*Spoilers for 474.
Her forehead was creased, delicate brows pressed together as the fingertips of her hand brushed wonderingly over the one laid bare by the absence of his hitai-ate – eye carefully held closed, of course. He watched her closely – there was really nothing else he could command his body to do at the moment. The little lines the muscles of her face made as they pushed the inner corners of her eyebrows together stood out foremost to his unusually narrow-banded attention.
She was looking at him but not really, paying more attention to the path her hand was taking across his face. Her fingers were mapping what they could and he watched her watching the hairs of his eyebrow falling back into place after soft fingertips brushed over them. He wasn't sure, really, why she was doing this. It wasn't anymore than he'd ever revealed to them before. But perhaps the opportunity to physically touch him was sufficient enough a lure to entice her to commit such an act.
And yet…all he could do was the same, to stare at her with equal bewilderment.
"Hokage-sama."
He was trying to turn toward the ANBU whom had broken into this moment. But even knowing that the information he would herald was bound to be high priority, he was having difficulty breaking away from her intensely contemplative eyes. He felt…so numbed by her touch.
Unable to fully turn away from her green, green eyes, he eventually met those behind the porcelain white mask in a sidelong glance.
"…Yes?"
He was aware of the wave of paralyzing shock that washed over her face.
"We've found the Uchiha."
There was a sudden shift to an almost overwhelming defensive aura.
He didn't miss the upsurge of betrayal. Her eyes flashed with hatred…but briefly. She understood his position, really she did. And he knew that… But he couldn't stop the guilt that flared up within just as she couldn't stop her anger.
His brows fell into a straight line as his mouth hardened in mental preparation for the oncoming assault.
He deflected her chakra-laden fist by swinging up with his left, fingers bladed and connecting with the inside of her wrist. Sweeping outward, he stepped into it to redirect her damaging blow away from him, his right just as quickly coming around to clamp around her wrist. The elbow of his arm already in position, he jutted forward and angled to plant it in her solar-plexus. Remorseful, he guided her stumbling body to collapse in the chair behind her. His knee came down hard into her right thigh and he cocked his hip to lean into it, shin pinning her other down and her to her seat.
Between him and the chair, she had nowhere to go. She was too angry to fight against his restraint and he too incapable to deal with her tears. So he retreated to his duty and turned as much as his hold would allow to address the courier.
"Very well," he half-sighed to the ANBU in a sidelong acknowledgement, turning only enough so that his order projected over his shoulder. "Commence with the appropriate plan of action."
"Yes, sir!" They were both sure a salute accompanied the acceptance, but one was unwilling to watch it and the other unable to see it.
When the messenger left, he turned slowly back to her. For a moment she huffed as she fought to catch her breath and rationale, sniffing as she looked up at him through lashes clumped with her liquid frustration. He thought she looked so much like a child right then.
She sniffed lightly again as her breath hitched. "You're hokage."
He looked down at the leg holding her in place and suddenly feeling a flush of sheepishness, stood up off her. Her wrist was released a little more slowly, as if he was unsure about risking another attack. But she'd been sufficiently cowed and her arms laid in her lap, hands strangling the edges of her medic apron and twisting it to certain death.
He blinked calculatingly at her, looking for the underneath. He nodded, "I am."
She stabbed him with a quick glare laced with heavy betrayal before redirecting it towards her lap. He sighed and looked away from her out the still open door after the exiting messenger.
Although unofficially. It's not like he'd chosen this. It was…just how things had turned out. He shook his head to himself.
Her brows knitted again, although this time, it was in puzzlement.
"I didn't want this," he spoke away from her. "The whole hokage business was…never my thing." He looked up to the ceiling. "But I really have no other choice when the Grand Kage Summit has collectively decided that I'm far more trustworthy than Danzo."
She frowned at the hidden bitter smile he directed at her, obvious by the lines at his eye. But his cynicism reminded her of Danzo's ultimate goal. She knew the village itself couldn't overlook it, but still…!
"You won't…kill him, will you?"
He directed a very serious stare at her, his eyebrows compressed into straight lines. "I can't make that promise." His only open eye took a moment to silently beseech of her. "You know that," he whispered.
Her tears surged anew, budding at the lower lids before spilling over in fat heavy drops. "But you said you would never let a teammate die, Kakashi! You swore with your life!" Her vehement green eyes dared him to go back on his word, to prove to her that it'd all been a heart-rending lie.
His features fell knowing what was to come. "He's openly gone against the village, Sakura. I…" He let his eye bore into hers, "…I can't protect him anymore." He paused to take in her hands once again wringing her uniform, tears dotting the backs of them. "And he abandoned us." Team 7 – Team Kakashi – went unsaid. The village wouldn't extend any mercy to the boy now…and he was obligated to follow-through on their wishes – within reason.
He stepped back from her before fully turning away. "With that, he hasn't been a teammate for a long time. It's time he answered for his transgressions."
He looked back at her, watched as the emotions played across in a reprise of its previous show. She'd grown so much over the years but apparently the little girl he'd first been saddled with had somehow survived in fragments within. She was breaking in front of him.
He couldn't stand to watch any longer.
With that he left her to her grief, her anger, her sorrow- and turned deaf ears to the sound of the last bit of her innocence dying behind him.