sketchy Sakura pt 2

She found the wayward family in a cheap inn. Sakura had been able to track them down by asking about her cousin and little nephew and niece. They had been traveling under the names and story that she’d manufactured for them, so they had some sense. 

“I didn’t think you would come.” Nagao’s voice was so relieved that Sakura couldn’t quite manage to feel offended. The older woman ran a hand through her hair. Sakura couldn’t help from tracking the movement and noting that the stress was showing. Nagao Misa needed to wash her hair, put on something nice, and look like she belonged.

“Of course.” She kept her tone professional. “Where’s your guide?”

Nagao’s eyes tightened. “He helped us find the hotel,” she said carefully. That was obviously true, although he’d been hired for the fact that he knew how to surreptitiously move refugees and contraband over the border without having to speak with the immigration control centers controlling entry to Fire Country.

“And now?” Sakura prompted. She turned her teacup around, enjoying the warmth on her fingers. The sounds of the restaurant around them were quiet, given that it was the middle of the day. Most people were at work. Nagao’s toddler was napping, but the baby was vocal and kept trying to get her mother's attention. 

Nagao hesitated. “I don’t know,” she said finally. Absentmindedly, she bounced the baby on her lap. “He left me with all his paperwork. Perhaps he was called away for personal reasons.”

Or perhaps he’d taken the money and ran. Sakura resisted the urge to curse.

‘That doesn’t make sense,’ she scowled. ‘I send plenty of business his way. Why would he endanger that relationship?’

Maybe he’d gotten spooked by the recent crackdown on immigration and decided to cut his losses before he ended up in jail. Maybe he knew something that she didn’t know, or maybe he was just a coward.

“I thought,” Nagao said carefully, “that there might be a problem with the paperwork.”

It took a moment to parse that- she thought that she had been duped, and that Sakura had been lying when she said that she could create a false identity that would stand up to scrutiny when it was filed in the proper places. Sakura leveled her client with an unimpressed look. If she’d wanted to simply steal Nagao’s money, she probably would have done that before hiring the coyote. Half of it was gone now. And he had done most of his job, to be honest, in getting the family into Fire Country. 

‘Nagao might have thought that this was a long-running scam,’ Sakura mused. ‘We get people into Fire Country, run off with their money before getting them past the second checkpoint, and then they have no legal recourse without revealing that they are illegally in Fire Country.”

Okay, that was not entirely a bad plan, if a person was a sociopath and didn’t think ahead to the fact that eventually one of the unhappy customers piling up just inside Fire Country’s borders would try to leave and end up giving the authorities her information. Sakura had both normal human empathy and foresight, so of course she would not be doing that.

She finished her tea and speared the little piece of cut pear she’d been given onto her fork. She made eye contact with Nagao before she put the fruit in her mouth. “I’ll take you there,” Sakura promised, ignoring the baby beginning to fuss. Then she crunched down onto the crisp, sweet morsel. She laid her fork down at the perfect angle on her plate with a quiet tink. She favored Nagao with a smile. “For my favorite cousin, I can put off work for a day.”

The relief in Nagao’s eyes told Sakura that she’d made the right choice. 

Sakura had been being incredibly literal, of course. It was Saturday morning. She had to be at work on Monday morning to finish submitting her paperwork. So she folded her napkin and set it on the table. “Let’s get going, then.” She glanced at her dear cousin. “You need to talk to the CB and make sure Moku is up on his immunizations.”

She hustled Nagao into the hotel room, had her rewash and style her hair, and ended up turning on the TV for the toddler when he woke up. The actual baby had finally fallen asleep, which was a relief. At the sound of cartoons, Nagao came rushing out of the bathroom with her hair half-curled.

Sakura raised an eyebrow.

Nagao turned pink, but held her head up high. “He’s only allowed to watch an hour of TV per day,” she said. The toddler whined at that, but otherwise pretended not to hear. “He watched it this morning, when he got up.”

Sakura rolled her eyes. ‘I’m not a damn babysitter’, she thought. But what she said was the infinitely more diplomatic, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Perhaps you can consider it a special treat, since we’re going to be doing a lot of walking today?”

It was grudgingly allowed. Once Nagao looked suitably respectable, they were off. Sakura offered the other woman a breath mint. Nagao took it, sucked on it, and gave Sakura an odd look.

“It neutralizes bad odors,” Sakura lied easily. “Instead of covering them up with mint.”

Nagao gave that a moment’s thought and nodded. “I’ll feel better if I’m not worrying about bad breath,” she admitted.

“Not worrying is the point,” Sakura agreed, who had actually given Nagao a mild sedative. She wanted the other woman to be relaxed. The biggest danger was if Nagao acted nervous and suspicious. None of what they had to do should set off any warning bells, unless Nagao acted oddly. 

They went to the local clinic, because it was only open until 11am. Nagao got her daughter examined and her son up to date on his immunizations, using the middling-quality insurance program that Sakura had entered her into. She was locked into that contract for the next two years, but higher copays was a pretty small price to pay for that bit of legal legitimacy. And however much it pinched the budget, it would just be stupid to forge papers that gave Nagao the best of everything. 

Next off was the Central Bank, which closed at noon. Sakura walked in with her head up high and a sense of superiority. Fire Country’s Central Bank had even more offices and locations than her bank did, making it a very useful choice. An account could plausibly have been made anywhere. This location had been chosen for its large client base. It would be very unlikely that someone could definitively prove that Nagao hadn’t been using the bank for years, given the rate of employee turnover and impossibility of remembering every face. 

While Nagao went up to the front to withdraw her “paycheck” from her housekeeping work, Sakura penned down her working name onto the list waiting to speak to the bankers. She met with her contact, a hungry young man who wanted to climb the ladder and was willing to create a back-record in exchange for information about a possible client. And Sakura was more than happy to provide the contact information and details about what exactly he’d need to underbid in order to steal the work directly out from under Sakura’s supervisor. 

Nagao went off to reserve seats at a café for lunch while Sakura put on an employee ID card and breezed into the city hall, deserted during the lunch hour. Coolly, she pried open the door with a pick and printed off two birth certificates, a marriage license, a death certificate for Nagao’s definitely-a-Fire Country- native- husband, and put them in the file folder with the certificate proving Nagao’s former place of residence in a Fire Country border town. That would be very helpful when applying for residence in Takarazuka. 

Sakura was in and out within 20 minutes. As she walked, she took her hair down from a bun and wound it into a messy side braid. In the agreed-upon café, she shrugged off her black suit jacket and traded it out for a red sweater, which made her look a lot less like an office worker, and more like a young woman out for lunch with a friend or relative.

It took a while for them to get seated, even though Nagao had been there for 20 minutes already. They made small talk about a movie that they had both seen recently until they were seated. They each picked a set menu, which came out with shocking speed. Nagao fed little Chisa and then quickly became preoccupied with coaxing Moku to eat miso instead of putting it down his shirt, so Sakura leaned back and did a mental inventory. 

Nagao had all the documentation she would need to look like a normal, well-prepared person who happened to be moving. She had a good and simple story- her husband had recently died, so she was returning to her hometown to get more support in raising her young son. She had a place to go with ‘family’ in town who would legitimize and vouch for her, an older woman who actually was a distant relation- a great-aunt's nephew's mother, or something like that. Ms. Sakamoto was happy to become Misa's aunt and a grandmother figure to the children. Having lost her actual children to the death machine that was Konoha’s constant hunger for children to feed to war, she was more than happy to skirt some laws to provide for herself and help a young mother.

It was risky to place refugees so close to Konoha itself. But Takarazuka provided a crucial resource: namely, people who had been disillusioned about the benevolence of Konoha’s policies because they had been damaged by them.

It was not that difficult to find people who would empathize with a displaced family over the military government crouched on their doorstep that lured away children to die for a promise of glory and food. There were plenty of people there who would turn a deaf ear to an odd accent instead of reporting it to the military police.

After lunch, Sakura went and asked around until she found someone with a horse and cart who she could hire to take them to Takarazuka, and then take Sakura back in the morning. Sakura was deeply resentful about the price, given that this type of thing was meant to be paid for out of the funds that that coyote had absconded with. But she paid for it out of pocket. 

Fine, so she wouldn’t make much profit on this particular venture. It was still valuable. It had been work experience, and it would expand her list of friendly contacts. It was hard to predict, but she could probably benefit in the future in some way from having someone very loyal to her in Takarazuka. Especially, Sakura mused, if Nagao was hired in some useful capacity. 

Well, that was a consideration for later. She did her best to tune out the conversation and family dynamics while their rented cart rumbled along the road. Sakura tucked her suitcase between her legs and wedged her folders out and onto her lap. She was ever-so-carefully making small marks to avoid making any mistakes while the cart rattled along when it came to a sudden stop.

She slid the papers away and snapped the briefcase shut. She transferred it to her left hand and stood. Sakura held her head high against the nervous look that Nagao was leveling on her. 

“What’s going on?” Nagao asked.

‘How would I know? Honestly.’

“I’m going to find out,” Sakura said. She tossed her hair and unlatched the cart’s door to step out into the sunlight. 

Nagao watched with a pale face and a tight grip on her son on the seat next to her. Her daughter was sleeping in her lap. She didn’t follow Sakura outside.

She looked down the road and her blood went cold. Three of Konoha’s hired killers were blocking the cart. One noticed Sakura  step out and tilted her head. Long, immaculate blonde hair tumbled down her shoulder with the motion. With a murmur to her comrades, the ninja strode forward to meet Sakura.

‘Ah,’ she thought. ‘Shit.’