Sasuke had let too much show. The pause before Sakura responded spoke volumes; Sakura had always been more perceptive than Naruto, and where Sasuke could count on Naruto to simply become irritated and start shouting, it was more difficult to predict how Sakura would react and what she could pick up. Still, Sasuke was beginning to wonder whether Sakura knew about Itachi's death or not -- his assumption had been that the news would have spread as quickly as possible, but perhaps the others from his world had finally learned to mind their own business.

At least to a certain extent. Obviously Sakura was refusing to leave Sasuke alone here, but ... if she knew about Itachi, surely she would have given some sign by now. Had the news of Jiraiya's and Kakashi's deaths been too shocking to permit the flow of other information?

-- whatever the case, Sasuke didn't care. He couldn't afford to care, because the price of caring was far too high for him to be able to navigate alongside the duties he already had.

Carefully, he calmed down by main force of will, relaxed his muscles, and focused on making his voice as steady and emotionless as possible.

"There might be other patients who will trade for some of the coupons. That's their main use," he clarified. At least Sakura was smarter than Naruto and thus more able to handle things more complicated than spur-of-the-moment planning. "As for stealing, there's a hardware store that's particularly useful."

[We can put them into the new shift once they move? And are we still running into Suzaku? 8D;]