in spite of his lowly standing. He had risen through the ranks on merit and good favor, earning much respect as he went.

Shikamaru respected Neji enough, especially for the Hyuga's intellect. But in moments like these, looking at the princely Hyuga put a bad taste in Shikamaru's mouth. Nothing was sacred to Neji, not even his friends. If the situation had been different, would Neji be just as quick to turn on his other friends? Would he turn on Shikamaru without hesitation?

There were footsteps and Shikamaru looked up to another solider approach the murder site. This one looked little different from the last, and he knew it was because the Shogun liked all his personal guards to be raised and trained the same way-in the dark without love or sunlight. Rumors said most were orphans or eunuchs discarded and the edges of barren farms and salted fields.

"A report, Nara san!"

Shikamaru looked up and accepted the paper from the delivery boy, folding it open with one hand. His eyes scanned the first few lines and the paper crinkled under his fingers as he readjusted his grip to grasp it with both hands.

"What is it?" Neji asked, hearing the paper crinkle.

"You can call off the rest of the searches. They littered her body with arrows just outside of Kiri. She was alone. There's nothing to track down anymore." Shikamaru handed off the report to Neji and started to walk away, one hand resting on Temari and Kankuro. "I hope that makes Orochimaru happy."

He didn't look back, but he heard Neji pick up the crumpled note and stretch it taunt.

Sakura awoke on a gasp of breath that burned her in more places than she remembered being injured. Her side, her shoulder, her leg-she remembered those injuries-but her lugs were raw and burning with salt and blood.

"There she is, I'm glad to see you alive and well," Kakashi cheered playfully, staring down at her on the floor with a small book in his hand. The pages were colored in shades of peach and the pictures on the back and cover gave away the crux of the story.

"Well?" Sakura coughed. She leaned over and gasped again, filling her lungs up with air that made the deep places sting. When she coughed again it sounded like tearing bedsheets.

"Yes, well enough considering how cold and till you were when I found you at the edge of the river, caught in the storm dam. You were barely bleeding with how numb the river left your body. It's been over a week and for the first two-three days we weren't sure you would even pull through. Ah, but I put my money on your full recovery."

Sakura closed her eyes and let the world go dark as she rolled back onto her back.

"You found me," she surmised. "What of the guards?"

Kakashi flipped a page. "What guards?"

"The ones that put the arrows in my back," she snapped, eyes sharp. "Tell me you weren't followed."

"No…but I thought you were. There were bodies, but no one left alive anywhere near here." He flipped to a new page. "Oh, well, no one from the palace anyway. Your friend looked like he took care of whatever you were running from."

Sakura remembered hot blood on her ankles. "Friend?"

Kakashi set aside the book and knelt down next to her bedside. "Well, I suppose you would have questions considering it was your first time manifesting a body for your blade. Sarutobi said you didn't know how to do it yet and that you weren't even practicing it. Also not surprising. He didn't want you to attract more attention than you already had."

Sakura opened her eyes and glared up at Kakashi. "You are making zero sense right now. I'm hungry, I smell, and I hurt all over."

"What an angel."

Sakura braced with her hands on either side of her and moved. Kakashi's one visible eye widened as she pushed herself up, pulling her legs underneath her. He could smell her wounds, bleeding through the bandages as she stood.

"Where is the bath?" she asked through clenched teeth. Her skin was thin and in need of blood to color it.

"This isn't a palace."

Sakura glared dryly back over her shoulder. "Maybe you don't mind the stink, but I'm not an urchin. Bath, now."

"Demanding creature. Fine."

Kakashi stood and led her out of the tiny room into the hallway of a manor that had once been magnificent, but now looked little better than a ghost's dream with punctured rice screens, splintered walls, and holes through the floor every few steps. There were webs hanging like decorations from the rafters and the smell was one of moist dirt and mountain pine.

Sakura inhaled again and picked up on the salt submissive to all other smells. They were in the Kiri mountains, right on the disputed borders between fire and water claimed lands. No wonder the house was such a mess. They were in the middle of no man's land.

Kakashi grabbed the edge of a door and heaved it sideways, grunting as it caught on the track and stuck in places. Debris overhead drifted down with the disturbance. Inside there was a small circular bath and several overturned buckets. Only one was without holes.

"You'll need help pumping water into the bath with your arm like that," Kakashi said, stepping in and grabbing the lid off the bath.

To the side there was a curved arm he lifted and pumped down. A few moments later the first gurgles of brown water burst out. He let that water drain out and waited till the water came through clean before plugging the bottom.

Sakura sat on the side of the tub and began to pull apart the rags she had been left in. Kakashi didn't look up and she didn't disrobe completely, so he had no reason to stop or comment.

"I'll get you some of my things you can change into and then we'll talk. Maybe by then your friend will be back."

Sakura tossed her rags aside, not intending to ever pick them up again. "You mentioned a friend. Is he a ghost?"

"Of a sort. Like I said, we'll talk when you're done. Maybe then you won't want to bite my head off every time I open my mouth."

Kakashi stood and started to tug the screen closed after him when Sakura looked up, glare gone. "Kakashi." He stopped. "Thank you for doing what you did to save me. You only owed Sarutobi, but you still saved me. You didn't have to."

He smiled over at her and yanked the screen forward over the last obstruction. "Ah, don't think this old man is as heartless as that. What else was I supposed to do when I saw a cute little girl in distress?"

"I haven't been a little girl in years."

"Could have fooled me."

He shut the door behind him and walked away.

Sakura saw the bath was only mostly filled and moved to pump more water into it with her good arm, finding that act taxing after so long asleep. Her strength was lax and it embarrassed her, but the water came all the same and she slipped into them with the last bit of her rags still in place, washing her base lawyers with her wounds and her skin. The bath was cold and she was thin, feeling the child in every corner of her body, from her eyelashes to the roots of her teeth.

There were pine branches coming in through the holes in the wall and Sakura reached for a handful to crush into the water and scent her bath. She used others to brush her body, not caring how most of her skin came away red and raw. There was still blood under her fingernails. Was it her's or Sarutobi's?

Sakura submerged her head under the waters in time to hide the feel of tears on her face. That stupid old man had gone and gotten himself killed. It was his own fault he was where he was and she was where she was right now. It was his fault. She shouldn't waste her tears on him. He didn't deserve them.

Hands penetrated the waters and Sakura saw only blurs as fingers closed around the collar of her under robe and pulled her upwards. She broke the surface choking and coughing, falling and reaching to curl her fingers into something she could yank and twist. She felt something like a body and blinked the water out of her eyes, holding as tightly as her near lame arms let her.

"Who are you?" she coughed, not recognizing the first few features of the character in front of her. He was solid though, so not a ghost.

"Were you trying to kill yourself?"

Sakura spit water out and glared hard at the stranger. "What are you asking? No, I was taking a bath. Who are you, and what do you want?"

He let her go and moved back but Sakura yanked on the front of his shirt and held him in place.

"I asked you a question, boy." She didn't have a dagger but her eyes were sharp enough when they were narrowed. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

He didn't seem disturbed by the glare or her sharp words, but answered her with unguarded eyes as dark as his hair, framed by raven soft lashes curled and pretty like a girl's. He was a beautiful boy with skin as clear and clean as milk, not a flaw in sight.

"I came to see you. I thought you were trying to drown yourself so I made an effort to revive you. Should I not have?"

Sakura let him go and he stepped back, off his knees and off the edge of the tub. He was as tall as her, maybe a hair taller, but he still looked young. Something about him was familiar though. She didn't feel a threat in his presence either.

"I thought I was alone here with Kakashi. Who are you? I'm not going to ask again."

He blinked and his eyes were wide. "I'm Sai. You named me."

Sai was her pretty personal tantou, the one she had started making for the Shogun before falling in love with the tender blade. Her heart seized in her chest when she recognized his voice. She had heard him many times before, as a whisper in her head, coming from the blade she fashioned.

In the stories of magic and demons, there were stories of swords that took on form to fight for their masters, when the bond was strong. There were stories of blades becoming cursed and taking on dreadful new bodies that they used on their own to ravage the land. There were plenty of stories. There were even stories of sages with the power to bring life into mundane things if the spirit of the object was old or pure enough.

What was it Kakashi had said about a friend?

"Sai?" She breathed his name and knew it like a born truth in her heart that she was looking at her tantou made flesh. She remembered hot blood on her ankles and the cries of her hunters.

"Are you better now?" he asked, reaching for her shoulder where the bandage was still red. "They hurt you before I could stop them all. You didn't wake up for so long."

"I-I'm sorry I worried you. I'm fine now."

Sakura swallowed and looked the boy over once more, seeing the perfect parts of him with new eyes. He had been her beautiful blade and now he was a beautiful boy. It almost hurt to look at him head on.

"He said the same thing, that I was worried, but I have never felt worry before, so I had nothing to compare the sensation to. I appreciate learning of this new feeling, but do not wish to experience it again. Please do not let yourself become hurt any more."

Sakura thought he sounded like a child and a courtly prince all at once. He was innocent and ignorant, but his words were just as polished and pretty as his face. His voice had been one of her favorites as well as one of the reasons she found herself unable to part with him as a blade.

Slowly, Sakura sat down on the edge of the tub and crossed her good arm over her chest to hold the skin under her wounded shoulder and preserve a bit of her modesty.

Now, some of what Kakashi had said started to make sense. He had said it was her first time manifesting a body for a blade, so he knew about Sai and he knew that she was capable of something she considered strange magic. And what was more, Sarutobi knew, or that's what Kakashi wanted her to believe.

'Sarutobi said you didn't know how to do it yet and that you weren't even practicing it. Also no surprising. He didn't want you to attract more attention than you already had.'

"Are you hungry?"

Sakura looked up and saw Sai was staring at her without blinking.

"Sorry, what did you just say?"

"Are you hungry?" Sai repeated. "The scarecrow said you would be hungry when you woke up so I've been catching dinner for you every night, but you never were awake to eat. Will you eat now?"

She wasn't hungry, but she suspected that had more to do with her distraction and the dull pain throughout her body and less with her need to eat. Even if she wasn't hungry, she knew she needed to try and eat something to help build up her strength again.

"I think food would be a good idea. I need something to wear first. Kakashi said he would lend me something to put on. Would you help me with that and see if he left anything outside?"

Sai nodded once before dashing over to the screen door left open from his initial entry. There were clothes folded off to the side on the ground that he picked up and brought back to her. It was a man's simple yukata with a cloth belt and some wooden sandals.

Sakura took the clothes and started to peel her own off, pausing only to see Sai still watching her without blinking. She narrowed her eyes and thought back on the number of times when she worked in the forge without a shirt, or changed when she was alone with a blade. She had never considered that odd, but Sai was made flesh now.

"You can turn around while I get changed and watch to make sure no one else is watching. You're not supposed to watch a girl get changed unless you are married."

Sai nodded slowly and turned to watch the open door. "I understand that you feel differently now. Kakashi said I wasn't supposed to sleep with you anymore either. He said things would be different."

Sakura almost dropped the robe, but caught herself, realizing what he meant. She slept with a blade under her pillow for protection each night. That blade was often Sai.

"It's a little different now that you have a human body," she said, pulling her hair out and letting to drop over her shoulder and turn the fabric damp.

Sakura pieced the folds together and tied it off only to glance over her shoulder and see Sai still watching the doorway. She reached for his elbow to gently turn her back around. He followed her direction without resistance.

"When I was in danger you protected me. I wouldn't be alive without you. Thank you." Sakura pat the side of his face and then reached up to kiss his forehead.

When she pulled away his hand reached for the fabric of her robe and clung there. She stilled, watching his hand before looking to his face, searching out an expression and finding close to nothing. Sai looked distant, refusing to meet her stare.

"I don't like not being able to touch you anymore. You always had me at your side or in your hand or close to you. I… don't like being parted from you."

Once more, he sounded like a child and a prince at once, clinging to his mother and whispering words suited for pearls and palaces.

Sakura reached for his arm hesitantly, folding it over her good arm the way she had seen court ladies do. "This better?"

He nodded mutely.

She found Kakashi in one of the more sturdy rooms of the manor, one without holes in the floor and a working door. There was still a cloth mask stuck to the bottom half of his face, but she could see the outline of a smile there when he saw Sai on her arm.

"He found you. I didn't think it would be long. He's been little better than a pest with you out cold. Still, I think he did well enough in catching rabbit and elderberry, so let's talk more over that, shall we?"

Kakashi stood to retrieve the food but Sakura felt like she couldn't wait. "You knew."

Kakashi paused and watched her, waiting to hear more.

"You knew what I could do, what I was. Did Sarutobi tell you I could make human swords?"

"No…but he told me he had a sage he wanted to watch and see if her powers ever actually developed to that stage. She could hear their voices, he told me, and she made some of the best damn swords he had ever seen because of it."

"A sage. I've heard of those only in stories. I thought those were like the monks who dedicated their life to the arcane arts and learned magic."

"Close. Sages can be monks, but we have stories that talk about them being able to hear what is unheard, see what is unseen, and do the impossible. They could hear the spirits of the dead of the constructed, and manifest them in flesh. Sarutobi wasn't a sage himself, but he did teach one other who could hear and manifest bodies out of his swords.

"Another like me? I've never heard of such a person. I thought if such a power existed it would be far more famous in story and lore. Why have I never heard it spoken of?"

Kakashi held up a finger and slipped out of the room. Sai tugged Sakura to a seat at the low table in the center of the room and he pulled the cleanest, firmest pillow for her to rest atop. When Kakashi came back it was with a basket of salted rabbit, elderberries, and a pot of rice.

"Eat first," he said, setting the foods down.

Sakura found her appetite to be a vicious thing the moment the first grain of rice was on her tongue. She felt her emptiness in full with the first mouthful swallowed. Sai didn't touch the food, but Kakashi ate across from her.

"You seem to be doing well with Sai so far. You're believing in all of this very well," Kakashi said with a smile as he pulled out his peace colored book and flipped to a new page. "You're not asking me if it's a trick."

"I know it's my Sai, I've heard his voice in my head for months. I would recognize it anywhere," Sakura said around a mouthful of rice that stuck to her chin.

Sai ducked his head and leaned into her side a little more.

"How cute. Do you regret only taking a single tantou now? If you had grabbed a Katana or some other blade in addition to Sai you would have have twice as many loyal in your service."

Sakura paused in her eating. "What do you mean?"

Kakashi nodded at Sai. "Look at him. He's a puppy. You tell him to jump he'll ask how high. It's what made Sages such a dangerous threat to anyone in power, especially someone who could forge their own swords. You could make a fanatically loyal army more skilled than any woman-born one."

"Is that why I've never heard of any other sages before?"

"At the first sign, most are killed outright. The ones that manage to survive to adulthood must be dealt with like devils, with deals and mansions. At least, that's what our Shogun believes when it comes to Orochimaru."

Sakura felt a cold pit in her chest. "That snake is a sage too?"

"He was the first sage Sarutobi ever found, and the old monkey taught the snake all he could, holding back nothing. You can guess what happened next, as the story should be plain enough. When it came to you, Sarutobi knew the voices you heard meant you could do what Orochimaru could do, but he wasn't about to repeat the same mistake twice."

"Sarutobi never told me any of this. I knew he suspected when it came to the voices…but…." Sakura set her spoon down and started off, trying to remember clues that could help her understand. "He never wanted me around when Orochimaru came back to visit. It was only twice, but he was…mean about it. It wasn't like Sarutobi to be mean, least not like that."

"Orochimaru turned out to be a monster."

"But he did nothing to stop him. He didn't tell me or others, and in the end that's why my master is dead and I'm here in a foreign country." Sakura fisted her hands under the table. "I could have done something."

"There was nothing you could have done to stop someone as powerful as Sarutobi's first apprentice. His swords made flesh would have killed you outright. Sarutobi hid you as long as he could, but in the end even he couldn't out trick the snake." Kakashi paused to observe her expressions more closely before continuing. "Still, that's no reason to blame yourself or him for all of this. Call evil what it is. The one to blame is none other than Orochimaru."

Sakura reached for the jug of sake that had remained untouched atop the table and drank straight from it, passing over the need for a cup. She stared straight back at Kakashi while she drank until the small jug was empty. She pretended not to notice the way his eyebrows rose like he was impressed with her ability to drink. It was a useless skill that lost her more money than it was worth.

"Now what?" She asked. Sakura set the empty jug down and let it tip sideways from the sloppy set down. It rolled until it hit her plate and stopped there.

"Now what?" Kakashi echoed.

"Now what do you want of me? You save me for the sake of goodness? I might have believed that if I was ten years younger or a little prettier, but I'm not that little girl anymore. You want to use me for something, don't you?"

Kakashi grinned through his mask, believing in the keen glint in her eyes more than the doubt in his heart. She was as clever as the old man said she would be. Maybe she would be clever enough for the snake.

"Is there something you want to do?"

"Yeah, I want to make swords and I want to live. Even if you let me keep making swords, you're going to ask me to do something else that paints a bigger target on my back, aren't ya?" Sakura pointed over her shoulder at Sai. "Like make more little boy soldiers for a power grab."

"A power grab is such a petty way of putting it."

Sakura's eyes narrowed further. "Call evil what it is."

The taste of his own words thrown back at him made Kakashi consider his position a bit more carefully. Sakura wasn't emotional now. He wouldn't be able to use her grief or make use of her drive for vengeance because neither existed. Manipulating her would be difficult.

"Then would you like to make swords without having to run and hide everywhere you went? If you wanted to touch a forge again you would have to sail off this continent, and where would that land you? You think they buy many swords in the Demon Lands?"

"And you think it would be safer to stay here, in the ghost lands?" Sakura eyed the empty sake jug. "Living off what…bugs and rainwater?"

"Hardly. This may not look like a palace now, but once our finances start coming in-"

"Our finances?"

Kakashi's grin was playful but the book remained closed on the table. "I'd be helping with the details and the connections in this operation. It's only natural that I be taken care of as well."

"You need to do better if you're trying to convince me of anything," Sakura said.

"Do I need to?" Kakashi tapped the table and then pointed at Sakura. "You owe me your life. Without me the elements or the river would have killed you. If not those, then your wounds. You needed the medicine I gave you. You needed shelter, which I also gave you. You needed a place to rest, which I gave….you guessed it…to you."

"You think too well of me. I was never known as being a woman of honor. What you did you did for selfish reasons so sell it a little bit better."

Kakashi leaned in. "He was right about you, but he's not the only one that can see through a person's facade. You're not a good person, but maybe that's exactly what I need. I am your best chance at your best life. You will have no peace beyond these mists. I can at least make one of your desires come true. What will you give for that?"

Sakura looked down at the table with the empty jug of sake, the empty plate, the scratches and the gouges in the wood, and the stains on the surface.

"You planning on overthrowing the Shogun?"

"We have someone in mind for his seat. Danzo has been in power too long and Orochimaru could stand to lose his head from his shoulders if we could be so lucky. That too much for you?"

Sakura stretched her hands out, feeling the joints between each bone in her fingers. There was an ache to use her hands for a purpose she couldn't explain with just words. Her body needed to be a part of the creation of beauty and, for good or evil, she wanted to toil in a forge once more.

"Sakura?"

She looked at the sound of her name and saw Kakashi watching her with a keenness that was almost smug. It was nearly enough to make her deny him out of spite. Nearly.

Beside her, Sai sat silent.

"Where is the forge?"

The forge was on the edge of the manor's property, but the next day found Sakura further south, where the salt was in the air and the weather was a blind man's guess. They were waiting for a contact in the Kiri government to visit them at the safe house Kakashi was told to use.

That had been four days ago and Sakura's wounds were still sore, but not as ugly to look at when she allowed herself the vanity. She felt well enough to go out and be something other than a burden to the scarecrow looking pervert that was taking care of her at every turn.

Sakura reached into the water and pulled out the clam, it was fat and puckered enough to be worth eating later. She tossed it into the box and went back into the tide pool to find another. There was more than one person she needed to find food for. Even if Kakashi could probably take care of himself, Sakura now had a mouth of her own to be responsible for.

As if her thoughts summoned him, Sakura heard the footsteps behind her and turned to see the youth with eyes as black as a blade's hilt and hair just as dark. He wasn't wearing shoes...again.

"I told you it's cold in this part of the country, your toes are cold," she chastised.

Sakura shook her hands out of the water and then wiped them on the edge of the peasant smock tied around her waist. Her hands were still cold but the callouses were thick enough from years of labor to keep that sort of pain layered away. Sai didn't have those callouses yet.

She reached for him and set her foot beside his to eyeball the size before unwrapping her cloth sandals. His blinked once before turning his head to the side and squinting at her work.

"What are you doing?" Sai asked. "You implied I was foolish again, yet you are copying me now. Why?"

Sakura grumbled before stepping out of her shoes into the sog of mud just above the beaches. Her toes hated the feel of it, but like her hands, they would survive the cold better than his.

"Give me your foot, idiot," she grumbled, reaching for his ankle.

He complied and she began to wrap her shoe around his foot, tying it up tight to keep it from being a hindrance. She reached for his other ankle without a word and repeated the action until he was standing in shoes on both feet.

"I see what you did," he said.

"Good that you're learning, because I don't like walking home like this. Come on, you can help carry these for me," Sakura said while handing off the small box filled with clams.

Sai picked it up easily and turned to follow her back.

A figure in the mists made Sakura stop. She grabbed Sai and tugged him behind her and squared her shoulders. She wasn't taller than Sai but she thought she might look more intimidating than a slight boy with eyelashes too long to not be envious of.

"Hello," the figure greeted kindly, waving to the both of them.

Sakura saw too quickly the lack of equipment or supply that would explain what she was doing out in the middle of seemingly nowhere. She was well dressed too. She didn't look like a laborer.

"Are you lost?" Sakura called out. "You look out of place."

The woman raised a single brow. "And you look surrounded, or did you not notice?"

Sakura's attention jumped and she whipped her sight around her to spot four, five, no, six different figures on the edges of the mists. She was too well dressed to travel without protection and in the land of mists, she of course had assassins who could step through the fog with death steps.

Sakura heard Sai draw the tantou that represented his original body, back when he had been a blade. Sakura reached back to grab his wrist and stop him. She didn't want things to escalate to that point.

"What do you want?" Sakura called out.

"A greeting would be nice. Don't be rude." The woman stepped forward, drawing closer but her shadows didn't move.

"Hello," Sakura ground out. "Did you come here to kill me?"

The woman frowned, blinking widely as if the thought had surprised her. "Kill you? I should hope not. You're my golden ticket to a better tomorrow, girl. Didn't that old scarecrow tell you about me?"

Sakura swallowed. "Kakashi? He doesn't talk much."

The woman pouted and crossed her arms. "What a lay-about. What is he good for anymore now that his pretty face is always covered?" She shook her head and then pointed to herself. "I am Mei Terumi, and you're in my country."

Sakura had made swords for Daimyo before, but never for the Shogun of Kiri. Sarutobi, however, had once told her he had heard of one of her blades ending up on the hip of one of her most loyal. After that she had sent inquiries for a custom Uchigatana, but never filed an official commission. Kiri was notorious for their swords, and never sought out smiths from other countries. Kiri was a different country, after all.

"Shit," Sakura hissed under her breath.

"Don't look too panicked, I'm not Danzo and I don't want you dead. I'm not stupid enough to kill the most beautiful artists in the world. We will never weep enough to honor Sarutobi enough. I'm just glad we were able to save you."

"You're the powerful friend Kakashi was talking about?" Sakura guessed. "You're the one giving us materials to forge?"

"If I feel like it. Are you worth it?"

"Likely not. I'm not a machine that makes swords for war like spun sugar. You want a massive army, I can't give that to you. Sorry." Sakura thought absently that she should have probably tried to be nicer to one of the most powerful rulers in all the five nations, but…no one ever accused her of being wise.

"I like you. You're snappier than Sarutobi. I can see why he wouldn't let me meet with you. I'm not eager enough for a full on war with the Country of Fire, but that hasn't stopped their units from making skirmishes on my side of the border. They've become greedy and I need something extra to push back with. Kakashi said that might be you."

"I don't know how. I just make the blades, I can't use them."

Mei tilted her chin up and smiled at Sai. "He seems to be doing well enough for himself. Shall we test it?"

Sakura felt fear in her gut but before she could do anything the men in the mist were gone and then they were back, close enough to touch. Sai pushed Sakura to the earth and flickered out of the way of a downward strike. Sakura bit must and spit out dirt, rubbing it off her teeth as she rolled onto her back and looked up.

Sai was pulling his tantou out of the gut of one of Mei's men before flickering away and coming up under a different guard. Sakura watched with wide eyes as another man went down in a gush of red from a cut arteries, greedy for release.

She screamed out his name but he dodged under a swinging blade and rolled backwards, behind the man. There was a clang from when their blades met, but Sai twisted out of the lock and cut at the man's hand.

"That's enough!" Mei shouted out. The men who had been circling Sai dropped their blades and backed away. Two stayed dead on the ground.

Sakura cursed again under her breath. Sai appeared at her side in an instant and reached to tug her up out of the mud, more concerned about the stains on her smock than the blood on his skin.

"You have a fine blade in your service. He's more than just a pretty face."

Sakura looked over her shoulder at the woman with hair as long as her skirts. Mei smiled and there was something dangerous about the curve of her lips.

"But you needed to see that for yourself?" Sakura huffed, bracing on her knee to stand. The stitches in her side still hurt, but didn't pop. Her skin was starting to knit back together.

"More than just me needed to see that."

She laughed and pointed to a man who had one eye covered by a patch of black silk. His sword was drawn, but he had hung back. He frowned down at the bodies on the ground and then looked up at Mei before finally glancing over at Sakura and Sai. He was taller than her and looked like what one would expect of a Samurai in terms of posture, but not in terms of armor. He wore too little and moved too fast.

Sakura's eyes went to the sword in his hand and she swallowed to keep her throat from going dry. She recognized the size and shape of Chōjūrō like it was yesterday. It was good to see a blade she made so well taken care of.

"You didn't think it was a little unfair how Sai was outnumbered?" Sakura huffed. She threw back her shoulders and leaned into her words.

"He's beautiful and fierce. You should be proud of your work. I think we can leave some of our treasures with you. Kakashi said it would be awhile before you could forge because of your wounds, but there shouldn't be a reason you can't be a sage, is there? I'm not sure how that works."

"That makes two of us. I wasn't in the best state of mind when I…when Sai appeared, and I really don't know how to repeat something like that." Sakura spared a sideways glance at the men who had stood down but not yet retreated. "I'm really just good for forging."

"I doubt that."

Sakura felt exposed, like the fleshy parts of her were bared for the end of a blade. It wasn't a good feeling and she bared her teeth to fight it.

Mei smiled once more and then waved a hand at the man beside her before turning and walking away, back into the mist. She called back once over her shoulder before she was out of sight.

"I'll leave my treasures with Kakashi and you can do what you like with the metal. He'll have more information on how you can be useful enough for more."

Then she was gone.

That night Kakashi brought back with him a wooden case almost as long and tall was he was but he said he would only open it once they were back at the manor. They left that night and trekked through the dark until it was dawn and then noon and then dusk.

Sakura was too tired and thin of breath to pester him any more that day. She slept as soon as they returned and stayed asleep all through the night and into the next morning.

When she woke it was to the smell of bacon, of all things.

"A gift from Mei. It's enough for a few meals, but if you're able to be a little more impressive maybe we can eat like this again."

Sakura looked up and saw Kakashi in the doorway with a bowl of rice held up in one hand and his peach colored book in the other. He was looking at the pages and not at her, but she knew he was listening.

"Impressive how? I don't know how the hell she wants me to make more…" her words trailed as she looked to Sai and remember how cold her toes had been coming home. He was watching her with wide eyes, absorbing everything.

"Don't worry about that," he said. Kakashi had caught the reason for her fault in speech. "Sai is a young blade, never having been wielded by anyone other than yourself, so he is a bit unaware of how the world works. The blades Mei left us with are far older. Would you like to see?"

Kakashi pressed a bowl of rice, topped with egg and bacon, into her hands and moved to the back of the room where the case from yesterday waited.

Sakura watched, eating her breakfast with her fingers and not caring for manners. Kakashi set the case down on the table and unlocked each end before lifting back the lid and exposing the pair of intimidating Odachi inside.

"Shit, they're huge," Sakura swore. "Who would be able to use such things?"

"Not many. They're treasures, apparently, but the military isn't what it once was and the two lances are dead weight, she said. We're not supposed to tell anyone about this though, since they are…relics. Mei would get in trouble for it."

"What am I supposed to do?" Sakura asked.

Kakashi shrugged and then waved a hand over the blades. "Get to know them? Do what you did with Sai? How should I tell you anything you don't already know?"

"I don't think it'll work. Sai was…is-was- a blade I forged myself. I've always heard his voice because I was the one who pieced him together. I had a bond with Sai. These blades are strangers to me."

"Ah, Sarutobi said it would be easy after doing it once. I guess he didn't account for you being nearly dead when you did it the first time. You don't remember how to do it?" Kakashi asked. He looked up from his pages to watch her answer.

Sakura frowned down at the bottom of her bowl, finding it too soon. She was still hungry. "I don't think I'll be able to. I don't know them." She held out her bowl. "More rice please."

Sai took her bowl when Kakashi just stared at it, expression baleful. Sai took her bowl out to where the rice had been served and scooped more for her while Kakashi turned a page in his book.

"Don't make the mistake. I'm not your servant here. If you can't do this much we'll be eating bugs."

"Old pervert," Sakura muttered.

She took the bowl back from Sai and kicked at Kakashi's side until he moved. She sat down in front of the two swords and listened for their voices. She had the sensation of their voices, but neither blade was in the talking mood. She could hear them, they just weren't talking.

She gripped the hilt of the first one and raised it from the box, wincing at the weight. It was long and heavy and a little too grand to wild effectively. It was the opposite of Sai, short and fast.

There were only broken doors to the outside, so Sakura carried the Odachi out to the inner courtyard where there was enough room to move it off her shoulder and into her hand. She used her good arm, the one with all the strength and none of the stitches.

While she was no samurai, Sakura knew a bit of the theory on how to use blade and she had practiced with plenty enough to know when the blade was sharp enough to sing and the metals balanced enough to scream. She wasn't a samurai, but one thing Sakura was proud of was her strength. She was made for a hammer and could out-lifit most men.

Sakura used only one hand to swing the Odachi, turning it over in midair and bringing it down in front of her, only to stop it perfectly straight out in front of her, keeping it from dropping in spite of it's weight. She held it there for a few more seconds and then repeated the swing.

'Tell me your name.'

She swung and stopped, swung and stopped. She reversed her position and swung again, and again and again, chaining the movements together until the weight was carrying the blade through a series of attacks. Then she stopped. One of her arms hung limp at her side but her other arm held the Odachi level.

'Speak to me,' Sakura urged.

Sakura practiced stances and swings with the sword until her arm couldn't take it anymore and she retired it back to the case. There were oils and cleaning papers at one end that she pulled out. On the edge of the porch she cared for each blade, one after the other, cleaning and polishing them both.

She couldn't hear their voices, but she thought she could feel their emotions in a different way. They seemed pleased by the care and attention, and enjoyed the practice. She meditated on the swords, trying to hear their voices and knowing it had been a long time since anyone last benefited from their beauty.

She practiced for several days with no change.

A cold cloth on the side of her face made Sakura jerk out of her musing and look up at Sai. His expression was hard to decipher, but she thought he looked worried.

"You shouldn't do so much or else you may injure yourself further. I think your wounds need more time to heal."

"I'm fine. Thank you, Sai."

Sakura took the wet cloth and dabbed at the sweat across her brows. It was cool out but her body was warm from pushing it with the first Odachi. She could feel the sweat on her back under her clothing.

"You don't need to push yourself. I don't like it." He sat down on the edge of the porch beside her. "Those are not even blades you made so why are you trying to have a relationship with them?"

"It's a little harder when they're not blades I've made myself, but I still feel like I care for these swords now. I've practiced with them enough that I think I know them both well enough to pick them out blind. I miss the voices of blades. I was always surrounded by it, I forgot what this sort of silence felt like."

"You can hear me, and I know you can hear Kakashi's blades."

"His swords all sound like dogs, they don't count," Sakura laughed.

"His blades are not as fine as the ones you have made, that is true."

Sakura stared down at the Odachi on her lap and felt a longing in her heart. "This is such a beautiful sword, I wish I could make something this impressive now. It's been too long since I was in a forge, but even if I had access to metals, I was not very good at long swords."

"You did well enough with me."

Sakura smiled at Sai and leaned over to kiss his cheek. "You're the most beautiful tantou I ever made."

"I'm the most beautiful tantou ever," he corrected, ducking his head. He glanced up through his bangs at her. "And you made me. I don't think you need other swords."

"Kakashi said we needed to do jobs to earn our meat. Mei has left several different C class missions and a few D class missions, but I don't want to send you alone anywhere."

Kakashi had been passive aggressive about how he didn't want to go out on his own with only Sai to finish any missions left for them. He would complain loudly about wishing he had someone or something else to help him out.

"I'll go out with Kakashi tomorrow and it won't be alone. You don't need to worry about not getting your meat because I'll bring back some with the allowance. Will that make you happy?"

"Meat always makes me happy!" Sakura laughed. "Sake too."

Sai frowned. "That's expensive. We would have to do more than one mission for that woman if you wanted both."

Sakura hummed. "Yeah, I know. Sorry for making silly requests. Don't worry about it."

"If I can bring back both will you let me sleep next to you again?" Sai asked, voice raising with the question.

Sakura flushed but forced herself to smile. "Uh, Sai, we talked about this. You're not a tantou anymore, you're a human male and…and I'm a woman. Sleeping next to a woman isn't proper."

"I don't understand that. It wasn't bad when you hid me under your pillow." He hunched his shoulders and turned his face to look down. "Also, it is cold at night and I know you're warm. I want to sleep beside you."

Sakura groaned, hating how she felt like a bad guy for how pitiful he looked. It made her heart hurt. "Fine," she relented. "If you can bring back both I'll let you…sleep in the same room as me I guess. Just don't tell Kakashi about it, because then he'll be annoying about it. I'm already that much older than you."

A few hours later the pair left and Sakura was alone, staring at the twilight sky with one of the Odachi resting on her shoulder. She was alone and she was hoping tonight one of the voices would reach her.

'Speak to me. Tell me your name. Tell me anything, please.'

Neither used their voices, but she knew-she just knew-that they could hear her and were aware of her. They were older than any sword she had held or worked with before, so she wondered if that had something to do with it.

Sakura closed her eyes and tried to hear their voices, talking to them about anything and everything. There was only silence to greet her.

She was about to give up for the night and head back inside when something made her pause.

Words.

She had to strain, but Sakura could hear voices making words that she could understand.

'We must be quiet and we must be swift. We must strike true and not take long.'

There was ice in her spine as she turned and rolled the Odachi off her shoulder and into her hand to wield. The voice didn't come from either of her blades, but it did come from a blade….one far younger and drawing closer.

'Kill her, kill her and go home, kill her…'

Sakura turned and saw a figure drop into the courtyard and stand among the weeds, a blade in his hand just as thirsty for her blood as the assassin wielding it.

"A houseguest," Sakura cooed, playing off her nervousness. "How did you find me?"

The figure was alone at least. There were no other voices nearby.

"There is no one better at tracking than me. You'll die and buy me my manor from Orochimaru."

He darted forward and Sakura swung, but Sakura was not a samurai.

'I don't want to die here!'

Her Odachi caught his shorter blade and she carried through with the swing, surprising her attacker with the show of strength and pushing him back off her blade. He was surprised enough to give her an opening she took advantage of. She readied for the thrust, but by the time she moved he was already recovered and turning out of the way. She was too slow with too long a blade. Sakura cursed as he came for her again. She spun out of the way, twisting with the Odachi.

She heard his blade sing as it cut the air close to her face, but she leaned out of the swipe. She lost a hair in the swing, seeing it sever from the rest of the strand.

She cursed over and over in her head, knowing she was outmatched. She was strong, but she wasn't swift. She wasn't fast, either.

She felt her skip separate when the sword cut through her, even if it was shallow cut. She staggered and blood ran freely and red over her front. She couldn't stay upright, for whatever reason, and her heel caught the dirt and she tumbled backwards.

She saw the shadow loom and her head was screaming with the same thought, loud and clear.

'I don't want to die here!'

The blade burned in her hand and she screamed as Kisame reached forward to bring the pommel of his sword down on the head of the would be assassin. There were still sparks in their air from his manifestation when he roared and swung again, a wicked wild glint to his eyes as he moved with the swiftness of a killer.

There was a strangled cry and then plenty of blood as an artery was struck and then a head let loose to roll across the grounds. Behind him the sky was burning with the last rays of sun making the blood all the more vibrant. Kisame laughed and raised his sword above his head. No, the sword was him. He was the sword.

What had happened?

"I'm so glad you figured that out, finally," he laughed, turning his back to the headless man and grinning down at Sakura. "I've been wanting to let loose for decades."

Sakura gaped. Kisame was huge, tower taller than any many she had ever seen, taller than Kakashi by almost a foot. His skin was a pale blue like the color of his blue mokumegane steel, but his eyes were ink black in all the places she expected to see other colors. He blinked and a film slid off his eyes and he looked human again.

"Kisame? You're not an odachi anymore," Sakura gasped. "How…?"

"Oi, didn't you know? You're the one that did it, princess. Plus, I'm still an odachi, look here, I just have a human body thanks to you. Eh, I guess I won't complain since I wasn't really that pretty as a sword either. At least I'm big!" He threw his head back and laughed, obviously delighted with himself.

"I really hope this isn't a habit, me having to have my life in danger to summon swords into bodies," Sakura moaned, starting to tilt sideways. Her old wounds ached now that the adrenaline was gone.

She couldn't help it, but grunted in pain and started to fall back down to her knees. A warm hand around her waist stopped her and she instinctively grabbed onto his arm before looking up at Kisame. He was grinning down at her still.

"Hey, it's sorta nice to be the one doing the holding this time, but you gotta be careful. Are you hurt anywhere else?"

Without waiting for her answer, he leaned over and pulled her up into his arms, cradling her easily. He was careful not to touch the front of her where a long angry line made her skin bleed. It was shallow enough to not need stitches, but it bled enough to make his smile fall off.

"It's just old wounds bothering me," Sakura admitted around a yawn. She reached up and pulled the pieces of her front together to help protect her modesty.

Kisame grunted, looking away from the places where red stained her robes and instead staring at her face. "I've not been a human long, but I know a thing or two about humans because of how long I've been around them. You're tired all over and need to be taken care of. Here, let's find the bath and get you cleaned up."

Sakura absently thought it was comical how easily he carried her in his arms. She was tiny compared to him. She worried there would be places in the manor that were too small for him to fit through with his hulking frame.

"I'm kinda tired," Sakura yawned again. "I'm sure this is nothing. Just set me down in my room and I'll be good."

Her eyes felt heavy and she thought she was going to fall asleep until she fell into a tub of water. The shock made her jolt and the weariness was chased away for a time as she thrashed and sputtered in the cold water that was both old and forgotten.

Sakura grabbed the sides of the tub and stared up with eyes wide with confusion and accusation. Kisame chuckled and scratched the back of his head before apologizing.

"Sorry, I didn't know it was cold. Here, use this to wash off the blood," he said.

Sakura took the cloth and shivered before turning around and wiping the blood away from the cut down her front. It had already stopped bleeding and the thin line was crusted over and hard with a streak of dried blood to act as a band aid. She wouldn't even need to bind it except to hide it. She grimaced at the sight. She was ugly.

"Kisame, there should be dry clothes in my bedroom. Do you know where to go to get them?" Sakura asked, glancing back over her shoulder at the sword made man who hadn't left like any other person would have.

"Oh yeah, sure I think I can do that. Hang on, I'll be back in a second."

When he was out the door Sakura turned quickly and pulled herself up out of the bath, shivering at cold of the evening air in made more bitter when she was wet. She started to peel her ruined things off and grabbed a sheet meant to hang as a divider and provide privacy. She used the sheet to wipe herself dry and then cover herself up with. She was wiping her face when she heard him step back in with her sleeping clothes.

Sakura looked up and frowned when she saw him standing stiffly in the doorway, looking no better than a deer caught in the lamplights. Her things were in his hand, but he was too stiff to extend his arm and offer them to her.

"Here, give me those," Sakura said, taking her things out of his hand and shuffling awkwardly back to a corner with some little privacy left. "You're supposed to turn around and not look when a woman does this. I get that you're just newly human and swords don't have this sense of propriety, but now you're a man and I'm a woman and you're not supposed to see me like this."

"Like what?" he asked, still staring.

Sakura huffed in agitation. "Without my clothes on. It's indecent."

"I-I know that! I may be just a sword but I remember plenty from when I was around humans being used. I-I-I know this much. I was just tr-t-checking to make sure you were okay and not more hurt." Kisame couldn't meet her eyes as his cheeks flushed with a pink purple color. He stiffly turned on his heel to face the other way. "I'm looking away now!" he yelled.

Sakura let herself chuckle at his awkwardness as she dropped the sheet and dressed as quickly as possible. Her hair was still wet and making her shoulders damp, but she was no longer dripping. There were more blankets in her bedroom she could warm up with and maybe even a fire.

She sneezed loudly and held her face, sniffling in the cold. Kisame started to turn towards her but stopped. "Are you okay?" he asked, sounding worried.

"Yeah, just…" Sakura sniffed loudly again. "Yeah I'm just a little cold. I have more blankets in my room I can warm up with. I'm fine so you can turn around now."

"You're shivering."

Kisame sounded worried when he turned around to look her over. She heard him curse as he leaned down and reached for her. Sakura didn't fight it when he pulled her closer and pressed her to his chest. He was radiating heat in spite of his half open shirt.

One arm was through a sleeve and the other flapped limply at his waist without definition. It was an old, old fashion she remembered from the history books on Kiri. It was interesting to see what a sword made man came into the world wearing. There was a leather strap that ran under his dominant arm that connected to a brace meant to hold his Odachi self. The sword was too long to sheath so it hooked into a holster and came unhooked when he drew it.

"Come here," he said, holding her and leading her to her room where her bed had been left in a mess.

She hadn't seen the sense in cleaning it when it would only become messy latter. Her mother had told her she would never be a good housewife because of such bad habits, but that never bothered Sakura because she knew she would be a swordsmith for as long as she was left alive. She didn't need to impress anyone with her domestic skills.

Sakura pulled away from Kisame and dove for her covers, realizing that they were not as warm as she would have wished them to be once she was under them. Her hair was still wet and sticking to her face along with her water thick lashes. Kisame ambled in after her and sat down next to her bed on the floor and helped pull up her covers.

"You should have some animal skins around here, somewhere," he gruffly commented. "Are they in another room?"

Sakura sneezed again. "No, we sold them for food. I think we only have the rabbit skin left, but Kakashi said he wanted to sew it in as a liner to his jacket so…I think he's wearing it now.

Kisame cursed again. "They just left you here like this? Where's the fire?"

Sakura pointed into the corner of the room where a small circular stove with a black lid punctured with holes, sat. Kisame pulled it over and pulled back the lid to see the space meant for logs left empty.

"Firewood?" he asked.

"Back of the house. I split some yesterday." Her eyes were heavy but she managed to point in the direction of the woodpile.

Kisame was up and running before she could drop her hand. Seconds later she heard him again, climbing up onto the porch and then ambling into her room with a small handful of half split logs that would fit into the tiny stove. He dropped a few in and then reached for the match sticks left alongside the stove in the corner. Breathing heavily to stoke the flames, Sakura peeked one eye open to see him nursing a small fire onto the mostly dry logs.

"Everything in this damn country is wet," he complained when the logs caught fire so slowly.

Sakura laughed from under the covers and Kisame's gaze switched back to her. She made sure to grin when he saw her. "Thank you for taking care of me. It's really alright. I would have been fine."

"You just brought me back to life and were nearly split open like a ham and those others just left you here alone. You know they say that sages are real powerful people, but they never mention anything about the exhaustion you must go through after bringing a sword like myself to life. And not to brag, but I'm a pretty big deal of a sword, so I can't imagine that was a walk in the park for you, princess."

Sakura laughed again, curling up under the covers. "Yeah, you were a pretty big deal. It took so long before I could finally hear your voice. Why was that? Why couldn't I hear you or Zabuza?"

Kisame rubbed the back of his neck and the purple pink blush was back in place. "Ah, well that wasn't your fault. We were…left alone for so long, we sorta just stopped talking on our own and it was hard to start up again, especially when we were both pissed about not being used. Zabz and I were just a little moody…but I'm not anymore! I'm sorry I didn't say anything. When you started taking care of us again I was really happy. I didn't know what to say after that, especially when I knew you were listening."

"Ah, that's good then. I was afraid I couldn't hear the voices anymore."

Kisame grinned and reached over to poke the center of her forehead. "I'm pretty sure you could, because any time you held us and talked to us, even in your head, we could hear it. It made me happy to be used again."

"Sorry I'm not a samurai. I've always been better at making swords than at using them."

"Hey, you could lift me. It was nice just being held if you know what it's like to sit and collect dust for generations like a relic. I liked it when you practiced and polished us. And I know Zabuza is more of a grump than I am, but he appreciates it too, he's just slower to trust people."

Sakura hummed and snuggled into her covers more. "Once I'm feeling better I'll be able to lift either of you no problem. I'm used to working in a forge and moving heavy things." She yawned and it almost turned into a sneeze, but she stifled it.

Kisame nudged the fire closer and scooted in closer himself. "I wasn't joking about the drain a sage has to go through to summon a sword though. I already said I'm a big deal. You probably are plenty tired. Can I get you some food from around here or something."

Sakura felt herself blush when she remembered there really wasn't any food left aside from rice that needed to be cooked. "I'm not hungry, but I'm tired. I think I'll sleep, but…would you keep watch and make sure more guys don't try to come. I thought we were safe here before, but I was wrong."

"Yeah, well, you can thank you friends for that one, they were sloppy about their coming and goings. I don't think anyone else will be coming tonight, otherwise they would have moved in when they saw you fighting the other guy, but of course I'll keep watch. I'll do a better job of it than those other guys, too."

"Thanks. I'm glad."

Kisame huffed and scooted back along the mats until he sat on the edge of her bed roll. His back was close enough that the heat from it could be felt even through her covers. Sakura unconsciously gravitated towards it. She was half asleep when she realized she had curled up along and around his back like a pill bug in her blankets. When she looked up through her lashes she caught the edge of his grin and realized he didn't mind. That was the last thing she remembered before falling asleep, curled around the base of his back and finally warm.

She awoke once in the night, forced into wakefulness by something sharp in her chest. A pounding heart made her stir, she later realized. Blinking quickly she started to push herself up and looked to see Kisame was still in the same spot he had been in when she first fell asleep. A longer strand of her hair was caught widely between his fingers as he rubbed it between his index and thumb while watching the world outside her room.

At night when colors bled away and the world adopted highlights of silver from a full and heavy moon, Kisame looked almost like a blade again. He had a human face with eyes, a nose, and mouth, but he was harsh edges in his high cheekbones and serrated grin.

He felt her move and turned to glance down at her, seeing her still half asleep he grinned and pulled up the covers so they were tightly tucked under her chin. He said something too but Sakura's head was full of cotton and she couldn't make it out, even though the night was swollen with silence.

She heard it when she spoke though.

"I'm glad you're here."

Then she was asleep again.

Kisame was trying to figure out how he got so lucky. He hadn't been a lucky blade per say. He had one or two masters who could actually hold him and use him out of the half dozen men who actually owned him as a property piece. He hadn't thought himself lucky when he was hung on a wall and admired as dust collected along his frame. He hadn't thought himself lucky when he was left in the body of his enemies after his first master died. He had nearly rusted inside that corpse before being salvaged, cleaned, and put away for a time. He hadn't been lucky for most of his career, but he thought that might not matter now.

How many swords were lucky enough to become human and gain free will?

He understood so many things now that he had hands, things he had known but never understood. There was a difference there, he realized. He knew what it meant to swing, now he understood what a swing was. It was an amazing experience that would likely trip him up if he thought about it too long.

He was lucky to have this life, but also lucky to be where he was.

His sage was adorable and he admired her right away. She had taken his size and weight and used him without hesitation, despite her status. She wasn't a samurai, clearly, but that didn't stop her. He and Zabuza both felt the wind again as a single hand formed the thrusts many started training with. She had practiced with them, and even cleaned them.

But it was her words, her trying to talk to them that really made them lucky. Like his partner in the box, Kisame had gone nonverbal years ago when it became clear they would be nothing more than relics on a wall. It was a bitter resignation that made both swords lock up their voices. There was no one around to hear them anyway. What difference did it make?

'Tell me your name.'

'Speak to me.'

It was tempting to believe in her, to be sure, but they had been bitter for decades and that wasn't undone in a couple of days. Neither of them wanted to believe in her only to be put back in a box again. There was talk about her being a sage which both believed, since they could hear her voice the same way they could hear the voices of other swords, but that didn't mean much. Most sages died before they even realized what they were.

The fact that she went on for days, taking care of them and speaking to them did a lot to lower their walls, Kisame's more so than Zabuza's, but that was because he was just naturally more inclined to like pretty young girls with smiles like wildflowers and legs like tree trunks that stretched for miles. Also, the fact that she could hold him one-handed did wonders for winning him over.

'I don't want to die.'

He remembered hearing that thought, loud and clear, and feeling it. It might as well have been his thought for how attached he had grown to the girl in two weeks. He didn't know how it happened but he turned towards her and suddenly he was human and wild with hands and feet and a sword in his hand that took off the guy's head.

That had been amazing.

"Shut up."

Kisame looked up with a wide grin knowing that Zabuza couldn't see him from where he was in the box, but that didn't stop him from being able to hear all of Kisame's telegraphed thoughts. It had taken a couple hours of reminiscing, but finally the other sword was annoyed enough to voice his anger.

"You mad about something?" Kisame asked, using his thoughts instead of his mouth to speak with the other sword. Zabuza was locked in a box in another room, there was only one way they could communicate and that was through thought.

"You're making this unbearable," the other sword growled. "Wake her up."

"No point in that," Kisame drawled.

"What do you mean no point you purposefully obtuse bastard. Wake her up so she can release me as well."

"She's got no reason to do something like that right now. She's sleeping and I kinda like watching her sleep. Humans sleep, did ya know that?"

"Of course I know that you ugly ogre."

"So lay off it you moron. She's tired and I don't want to wake her up to do something stupid like rouse your cranky ass. She's so tiny."

"Her size doesn't have anything to do with it."

Kisame's tone turned nonchalant. "She's cute and tiny and she needs her sleep. I thought you knew that, idiot."

Zabuza growled low and dangerous, likely realizing that Kisame wasn't going to do anything helpful in that moment. "When she's awake tell her to give me a body as well."

"Why don't you just ask her yourself. She seemed really sad that she couldn't hear your voice. If you want something for her you shouldn't be going through me to get it."

Kisame could have sworn he heard Zabuza's box shake from the other room, but that might have just been his imagination, since Zabuza was just an inanimate object with no way of moving on his own. Still, the guy's cursing was top notch for a sword, and it didn't hurt that he was terribly easy to rile up after so many years locked in the same box. Zabuza was notoriously incapable of voicing his true feelings if ever there was a word for it, that would be Zabuza through and through.

Kisame turned and checked back behind him to see she was still asleep and still curled around his back like some sort of animal. Her hair was a mess around her face, flared like a halo that became bushier and softer as it dried. He couldn't help himself but felt compelled to play with it.

She wasn't a child anymore, he could tell by the scars and the muscle, but she was still somehow still childlike when she was asleep and vulnerable under the covers. He felt compelled to protect and even care for her, and knew that a part of the reason was because she was his sage, but also because she chose him…picked him up and swung him when no one else would. For that fact alone he decided he would be loyal to her. It was nice to be wanted, to feel chosen and cared for after so long alone.

A curse from Zabuza made Kisame sigh. He wasn't the guy's best friend by any stretch of the imagination, but he did understand the sword better than anyone else, having come from the same set of circumstances. He had also been abandoned and left alone for ages. For as happy as he felt now he knew that it would unfair of him to deny Zabuza the same peace.

'I sorta want to be a little unfair right now, though,' he thought to himself as he watched her sleep some more with a strand of hair between his fingers. Maybe that made him mean, but he liked being relied upon.

Well, whatever. She already said she was planning on giving Zabuza a body if she could, so it's not like he needed Kisame's help. Knowing Sakura, he assumed she would try to use her power as soon as she was awake.

Kisame resolved to be content with being relied upon for the night.

When Kakashi and Sai stepped back onto the manor grounds Sai went rigid at the sound of something and dashed off, leaving Kakashi in his dust just as the sunrise burned over the horizon and brought color back into the world with it.

Their mission had taken longer than expected and the kid was likely over eager to see his sage or something.

"Who are you?" Sai's angry demand rang out.

Kakashi let his hand fall from behind his head as something like emotional exhaustion started to take him over. 'Great, here we go.'

Kakashi jogged over to where he heard Sai's voice coming from and recognized Sakura's sleeping chamber. He rounded the corner and stared inside, only mildly surprised to see the pink haired sage asleep in a curl around the base of an unknown man's back. A large unknown man with blue skin and a sword longer than Kakashi's whole frame.

"She did it then," he mused aloud, completely ignoring the hostile stance of the black haired tantou who looked ready to take on a mountain just to get to his sage. It was laughable how loyal the pretty dagger could be.

The blue skinned man kept grinning, but his black eyes swiveled over to Kakashi and landed like weights on his shoulders. Kakashi kept himself from shuddering but meekly raised a hand and waved it causally.

"Yo," Kakashi greeted. "You Kisame or Zabuza?"

"Kisame, obviously. Did Zabuza look this blue to you?"

"I'm a little color blind with only one eye," Kakashi playfully lied. "How's she holding up? She been asleep long?"

"She's safe, not that you really seemed to care. We had a visitor yesterday. I think his body is still in the courtyard if you want to go looking for it." Kisame leaned forward and the gleam of his grin caught the morning light just right. "Careful, we left it in pieces."

"Very nice, we'll get to that later," Kakashi remarked offhandedly as he knelt down close to her head and pulled off one of his gloves. He reached for her face and felt her forehead. He tilted it up and took in the color after something made him frown. "How did she get a fever?"

Kisame stilled.

Sai made a strangled sound and darted around the two to kneel down at Sakura's other side. He pulled away the blankets and tugged her up onto his lap as Kakashi slipped his glove back on. Sai's hands were on her face feeling the heat just like Kakashi's had. Sai tugged the blankets back around her, keeping them close to her chin.

"Is she going to be okay?" the boy asked.

"Ma, it's not that bad. She got like this after you, Sai. I don't know if it was the blood loss and the river or summoning your body, but I've seen this before. She's plenty healthy for her age so I'm sure she'll pull through. I'll go get the medicine. You, blue face, wanna draw the water from the well I need for her tea?"

Kisame didn't respond, but spoke as if Kakashi hadn't just addressed him."Is she sick?"

"Yes and no. She'll be fine. She's just exhausted," Kakashi said. He stood and started to head off in the direction of the kitchen. "I guess I'll help her out since she managed to do her job. Getting some more help around her will be nice."

"Oi," Kisame called out. He stood and lumbered out of the room onto the porch where he could stand up all the way. "You don't sound too concerned, bastard. Aren't you worried?"

"Why should I be? I told you she'll be fine."

"She's…isn't she in pain?"

Kakashi blinked and then his eye trailed off as if in thought.

"Maybe, but no more than anyone else with a fever. She'll be fine since she's stronger than most women. We also managed to bring home real food this time." Kakashi's lone eye drifted back to Kisame with a new sharper gleam. "But we didn't get that much, and now we have to feed you. If only we had some wild boar, that would make her fever go down much quicker."

"I can get that," Kisame scoffed. "There are plenty in the hills. It'll make her better?"

"What person doesn't get better with good food and rest?" Kakashi countered.

Kisame reached up behind him and grabbed the hill of his long odachi. The action made Kisame pause and slowly swallow. If he wanted to, Kisame could slice him in two with a single swing and they both knew that. Kakashi tried extra hard to keep his overly pleasant smile on his face under the mask so that it showed in his lone, exposed eye.

"Fine," Kisame gruffly muttered with a low shadow over his eyes. "I'll be back in a couple of hours at the most."

And like one would expect from a legendary blade become man, Kisame was gone is a breeze too fast to see with the average set of human eyes. Along with him went the killing intent.

"If that's what one of them is like I can't imagine what two would be like," Kakashi muttered to himself before turning to prepare the medicine.

True to his word, Kisame was back in an hour and a half with a dead boar slung over his shoulder and two fat rabbits dangling from his belt. Kakashi asked about the rabbits, hoping they could be used for a stew, but Kisame just barked about Kakashi getting them when he was dun skinning their hides for a collar Sakura could wear inside her Yukata like the fancy women in Kiri were known to wear.

"She's awake if you want to go see her," Kakashi muttered offhandedly. "Something about that dead bastard's sword keeping her from sleeping. She's with Sai cleaning it up."

Kisame hesitated, but then dropped the rabbits with an over the shoulder warning to not touch their hides until he got back.

Sakura remembered hearing the voice before waking. If that voice hadn't been there, crying out, she might have slept on for however long her body needed. But the crying was there and she roused, turning over and pushing up off the floor with more pain in her front than before. The angry red line was still there under the layers of her yukata, cracking with her stretches.

"Sakura, don't move," Sai pleaded, reaching for her shoulders and pulling her back towards his lap. "You still have a fever. You need to rest some more."

"Can you hear it, Sai?" she asked, tasting her voice in her throat like it was some dried out dead thing that reeked. She licked her lips and looked for water.

Sai anticipated her need and had a cup of hot water on hand, meant to cleanse her palate. Sakura drank from it, not minding how warm it made her body. It seemed to shake her voice free a little better.

"What are you talking about, Sakura?" Sai asked as he watched her drink the rest of water.

"The voice," Sakura sighed, closing her eye and leaning forward so the line down her front didn't open and bleed again. "Can't you hear it?"

Sai paused to listen and then recognition crossed his features. "Oh yeah, that one. It's just the sword from that guy Kisame killed. You can ignore it."

Sakura grunted and pushed away from Sai to stand. She didn't have slippers or shoes, but padded out of the room and into the courtyard. Sai called out to her to be mindful about the weeds with thorns, but Sakura didn't stop until she was back in the place where Kisame had killed the assassin. The body was still there, still dead and still cold, but the thing beside it was crying out.

"Sakura."

Sai started to reach for her but she light shushed him and told him to hold off while she reached for the discarded sword, still stained with blood.

"You can get me a rag and some more warm water, please. This blade needs to be taken care of."

Sai's face scrunched in displeasure. "Why are you taking care of a sword that wanted to kill you. It's blaming you, can't you hear what it's saying?"

'Her fault, it's not fair, why am I alone now, it wasn't supposed to be like this, bitch, how dare that sword strike him down.'

Sakura smiled softly over her shoulder at Sai who seemed to melt under the attention. "I can hear him just fine. Please, I need that water."

Sa finally accosted and ran to get the things she asked for. When he came back she was cradling the angry sword like it was one she had made herself. With the rag and the water she wiped her own blood off the blade and cleaned it before taking a sword care kit out. Once the blood was gone she treated the blade with expert care that came from years immersed in her craft. Sai sat beside her and watched as she oiled it down and used the paper to make the metal shine.

"That's surprising."

The pair of them looked up to see Kisame lumbering over to them, having just appeared out of what seemed like thin air. He stopped a couple of feet away from Sakura, close enough to reach her if he wanted to.

"Good morning," Sakura greeted, still red faced from her fever but awake all the same.

Kisame grumbled and reached out to touch her head with his own hand. "You're still hot. What are you doing out of bed?"

Sakura grinned up at the blue skinned man and it made him flush a shade between purple and red high up on his cheeks. "I'm feeling fine. It's just my body that's a little burn out. This isn't an issue, really."

"I still wanna see you in bed resting. I feel like it's my fault you got sick like this. I told you it was a big deal giving me a body and you were so cold last night too. There weren't enough blankets."

"That's why I said I wanted to sleep with you," Sai muttered into Sakura's ear from behind her shoulder.

Sakura rolled her eyes.

"I'm fine, really. This is as restful as anything else I could be doing."

"I'm pretty sure the whole point of rest is to not be doing anything so your body can heal. The sword looks fine now, you can put it away and climb back into bed."

Sakura looked like she wanted to say something else, but Sai interrupted her by pulling out the sheath for the sword and setting it down on her lap. When she looked back over her shoulder at him with a question in her eyes he just shrugged.

"I pulled it off him when we were over there. You can put it away now."

Sakura huffed but sheathed the sword that had gone oddly silent after she first took the rag to it's blood stained blade. She handed it back to Sai who took it and propped it up against the wall.

She then braced to stand but Kisame caught her ankle and kept her from moving. Sakura choked on a blush at the intimate touch, but kept herself from saying anything when she saw he was frowning down at the dirt on her bare feet. Without saying anything he took a rag and wet it once before ringing it out and using it to wipe down her feet.

"You don't want to crawl back into your bed like this," he muttered softly in way of explanation as he ran the rag over her heel and back again until the dirt came off.

She jerked a bit when it tickled, but he kept her ankle in one hand and prevented her from pulling away until his work was finished. He was strong enough to lift her with a single hand, but he held her with soft care and the utmost gentleness until his cleaning was done.

It felt so unnatural to be cared for in such an intimate way after an entire lifetime of being hyper independent and alone. No one, not even her own mother, had touched her so fondly. It left her feeling like there were no words left in the world for her to use to express herself, so she ducked her head and mumbled an insignificant 'thank you' before turning and climbing back into bed where she slowly started to drift back to sleep, knowing Sai was nearby.

Kakashi made the medicine like he said he would, along with the extra fine meal that each of them enjoyed. Kisame made the fur collar for Sakura to wear inside her yukata, even though she protested that she didn't have a kimono fine enough to wear it with and that she was too simple for something fancy like a fur collar.

She stayed close to her bed for the next few days until the fever was gone and then she asked for Zabuza.

She didn't try to give him a body right away, but cleaned him and they worked with him, going through all the stances she could. She tired easily though and knew she wasn't in any shape to be using her abilities. Even though being a sage was something she didn't fully understand, she knew there were very real limits she could run into if she wasn't careful.

'Tell me your name,' she would whisper to Zabuza at the end of a short round of practice.

'Speak to me,' she would say when she bent over his blade to make it shine like it hadn't in years.

But for as close as she felt to hearing his voice, Zabuza refused to speak to her and Sakura started to wonder if he even wanted to be a human with a body, or if he wanted to remain a sword. When she asked Kisame about it he laughed and then glanced down knowingly at Zabuza before telling her that it was up to each and every blood to decide something like that, and that maybe she should wait to hear from Zabuza before giving him a body.

Sakura took his words to heart, but wondered why Zabuza's silence seems so much more forced and upset after that conversation. She couldn't hear his words, but she could understand and feel his soul somehow. She had a better feeling for Zabuza as a spirit and wondered if that was because she had pulled two others from inanimate bodies into breathing ones.

"Whatever you're thinking, cut it short. We're going on another mission and this time I think I need to take both Kisame and Sai."

Sakura looked up upon hearing Kakashi's words and frowned. "I'm feeling better. I can go with you."

He grinned down at her, smile lazy like his eyes. Today he wore the mask and his hair was thick over the eye normal kept closed or hidden. "Nah, you'll just slow us down and if things get messy you can't fight your way out of it."

"You're going to leave me here alone again, aren't you?"

"You scared?" he teased.

Sakura rolled her eyes and looked away. "You know I'm not, but the other two are going to throw a fit. What sort of mission is it, anyway? Something dangerous?"

"Dangerous to need the two of them. I wouldn't have taken it on if I didn't have both of them to help, but still I think it should be fine. Kisame is a powerhouse when he wants to be, and plenty sneak when he wants to be that too. It will be good for Sai to learn a bit from him."

Sakura snorted in reply. "Don't let him hear you say that. He doesn't like Kisame very much right now."

"Children are like that when they have to share their favorite things. It might get better if we had a few more helping hands around here. I mean, after this mission of course This manor is a dump."

"And you think swords would make excellent carpenters?" Sakura guessed with a wry smile.

"What if I brought some swords back? Some swords that weren't Zabuza, swords you could actually hear."

"How do you know I can't hear Zabuza."

Kakashi waved a hand between them. "No, I don't think you can't hear Zabuza, but I think he's not talking to you, because you keep asking him the same stupid questions and then tell that other sword to be quiet and stop complaining. Speaking of which, I can take that sword with us and sell it if you don't want to turn it into another helper."

Sakura glanced backwards over her shoulder into her bedroom where the sword that nearly killed her rested up against the wall. It didn't want to kill her anymore, not like it had in the beginning, but it still seemed to enjoy tormenting her in its own way and she found that… endearing.

The sword sounded more like a child than a murderer. The master it had been serving had not wielded it long, but before that it had spent too many years in darkness and disuse, so that bond, while brief, was strong between him and the deceased. Sakura hadn't been able to get it to tell her much more than that.

"It's a really good blade, I wouldn't want to trade it unless you were getting some good coin for it.

Kakashi's gaze drifted past her to where the sword leaned against the wall. "How can you tell?"

"I'm literally good at one thing and that's crafting swords of value, so of course I would know how to spot a sword of value. He's whiny and sounds young, but he's a Hozuki blade."

Kakashi squinted at her. "I am supposed to know what that means?"

"It's a well known sword name. All Hozuki are quality blades and as I recall, they're older blades from before Sarutobi's time even. It makes me wonder why a sucky assassin had such a fine blade on him. I doubt he knew what he had."

"It looks the same as any other blade, but if you don't want me to sell it than you should consider making it useful, otherwise I'll blame you next time we have to go hungry."

"Shut up," Sakura grumbled. "Don't complain when you plan on making my boys do most of the work on your mission."

Kakashi's mouth stretched wide under his mask and he chuckled at the flush of her face. "Your boys? You sound like a doting mother when I'm pretty sure Kisame is a hundred times your age. Ah, don't worry, I won't let anything terrible happen to either of them while we're out. The sooner we leave the sooner we can get back."

Both boys did come to bid her farewell, and both promised her they would bring her something back as a memento. Sai seemed especially upset to leave her with such words, but Sakura assured them she would be fine and waved them off.

It was later in the day, after hours of trying to get Zabuza to talk with training, treating, and talking, when the Hozuki sword spoke up.

'Can't you just leave him alone and pay attention to me.'

Sakura looked up from Zabuza and smiled at the other sword. "Your sentences are sounding better, more fully formed."

'No one ever bothered to listen to me before, so I never had to sound good,' the sword grumbled.

'Will you tell me your name now?'

It was quiet for a while before speaking up. 'I'll tell you if you do something for me. I have a brother who wasn't found when I was. He's still in the darkness near here.'

Sakura's eyes went wide at the idea of another Hozuki blade to add to her collection. 'Where?'

'I'll tell you if you take me to go rescue him, I'll even tell you my name.'

'You said it was close?'

Sakura was dressed and ready for travel in less than ten minutes. She strapped the smaller sword to her side and hooked Zabuza to her back in a way that made it impossible to draw. She wasn't planning on pulling him out and using him, she just wanted to keep him close while she went wandering. Apparently this place where the Hozuki blade was buried was on the same side as the mountain and close enough that she could reach it and return with a single day's worth of travel.

It took nearly all the daylight hours to find the clearing that led up to the abandoned manor where a great coup had ended a family line several years ago. It was getting dark though so Sakura decided she would camp inside the manor and head back in the morning after finding the sword.

'But we're so close.'

Sakura huffed and pushed open a large, sagging door that scraped across the ground terrible from a shattered hinge. 'I'm tired and I need rest. If it's not easy to get to I'll have to start looking again in the morning.'

'It's easy, it's easy, it's easy!'

Sakura stopped in the middle of the front room, looking around to try and figure out where she needed to go next. It was getting harder to see without a light, and she only brought enough oil for a few hours of light. She thought it might be better to save it. Even with a three quarter filled moon, it was hard to see indoors.

Sakura found a bedroom and was surprised to discover bedrolls in the closet, looking as neat as the day they were folded up and put away years and years ago. When Sakura tugged them out they smelled like age and dust, but there weren't any holes or blood strains, so she beat them out the window and set up for the night.

The Hozuki sword grumbled loudly from where she rested it, insisting that she look for his older brother.

Once the bed was set up Sakura sighed and relented, reaching for her lantern. 'I'll look if you're being honest with me about it being close by. I don't have much light.'

'He's close!'

Sakura rolled her eyes and lit the lantern before picking up the sword again. 'Where.'

'To the left.'

Sakura followed his directions as they led her downstairs and outside and towards a path of field where dirt looked less fresh in patches, like something unholy dwelt beneath it, burning it.

'It was a fire. Under there.'

Sakura looked where she felt she needed to and saw a silver handle. She pulled it up and the rest of a door followed. Down beneath her toes was a winding staircase. It stretched down into a darkness she couldn't see into without her lantern. She started make her way down and cursed at how tight the fit was with Zabuza still on her back. She reached the end of the stairs and groaned when she saw her light reflect the dead bodies of a couple of skeletons that looked to have killed each other. She waved her light around and saw she was in a storeroom.

"There, there, there!'

Sakura looked and saw there were bedrolls stacked in a corner, smelling just as bad as the ones she found in the manor but looking uglier with old-fashioned designs that went out of style decades ago. Sakura reached for one and pushed it aside when she felt something heavy.

'Brother?'

That voice hadn't belonged to the sword on her hip, but was a new voice entirely.

'Hello, my name is Sakura, and we've come looking for you. Where-ah, there you are. I see you now,' Sakura said just as her hand encircled the polished sheath. She felt a tingle and knew it was the sword warming up to her.

'Hello Sakura,' the new sword responded amicably with a polite tone. 'My name is Mangetsu and I see you already know my brother Suigetsu. It is an honor to meet such a lovely young sage. Thank you for the rescue. It was dreadfully boring.'

Sakura couldn't help herself, but laughed at his words. 'Oh Mangetsu, you are quite charming, but I'm not sure I can believe you when it's as dark as it is. Save your compliments for someone else. Still, I am glad you are alright.'

'Brother, why did you tell her my name?' Suigetsu complained in a shrill whine.

'Hush, brother. That's no way to speak of a lady.'

'Oh, I like him. He's all manners. What happened to you, Sui? You loose all the good charm after a few weeks with mountain bandits and assassins?'

'How unfortunate for a blade as renowned as a Hozuki to fall into the hands of such simple villains. I pity you, brother. It would have been better to rot in darkness I think.'

The two brothers began to bicker teasingly, which only amused Sakura as she turned and started to climb out of the cellar with a couple of spare bedrolls under her arms. She planned on bringing them back to the manor and using them to help pad her limp bedding. She would have to come back with Kisame and Sai some other time and loot the manor. Much of it looked untouched apart from the damage, decay, and old bloodstains.

Sakura found her way back to her room and put out the light to save what little oil she had left. She set all the swords aside and laid her body down between the sheets to sleep.

Sleep held her for a good many hours, until noises down below roused her awake. It was still dark out, but the sun was starting to rise. Sakura turned over and froze, hearing the voices again. Those didn't belong to the swords.

Down below there were a pair of men drifting in through the door, talking about some odd trail they had caught and followed. Both men were marveling about the find and planning on looking through the place for bodies and treasure.

"There has to be some finely left over. It doesn't look that cleaned out."

"If you see anyone, kill 'em."

Sakura pulled back into the room and dressed quickly, hands fumbling. She could hear them far off and then drawing closer. She strapped the swords to her side and reached for Zabuza. He was big and her hands were shaking, making it impossible to strap him to her back. She could leave him and climb out the window and maybe make it back.

The footsteps were in the hallway.

"Use me, Sakura," cried Mangetsu. "I will be your blade."

But Sakura didn't know how to use a sword, she held Zabuza up and noticed that at least the room she had chosen was large enough to swing the heavy blade freely. She didn't know why she didn't drop him and run, but something made her stick to her spot and level the large blade.

The door started to slide back and Sakura felt her heart drop when the mountain bandit spotted her.

The blade in her hands warmed. 'My name is Zabuza Momochi, the demon of the mist you brat, so give me that damn body!'

It happened so fast, but before she knew what was happening the light was at her hands and then Zabuza was gone, then he wasn't, he was just human and charging with a roar of bloodlust. He swung his blade and it was too wide for the doorway, but that didn't stop it. He cut straight through the wall and through the body of the bandit as well. He snarled like a demon and launched him out into the hallway to hunt down the other body. He spotted it and from the cry of fright he found it quickly. There was a horrible, wet, thunk of a sound and Sakura smelled the blood before she was even back in the hallway.

He turned around, blood splattered across his front, and stared balefully back at her. Like Kakashi, there was a cloth of some sort covering the lower half of his face, and like Kakashi he was tall with an angled posture meant for sharp movements and quick draws.

"Zabuza," Sakura breathed his name and her eyes grew wide at the sight of him. It was nearly dawn, but in the dim of the manor, he looked gray to her eyes when he turned back towards her. He huffed loudly and swung his sword around to clip onto the hanger on his back, similar to the one Kisame used.

"Ah well, it can't be helped then, can it?" he muttered gruffly, sounding like his voice was made to always be guttural. "It looked like you needed me after all."

"You're really Zabuza," she gaped, staring up at him when he approached. He was a fraction of a head taller than Kakashi, but not as tall as Kisame. She almost took a step back when he stopped in front of her, but didn't. She wasn't scared of him, though maybe she should have been.

"Who else would I be," he gruffly barked. He shifted the weight of his body from one leg to the other and then reached for her, turning her head to the side and poking her to move as he inspected her. "You're not hurt anywhere, are you?"

"N-no, I'm fine. I didn't actually do anything this time."

Zabuza huffed. "That's because I'm more reliable than that other guy that waits for you to get cut before showing up. If you're fine then it's alright. Are you ready to go back?"

"Thank you!"

He blinked, tilting his head back and staring down at her with a confused expression.

"You saved my life and you didn't have to, so thank you."

"Shut up. You think It would have been better if I let you die. Besides, I just wanted a body. You-you don't have to thank me," he groused, looking mildly uncomfortable with her words. "But you're welcome."

Sakura smiled wide, feeling younger than her years. She smiled like she was a kid and she didn't care who saw it. "You're cool. I'm glad you decided to talk to me."

Zabuza made a sound like a groan but ducked his head and shouldered past her, trying his best to ignore her as she skipped along behind him. She hadn't missed how his ears turned red. She darted ahead of him and took the stairs two at a time before his hand on her wrist made her pause. He pointed to her side where the swords once hung.

"What happened to those two?"

Sakura turned around and reached for the door Zabuza had cut into. She pushed it aside and saw into the room, where two newly human swords stood, looking like a pair of brothers when they turned as one to spot her. Zabuza stopped just behind her and cursed low under his breath.

"Shit."

Sakura watched Kakashi for a hint as to what he was thinking.

"So," he hesitantly began. "Let me get this straight…you went off on your own, discovered another hidden mansion in the mountains, found that sword, gave Zabuza a body….and then…accidentally gave those two their bodies without meaning to?"

"I don't see why this is hard for you to understand. This is good, isn't it? They're helping out around the house fixing things and Zabuza wants to go out on missions. Why are you making that face?"

"I thought this was supposed to be hard for you."

"It's not like I understand what I'm doing either," Sakura huffed. "It just happened."

"You're not holding out on me are you?"

Sakura stared across the table at Kakashi balefully and then leaned back to sweep her hands across the expanse of the table. "Oh no, Kakashi, you see I like starving and living in a run down house full of holes with half a dozen different men. This is what I've been dreaming of my whole life."

Kakashi made a note before glancing back down at his novel, flipping a page. "I don't know, there are some women who would be especially pleased about that last part. You've got almost all of those swords eating out of the palm of your hand. You tell them to jump they'll ask how high. If you want one of them to keep you company for a night-"

Sakura spit out the tea she had been drinking and it was only with his fantastic reflexes that Kakashi managed to save both himself and the book in time from being sprayed. Sakura bent over the table choking on her drink and Kakashi couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of her red stained face. Even though she was an older maid, she was still a maid in ever sense of the word. She had probably never touched a man, because of being too busy making swords for the old monkey.

"You're talking shit," Sakura croaked, hitting her chest to get her voice back.

"Am I?" His delight was infused into each of his words. "What is that Sai keeps bugging you about each night?"

"That's different."

"So you say." His voice was full of mirthful suggestion that only made her groan again and blush harder.

"He doesn't understand the implications and you're a pervert for suggesting such a thing." Sakura made a swipe for his book and missed. "You're reading smut all day rots your brain."

"Don't deny an old man his pleasures when he's the one who has what you probably want most."

Sakura snorted. "And that is?"

Kakashi reached into a pouch at his side and pulled out a weighty cloth bag that he set down with a heavy clunk. Sakura perked at the sound of metal chips inside. There were whispers with words barely half formed that made her heart constrict. She looked up with wide eyes to see Kakashi grinning down at her over the edge of his book.

Kera.

He chuckled at the sight and waved to the open doorway. "The rest of your things are already set up in the forge. I had Kisame bring back the stuff I couldn't carry."

Sakura remembered the forge and went running with the bag of metal chips held close to her chest. She didn't stop to bother with sandals, but ran barefoot as fast as she could until she was at the edge of the forge, left standing alongside what might have once been a barn for how broken the structure stood. Like Kakashi said, her tools were all in place and the forge had been cleaned out.

Sakura pulled out the boxes left empty and began to sort the chips of metal into different sections of the box depending on their weight, texture, and voice. The more she had to work with the better the chances of her sword being the finest it could be.

Sakura looks up from the plates of kera steel that will be layered like puzzle pieces into the shape of a block. As if she were back in her old forge the steps come back to her so naturally. She starts to sort through her favorite pieces, knowing that once the pieces are all assembled they will be wrapped in paper to keep together through the ash and the mud.

It fits. She herself is a puzzle piece that finally fits somewhere. Sage or no sage, she was a swordsmith before anything else. It was what her soul had been crafted for.

The voices grew louder under her fingers and she heard the sounds of actual words from several shards. Sakura began to pull them out one by one and speak to them, listening to their baby talk. Some were immature and too weak for words, others, rarely, could speak back. The most common sound was the one of longing.

'Use me. I want to be used. Pick me. Make me beautiful. Make me sharp. Make me useful. I want to be used. Me!'

Before long her fingers are already black at the tips and her knuckles are rough once more.

Sai at the edge of the forge is what makes her finally look up from her work of layering.

"Yeah?" she asks, squinting to see him as he stands in front of the sun. When had it sun so low?

Sai steps into the forge and looks around. "It's dinner, we've made it together. I didn't know where you were until Kakashi finally told me. You were here all day?"

"Dinner already? I didn't realize a whole day had gone by."

She looked down at the work she had been busying herself with. The beginnings of a sword were there, but it might take a few more days for her to be sure that the pieces she had chosen were perfect and compatible. She only wanted the best pieces for this sword because it would be the first sword she made on her own without anyone else attached to her name.

"I'm coming."

Sakura brushed her fingers on her yukata and frowned when she realized she wasn't wearing a smock. She was a mess already after just one day. Sai reached for her and helped her up and didn't mind it when he hands came away dirty.

Sakura washed her hands quickly under a faucet and followed him back.

"What have the others been doing?" she asked.

Sai shot her a look and she chuckled. "Like you weren't keeping tabs on everyone. I know you know."

"Kisame made Zabuza train with him once before the pair went out looking for food, the brothers have been going over the compound looking it over. They found a garden patch that they think they can revitalize and use to grow some vegetables, nothing too fancy, but the basics. Tomorrow they want to go back to that other manor and loot it."

"And you?"

Sai blinked before looking over at her. "Me?"

"What did you do all day?"

"I…watched people. I noticed I have a lot to learn. I don't understand what they say sometimes, especially Kakashi."

"That's because he is a sarcastic asshole. Sarcasm takes a while to understand for some people."

Sai huffed. "I understand when you use it. I understand you well enough. It's other people I don't understand."

Sakura felt a tug of guilt in her heart. "I'm sorry you feel that way. Maybe you just need more practice. Like, tonight at the dinner table would be a good place to practice. You can pay attention to how I interact with the others."

"The others are annoying though."

Sakura chuckled. "They're not that bad, and the brothers have only been here a day. You barely know them."

His brows drew together and Sakura remembered the face of children who were being forced to do something they hated. "They're all annoying because they talk like they know you. I'm the only one who can act like that because the others aren't made by you, they were just found swords."

Sakura saw the part of the house the took dinner in coming up and reached for Sai to pull into a side hug. "True, but right now we're all humans together, and we're all learning together. I want you to try…for me."

Sai ducked his head and grumbled. "Not fair. You know I'd do anything for you."

Sakura laughed, releasing him and climbing up onto the porch and entering the dinning room now partially crowded with bodies. "I do what I can with what I have."

"You were doing something, Sakura?" Mangetsu asked, clearly turning the fullness of his attention onto her and smiling politely.

Unlike his brother, Mangetsu was seated neatly at the side of the table and looked clean for dinner. Suigetsu looked like he just came in from a long day out in the sun as he slouched at the table. The two brothers looked painfully related with the same silvery hair cut short and same bright violet eyes, but the differences ended there.

"I was in the forge, but I lost track of time. I meant to come back and help out with some other things. Sorry about that. Sai says you guys found a garden."

Sakura took her place at the table and neatly folded her legs under the table and sat with her back purposefully straight, the way any mother would want their eligible young daughter to sit. That thought made her posture shift a little bit and return to normal. She didn't want to force herself to be perfect. She didn't want to force herself to change for such a silly reason.

"Not to worry. No, Sui and I were mostly just getting our bearings on being human and being…here, wherever here is. Kakashi was being a little vague about the current state of your circumstances."

"Oh, you mean the face that I'm a wanted refugee, on the run and fleeing for my life because apparently some other sage in the land of fire didn't like that there was someone else who could do what he did?" Sakura sarcastically bit, glaring sidelong at Kakashi who was busy leaning back with his book and ignoring all of them promptly.

Mangetsu nodded, eyeing the pair keenly. "That…does explain some things."

"I've hear of Orochimaru before," said Suigetsu. "He's a real big deal in the land of fire and as I hear it, he's got his own little army fanatically loyal to him. If it's true that he's a sage, it would make a hella lota sense. All his little warrior soldiers are just swords he turned into humans."

"Sounds like an asshole to me, but I'm mostly biased," Kisame huffed, carrying in the rice and reaching for the first few bowls to fill.

Most of the meat was already assembled on the table and vegetables had been purchased during their last trip out. Sakura grabbed her chopsticks and started to pick pieces to add to her rice once she got her bowl back. Kisame was pointed about serving Kakashi last.

"Do you want to go back?" Mangetsu asked Sakura.

Sakura paused with a clump of rice caught between her chopsticks. She let it fall back into her bowl. "I don't know. My family died when I was really little and all my friends and the people that took me in after that were killed. I have nothing to go back to. This place is as good as any now that I can use the forge. Plus, there are things I have to help with."

"What sort of things?"

"Nothing right now," Kakashi interrupted before Sakura could answer Mangetsu's question. He widely turned another page in his book and chuckled at something happening in the novel. "You just worry about making your pretty swords and taking care."

Sakura scowled. "I don't like that attitude. If you're going to ask me for favors then ask me. Don't pretend like you're doing any of this because you care."

"I'm not really asking that much from you, though. It's the others here, at this table that are actually worth anything. Are you going to fight Orochimaru's men when he comes looking for you?"

At the mention more than one body went stiff in the room. Sai was poised to attack at the slightest twitch and Kisame looked ready to do something savage too. The brothers were still, listening and watching for what was coming next. The only one who seemed unconcerned was Zabuza, but maybe that was because he was so hard to read to begin with.

"He thinks I'm dead, remember?" Sakura huffed.

Kakashi continued to grin. "Yup, you're safe for now, no need to worry."

Sakura huffed loudly and shoved the bowl up to her mouth and began to furiously shovel clumps into her mouth.

"Is he truly such a dangerous man that you would have to worry with so many blades at the table?" Mangetsu asked, looking between Kakashi and Sakura. "My brother and I are no lightweights, also Kisame and Zabuza are both relics."

"That doesn't mean anything," Zabuza growled, speaking up for the first time. He glared sideways at Kisame who didn't say anything and reached for his bowl. He took it with him, standing up from the table and stomping out.

Kisame blew a breath through his teeth in Zabuza's direction and then leaned back nonchalantly. "Forget that guy, he's as stiff as ever about stuff that doesn't even matter. Relic or not, he'll still get used, which is the only thing he's worried about not happening by the way. Don't worry about him, princess I can see you making a face and his attitude aint because of you."

Sakura buried more of her face in her rice, cursing how she was a terrible example for Sai to be observing. Kakashi just drove her up a wall sometimes. He was such a dick.

"I'm not worried about anyone, least of all myself," she muttered before setting her bowl down.

"Should you be?" Kisame asked.

Sakura made a face like she had smelled something bad. "What does that mean?"

Kisame jabbed a thumb in Kakashi's direction. "Are you really in danger like this guy says?"

"Not right now I'm not."

Mangetsu was watching the exchange with his eyes, seemingly absorbing every word said. His brother, likewise, also seemed more interested.

"If that guy knew where you were, would he send people here to kill you? Like he did with that one there?" Kisame asked while pointing to Suigetsu and then back at her chest where she had been cut.

Sakura rolled her eyes and lounged sloppily at the table, not longer caring in the slightest how she was seen. "I don't even know that for sure. They guy could have been trying to kill me for any number of reasons. There's a shortage of perfect women in the world and it would be a shame to let this one get away."

Kisame barked a laugh and reached up to rub his jaw while watching Mangetsu, the prude, sputter at her crass speech.

"I knew that much," Suigetsu cut in. The whole of the room's attention turned to him. "He wasn't hired by Orochimaru and he didn't know who you were exactly, but there was a bounty put out for a pink haired women that fit your description. I'm sure that was his doing because any bounty hunter and rogue from the hills would be willing to kill for that sort of money."

"How much am I worth?" Sakura asked, suddenly interested.

It was Kakashi who interrupted. "Last I heard it was 3,000,000 ryō."

Sakura swore under her breath, eyes lighting up. "Damn, that's impressive. I guess I'm a pretty big deal."

"Almost as much as Sarutobi, who was 15,000,000 ryō. Or at least that's what Orochimaru paid to have him legally slaughtered without repercussions. Still, that's nothing for the Shogun to be raking in."

Sakura set aside her bowl and reached for the teacup that was filled with tea so watered down it was practically warm water. "We once worked on a set of blades together for an entire year and Sarutobi made 1,000,000 ryō off of the set. It was the most I've ever seen him make and it was a really big deal."

Kakashi looked back at his book and turned to a new page. "Well, you're worth three sets of those damn swords, you're welcome by the way."

"Hardly," Mangetsu interjected, leaning forward and placing both hands, palms down, on the edge of the table. "I should think Sakura owes you nothing. Turning an innocent maid over to a vile killer isn't something one is thanked for. Nor is one thanked for not burning the fields down in the middle of a harvest. Only a villain would do such a thing."

"Starving people have been called worse, I'm sure," Kakashi absently replied. His eyes were still on his book, reading from the pages. "There are plenty of people willing to be a villain if it makes their life easier."

"If someone tried coming for Sakura I assure you that their life would not be made easier," Mangetsu said.

Kisame barked a laugh and eyed Suigetsu, who had gone quiet behind his brother. "That sounds about right. If they try it they'll end up like the last guy. Ain't that right Suigetsu?"

The younger brother ducked his head and scowled. "You don't have to remind me. It's not like I had a voice or a choice in the matter, alright? Besides, that was before I knew any of you." He looked to Sakura. "You saved me and then found my brother to save too. We have human bodies now too, with hands and shit, so don't look worried. I'll not let anything bad hurt you either. I owe you more than that."

"Yeah, well I'm thankful too, but I'm sticking around because I like the princess, not because I feel like I owe her everything and the moon. I mean, I do owe you a lot, but I like you more, if you get it," Kisame interjected.

Kakashi flipped to a new page in his book, close to the end.

"You have a handful of loyal blades, how cute. Don't think you're holding off an army with three, sorry Sai, four swords as your last line of defense. If Orochimaru knew where you were, he'd be even more desperate to stamp you out than the old man. You're the sage he's worried about, and he's got the Shogun on his side too, worried about you turning into a foreign power to throw him over."

"Isn't that what you want me doing?" Sakura asked. She recalled hearing from him how there was someone in mind to take Danzo's place once he was out of power. It sounded like Kakashi had been part of a coup resistance at one point.

"Eventually, but wars aren't won in days. This is a long campaign and I'm willing to wait another ten years if that's what it takes. Speaking of which, I'm going to check on that stupid messenger bird and see if we have any new missions coming up. The other fellow looks like he's coming at the bit for some action."

Kakashi nodded to the group and popped out of his seat to start ambling out of the room.

"Don't leave me out either!" Kisame shouted at Kakashi's back. "I'll earn twice as much as last time." When Kisame turned back to look at the group he smiled at Sakura. "I'll buy you something nice on the way back. What do you want?"

"There's nothing I need at the moment. You're better off saving your money."

Kisame leaned forward across the table. "You're gonna make me guess, are ya?"

His crooked grin made Sakura feel funny enough to blush. "I didn't say that," she hissed. "Don't waste your money, I don't want anything."

"Yeah, well I wanna make you blush like that again, so don't count on it."

Sakura choked on her rice and Mangetsu started to protest Kisame's impropriety while Suigetsu flopped back and laced his fingers behind his head, content to let the rest of the group have their fun arguing without him. Sai sipped his tea wordlessly, watching Kisame a bit too keenly.

Sakura left dinner, still feeling uneasy about Kisame's too keen interest in her discomfort. His teasing had rattled her more than it should have and she wasn't sure why that was. She had been…flirted with in the past, but she had always been able to keep her cool and bite back something whenever it happened. Kisame just unnerved her too much to be her usual sassy self. It wasn't like she actually believed him or anything. He just liked teasing her.

She found Zabuza behind the wood stack, swinging his blade in practice. He paused, blade held perfectly leveled, and looked to her. There was a light layer of sweat that was still visible in the dim light of dusk. Sakura spotted the empty bowl from dinner on a tree stump nearby.

"I'll take that for you," Sakura said, bowing her head and shuffling forward to grab his used bowl.

"You don't have to worry about it," Zabuza barked.

Sakura paused for only a second before grabbing the bowl and lifting it up. "It's fine. I don't mind doing this much. I'm sorry if I disturbed your practice."

"That's not what I meant."

He grunted, letting his blade swing down and sink into the earth, staying upright when he let go of the handle. He hiked his shoulders and stalked over to where she was standing. When he stopped Sakura had to look up to see his face, they were so close.

Sakura held the bowl closer. "It's just a bowl."

"I wasn't talking about the bowl."

Zabuza's voice was a rumble, like far off thunder was something that was trapped in his lungs only to be let loose whenever he spoke. He looked down at her hands, both clutching the red owl, before reaching for one. His fingers spread over her hand, hovering there for a breath, almost, as if, afraid to touch, before his hand finally touched hers and pried her fingers off the bowl. She still held the red thing with one hand, but the other was wrapped up in his opposite hand, scarred and calloused. Her own hands had plenty of scars and were rougher than any woman's hands had a right to be, but he didn't seem to mind.

"You don't have to worry about it," he repeated.

Sakura understood, slowly, that he didn't mean the bowl, but he was talking about something else. Her slow brain could comprehend that much, but was drawing blank when it came to the rest.

"What do you mean?" Somehow she had been tugged closer without her realizing. It made her heart hammer and knees shiver like some teenage girl-something she had never been allowed to be.

"You feel guilty, like you don't deserve to send us out. You forget we were made to be used. Being human doesn't change that. We're still restless for purpose."

"Yeah, but you're human now, you could find that purpose anywhere."

She tried to pull away, scared by the way her legs started to wobble. He tugged her hand back, grip unrelenting.

"Then believe it when someone tells you they chose you."

He let go of her hand and she almost stumbled when he reached for the red bowl. He was able to snatch it away without much resistance and brushed past her with it, calling back over his shoulder about how he was taking it back, himself.

Sakura spent several days in the forge going through the precious steel, looking for the perfect combination. The voices got louder the longer she spoke to them and listened to them in earnest. Almost as if her proximity was enough to help them into maturity. Sai would could in and sit with her for a time before being called out, and the others topped by to greet her and say something in passing, but for the most part they left her alone with her art, knowing that she needed the time to concentrate.

She helped the boys with the garden, managing to cultivate some vegetables alongside their efforts, and even repaired parts of the manor that needed it the most.

One week became two and then two became three.

There were no more attacks by assassins. Sakura healed. They looted the other houses they discovered scattered around the mountains, and life went on.

It was when the boys came back one night, Kisame, Zabuza, the brothers, and Kakashi, all bloody and ragged looking, that things started to change. Kisame carried all of them, but when he set the box down he didn't need to open the lid before Sakura knew what was inside.

"There's-" Sakura sucked the air in through her teeth and braced on the wall, holding her head with her free hand as an onslaught of voices rushed over her. "There's more than three in there."

"We took what we could. There are four of value, but the others…we weren't sure. We grabbed as many as we thought we needed," Mangetsu explained, looking worried at the way she staggered.

"Where did you go?"

The boys exchanged looks while Sai came up behind Sakura, perfectly free of blood since he had been with her all night, watching her while the others went off.

Kakashi was already off in the corner, sliding down the wall and reaching for his book like there wasn't a huge gash down his front bleeding out."A daimyo in Kiri that Mei wanted us to take care of. The spoils were our payment."

As if that was his cut, Kisame held up another sack, this one fist sized, and rattled it to make the items clink together inside. "We all got goody bags."

Sakura swallowed and then reached for the latch on the box. Inside there were six different swords, but the ones she could hear best were the Wakizashi siblings, one being a fraction longer and older looking than the other, but both bearing the same maker's seal on the hilt. She let out a curse of reverence when she recognized it.

Next she pulled out a long katana that was also longer than the average katana. It was loud and howling and she suspected it might have to do something with the reek of blood it carried with it. She turned it over and narrowed her eyes at the signature. It was a stunning blade, but there was so much bloodlust in it. The last one she took notice of was likely the most beautiful blade Sakura had ever seen in her life. It made her hurt in her heart when she pulled it free. It was more lovely than anything she had ever seen when she pulled the blade free and watched it reflect the little light left in the room.

'Your name is Haku?' she asked when she heard it's voice, so soft and delicate like a court lady's.

She had heard of Haku before, being that he was a blade carried alongside Zabuza many long years ago. The two of them went well together and Sakura felt inclined to draw this blade out before the others.

The bloodthirsty blade was a descendant of Kisame's, made from the same forge and school, Shizuma Hoshigaki.

The other two blades she had inspected were a younger Kagura Karatachi and the older Yagura Karatachi.

She didn't think the others were worth looking over when she heard one more voice with enough personality to make her pause. Sakura reached under the swords and pulled out one. When she asked for the name of the Katana it told her he was called Utakata, and that he wished to sleep somewhere peaceful please. His voice was so polished it made her set him aside with the others for later.

Sakura squeezed her eyes shut. "Shut the case, I can't listen to the rest of them just yet."

"Those the ones you think you can use?" Kakashi asked casually, still pretending he wasn't gravely injured.

Sakura clucked her tongue and walked over to his side, pulling at his bloody things until she could see the gash across his chest that really wasn't as bad as she first thought. It still needed to be treated.

"You're a mess, Kakashi."

He smiled down at her through his mask. "You care for me so much."

"I just don't want you dying on me. Come on, get washed up and I'll bandage you up."

"I can do that much," Mangetsu interjected, stepping forward. "There's no need for you to have to do such a thing yourself, Sakura."

Suigetsu sucked from a bottle of water he kept on a string around his neck. He looked up when he heard his brother and grinned around the bottle. "Yeah, you're gonna be exhausted if you plan on making bodies for all these guys. Why don't you save your strength."

"Are the rest of you hurt any?"

Sakura asked, looking each one over more critically. She could see minor cuts and bruises, but the men who were once swords didn't seem to take wounds the same way Kakashi did. They always came back looking better than the natural born human. Maybe it was because they were forged out of steel initially, but her swords stood up well in a fight.

"Don't worry about us too much princess. The brat's right. You'll be tired if you plan on pushing yourself the way you're known to do. So what do you say, can the forge wait a few days?"

Sakura had finally assembled all the pieces she needed and it was ready for fusion, but she was stalling. That task would take several days of undivided attention if she was doing it herself, and the rest of the house and gardens needed her help more.

"I'll be fine. Will we have enough food for this many more mouths?"

"Yo, we brought back plenty with us, princess. You'll be eating yourself fat for weeks. I think that was the best haul yet. We weren't even able to bring it all with us. Some of it's buried at the base of the mountain." Kisame's face lit up as he remembered something. "But this wasn't."

He reached forward and dropped something silvery into her hand. When Sakura looked down she saw a thin band of silver with several coins dangling from it. It looked like a bracelet that would be too big for her.

"It's for your ankle," Kisame explained before pointing out the coins and their significance. "It's from our mythology. Each coin has a different beast on it. Look, a narwhal, the devil fish, even the speckled whale."

"It's lovely," Sakura heard herself admit. She liked the idea of it around her ankle more than her wrist, since she was too dirty and busy for beautiful things when she worked like she did.

Kisame didn't seem to mind that others were watching as he crouched down and reached for her ankle. Sakura braced a hand on her shoulder and shifted her weight so he could grab her ankle and rest her heel on his knee while he clasped the chain around the thinnest part. His fingers were rough and tickled when he drew his hands back and let her foot down again.

He grinned up at her before standing. "I'm glad you liked it princess. You never let us treat you like one, so this is nice."

"Ah, don't make a habit out of it. If we're getting more mouths to feed we need more rooms fixed up and more of the garden cleared out. Our money can go into those things."

"We have plenty, let us spoil you some," Kisame whined. "You even made us return the fancy lady kimonos."

"I'm a wanted refugee that can't leave this compound, what use would I have in such fancy things?"

"I don't know, maybe some of us would like to see you all dressed up and fancy."

Sakura snorted and shook the anklet so that it jingled. "This is as close as you're going to get, so congratulate yourself now. Those sort of things have never been for me."

Kisame couldn't help himself, and grinned in spite of her defiance. "Alright, I'll take what I can get. One day I'll force you to be spoiled though."

Sakura could only roll her eyes.

The house came together quite splendidly with so many hands working on it. After the death of the daimyo the boys had to lay low for a while until things cooled down. They spent their time gardening, preparing the manor, and exploring the mountains for other hideouts and treasures.

One week became two.

Sakura gave a body to a new sword every two days, finding that it tired her out too much to do much more than that in quick succession. After she used her powers as a sage she got tired and had to sleep or rest her body longer for a full recovery. She hated how it incapacitated her so much, but was relieved whenever she recovered.

Like how Mangetsu and Suigetsu Hozuki were a pair of brothers, Kagura Karatachi and Yagura Karatachi were also undeniably related, but the ages between them was enough to make one the grandfather of the other.

Sakura gave a body first to Kagura and was delighted to make his acquaintance. He was polite and curious and always willing to help. His nature was that of a peacemaker, and she noticed how he always tried to smooth things out between the swords when arguments got heated. He also didn't look very old compared to the others. He resembled more a teenager than a full grown man. Kagura had a fair complexion with short, disheveled ash blond hair that fell over the right side of his face and spiked up on the left his she thought was striking were his pink eyes and the tattoo with three points running down under his left eye.

After a couple of days she gave a body to Yagura, the longer of the two swords, and was surprised when he appeared shorter than Kagura, but obviously more matured. He came into the world with the same bright pink eyes as his relative and both arms crossed over his chest. Sakura also noted he had a stitch like scar under his left eye.

Yagura took a look around him and then demanded to know where the others were and something else that Sakura couldn't really understand because the world was swimming, so she just sat down and Kagura rushed to her rescue, offering to show his brother around.

Sakura heard about how Haku had traveled with Zabuza and was a companion blade to the relic, so she summoned him next, but never expected the figure in front of her to look the way it did. Sakura wasn't even sure if she was looking at a male or female when the lights died down and Haku smiled up at her.

"I'm most grateful for your efforts," Haku said in a voice she recognized. It was like bells in her chest ringing.

Sakura tried to say something but Haku brushed past her and smiled at the people he passed, asking each person where Zabuza was until eventually Kisame pointed him in the right direction. She watched him go and wondered if all court women looked like that when they walked.

Sakura slept too late to do anything in the forge the next day, so she cleaned Utakata and readied him for a body. He was one of the swords she liked talking to best because he seemed so pleasant. He reminded her of a warm breeze, widely dancing through her hair. He wasn't lazy, but…almost. If gardens were people that's who Utakata would be. He was a place of tranquility.

That evening she gave him a body and was able to see his golden eyes for herself. He was taller than her but not taller than Kakashi, with chin length hair hanging heavily over one eye and a smile that fit too easily on his face. He thanked her for his body and then told her she should rest.

Sakura couldn't remember what she said after that, because things went fuzzy. But, she remembered looking down at her hands when she was back in her room, changing for bed, and seeing thin trails of blood from her nose. She groaned at the sight and wiped what she could away.

The next day she thought she would do Shizunma Hoshigaki and get the last blade over with, but Kakashi appeared at her door with a rough tantou. It's voice was like a child's and when she felt it in her hands she could almost see the slight figure it would become.

"As a favor to me? It's so small I'm sure it wouldn't be much effort."

She couldn't say no to Kakashi.

The light dimmed and there was the boy, looking taller than he had sounded and just as rough as his blade self. He was a scrappy knife, but he wasn't Sai and wouldn't fit on a battlefield. Still, he was perfect for helping out around the house and Kakashi said he would learn with training.

Sakura went to sleep ignoring the blood or maybe forgetting about it.

Sakura slept like a sick person, waking after a handful of hours to feel pain and discomfort, only to sleep again for another stretch until the cycle began again. It was hard to sleep and Sakura despised it.

In the middle of the night with the moon nearly full and hanging, she washed her face and moved to return to her room when the sounds from the roof made her pause. They were voices that weren't trying to be loud, but failing to be whispers all the same. With the doors open it was too easy to overhear Haku and several of the other swords conversing with what smelled like drinks to share among themselves.

Sakura remembered just then that swords needed so much less time for sleep and were awake and active far longer than humans. When she needed eight hours, they got by on three.

"I'm just saying I'm not impressed yet," said Haku.

"You're too much of a prude to be impressed with anything. You're too fay for yer own good," sneered Suigetsu. "And who asked you anyway."

Haku's answering voice was sickeningly sweet. "It was the topic of conversation, Suigetsu dear, it was open to everyone."

"Well I didn't ask ye…" the other sword slurred, sounding more tired than drunk.

"Don't let Sai hear you say that, he'll curse you for it," chuckled Mangetsu.

"Who cares about him, he's always skulking off," whined Haku.

"He's actually a very talented scout. Out of all of us, he's the best as stealth, answered Mangetsu again.

"It would explain why he is always gone. I am eager to prove myself once we are dispatched for the first time," said Kagura. "With so many of us now, not everyone can get picked to go out."

Someone else on the roof huffed loudly in annoyance. "It would suck to have to stay here and do old woman chores," Yagura cut in.

"What, you don't like cooking dinner?" Kagura teased his partnered sword. "You look right at home in an apron."

"Shut up," Yagura hissed. "There's already a woman here, shouldn't that be her job? What else does she do?"

Haku laughed loudly and the sound was like bells. Suigetsu might have chuckled too, Sakura wasn't sure. It was hard to tell when her brain felt full of cotton.

She staggered by, holding herself and hiking her shoulders as she slipped through the shadows back to bed. When she woke again it was late in the morning and there was no one on the roof anymore.

Sakura threw up before lunch and skipped the meal with the others entirely, too afraid to get sick again in front of them. Kakashi was teaching Inari how to repair the broken parts of a rice screen door when she asked him for medicine.

"Are you sick?" he asked.

Sakura glared without malice. "No, I just like sucking down god-awful disgusting drugs for the thrill of it. I just need something for my stomach."

Kakashi put his things down and brushed his hands on his legs before standing. "I can check what we have but if it's something serious I can send a few boys down into the village at the base of the mountain to pick something up. Kisame and Zabuza are getting restless and I haven't walked them in a while."

"If you think it's not too soon…" Sakura bit her lip and watched him open up the mobile apothecary to see if there was something she could use in one of its drawers.

"It's fine. This far out I think two weeks is more than enough low time. It might be too soon for missions, but we can make a shopping trip. Ah, here we go." Kakashi pulled out some leaves meant for boiling into tea. "This should help your stomach pains but I'll need to send out our help for more supplies to replace these. If your stomach is bothering you more than just one tea would be a better idea."

Sakura took the leaves and boiled them in her room for tea. That's how Kisame found her.

"We missed you at both lunch and breakfast, you know that. Is tea all you're going to have?"

Sakura glanced up from the pot in her room and managed a tired grin. "For now, until I am feeling more like myself. I've been more tired than usual and I think it might have to do with-" the voices from last night came back to haunt her head and Sakura caught herself before she could admit to any weakness.

"Do with what? Is it too much to summon so many swords?"

Sakura forced a smile and turned back to face Kisame. "Ah, no, it's just all my sleeping. I've just gotten a bit lazy and I think my body is slowing down or something. It's not too much. You worry too much."

For a second it looked like Kisame didn't believe her and he was going to call her on it, which was a very Kisame thing to do, but then his eyes widened a fraction and he looked away. There was enough color on his cheeks for her to suspect he was blushing.

"Ah, well you are a girl, so if you feel like you need to sleep extra don't force yourself. I know there are-that the days of the month, sometimes you're-some days are harder than others so-you don't need to um, ahhh…." His words were an utter mess as he fumbled his way into an even more awkward situation.

It made her laugh loud and clear. Kisame's face flushed with even more color and he avoided her eyes.

"I was just checking to make sure you were fine!" His voice cracked uncharacteristically. "I'm sorry I disturbed you. I'll be just doing my training with the kids out in the yard as usual. Ask if you need anything. I'll help."

Sakura covered her mouth with her hand and smothered the laughter. "Did Kakashi talk to any of you about going out on an errand?"

"Yeah, Zabuza and I are going to take Suigetsu, since he knows markets the best. We'll be back by the end of the day. Will there be another Hoshigaki by then?"

Sakura glanced to the end of her bed where the blade named Shizuma Hoshigaki waited patiently. It was a relative of Kisame's and she could tell he would be invested in tutoring this particular blade once it took on a body. The keen glint to his eyes was hard to miss.

"You've been nothing but unfailingly kind for as long as I've known you Kisame," Sakura softly murmured, closing her eyes and reaching with her mind for the voice of the blade, finding it soft and subdued as it dozed. "I'm sure he'll be human as well by the end of the day."

Kisame's smile was wide and he reached forward, into her room, and grabbed her into a crushing bear hug that showed off his excitement. Sakura grunted at the pressure but didn't complain, because she didn't mind the contact. It was nice to be liked, after all.

Sakura drank her tea and thanked the boys who were going before they departed at the gates. When Sakura turned back Haku was there, arms crossed into the sleeves of his nicer yukata. His face was nonchalant porcelain, pale and without flaw. He stared at her with half lidded eyes the same chocolate brown color as his hair, but didn't say anything as he stared past her at the retreating forms. Sakura glanced behind her and noticed Zabuza at the tail end of the pack.

With a soft huff that didn't betray anything and everything at once, Haku turned and returned to the more habitable parts of the manor. Sakura could only guess what he felt like having to see Zabuza go off without him.

Kisame once told her than more than anything, swords all wanted to be used.

Sakura tried to eat something, but the rice balls, as simple as they were, didn't want to stay down. The smell of sticky rice alone made her remember the bile staining the bushes behind her room.

Sakura took the tray of refreshments, each filled with something different, and traveled down to the end of the manor where most of the new swords were taking up rooms. Only Haku, who roomed with Zabuza, put his bedroll down at the other end of the manor.

Sakura found Yagura cleaning his sword on the edge of the porch and looking just as grumpy as ever. Not far from him Kagura trained in his stances.

"Either of you hungry for a snack?" she asked.

Kagura dropped out of his stance and made a sound of delight before jogging over. Sakura folded her skirts under her and sat down on the edge of the porch and offered the plate to him to pick off of. A screen door slid back and Utakata stuck his head out, nose sniffing comically for the smell of bean paste.

"I made them," Sakura offered when Utakata saw her plate. "Have some."

"Don't mind if I do," Utakata chuckled. He took one for himself and nodded his thanks before slipping down to the edge of the porch to sit beside her, putting himself between her and Yagura.

"You've made these before?" Yagura asked, turning his own rice ball over and inspecting the thin wrap of seaweed that kept it neat.

"I…have made food for myself before. I've been known to do that when I need to, but I'm not a housewife and wasn't raised to be one," Sakura said, not sure how she should take his comments.

Was he trying to pick a fight or be the misogynistic little shit he had been last night on the roof? He had been the one complaining about how she should be the one making their meals because she was a woman. She didn't doubt it was born out of his displeasure of being sorted into kitchen duty recently.

"I didn't know you were capable of it," he muttered gruffly before taking a bite. "It's edible."

Sakura felt her smile stretch and sharpen. "Of course it's edible you pigheaded fuck."

From where they were eating Kagura and Utakata stopped eating to turn and look at Sakura with wide eyes before their attention switched over to a shell shocked Yagura.

Yagura's own eyes were as open as his expression. "What?"

Sakura leaned her head back and ignored the way her vision swam at the edges. Her smile was too sharp to be missed. "You want to try rolling out that attitude around me again, because what you just heard was what we call a natural consequence. You act like a self righteous cock, I'll call you out on it, hear me? I'm not a housewife, and I'm not your housewife, so don't put those expectations on me, shorty."

"I don't deserve such words! How dare you talk to me like that. I'm a legendary blade, the Sanbi Isobua!" Yagura scrambled to his feet and planted them firmly before fitting his hands on his hips. "And I am not short!"

Sakura blew at a stray strand of hair and cracked her neck, keeping her eyes half lidded in disinterest. She pushed up off the edge of the porch and sauntered over to Yagura, closer and closer until they were almost toe to toe, close enough to show how Sakura was a fraction of a head taller.

She saw his face color with flush and leaned in even more so her bangs mixed with his. She could smell the oil on his fingers from when he had been tending to his sword.

"You think I care who it is that treats me like their inferior? I don't give a rat's ass who you are, the next time you try to diminish me for my sex I will call you what you are to your face, any time or date."

"You-you wouldn't talk to me like that if we had swords."

"Maybe not, but I'm not a samurai." Sakura's eyes swiveled sideways and her grin stretched when she noticed the courtyard open and cleared. "But I've got two arms just like you. Think you can use them better than me?"

"Only men wrestle," he bit.

"Only because they're afraid of losing to me," Sakura bit back, pressing into his space even more. "You afraid, shortie?"

"When I win you'll never call me shortie again," he growled, looking ready to murder.

Yagura pulled away and tied up his sleeves before storming out across the yard and planting his feet. Sakura did the same and tied back her hair as well before standing opposite him in the yard. She hadn't missed how Mangetsu and Inari had shown up as well. From the shadows, Haku watched.

"Ready to eat your words?" he growled.

Sakura smiled and launched herself at him with a deep cry, made for the hammer and the anvil. She hit him so hard he was pushed back in the dirt, even though he caught her. His hands reached for her, to hold around her but she was just as fast and just as thick, counting his hold with one of her's. He went low, trying to get her where she was weak and subvert her strength, but Sakura followed through with her hold and pivoted on one heel to lift him up off the ground and then drop him back into the dirt.

"Point one out of three, Sakura!" Kagura hollered.

Yagura struggled to his feet and wiped the blood from his bit lip away. He raise his arms again and scowled. "Lucky shot."

"You underestimated me," Sakura teased. She held up her arms and all the years with a hammer in the forge showed off. "Don't make the same mistake twice, shortie."

Yagura tried going for her legs but Sakura purposefully lowered her center of gravity and spread her legs enough that the opening of her yukata showed off the muscles there before she reached for his waist. He saw it coming and countered, moving fast, but when he tried to lift her and throw her to the ground she moved with him and overpowered him again, turning him up over himself until he was falling back into the dirt.

"Point two out of three, Sakura. Match point!"

Yagura glared up at her from the dirt and Sakura stalked over to where he lay seething. She lowered herself down over his waist and reached for the front of his robes, pulling him up. "You want to go round three and see if you can recover some of that pride of yours?"

"What the hell?" he hissed, struggling out of her grip with little success. "How?"

Sakura huffed and let him go, shoving him back as she stood up and backed away. "Don't think about it too much, I haven't lost a wrestling match since I was seven."

He stood and stared at her with maybe something close to disgust on his face. Sakura pretended she was unfazed by it. After all, it had been years since she gave up on the idea of being what her mother wanted for her.

"How?" Yagura asked.

Sakura shrugged. "I wasn't what you expected. Maybe you should raise your expectations a little or, I don't know, get to know the person you trash talk at two am on the roof with cheep booze."

She hadn't meant to let it slip, but at the end the words just came out and she couldn't take them back. She had meant to keep it a secret what she knew. She had lied to herself, claiming it didn't bother her, it didn't matter. She was fine. She didn't care. Whatever. It was no big deal.

Lies.

Sakura didn't look back to see if anyone heard the last part of her sentence or what the look on Yagura's face was. She left the plate full of rice balls behind and retired back to her room to clean up and get ready for Shizuma Hoshigaki.

Before dinner there was a shadow crouched at the corner of her door and then a knock. Sakura grunted and the screen slid back, showing off the kneeling figure of Yagura Karatachi. Behind him the sun was low in the sky.

"Yes?" Sakura asked, not sure what to make of his appearance.

"You were right."

She almost quipped back with something sarcastic and mean but held her tongue. "Oh?"

"I underestimated you because I didn't know you. I made rash judgements and trivialized your importance because of something as silly as your sex. I…was wrong."

"You're also short." Sakura let it slip before she could help herself.

Yagura flinched but then he nodded. "F-fine. Yes, I am also…short." His face was flushed with color when he looked up. She could almost read his expressions. "I'm sorry about the things you heard."

"You can only apologize for yourself and you have. Thank you." His eyes went to the sword set in the stand at the foot of her bed. "Are you…busy?"

Sakura nodded to the sword. "I was thinking if I did it now he would be just in time for dinner, which is a good way to come into the world."

Yagura shifted where he sat and she noticed him swallow before he spoke. "I've not seen this done before. May I watch?"

Sakura nodded once, not having the energy for too many words words. "I think he would like that."

She took the sword off the stand and held it in her hands, listening for his voice. It was like Kisame's but younger and lacking purpose that came with age. There was something like youth there too. Sakura spoke to the sword and felt the warm feeling that came whenever she dipped into the powers she still didn't understand. The room was flooded with a light she couldn't ignore even though her eyes were closed.

When the light dimmed Shizuma Hoshigaki was standing in his sandals in the middle of the room, rubbing his eyes. He had a lot of the same features as Kisame, but he was paler, shorter, thinner too. His eyes were blue and his hair was an unruly mess of waves and curls that was tied up and hanging in a tail off his shoulder. When he smiled his mouth took up too much of his face.

"Hey, that was neat," Shizuma exclaimed.

"It's good to see you," Sakura greeted, returning the smile. "Are you hungry?"

He looked down at his hands and then touched his stomach. "I don't know. I mean, maybe? I've not felt hunger before but I know what it is. I guess I could try it."

"Dinner is just as much for the food as it is the fellowship. We're getting ready to eat so you should join us, right Yagura?"

From the door Yagura just grunted and stood. Shizuma Hoshigaki laughed at the shorter male's disposition and threw his hands behind his head before following him out. He stopped on the threshold and looked back over his shoulder at Sakura who was still kneeling on the floor in front of the empty stand.

"Are you gonna eat with us?" he asked.

Sakura covered her mouth with her hand as she forced herself to swallow a cough. "I'll be right there, I just need a minute to clean up here. Go on ahead without me."

"Oi," Yagura snapped. "Don't keep me waiting just to bother her. Hurry up or I'll leave you behind."

"Sour puss, I already know where you all eat. I could still hear as a sword."

"Don't keep me waiting then."

Shizuma Hoshigaki made a sly comment about doubting how fast someone with such short legs could walk and Sakura heard Yagura roar about how no man is allowed to call him short-this of course excluded her.

Sakura bent over and coughed, letting her lungs scream and push out the foul air held in place too long. Blood came up and splattered across the mats. It was thick and meatly, like scarps of her lungs were coming up with the blood. Sakura grabbed a rag and coughed into it, staining the cloth red.

Her vision swam and she pitched sideways. The rest of her body started to betray her. She lost feeling in her legs first, and then her hands weren't working. She tried to raise her arms but her fingers wouldn't even twitch. She felt her consciousness and knew she was still awake, but her body was beyond her control somehow and even her neck started to go stiff while her vision phased out of focus, growing so blurry it was impossible to even recognize the familiar walls of her room.

Somewhere deep in her she felt broken, like a long crack was running through her heart and leaving it in two barely attached pieces that were only held together because of their memory from being one. She had broken herself and she had no one to blame but her own self.

Stupid.

She should have waited like she knew she needed to. She thought she could push herself in this area too.

She couldn't feel it, but she knew she was coughing and blood was coming up. She could hear it splatter across the floor. Some of it dribbled out of the sides of her mouth, making her look a mess no doubt. It was disturbing to feel so helpless in her own skin.

Sakura screamed at herself to wake up and move, to get up, to stand and be better. She willed herself to be better, but all her spirit couldn't make the broken parts of her heal up. This left her seething and cursing in her own mind as she let her heavy eyes fall.

She waited in darkness, still just barely alive.

In the same way she heard the voices of swords in her mind, Sakura heard the voices when they found her.

It was Kisame who rolled back the screen, complain loudly that she wasn't at dinner to see what he brought back for her. His words cut off before the screen could roll all the way back and then he was screaming.

She felt him turn her over so she was on her back and suddenly there was weight in her lungs, making it even harder to breath. Blood had settled there. It made her start to choke and cough again. She heard the expletives and curses as he held her up and supported her lolling head while more blood came up.

Others came. Someone screamed to get Kakashi cause no one else knew anything about medicine. Someone mentioned that Sai was still scouting and someone else hissed about not hexing it with those words because 'Sakura wasn't going to die and no one needed to say goodbye.'

Sakura felt the pressure of faces, voices, and bodies all around her and wanted to cry. She didn't want to be see or touched or heard. She wanted to hide away in the dark and never let anyone see this part of her. She wanted them to remember her tossing Yagura into the ground, or maybe over the fire in the forge. Those were parts of her she was proud about, parts she didn't reject.

"What's wrong with her?" Zabuza demanded, sounding angrier than she remembered him ever being. There was a transference as she was moved into a bed and propped up on extra pillows.

"How the hell did this happen?" Mangetsu whined, sounding pained.

Something new snapped and Sakura felt herself outside of her body. Suddenly she was in the corner, kneeling from what she realizing was another sword display. She was inside a sword without a voice, one mass produced and crudely made. Sakura had kept it in her room in the hopes of finding a voice there she could rouse. She was inside the sword now, watching and hearing everything it could if it were alive. Now it was just an empty vessel for her to dwell inside of.

Kisame was behind her head, leaning over her while Zabuza and Mangetsu were crouched on her side. Utakata came in with a bowl and moved to the opposite side of her body. He pulled the cloth off his arm and dunked it into the water before laying it across her forehead. Sakura could see from where she watched that her skin was flushed and pale simultaneously. In places she was so white the blue purple veins stood out. She looked like someone dying from consumption.

"She was fine today," Suigetsu mumbled from the doorway where he watched, hanging back along with Haku and Shizuma.

"She was fine a few minutes ago," Yagura growled, kneeling at the base of her bed.

There was the slapping of bare feet on wood as Kagura burst into the room from the opposite door, the one that led into the indoor hallway. Behind him trailed Kakashi with Inari on his shoulders.

Kakashi took one look at Sakura and set the boy down, brushing him back with an excuse that he needed to not be near sick people. Kagura still looked winded from the run but reached out to hold Inari back and whisper words to the kid that made him stay.

"We left to get her medicine. I thought you said it wasn't urgent," Kisame growled when Kakashi knelt down next to her neck.

Kakashi ignored the other man and started to pull at her face, checking her eyes and then her mouth. He felt her wrist for the vein that clued him into her heartbeat and frowned when he had trouble finding it.

"She said it was just stomach pains from not being able to eat. She never mentioned trouble breathing. Hey, keep the pillows there, she should be propped up. If she coughs again tilt her onto her side and be prepared to catch blood."

"You don't sound like you know what you're doing," Zabuza bit with a glower.

"Do I look like a doctor to you?" Kakashi's voice wasn't panicked or angry like the others in the room, and that only served to infuriate some of them. "What was she just doing?"

Shizuma took a step back, worry darkening his expression even more in a way that made Sakura's heart hurt to watch. Yagura looked back at the doorway before sighing. "She fought me earlier and might have tired herself out before…before summoning another sword its body."

Kakashi glanced about and counted heads before looking back at Inari and then Sakura. "Too soon," he mumbled. "She taxed her body doing too much too soon. Stupid girl."

The words made Shizuma Hoshigaki flinch and draw back even further. Sakura wanted to reach for him and beg his forgiveness because she knew what he was thinking, it was all over his face, the way he folded his arms and dug his nails into his arms.

Kisame looked up at Shizuma and then down at Sakura and something in his expression crumbled. "I didn't notice and I asked her. It's my fault."

Kakashi clicked his tongue and pushed off the floor to stand. "It's no one's fault aside from her own. She should have known better than to ignore whatever warning signs there were. I need to write to someone. She needs a doctor."

"You can't do anything?" Mangetsu pleaded.

"Nothing more than any of you can. I-she needs a doctor." Kakashi ran a hand through his hair and then cursed. "Fast would be good. It'll take anyone forever to get up here."

Zabuza stood. "I can bring someone back if you have a location."

Haku made a noise of protest as he stepped forward. "You just got back though."

Zabuza glared at the boy and Haku shrank, turning his face away as if the glare was a physical slap.

"Someone should bring Sai back. It's not to say goodbye, just to be by her side!" Suigetsu snapped. "He would want to be here."

Sakura wondered if the relationship between Sai and Suigetsu was one she misunderstood. Sakura thought Sai didn't get along well with most of the other swords because of his heritage. He wasn't from Kiri and he wasn't an old sword, he was the only sword made human that was forged by her might and efforts. Sai didn't get along well with the others so much, but Kisame seemed to tolerate him well enough and Suigetsu, despite their rocky start, seemed to like the tantou.

"Who did you plan on writing to?" Zabuza asked, standing and following him to the door.

"I have an…old friend who frequents parts of Kiri. I think I know where she is right now. She's a field medic and one of the better doctors I know. She'll be able to do more than me." Kakashi waved Zabuza into the hallway. "I'll show you on the map."

"It's nothing she can't recover from," Utakata softly stated, reaching to take her cloth and replace it with a newer one, just as cool as the first one had been. "Sakura will recover from this with time and rest."

"How can you be sure of something like that," Yagura groused.

The dark haired male twisted the old cloth to wring out the excess water and soak it anew, freshening it up. "Because I have to. Wishes are powerful things. If you believe and wish in something hard enough, it's that much easier for it to come true I think. I believe Sakura will recover."

"I-I believe in that too," Kagura said, looking to Yagura and then to Utakata. "I know Sakura will get better soon. She's so strong, after all. She was fine enough this afternoon."

Yagura snorted. "She should have rested if she wasn't feeling well."

"Weren't you complaining about her not doing enough?" Haku asked, voice thin like ice and just as cold. Several heads in the room turned to regard him anew.

"You think that's something you want to bring up now, after all this?" Yagura snarled. "We were wrong and we were asses, admit it."

Haku ticked, closing his eyes and leaning back with his arms in his sleeves. "Hardly my fault. It's not like she talked about this with any of us."

"You really run your mouth, don't you?" Kisame asked in a muted tone. He sounded too tired to be upset anymore.

Haku flinched, like the dead tone was more frightening than screaming and roaring. "I'm just speaking truth here. She brought this upon herself. Did anyone force her here? No one's asked so much from her, but she just-just ignored us."

"Haku."

The young man flinched and turned to the door to see Zabuza there, hearing everything. Haku's mouth moved as if to say something, but then he thought better of it and pressed his lips tight, until they were a thin line. At his side, both of his hands were curled into fists that shook with tension.

"When you're jealous you let your ugly side show," said Zabuza

The words shook his hands out of fists and blew his eyes wide. Haku bolted from the room.

Kagura called out and stood to chase after Haku but a barking order from Zabuza froze him in place.

"Don't. Let him go, he needs some time to cool down before he's ready to come back and be a bit more honest." Zabuza reached up and ran a hand through his hair. "Suigetsu, you'll need to make the run because I'm not familiar with the area Kakashi was describing. You're also faster than I am. Take your brother, the two of you track down Kakashi's doctor that way."

"Eh, me too?" Mangetsu asked, pointing to himself.

"The both of you will be better for it," Zabuza said simply. He crossed the room to his original seat at Sakura's side and folded his legs under him, preparing to sit for as long as it took.

The brother nodded to each other and said their clipped farewells before getting the information from Kakashi and taking off for the base of the mountain. Kisame refused to leave and no one tried to force him out. Eventually the other filed out, leaving the two relics alone to watch over the barely breathing girl and hope she stayed alive the rest of the night.

"Don't be too soft on that kid. If he needs it…"

Kisame's words trailed off, eyes distant and barely focused. One of Sakura's hands was in his and he had taken up a habit of running his thumb over the scars left across her fingers from years of labor. She wasn't a princess, she was a callous covered laborer who made beautiful swords. There was no way she would have soft hands.

"Don't think too harshly of him, Kisame. In his own way, Haku also cares for Sakura, I'm sure."

Kisame snorted.

Zabuza nodded. "He's also a vain, spoiled thing that is afraid of being put up on a wall again like an ornament. He wants her to use him and more than that, he wants his new master to want him for what he is. He's still young and acts like it when he doesn't get his way."

"He's a little shit if he thinks he's the only one who wants that," Kisame grumbled. "Still no excuse."

"Ah, well he is a sword, after all."

"So are the rest of us."

There was a long night of silence in that room as the two relics watched on and Sakura slept on in body and watched on in spirit from the empty vessel of a sword on a stand. The night went on and one and on.

In was still dark but smelling of morning dew when Sai burst in and the two relics peered up to see the dark haired boy panting and whiter than normal. His eyes were shivering in their sockets as he had troubled focusing on her. Sai took a step in and staggered before rushing to her side and collapsing against her hip. His hands reached for her face and then her neck, feeling for the pulse there.

"She's stable kid," Kisame grunted.

"She's so still," Sai breathed. He exhaled loudly and the shaking subsided somewhat. A bead of sweat dripped off his face and he deflated against her side. "Sakura…"

Zabuza and Kisame watched, neither commenting while also refusing to leave. Neither was going to give him a moment alone with her while the threat of another coughing fit was still there. It was what Kisame was more worried about, since every other hour her breathing would choke and blood would be back in her throat as her lungs struggled to operate.

"What happened?" Sai finally asked.

"We don't know. We think she was just pushing herself with giving bodies to the swords. She did so many in quick succession."

"Sakura's never had a serious lung problem before. She's always been healthy and fit and…and…." Sai's voice trailed off as his eyes fell off her form. Something in his expression made Zabuza tense.

"What is it?" Zabuza asked, pressing.

"It's the forge. She…other smiths who worked in the forge long hours and with lots of smoke, smiths and iron workers, not sword makers, I remember stories about their sicknesses from the fire and the smoke. Sakura's been in the forge more recently. Is that doing this? It's her lungs."

"I don't think something like that would make someone as young as Sakura sick. It's only old men already on the threshold to death that get sick from that sort of thing," said Kisame. "No, whatever is wrong with her is probably tied up in us…in her powers as a sage. She pushed herself."

Sai's expression darkened. "Why would she do that? She doesn't need to give the world an army. She's safe as long as she's hidden here. I make money for us. I can keep her safe just fine."

"You're just one tantou," Zabuza growled. "Don't act so haughty."

Sai looked up and glared over Sakura's body. "She doesn't need you. She doesn't need any of you. I was the first and I'm the only one who's truly loyal to her, I'm the only one made by her own hand." The skin around his eyes tightened as his glare turned that much sharper. "She only needs me."

"Listen to the shit you say when you're pissed," Laughed Kisame without any humor to his tone. "You think you're the only one who can take care of her, eh? So what? If that was true you would have been here and Sakura never would have tried to summon any of us, but she did and we're here and you have to learn to deal with it, kid. She's not yours to hoard."

As Sakura watched and listened she felt pain in her heart, a part of her spirit that wasn't tied to her body at all. She listened to Sai speak like he was desperate, and that made sense. Who did Sai have to believe in the world but Sakura? All the other swords were different because they were older, yes, but also because they had all had different masters. Many of them had passed through the hands of several different such masters before being given bodies by Sakura. They had matured enough to see the world for what it was.

Sai was maybe two years old and had never known the touch of a different master. Sakura was his whole world, and he didn't know how to grow beyond that. It made him incredibly loyal, but also incredibly clingy. Sakura didn't want to say she hated that about him, but a part of her-the part of her that felt pain-wanted Sai to grow beyond her and understand more of the world. She wanted him to be able to spread his wings and move beyond what little he knew now.

"You wouldn't understand what I feel" Sai huffed, lowering his head onto the soft fabric of Sakura's bed beside her hip. He looked content to rest there and never move again.

"No, or maybe I understood well enough but then grew out of it," said Zabuza. "I've been young and I've been old. I remember both well. I'm old enough now to be able to see the differences in my thinking."

Zabuza then grunted and pushed up off the ground. He padded over to the door and let himself out onto the porch, sliding shut the warped wooden door behind him, but never leaving. Zabuza waited outside, keeping watch from his new perch in front of the door, silent but wary.

Sakura waited and watched from inside the sword, but minutes passed without change and her spirit grew restless. She saw nothing change for what felt like hours. It was unnerving how eerily still the boys could be when they wanted to. It was like they forgot about their human bodies and went back to being swords with flesh wrapped around them. She couldn't see their chests move or their eyes blink, (though Sai was turned away and Kisame's were closed.)

Sakura turned her attention back to herself and meditated upon her current predicament. She was out of her body, but still somehow tethered to it. She felt like she could return to it if she needed to, the link was there, but Sakura didn't want to crawl back inside her dying husk of a body. She was free of it and she wanted to explore such a new sort of freedom.

As if the thought was enough to do it, Sakura felt herself sink into darkness and then fall, fall, fall, fall, fast and faster, through blackness and grayness, blurring sceneries that melted into each other like wet oil paintings. She snapped from one location to a next and realized she had suddenly stopped, settling roughly in a new host, a new, voiceless sword.

End Part 1

It's about 60K and I know some people have said in the past they don't like them long so I'm breaking it in half. Maybe next week or the week after I'll upload the next part. I think I really want to rewrite the ending and tweak some things, but it's practically finished. You'll see more swords next chapter, hear more about their histories, and maybe Sakura meets another Sage. Who knows?

Why yes, I did in fact get the idea for this lovely fic from the video game/anime franchise Touken Ranbu and Katsugeki/Touken Ranbu. In the game you play as a character-a sage- who brings to life different historic swords to fight for you and protect history and it's so pretty and easy and fun to get interested in, but I wanted to explore the dynamic between a sword made man and the maker or master. And you know me, I love Sakura reverse harem style fics. Plus, the Kiri nin and all the swordsmen of the mist were just too perfect to pass up the opportunity to.

Please let me know what you liked and what you thought in a review!