I have a thing for water rescues, so this is going to be an exploration of various rescues and how they would differ depending on the nature of the rescuer's and rescuee's friendships.

Disclaimers: I own nothing related to the Naruto universe.

Air.

He was running out of air.

Fast.

The concrete block encasing his feet was not going to allow him to do much, though, and with his hands chained behind his back, he couldn't form any seals to try any jutsus to break it.

This will slow you down, you damn speed demon! his captors had joked as they'd poured the thick gray mixture into the bucket around his feet. They'd come from out of nowhere, an entire platoon of ANBU-level enemies surrounding the camp when his partner stepped away for a few minutes. He'd managed to take out a couple of them, but they'd been too smart, fast, well-informed and well trained to fight off all of them.

They'd used the element of surprise to quickly overpower him, then blindfolded him tightly and tied his hands even more tightly behind his back, then carried him away. He could only hope his partner had been safely ignored, because there was nothing he could do for her now.

Because now he was going to die.

He'd held his breath as long as possible, but there hadn't been much to hold because his captors had thought of that too, and landed a solid punch to his solar plexus just as they dumped him overboard. It had knocked the wind out of him and ensured he wouldn't have time to draw in any extra air before the block encasing his feet was dragging him down to the bottom, here in the deep middle of the deep lake.

He'd twisted this way and that to try to find any possible way to worm his way out of the restraints. He'd even gone for the pick he kept in the back of his belt for situations just like this, but the restraints were simply too tight.

As the depth increased, so did the pressure in his ears. The water seemed to roar against his eardrums, painful and deafening. His chest felt like there was a bull inside, or maybe a mountain-sized porcupine, ramming and scraping and straining against his ribcage in its struggle to escape, but that was just the tiny amount of air that he'd already held captive for far too long.

Due to the blindfold, he couldn't actually see when his vision started to go fuzzy, but he felt his mind start to lose focus about the same time that bubbles started to escape from between his clenched teeth. The roar of pressure in his ears softened to a distant rumble.

Rin…Obito…watch over my team. I'll see you soon.

The current got stronger…did lakes have a current?

It didn't matter.

As soon as the last of his air escaped from him, he felt his lungs force themselves open again – pulling in nothing but water.

The incoming water made his chest feel like it was suddenly filled with lead, or maybe mercury would be more accurate. Compared to the sweet air he'd never taste again, it was heavy, thick, cold, and definitely deadly.

And it burned worse than holding his breath had burned.

His body tried to cough, but it only sent the last few residual bubbles to meander up toward the surface, and pulled in more water…

…which made him need…

…to cough more…

…but he…

…couldn't.

Not any longer.

He couldn't fight any longer.

His body refused to answer his mind, and his mind seemed to lose its voice in the darkness.

He welcomed it.

He was distantly aware of when he crossed death's threshold, because his feet were suddenly free, then his hands, then he felt Rin behind him, locking her petite arms tightly around his chest.

Hugging me without even saying hello…that's so like her.

Sakura had watched from behind a bush as a massive horde of enemies – there had to be at least twelve of them, and they all looked to be as dangerous as any Akatsuki – finished overpowering Kakashi, binding him hand and foot.

He was blindfolded from before she started watching, so they must have known to block him from using his Sharingan beforehand. That meant she wouldn't have a chance of rescuing him in a direct assault by herself, so she would have to follow silently and wait for the perfect opportunity.

She waited and watched, watched and waited, for two days while the concrete took its time to set. Her opportunity didn't come until the enemies were shoving him over the edge of their boat, and she was able to creep along the edge of the lake to find cover among the reeds to slip into the water.

She was careful not to let any bubbles escape to give away her presence, and her concealed chakra meant Kakashi wouldn't be able to sense her either. She just hoped he wouldn't fight against her.

She reached out with her own senses, feeling for her sensei's familiar chakra signature. The visibility wasn't great here in the lake, especially the closer she got to where Kakashi was stirring up the lake bottom with his movement, but that would help obscure the view from up above if any of the enemies were waiting around.

She saw his hair first. Stark white and waving like long grass or short seaweed, bobbing up and down in the center of a cloud of stirred-up lake-dirt. He was struggling when he first came into view, but the closer she got, the less he seemed to be struggling against his bonds. He's fading already! Not good! She kicked harder and used her chakra to sweep more water with each stroke of her arms. She saw the ripples affect the waving of his hair- it was almost like a breeze flowed through it from the increased speed of her swimming.

By the time she reached him, the air and the fight had both gone out of him. But she couldn't go straight upwards, or else the captors would see him. Her own lungs were craving a fresh breath, but she could make it for a couple more moments at least.

She drew chakra to her fist and shattered the concrete block encasing his feet with a single punch, then grabbed the lock on the chain around his torso and arms and crushed it in her hand. She lost precious seconds loosening it from around his body, with his head just nodding listlessly in the water while she pulled it down off of him like stripping the paper off a set of chopsticks.

Then he was free. Unconscious, but free. And they both needed oxygen, and fast! She quickly slipped her hands around his torso, just under his arms, then found a stone on the bottom of the lake.

He was heavy in the water, flack vest dragging against the current, but she was strong.

The stone she pushed off of broke into three pieces when her chakra-strengthened legs kicked off against it in the direction of the reeds where she'd entered the lake, and when she had to surface before she reached the edge, she was relieved to see that the captors in their motor boat were staring straight down into the cloudy water, so she gulped down fresh air, checked to see if Kakashi was capable of the same – he wasn't – then she dived back down to get as far along the lake's edge as she dared before Kakashi's life would be truly and definitely forfeit.

She pulled him like a wet rag up onto the rocky edge of the water, making sure to use the large boulders that dotted this part of the lake's coast as cover from the boat's line of sight.

She flopped him on his back and immediately her hands were on him, checking his throat for a pulse and patting, shaking, nudging, prodding to elicit any kind of reaction from him, but there was nothing. No reaction, no sign that he was going to be alright.

"Sensei? Kakashi-Sensei! Can you hear me? You have to wake up! Kakashi-Sensei!"

Her left hand went green on his chest, stimulating key points in his lungs to try to make him breathe again, while her right hand patted his masked cheek gently but with urgency. She pulled his blindfold off as she spoke, revealing his normally-exposed right eye. It was closed.

Left hand still glowing on his chest, she used her right hand's index finger and thumb to pull the lid open and see if his eyes were reactive. At least his pupil dilated ever-so-slightly when the sunlight hit it, after being closed for so long. That was the first promising sign she'd seen.

He should be breathing by now! Why isn't he? She added her right hand to her left, and the green glow over his torso got brighter for several seconds. His chest remained still as the stone he was lying on, leaking rivulets of water down into the lake from his drenched form. This isn't working.

His lungs weren't damaged, she realized. Just full of what they shouldn't have in them – water. And his heart was just stalled due to either shock or lack of oxygen…also not damaged. Bright green eyes widened and the green glow faded from her hands.

She lifted her hands away from his body, raising and locking them together in a clenched fist in the air. Then she brought her fist-hammer down on his chest, as hard as she could without chakra.

She may have heard something crack, but it worked!

Immediately, water came up through the mask. Then his body seemed to shock itself into consciousness, and he was on his side and coughing hard, again and again, and with each contraction of his ribcage, more water was expelled through his mask onto the stones.

If her blow hadn't broken anything, the intensity of his coughing now certainly would, and his arms involuntarily wrapped themselves tightly around his own torso. So Sakura let her hand glow again against his back again, rubbing softly in gentle circles to let the glow broaden across his lungs and his ribs.

Burning and choking were the first sensations Kakashi was aware of, and he felt every muscle in his body – every fibre of his very being, it seemed – contracting hard, all at once, to get rid of the water inside him. But every time he coughed, more water came, and it was still there when he tried to inhale again – he just had to get the water out of the way so that clean, light air could actually come in!

More important than the sharp grinding in his ribs or the excruciating involuntary lock-up of his arms, legs, abs, and every other moveable muscle, the heaviness inside his chest had to be pushed out! Later he could worry about surroundings and enemies and the rest of the pain.

Finally, he was able to get a few slivers of air in, and that helped to soothe the burning in his lungs more than anything else could have. His coughing slowed, still painful but much more bearable.

He could see, but the sunlight was sharp in his eye – his blindfold had come off at some point, but all he could see was brightness as he blinked – the water was still everywhere. He could feel his hair plastered wetly to his face, and his clothes were heavily soggy.

He was lying on stones, mostly large ones, and still very very tense from all his struggling and coughing. On his side still, apparently. He could hear water lapping softly against the stones not far from his feet, and birds singing.

And he felt the familiar tingling heat of a medic's Magical Palm jutsu against his ribs. Someone was behind him, healing him. …Probably not an enemy…

"Kakashi-sensei? Can you hear me?"

Sakura.

Not an enemy, then, and everything was going to be fine. He let his body go lax against the stones and fought against his body's natural instinct to try to suck in as much air as possible all at once - shallow breaths didn't hurt as much, and didn't choke him as badly.

He tried to answer, but it only came out as another series of coughs, so he settled for nodding.

"It's okay. Don't try to talk yet," he heard her say. "It's lucky I was able to get to you in time."

He gradually became aware of her hand moving on his back. It was comforting – reassuring him without words that she was there, and wasn't going to let him die.

His coughing slowed again, and he shifted to lie on his back. Her hands shifted with him to glow over his chest once again – it felt good; her healing jutsu eased the pain he still felt in his lungs.

When his vision slowly adjusted to the brightness of the daytime and he was able to focus his gaze, it was good to see her dripping wet pink hair and her worried green eyes. She looked soggy too. Once he'd confirmed visually that it was indeed Sakura, he let his eye close in the sunlight and focused on breathing steadily and as deeply as he dared.

"Sensei, I'm really really glad you're alright! But as soon as you can move, we should get out of here – I don't know if they'll realized you're not in the lake anymore but I don't want to stick around in case they decide to search the area."

Ahhh so there was still danger in the area. Some things don't change.

He gingerly touched his own chest – no major damage, it seemed, apart from the ribs Sakura was already in the process of healing. And a stinging sensation in his lungs that probably wasn't going away for a few days.

But for Sakura to be the one to save him instead of the other way around… Some things don't change, but some things do.

He studied her for a moment, noting how her gaze was fixed on a point out on the water even as her hands kept glowing against his body, and allowed himself a small, proud smile.

Then he took another shaky breath – his deepest one yet without choking – and hauled himself up into a sitting position.

Time to go.

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