Author's notes:

1)Don't read the first 2 stories in here… I am still revising them. Thank you.

2) The third story, "closing time", is the only one available for reading… please read and review. Thanks!

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Glass Flight

akai kinoko

He carried her away from the battlefield, away from the danger. Their mission was over, and both of them were not badly hurt. However, he felt the need to bring her to a place of quiet before heading back to Konoha. Her weariness made him overtly worried and prodded him to find a place where they can rest. And so he carried her, like a father cradles his little child, and looked for that site of momentary solace.

And he found the suitable spot, a tree in the middle of the clearing inside the forest, a few meters away from the bloodied and lifeless bodies of their enemy. It was a typical place to rest, nothing quite extraordinary, except:

As he began to approach the tree, a thousand butterflies flew out the tall grasses, spiraling upwards as though there had been an instant whirlwind of petals.

The swift yet ironically soothing flight of the butterflies made the female shinobi's eyes flutter open, rivaling the graceful movement of the butterflies' wings, thus drawing the male's mismatched eyes to her and removing his attention away from those magnificent winged creatures.

He simply smiled and went to the tree and sat down. He carefully placed her down as he leaned against the trunk, and allowed her to sit up and lean against his shoulder.

The tranquil silence they held for a few minutes made him close his eyes and think of the incident concerning the butterflies. No matter how beautiful they were as they flew up to glaze the cerulean sky, he couldn't just disregard what flying butterflies, especially in the clearing of a forest, meant.

He had read it from one of the classic books he read before he became obsessed with the icha icha paradise. And from what he recalls, the action of those butterflies was not helping him ease his worry on his student.

But as he felt those troubled stares piercing through his closed eyelids, he can't help but wake up and look at the source of those troubled orbs.

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Once again, she looked at him… her eyes laced with a form of surrender; her eyes had trimmings of death.

"Oy, is something the matter?", he started to ask her.

She looked at him more intensely, yet her eyes were filled with the same silencing blankness.

It was like she was under the spell of the mangekyou sharingan.

In a split second, under that captivating stare, he was again immersed in her sadness and her confusion. She was getting depressed again, about something that she does not know.

Instinctively, he bridged the gap between them and pulled her close…There was something in her that made him frightened. He was already accustomed to her often falling into deep depression (due to the fact that she was weak and can't do anything about Sasuke's disappearance), yet this instance was somewhat different. And so it frightened him.

For the past two weeks, she had been happy… greeting each morning with such fervor for living. She was filled with goals and dreams and wishes, and she was hell-bent on realizing them…

But today, now, all that life, that youth, and that sparkle, had disappeared from her.

He knew she was spent; she was already wasted because of the frequent missions given to her-- one after the other. But surely that was not the reason of her sudden fall into melancholy, right? It surely was not the cause of her emptiness, right?

In his act of desperation, he called out to her. Even though she was close to him, she felt so distant that he had to speak in a clear and audible manner for her to look back and respond to him…

"Oy… what's wrong with you?..." He asked worriedly

She did not respond… She closed her eyes and let her mind wander off… He started to panic, and he did not know why. Everything turned out to be really confusing and it was the first time he felt he did not know what to do. The life he is now cradling in his arms felt really fragile, it was on the verge of breaking and falling down six feet under.

She suddenly sensed the fear and the panic she was causing him, and mustered all her strength to create a mask, to conceal her nearing surrender; to prevent her sensei from protecting her, for the last time. Because she knew that this is one battle that's nearing its end.

"No, I'll be fine. I just need to rest. I feel so tired from all the hard missions I've been doing."

"Then you must tell the Hokage about this… You must not tire yourself…"

"Hush now, I'll be fine… Don't worry about me, I'll be fine… Ne? Just let me lean on you and rest. Give me five minutes…anata, then I'll be fine and we can go back home."

And so he gave her five minutes, cradling her gently in his arms and softly kissing her lips from time to time, pouring his heart out to her with each passionately delivered kiss. One hand gently stroked her hair and while his other arm was supporting her back and allowing him to hold her closer. He wanted to make her feel she was not alone, that at least he was there to take care of her, to give her all his time and attention.

But one minute was all that the game gave her.

He was the last one who saw her.

He was the only one she needed to see before leaving. But she completely forgot to take off something, something that prevented her from saying an honest goodbye, something that will forever conceal the reason of her immense sadness.

"You said you'll be fine, Sakura-chan…"

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It's been three weeks since Hatake Kakashi returned from that last mission. But what surprised most people was that since his return, he has refrained from wearing his mask, finally revealing his face to the public and satiating their long-held curiosity of how he really looked like.

But either they were displeased or overjoyed with his recent action, they had one question in mind:

"Why on earth did he suddenly remove his mask?"

---------------------owari

March 28,2006 6:15pm