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"How long are you going to hold my hand?" Sakura asks playfully exasperated and winces when she shifts to her side.
Shisui glares at her, "Well, after seeing what happened the last time, I let go of it, I think it will be a while."
She can't fault him for it, because she knows if she were in his position, she would have done the same.
.
Fourteen Hours Ago:
"This is the stupidest mission I have ever been on," Sakura grumbles and wipes the sweat from her brow.
Mist has to arguably be one of her least favorite countries to visit, especially in the middle of monsoon season, because everything gets wet. Her hair, her clothes, under her nose, and the back of her knees. She may as well jump into the Ame Sea and swim her way up. Shisui looks perfect as usual, the curls of his hair dampen and stick to the sides of his face, with no frizz or mess in sight.
Damned Uchiha genes.
"Really?" Shisui makes a noise of intrigue and grins lopsided, "Can't believe you kicked that Tora mission to the bottom so easily."
"Who said it's at the bottom? Maybe it's second best."
He bites back a snicker.
Partnering up with Shisui on missions is a rarity. Mostly because, Tsunade doesn't like when people who are married or courting – she rolls her eyes at the term – are sent together on missions because when it comes down to the mission versus the well-being of their teammate, their partner will come before the mission which logistically should not be true. Kakashi had proven this with sharp words and a loose tongue.
But Sakura can agree that it is a risk.
Because she would never be this concerned if it were Ino or Naruto for example, but Shisui who she's biased towards...
That was a different story altogether.
"I can't believe Tsunade-sama allowed you to come with me," she sighs and walks through the less crowded part of Rota Village. It's a small pathway outside the farming area of the village, one that leads directly through the town and near the boundary line of the high fence that block out the wild shrubs that trail in between the bamboo hedge, "At least we're going home."
"It's an espionage mission," Shisui points out and grabs her hand letting her walk through the small row of lavender, "Which is technically my specialty."
"I thought infiltrations were."
"I'm a skilled man, Sakura."
Sakura glares at him and he grins at her.
Shisui pulls her through the meadow of sunflowers next and smiles when a few petals tangle in her hair. He tugs her until his hand is in hers, "Do you think they'll get mad if we walk through their gardens?"
"And you thought of that now?" Sakura rolls her eyes and intertwines their fingers, "I'm pretty sure there's a couple of leaves sticking to the side of my leg."
Shisui yanks those leaves off rather comically from her spandex and twists the offending foliage in front of her. She smacks the leaves out of his hand and bites back a disbelieving laugh when he pulls out a sprig of lavender from – nowhere or maybe five minutes ago as they went through the herbal patch, but how did he grab a couple without her seeing? – and tucks it into her hair.
She flushes despite herself, fluttering her lashes downwards, before looking up with a shy gaze. She can't help it. When Shisui pulls out these moves – okay maybe they weren't moves, but when he does these things – it reminds her of those romance books Ino and her share in the privacy of her home on late Thursday nights and yells about it. It's a high bar to relate Shisui to, but he was just so thoughtful and sweet.
And this mission was a terrible idea.
Because if they run into trouble the only thing, she is going to think about is: get him out of here.
Shisui laughs at her heedless of her conflicting thoughts and squeezes her hand as they stroll out of the village path with the smell of sunflowers and lavenders wafting at their feet.
And before they take up into the trees Sakura trips over a line.
.
It happens like this:
Sakura has exactly two and a half seconds to make a snap decision from the moment the wire slips under her toes in her open-toed boots. Shisui is there, next to her, moving and breathing, but even he wouldn't be able to scope the perimeter of danger and shunshin out of there without a second breath. It just wasn't possible because it would take approximately four seconds for him to gauge her dilemma.
So, Sakura flicks her wrist upwards, untangling their fingers in one smooth motion before shoving a hand into his hip and quite literally pushed him forward several hundred feet into a thicket of trees.
Just as the wire snaps and the tripwire disintegrates with a bang and the forest rumbles with the explosion.
.
Shisui doesn't know how Sakura wired her body to heal the way it does, but he can say that he is eternally grateful to Sakura's chakra system and Tsunade. How Sakura constantly pools chakra into her Yin seal, how she molds her chakra to fit her like a second skin, and how she manages to deflect any sneak attack by using her chakra as a buffer from any real danger. He will never know.
The chakra encasing Sakura's skin along with her quick reflexes is what saved her from a concussion and a broken back.
Shisui had grabbed her the moment her back hit a tree and used shunshin across the country to get to Konoha – which probably wasn't his smartest idea mostly because if she did have a concussion and type of summoning jutsu or displacement jutsu would exacerbate her head injury – and to Tsunade.
Tsunade had given her strict instructions on resting and recuperating – after chewing her out for thinking of Shisui and not herself, but she saw the proud glint in her amber eyes – ordering Shisui to watch her like a hawk.
Which is no different from how he is when she's on leave.
Sakura rolls her eyes.
Shisui tugs her into his chest as they watch Icha Icha Violence on her television, ignoring Naruto and Sasuke's squawk of shock when they bring a get-well package from Mikoto and Fugaku.
Her hand, still in his resting on top of his chest.