AN: This is a standalone story, but it's also Kakashi's view of what happened in A Dark and Silent World. Check out A Dark and Silent World for Sakura's experiences.
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I hate the fucking Sound Village, Kakashi thought for about the 50th time that day. 20 dead ninjas and a few minor injuries later he was heading back to Konoha with his mission accomplished. Those ninjas were definitely not the top of the class. Orochimaru didn't leave his best as guards for his labs, leaving it too easy to break in and kill his entire crop of clones. It wasn't a job he relished, but a mission was a mission.
He heard noises ahead. It was just a few twigs breaking, but he was alert enough to recognize that they weren't natural to the forest. He followed the sound to a small glad where he was someone bending over a small group of weeds.
He smelled blood, lots of it. The man in the weeds coughed and held his stomach, groaning and spitting up blood.
Kabuto, Kakashi thought. Talk about your target of opportunity. Kabuto stood unsteadily, and Kakashi saw blood on his stomach. He had a cut across his forehead and limped as he tried to walk away.
Kakashi decided not to attack just yet. If he waited he might get the opportunity to wreck another lab, perhaps even discover some of Orochimaru's plans.
Kabuto stopped and leaned against a tree, wiping blood away from his mouth and spitting on the ground. "Fucking bitch," he said. "I'll find new ways to kill that Konoha slut."
Suddenly it was more than a lucky find. Tsunade had sent a large group of ninjas to the Sound, having them spread out and attack all the minor bases and labs that spies had reported. They had a small window of time before the winter storms blocked the valley entrance, and Orochimaru might discover the treachery any time. By spring Konoha would have lost the advantage.
He watched Kabuto limp toward a small hill. He cast a jutsu, and a genjutsu cleared, revealing a door built into the hill. He entered the door, but before he could return the jutsu Kakashi went after him.
He slapped Kabuto against the wall. "Where's the Kinoichi?" he yelled.
Kabuto smirked and spat blood in Kakashi's face. "You won't find her. She's ruined anyway." He coughed and collapsed, and Kakashi let him sink to the floor.
"You're going to die. You know that, right?" Kakashi asked.
"Not alone," Kabuto said. "You should see what I did to her. She's absolutely helpless, and I put enough genjutsus on that bunker to keep you looking for her for years."
Kakashi ripped Kabuto's shirt open and pulled a piece off to make a rag. He pulled out his canteen and wet the bit of cloth. He wiped the blood away from Kabuto's stomach.
"What the hell are you doing?" Kabuto asked. "This is why the Sound will always win. Konoha is weak. You even help your enemies."
"I'm not helping you. I was looking for this," Kakashi said, pointing to the stab wound on Kabuto's left side. He pushed two fingers deep into the wound and twisted. He turned his fingers into a hook and pulled out a piece of Kabuto's flesh.
Kabuto screamed and struggled, but it was useless.
"Your screams are like candy to me," Kakashi said. He put the bit of meat in Kabuto's mouth. "Now, tell me where she is or you'll get so much worse. I can make a man live with only part of his intestines for days. How would you like to watch one of my dogs eat you slowly while I keep you alive? That's only the beginning too. While they're doing that I'll come up with some other…imaginative entertainment. I get bored easily, and I have a lot of time to come up with new ideas."
"Fuck you," Kabuto said, his voice weak and blood running down his chin.
"No thanks. I don't want Orochimaru's sloppy seconds."
Kabuto's eyes closed, and Kakashi slapped him to bring him around. "Come on kid, you're dying. Orochimaru won't even remember you next week. Do one good thing in your life."
Kabuto laughed. "You can't play good cop/bad cop alone. I'm going to tell you, but only because I love the idea of you watching her suffer. I ruined that bitch. If she doesn't get treatment in the next few months she'll be fucked up for the rest of her life. And guess what? You won't even make it out of the Sound before the first blizzard hits."
"Then I'll go through blizzards," Kakashi said. "I've done it before."
"With an injured Kinoichi? I doubt it. You're stuck. Have fun."
Kakashi stopped himself from bouncing Kabuto's head off the wall. Kabuto had probably talked himself into believing he was doing this for revenge, when he was probably just trying to avoid torture. Kakashi would have done everything he had promised, and more.
"You can die quickly or slowly. It's your choice."
"She's in the third room on the left. Now keep your promise. Kill me."
Kakashi leaned close to Kabuto, putting his mouth near the injured ninja's ear. "I lied," he whispered, pushing his fingers back into the stab wound. While Kabuto screamed Kakashi searched until he found a rib. He snapped a bit off the end and pulled it out of the wound.
He held the jagged piece of bone up so Kabuto could see it. "Good-bye, Kabuto," he said. He plunged the shard into Kabuto's throat, listening as he gurgled.
It had only taken a few minutes, and when Kakashi saw him die he kicked the corpse and walked into the lab. Of course the Kinoichi wasn't in the third room on the left. He'd only half-hoped she would be. He didn't have time to waste.
The lab was soaked with genjutsus, and most ninjas would have been lost immediately. Most ninjas didn't have a Sharingan to help them find their way through traps. He had to slow himself down so he didn't accidentally trip a hidden jutsu. It was difficult, because he wanted to rush to the Kunoichi's aid, but he knew it was in situations like this that ninjas made fatal mistakes.
After the third hidden corridor filled with labs, empty rooms, and dusty abandoned offices he gave up searching manually. It looked like no one but Kabuto used this place. If so, there shouldn't be any chakra other than the Kunoichi's. He didn't have a lot of chakra left after his mission, but he had enough for a few jutsus.
He activated the Mangekyou, and he used a jutsu he'd devised himself. The world separated into a matrix, a blue-tinged placed divided into sectors with red lines. He pulled the bottom left sector into focus, enlarging it until the specifics blurred. He looked in the blue square for the lighter color of human chakra. Nothing.
He repeated the process. Even if he didn't find her before he had to stop using chakra he could eliminate some of the bunker. It would save time overall.
Bingo, he thought. She wasn't far away. He found the door behind a lab. He saw the chakra trap on the door, and he disarmed it quickly.
It was a storeroom, obviously rarely used. Cobwebs and dust covered everything. The Kinoichi lay in the middle of the floor, nude and bleeding from her head.
He tuned the Sharingan, stepping down from the Mangekyou to a lower tier of power. It could still be a trap. He tuned his eye to the darkness of the room, taking in the details in a new way. There were no traps. The woman in the room was just what she seemed, an injured Kinoichi – with a broad forehead and short pink hair.
Oh god, not her, Kakashi thought. Sakura was one of the people he'd least like to see injured, ever.
All the improper parental feelings he'd felt for her came to the surface. Senseis weren't supposed to feel this strongly about their students. He'd always wanted kids, and she was like the daughter he'd never have. The type of women who wanted babies didn't generally go for his type. He was married to Konoha, and that wouldn't change. There wasn't time for a wife and family. Team Seven was his family, and Sakura was his little girl.
Kakashi knelt by her, turning her head gently so he could get a better look at her injuries. Her fist shot out, almost catching him on the side of his head. He thought she might not realize who he was just yet, so he pinned her to the floor by the shoulders.
"Good girl," he said. "Slow, but under the circumstances I'll let that it go."
He barely caught her knee before it caught him in the balls. He put his legs over her knees, holding her as she fought against him.
"Sakura, it's me Kakashi. You're safe now. I killed Kabuto. Relax sweetie."
Then he saw why she was still fighting him. The blood was coming from her ears, and her eyes were fixed straight ahead. Her eyes had a glossy, unfocused look.
"Fucking Kabuto," he thought. This was why Kabuto had said he'd ruined her. He had to get her back to Konoha before this became permanent.
He took her wrist, and she fought him again. "Damn it Sakura, stop that!" he said. She kept fighting, and he had no choice but to struggle with her until her wounds tired her enough to sap her energy.
He pulled her wrist to his forehead protector, putting her fingers on the Konoha leaf symbol. He hoped she got the message, because he pulled her fingers down to his scar. He was ready to catch her hand if she went for his eye, but she began to cry and didn't fight him.
He cleaned the blood away from her ear, hoping there was a surface injury and she'd just panicked. The blood was coming from inside her ear.
"It's okay," he said, even though he knew she couldn't hear him. "I'll get you out of this."
He carried her to a medical room he'd found near the bunker's entrance. There were medicines and supplies. This was obviously a major base once. He put Sakura in the attached bathroom and ran a tub of warm water. While she bathed he searched for some clothes for her, but all he could find was the white, purple-belted robe of a Sound-nin.
He led her to a medical bed and looked at her eyes. They didn't look injured, just blank. It wasn't a burn or cut. Knowing Kabuto he'd probably cut a nerve. That would be his style. He knew enough about first aid to recognize an all-purpose antibiotic cream, and he closed her eyes and rubbed it on them.
He left her to rest and left the bunker, making sure he could find his way back in. He found some mushrooms and edible plants, watching the gathering storm with frustration. A funnel dipped to the ground, and he watched until debris started landing near him.
"Fucking Sound Village!" he thought. There was no leaving here anytime soon. He'd have to find where Kabuto had kept his food supply and hold up until the spring thaw. He could only hope Sakura's eyes were salvageable by the time they could go home.
He found the kitchen, and there were plenty of supplies. He could probably make this last for years, but the rations and canned goods were going to get old quick, at least for Sakura. He'd lost his sense of taste years ago after a jutsu had an odd side effect. Other than the occasional bout with rotten food he didn't really miss that sense. He'd have to see what he could find outside once the storm passed.
He'd never got the hang of cooking. He liked things that were scientific, not artistic. Cooking seemed to be specifically designed to irritate him, so he did what he usually did. He threw the mushrooms, berries and some canned meat in a pan and heated it together.
He called Pakun. "Yo," the summon said. "Nice place you got here."
"Yeah. I reserved the presidential suite. Kabuto was dying, so he didn't fuss too much. Bled all over the hotel lobby though. They're going to bill me for the mess."
"You killed Kabuto? Good work pup."
"Sakura did most of the work. I just finished him off. We're stuck here for a few months, at least."
He held the pan with the slightly burned meal toward Pakun. "Smell this, would you? The meat came from Kabuto's supplies, and I wouldn't put it past him to poison some food here for unexpected guests."
Pakun sniffed. "It's not poisoned."
Kakashi raised a spoonful of the mush and watched it slowly fall into the pan. "Would you taste it for me?"
"It's not poisoned. Taste your own shitty cooking."
"Come on. It's for Sakura."
"Ok then," Pakun said. He tasted a bit of the brown mess. "Congratulations, pup. You managed to make something that doesn't actually taste like much of anything."
"But it won't make her sick?" Kakashi asked.
"No, but don't expect her to enjoy it."
"That's good enough. It's too late to learn to cook now. It takes taste buds to do that."
"So why are you cooking for Little Girl in a bunker?" Pakun asked. He insisted on calling Sakura Little Girl, just as he called Naruto "Sir Yells A Lot".
"She's injured," Kakashi said. "It's bad this time."
"How bad?" Pakun asked.
"She's deaf and blind. Kabuto did a real number on her, but I paid him back before he died."
"That sucks, kid. I always liked her."
"I'm not giving up yet. There has to be something I can do for her."
"You care too much about her," Pakun said. "It's not healthy."
"Nosy little pug, aren't you?"
"Well, call me if I can help," Pakun said.
When he woke Sakura she ate the food, so it must not have been too bad. She seemed to have her wits about her at least.
If only I could do a few medical jutsus, he thought. He couldn't just let her stay like this.
"You know, if some woman was dumb enough to stick with me I would hope to have a kid like you. Well, without the pink hair. I wouldn't usually say stuff like this, but you can't hear me, so why not?"
He left her, wandering around the bunker while he tried to form a plan. Most of the rooms were useless to him, but he knew he had hit a jackpot when he found Kabuto's personal library. Unlike the rest of the place this room was obviously used often. The room was carved into the rock, and it had a barbaric look that contrasted with the hundreds of books carefully shelved and sorted. Everything was organized obsessively.
I bet he knew where every paperclip belonged.
Something was out of place – a book on the desk with paper marking the page Kabuto had left of reading. Kakashi opened it to the page and saw that Kabuto had been journaling his latest research.
Thank you Kabuto for making this easier, Kakashi thought. He was looking at a detailed picture of an eye, with the optic nerve highlighted. Notes on how to cut the nerve with chakra told Kakashi what Kabuto had done to Sakura. There was a time element built into the jutsu. Over a few months the jutsu would become permanent. He didn't know why Kabuto had incorporated that, but it made sense given the Sound-nin's sadistic nature. Unfortunately the jutsu to reverse Kabuto's work wasn't included.
The jutsu could be easily replicated. It wasn't complicated, and he could ignore the time component. Without that it was simply slicing the nerve.
If I can replicate the jutsu, perhaps I could heal her wound, he thought. It was a long shot. People either had the ability to do medical jutsus or they didn't. Or so he'd always been told. He'd never tried.
I am a genius, he thought. It wasn't out of vanity that he accepted the title. He knew the burdens such a thing carried. If anyone could do this, he might get away with it.
I need someone to practice on, he thought. He called Ramen, his big bloodhound.
"What now?" Ramen asked. "I was sleeping."
"You're always sleeping," Kakashi said. "I figure in a place with this many labs there has to be a testing lab of some kind. Smell it out for me."
The bloodhound smelled the floor, and they left the room together. After about 30 minutes Ramen pointed, howled and ran down a corridor. Kakashi followed until Ramen identified a plain door. He could hear animal sounds behind it, and when he opened the door he was appalled at what he saw.
Kabuto had at least twenty animals caged; dogs, cats, monkeys, pigs, even a sheep. What bothered him was that some of the animals were hideously deformed from Kabuto's tests. A dog with one eye and burn marks snarled at him, and a cat with eight eyes spun a web and climbed to the ceiling. A dog with a very human face watched him, giving him shivers.
"Vivisection," he said. "That bastard."
"You're going to help them, right?" Ramen asked.
"I'll do what I can for them," Kakashi said. It wasn't a lie, but the only thing he could probably do for the animals was kill them humanely. He dismissed Ramen.
He went down the row, checking the animals' charts. After he made sure that none of the animals were people Kabuto had changed somehow, he killed the most mutated and the ones obviously in pain.
He found the three dogs that had been least tampered with. One was feral, but the other two wagged their tails at him. "You guys are still friendly, huh?" Kakashi asked. "I bet you haven't eaten in a while."
He fed all the lab animals and let one of his chosen three out, an energetic terrier who leapt all over him, licking his face. He put the dog back. "Sorry boy. You're too excitable."
He let another dog out, and it came out hesitantly, sniffing and coming to him with his head bowed and tail tucked in. It looked like a lab with some friendly visitor thrown in the mix.
"You'll do," Kakashi said. He petted the dog until it began to wag its tail. "I hate doing this, but I need you to help me with something. I'll try to make it hurt as little as possible."
The dog wagged his tail and looked at him trustfully. He'd done so many reprehensible things to humans, but for some reason hurting animals was so much harder. They were innocents.
He put his hand over one of the dog's eyes and passed chakra through it, hoping to reproduce Kabuto's jutsu. The dog's eye faded, looking just like Sakura's. It whined and cringed again. Kakashi petted it. "I'm sorry buddy." He waited until the dog calmed before he put him in the cage and left.
He had about an hour before dinner. He could wait for food, but it would probably be better for Sakura if she ate regularly. He quickly found a basic medical text and went back to the lab. "I'm going to call you Honor, ok?"
He put his hand over the dog's eye and tried to practice the jutsu he'd read. Nothing happened. He closed his eye to focus and thought about the instructions.
Chakra through the wound. Spread it out evenly, and rearrange the damaged cells to resemble the undamaged cells around them.
He tried again, but he knew he was doing something wrong. Jutsus weren't meant to be learned from books, and medical chakra was something he'd never even attempted. He refused to give up.
He brought Sakura some food, and when she was done he tried the healing jutsu on her eyes. Nothing. He hadn't expected much though. He was just hopeful.
"I'll get this Sakura," he said. "Don't despair."
He took Honor a treat, a bit of canned meat from Kabuto's stash. The dog was eager to see him now, and Kakashi gave him the treat as he talked to him. "Let's try this again." He attempted the jutsu, still with no reaction in the wound. He worked on the wound for hours, tweaking his chakra and trying to find out what he was missing.
He searched the library for any help, and he found other medical texts, including one specifically focusing on optical injuries. He sat on the floor, surrounded by fifteen books on a subject he'd never studied. I can do this, he thought.
He read until he found his head drooping toward the book. It was noon the next day. He found Sakura feeling her way around the room, touching each object. After he gave her another grey dish of what passed for food here, he tried the healing jutsu again. Nothing happened, but he didn't give up. He just hoped she wasn't going to give up on him.
He worked on Honor, finally taking him to the library so he could work as he read. He was irritated when he finally had to sleep the next day, so he dragged a cot into the room to save time. He had the feeling of time slipping away from him. He had to be able to heal her before it was too late.
He had gotten used to her wandering around the lab near her room, but one day he couldn't find her.
"Sakura!" he yelled, feeling stupid when he remembered she couldn't hear. He tried to use his Sharingan, but he cursed as he realized he'd used so much chakra on Honor he couldn't use a large scale jutsu. He searched for an hour, moving through corridors and rooms to no avail.
He called Ramen. "I need you to track Sakura," he said.
Ramen put his nose to the ground and ran, first down the hall and then making several turns, taking Kakashi to a place he hadn't seen. The wall changed to hard-packed dirt, and the tunnel went downward.
There's no telling what's down here. People like Kabuto usually put their worst experiments in the least accessible places.
He found her touching the wall, moving downward into whatever hell Kabuto had made here. Kakashi pulled her close, his heart racing. "Don't do that to me," he said. "You scared me." He couldn't help crying, even though he hated himself a bit for it.
He worked harder, barely stopping to sleep. He could feel his chakra affecting Honor's eye, but not enough to do much.
One day Honor's eye looked less hazy than it had. Kakashi rushed to Sakura's room, excited at his discovery. If he could help her sight even a bit she'd probably feel less isolated. He felt his chakra move through her, and some of the cells responded, moving slightly inside.
Like Honor, her eyes looked clearer, but when he moved a hand in front of them she didn't track it.
This isn't a failure, he thought. It's just a partial success.
He covered her eyes with a bandage, just in case she was light sensitive after the jutsu.
The next time he tried to heal her, nothing happened. I could swear I was getting the hang of this.
If he had been driven before, he became single-mindedly focused now. He stopped everything but studying. He quit even attempting to cook, throwing something from a can on a plate and eating hurriedly while he read. He quit talking to Honor, using his time as efficiently as possible. Only the fact that Sakura depended on him for food kept him from completely forgetting his own need for sustenance.
He finally found a book called "Common Mistakes Among New Healers". It was so simple, he thought. He moderated his chakra, even though it felt like he was using far to little. It went against his instincts. As a ninja specializing in attack and defense he was used to putting incredible amounts of chakra into jutsus. The more powerful the jutsu, the stronger the attack.
With medical chakra it was different. He had to place a small amount of chakra in the wound, gradually increasing it while spreading it out and healing the cells.
He used the Sharingan, looking at the individual cells as he channeled chakra through them. He saw the chakra pass through them, doing nothing. He slowed the flow of chakra, reducing it until he didn't think it would be effective at all.
When he finished, Honor looked at him with two perfectly functioning eyes.
Sakura's eyes responded as well. He saw her eyes follow his movements. "Welcome back, sweetie," he said. He wiped tears from the Sharingan. Obito always was a crybaby.
He pulled a pad of paper from the bed stand and after making sure her eyes didn't hurt and explaining what had happened for the past two months, he took her to Kabuto's library.
Sakura went through the books, picking out some to take back to Konoha. Now that he had time to spare Kakashi looked through the non-medical section of Kabuto's library, where he found some very interesting porn. I didn't even know tentacles could do that.
Sakura tried to see what he was looking at, but he snapped the book shut and put it behind his back. That last picture would scar her for life.
"Nothing," he said, hiding the book. "Just a book."
She rolled her eyes and went back to looking at medical texts.
He needed a break. They couldn't leave until the blizzards let up, and he had worn himself out trying to heal Sakura. He hid, reading Kabuto's porn. He actually learned some things.
The day they left he went to the lab. He put the animals down painlessly. He saved Honor until last. He let the lab mix out of the cage. "Not you, buddy. You're coming with me. It's the least I can do."
When he met Sakura, Honor leapt up and put his paws on her chest.
"Down, Honor," Kakashi said. "Bad dog! You need a lot of training."
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He'd never been so happy to see Konoha in his life. As he left Sakura at her mother's house, he ruffled her hair. Tsunade could fix her ears; he was sure of it. He pulled out his new favorite porn as he walked away, glad that his adopted daughter would be ok.