Haruka was ripped out of her hazy dreams by a chakra signature that closed in on her fast. She didn't even think, just let instinct take over and jumped to her feet, claws at the ready.
"Huh," she breathed in confusion when she saw her surroundings and then noticed Sasuke sitting on his rear in front of her, an impressive glare on his face.
"Sorry?" She tried a little dubiously. The Uchiha clearly hadn't expected her to react violently, but she couldn't really fathom why. For one she was a shinobi and for another she'd fallen unconscious on a battlefield. Granted, he didn't know about her less than pleasant past with Orochimaru, but those two reasons should have been more than enough warning.
Haruka's lower back hurt, but seeing as she was still alive and able to move it couldn't be that bad. It would likely take a while to completely heal though. At least the poison was out of her system and good thing Zabuza didn't use any. Naruto generally healed faster than her, so it was probably safe to assume that he could handle poison better as well. Kakashi and Sasuke on the other hand had no such advantage.
Orochimaru had once told her that she would never be able to use medical ninjutsu because her chakra would do at least as much damage as it healed. Even worse the same was true the other way around as well, albeit not to the same degree. Medical ninjutsu that was used on her worked, but it also caused severe chakra burns because her own chakra reacted badly to the intrusion of foreign chakra. She could lessen the effect somewhat if she was conscious, but there was no way to completely eliminate it. Burning poisons away, however, was a natural effect of her chakra and not a jutsu. Using it on someone else would certainly be unpleasant, but it would likely also be less harmful than the actual poison. She should probably look into that at some point.
For now though she had to concentrate on making it back to Konoha alive. The room she was in wasn't very large and sparsely furnished. On the other side of it, under one of the windows, Kakashi's prone form rested on a futon. He looked fine from where she stood, a little banged up, but not like he might die at any second. His chakra was incredibly weak though and she was pretty sure he wasn't deliberately hiding it, seeing as he was unconscious and all.
"He fell over right after the masked guy left," Sasuke told her, having noticed her gaze. "Actually, I don't know how much of that you got. When we picked you up you were out like a light as well."
"The last thing I saw was Zabuza hitting the ground and I remember wondering where the boy had come from. Fill me in?" She asked, and he did. Apparently the boy belonged to Kiri's Hunter-nin division, a part of Mist's ANBU that specializes in killing and disposing of nukenin. He'd taken Zabuza away after Kakashi had confirmed the kill and then their sensei had collapsed, after which Sasuke and a small army of Naruto's clones had carried them to Tazuna's house.
"What do you mean he took Zabuza's body away?" Haruka frowned. "These guys are practically legendary for erasing every last trace of their target to keep the village's secrets. If he needed confirmation he could have just taken the head or sealed the corpse in a storage scroll. Zabuza and that sword of his have to be pretty heavy, there's really no reason to go through the trouble of carrying him around only to dispose of him later."
"What are you saying?" Sasuke asked. He'd clearly already guessed, but she confirmed his suspicions anyway.
"I'm saying, how certain are we that Zabuza is actually dead and that that was a real Hunter-nin?"
"But Kakashi confirmed the kill," her teammate protested. It was half-hearted at best. He knew the truth and was merely trying to cling to a fantasy. Haruka ignored him and started to slowly walk out of the room. Sure Kakashi had confirmed the kill, but he was also on the brink of chakra exhaustion by that point. It wasn't hard to believe that he might have missed something.
Sasuke followed her, asking where she thought she was going. She was about to tell him that she wanted to find a mirror in order to take a closer look at her back, but then stopped short when she saw Tazuna. Right. She'd almost forgotten about that asshole. Haruka steadied herself, took a deep breath and then moved forward in a burst of chakra enhanced speed. She grabbed the bridge builder by the collar, slamming him back first into a wall.
"Who wants you dead?" She snarled at him. He didn't answer, merely eyeing her in shock, and so she pulled him closer and then slammed him into the wall again. Surprising a target wasn't the best interrogation tactic, but right now there was no way she could make the old drunk believe that she wouldn't throw him to the wolves for a chance to get her team home safe.
"Who—Wants—You—Dead?" Haruka asked again. This time emphasizing every single word and letting her killing intent wash over the frightened man.
"I-d-d-don't know w–what you're talking about," Tazuna stuttered out in the same moment Naruto and a woman with long black hair stormed into the hallway.
"Haruka-chan!" The blond exclaimed. "What are you doing? Let him go! He needs our protection or that evil Gato guy is gonna take over the Land of Waves!"
"Protection?" Haruka scoffed without turning around. "This little piece of shit lost every right to our protection the second he lied at the mission office because he was too cheap to pay for more than a C-rank! He's been an asshole from the start and almost got all of us killed by keeping the truth to himself."
Naruto wasn't having it though. He didn't see a liar that had endangered their team unnecessarily, he saw a shaking old man who had lost part of his arm and was in need of help. Not that it mattered anymore. Her blond teammate had already given Haruka the information she wanted, and so she let got and left the building. She didn't go far, there was no way she would leave Kakashi undefended, but she needed to get some distance from Naruto before she threw something at him.
"Fucking goody two-shoes," she was complaining under her breath when Sasuke joined her outside.
"That man, Gato," he started, "he's one of the wealthiest people in the world. Someone like that isn't just going to send one team and then quit."
"No, he isn't," Haruka agreed. "It probably doesn't even matter whether Zabuza is still alive, he could just send someone else to do the dirty work. A-ranked nukenin are expensive, but he certainly has the money. We'll have a few days at best before someone comes to claim Tazuna's head and Kakashi won't be up by then."
"So what? You want to hand the bridge builder over don't you?" Sasuke seemed uncomfortable with that suggestion, but he'd go along with it if she told him to. Haruka didn't know whether she liked that. On one hand he was willing to trust her decision, but on the other his chakra screamed with fear. He was afraid to die out here, in some backwater town, on his first out-of-village mission. How much was he willing to give up to survive?
Haruka had seen children try to chew their limbs off just to escape chains. Of course they'd never gotten very far because of the blood loss and pain, but that didn't stop them from trying. Fear could make people do very stupid things. So instead of telling Sasuke that she would give Tazuna up in a heartbeat if she thought Gato was trustworthy, she attacked him.
An open palmed strike to the chest, that caught him completely off guard. She contemplated lying, telling him that an Uchiha would be worth more, but she didn't want to risk being called out on it. There was only one chance for this. Not to mention that, if left to its own devices, the mind could spin the most terrifying monsters out of uncertainty, and she needed Sasuke even more afraid. He couldn't just be vaguely aware that dying was a possibility. He needed to think death was imminent, inescapable.
Haruka took great care to get Sasuke away from the house as fast and quietly as she could. It wouldn't do if Naruto interfered again. She also didn't give her teammate time to breathe and think. He'd tried asking her what was going on at first, but instinct took over soon enough.
There was no plan behind Sasuke's actions, as evidenced by the fact that he didn't use anything but taijutsu. He was just reacting to her attacks, but it wasn't enough. Something still held him back.
Not something, her, Haruka realized.
Because even when he thought she would kill him, he didn't want her dead, he just wanted her to stop. Well, at least that answered one question. She'd have to feel bad about doubting him later though, right now she needed to push him further.
Haruka stopped for a second, giving Sasuke just enough time to take a breath and hope. Then she poured as much chakra as she could draw on at once over him, together with the strongest killing intent she could muster, and followed the whole thing up with the Hell Viewing genjutsu. That last one did the trick. She barely managed to get out of the way when Sasuke launched himself at her, eyes blazing red and a kunai in hand.
"I'm done," she said, as calmly as she could, backing away with her hands up. He snarled at her like a wounded animal might, but didn't advance any further. Something clenched in Haruka's chest when she saw the silent tears streaming down his face.
"Shit, I'm sorry Sasuke. That's the only way I know to activate the Sharingan and we're going to need any advantage we can get if we want to make it back home," she explained. It wasn't enough and she hadn't expected it to be. After all, she wasn't sorry that she had forced him to activate the Sharingan, she was sorry that she had caused him pain. When it came down to it Haruka would do just about anything to keep her pack safe.
"That last technique," Sasuke rasped after a long silence. "Never do that again."
She agreed easily. The Hell Viewing Technique wasn't pleasant and it was unlikely to ever work on him again anyway. The Sharingan saw through illusions like glass, so it wasn't a hard promise to make.
"Handing Tazuna over would be my first choice if I thought Gato was trustworthy, but I really don't," Haruka started a little hesitantly, but Sasuke took to the abrupt change in topic well. He probably needed the distraction. "We can't just leave either. Naruto would protest and any nukenin or even just foreign shinobi in the area might decide we're easy prey, and that is if Gato doesn't send someone after us himself. Kakashi's head is worth quite a bit of money and nobody would scoff at a chance to take an Uchiha hostage either."
"We can't just sit here and do nothing though. Whoever comes next will be as strong as Zabuza or stronger. So what does that leave?" Sasuke asked with a somber look on his face. She couldn't quite tell if it was because of her or the situation, they certainly both deserved it. Haruka was actually a little unnerved by the fact that Sasuke wasn't glaring at her and seemed so willing to ignore what she'd done. She couldn't get a read on his chakra either, it was torn this way and that by a myriad of different emotions.
"We have nothing to safely bargain with, running, hiding and defending aren't options," she thought out loud, frowning. "That leaves attacking. Zabuza didn't want Tazuna dead because of personal or ideological reasons, he tried to kill him because of money. So… take away the money and people will have no reason to care about some drunk bridge builder."
"Kill Gato? You don't even know where he is. Not to mention that someone that rich has to have guards."
"Well, if he's trying to take over Wave like Naruto said he is probably close by. Otherwise getting updates on the situation and issuing new orders would take too long. Do you think you could go get some information out of the villagers in the morning? I'll ask Naruto to use his clones to scout the area. Actually he should make a few to guard a perimeter around the house anyway."