Chapter 1: The Embarrassing Thing Forgotten6/16/07
"If you hurt Kakashi, I will kill you!" she screamed into the darkness.
† † †
It's been a little over two years since Naruto left with Jiraiya, and
Sasuke left seeking power. It's early spring in Konoha, the trees are
starting to bud. Tsunade is the new hokage and also Sakura's new
sensei. Kakashi was Sakura's sensei back when they were in team 7, but
even though that connection is gone they still have been hanging out
and training a lot. Tsunade may look like the perfect ninja, being one of
the three legendary sannins and all, but she really isn't all that perfect
underneath. She's a compulsive gambler, and sake is her biggest
weakness, but it's still nothing compared to her medical abilities and
temper. She's a famous medical ninja with insane strength and
compassion like Sakura, so you could say 'birds of a feather'. Sakura is
now 18 and a chuunin, she has also developed great medical-nin abilities
and her inhuman strength is now tamed to her advantage in being a
ninja. Right now she is with Kakashi in Tsunade's office receiving a
mission.
"…It's only a C rank mission, pretty simple, so it shouldn't take you
two very long." Tsunade said this more as an order then a statement.
"Hai! We'll report right back sensei." Said Sakura.
"Well, good luck you two, and don't cause too much trouble." And
with that she smiled and dismissed them.
"Hai!" they both said as they flashed out of the room.
On their way out of the village Sakura remembered something she
forgot, and started to blush when she thought about asking to go back
and get it. Naturally, Kakashi instantly noticed this, (it may not look
like it, but the care-free man doesn't miss much and he's been around
Sakura more often, so he figured a few things out). He simply smiled,
slowed his pace, wiped his brow and said, "What? Did you forget
something." Sakura nodded and started blushing harder. Kakashi just
chuckled and said, "I think I know what you forgot." And with that
Sakura blushed even redder, like she used to do around Sasuke, and
smacked him up side the head. "Well we better go back," he said while
rubbing his now sore head. So they turned around and went back to
Sakura's apartment.
She flashed up the out side stairs and into her apartment. She
walked up the three steps leading from the living room/kitchen to her
bedroom and bathroom. She went into her bathroom and reached into a
hidden drawer to grab eight compact tampons and four pads. Hearing
the squeaky wooden door open and close, she quickly stuffed them into
her backpack. When she came back down she saw a hilarious site.
Kakashi was marveling at her sky blue and cloud painted living room,
while sitting on her light green pullout couch with bright fuzzy pink
pillows of all sizes around him. He was smiling with his animated eye
turned up side down.
"Nice…Ready to go?" he questioned. Sakura nodded. Embarrassed
at seeing Kakashi admiring her work and sitting in all those pink pillows,
she started fighting to hold back another blush and the laughter that
would soon follow.
"Do you want to see the rest of my place?" she blurted out
without thinking.
His smile was gone then and he gave her a questioning look. But
when he saw that she lost the fight for control of her blushing and
started to shift uncomfortably, he began to think that the question
was to loosen the tension she felt from his admiration, and not that
she was trying to get him out of the pillows so she wouldn't burst out
laughing. Unfortunately because of the look he gave her it made it even
harder on her to contain her giggling because of how silly he looked.
Recognizing what he thought of as his mistake he quickly smiled and
answered, "I'd love to, but then we have to get going."
Kakashi got up, and to Sakura's relief, followed as she led him
away from the fuzzy pillows. Almost immediately they past her little
wooden dining table with three different chairs and a small vase of
flowers in the center, and went through a door way and into her
kitchen. In the kitchen Kakashi saw a magnificent star field played
across every thing in there. The scattered cupboards all surrounding
a small window that lead to a view…, the small stove/oven extending
the counter tops on the left wall, and along with the dorm-room sized
fridge and freezer. Again Kakashi was intrigued by Sakura's painting, and
fantasized what the other rooms could possibly look like.
"You like it so far? It's not too much?" Sakura asked with a child's
innocence.
"I love it. You did an amazing job, each room is like entering
another world, or it's a door into a part of your world. What was your
inspiration?" Kakashi asked interested in what her answer might be.
"Well the living room was inspired by Naruto, and how full of
energy he is. I just wanted to try to bring that feeling into my home,
because that feeling just makes me happy." Kakashi looked at her
slightly puzzled, and yet he understood what she meant, they were
both missing the hyperactive knucklehead. "And, well,… this room was
inspired by Sasuke and,…" she trailed off and looked away as a lone
tear sighlently ran down her cheek. She reached up meekly to brush
the tear away, but before she could Kakashi was there in a blink of an
eye, he had learned before that this was a tender subject. It was not
like she didn't love him any more, but the love she felt for him now, was
that of a brother. This had ended up making it even more painful for
her than it was, but over the years Kakashi had seen improvement, and
with that an even fierier determination to bring him back. He held her
face towards his in his strong hands, and tenderly brushed the tear
understandingly away with his thumb.
"I'm sorry." And then his sturdy arms were around her,
protectively embracing her now limp, trembling body. She reacted
instinctively and rapped her thin muscled arms around him, and pressed
with her hands on his musclelar back, pushing him closer to her. Then
she buried her head deep into his shoulder and let only a few more
tears escape. With this Kakashi brought one of his hands up to her
head and stroked her silky pink hair.
"Sueemassen." He repeated again in a deep husky whisper.
"Arigato-gosimesta, Kakashi-kun." Sakura whispered weakly into
his shoulder. They stood there like that a little longer, in the comfort
of each other's arms. It was getting late and they had to get going, but
Sakura was too weak to move, her body was almost completely drained
of energy. Kakashi knew this is what Sasuke did to her, and he would
end up having to carry her, so he gently tried to moved her around and
lift her onto his back. "Hummm…" Sakura groaned as she was being
moved, she had started to doze in Kakashi's shoulder. Right where his
neck met his shoulder was the greatest spot. It had become more
comforting than her teddy bear she always slept with, Naruto had won
it at a carnival for her a long time ago. It was warm with the sent of
cool earth, rich tree bark, and the wind, and she wasn't about to move
from it. She clung to him, tightening her grip with her human strength
every time he tried to move her. She didn't want to move, she wanted
to stay like this with him for as long as she could.
"Alright, you win." She heard him gasp through the clutch she held
around hi neck, as he returned his arms back around her and scooped
her up.
"Hummm… Arigato." She whispered as she loosened her grip and
buried her head back into his neck. Kakashi tightened his grip around
her, flashed out of her apartment, and was at the west gate of Konoha
in a couple minutes.
Chapter 2: The Mission
With the sun almost set, the night grew darker around their
stake-out place. Sakura had regained her strength and was completely
fired up. Their job was to capture a gang who vandalized and
demolished parts of small villages that are friends with Konoha. This
had caused some pretty big damage that Tsunade could not ignore. This
terrorizing hasn't stopped because the vandals are very clever about
hiding themselves with the help of a fairly strong ninja. In the reports
are rumors that this ninja has a kekei-genki, that is why Kakashi was
brought along, (and he was also the only jounin available). Kakashi and
Sakura had decided to go with a genjutsu trap that would make the
enemy believe they had fallen into a pit of fire that never ended,
eventually exhausting themselves, and if anyone figured this out
Kakashi would use his Sharingan. If this trap failed they agreed that
they take action using force. Sakura was brought along in case this
happened, because the vandals might become too injured to move back
to Konoha for interrogation.