"Ah, shit."
Kakashi would have smiled at Shikamaru if he'd been able to lift his head, or even turn it to get his mouth off the ground. Instead he managed a groan, most of which was muffled by grass and dirt.
"Sakura!" Shikamaru called, already exasperated. Most likely it was because Kakashi had interrupted one of several afternoon naps—if he remembered correctly, he'd crashed somewhere on the Nara compound.
"You've got to be kidding me." The sound of Sakura's voice brought both an instant relief and a dread that sank in his stomach…or maybe that was just a stab wound. In any case, she'd heal him but would send him straight to the hospital, and she knew he hated it there.
He heard a slight rustle in the grass as Sakura knelt by him then felt a tug at his shoulder as she rolled him onto his back. The afternoon sunlight hit his eyes, too harsh and bright, and they scrunched closed with a resulting groan of protest.
"Well, at least you're alive." Her hands worked fast, yanking his vest open and prying his sweater off his abdominal wounds, dried blood glueing fabric to the skin. Kakashi stifled a hiss as she pulled off one of the bigger patches—he was sure some skin had come off with that one. "Barely, I might add. Your chakra levels are so low it's a miracle you aren't dead. No wonder we couldn't pick up your signature."
"Barely's something," he mumbled through a dry throat, knowing she wouldn't respond to it.
The sting of her chakra entered his system beneath the hand she placed between his chest and stomach. Not the most pleasant feeling in the world when she wasn't taking her time. He dared to crack an eye open, wincing before adjusting to the light, and saw Sakura hovering over him, focused on the wound he could feel just starting to mend at the edges.
In her medic mode, Sakura tended to close her eyes in concentration until a tiny line formed between her brows, right below her seal. He stared at it dazedly while she worked and noticed how the little diamond changed colors in the light.
"So," she started after a minute, and he realized he'd been about to fall asleep under her ministrations. "You wanna tell me what happened?"
Kakashi wanted to give her the old it's confidential, Sakura-chan, but he didn't feel like incurring any anger while he was at her mercy. "Uh…ambush?"
A pink eyebrow arched speculatively at him. "You got ambushed."
"Sure did."
She sighed sharply. "Well, with these injuries, I can't say I don't believe you." An eye opened to glance down toward his feet. "Don't tell me you ran all the way back here on a broken leg."
"Was it that rogue syndicate in Iwa again?" Shikamaru strolled over to stand beside Sakura, glancing down at Kakashi with mild interest. "I thought ANBU took care of that a few weeks back."
Well, if the kid already knew about it… "Yeah, I did too. Bad intel."
Shikamaru opened his mouth to respond, but Sakura scowled, hand in the air to stop him. There was a hollow snap as she pulled her chakra back and Kakashi jerked at the sensation. "Are you telling me you came all the way from Iwa like this?"
"Maybe."
Her hand curled into a fist, then she mashed her palm against her forehead mumbling something that sounded uncannily like motherfucker.
"Kakashi-sensei…" He could almost hear her teeth grinding. "You've lost so much blood that your heart is barely managing to beat. Your wounds are starting to get infected. You're beyond dehydrated, of course, and your bone is literally poking out of your leg." She glared at him so fiercely he almost started to sweat. "Shall I go on?"
"That won't be necessary." He creased his eyes into happy crescents, waiting for her to go on anyway. An angry Sakura was an unstoppable Sakura.
"How on earth have you managed to live this long? And how in the hell did you manage to deplete your chakra this much?" Sakura reached over to roll Kakashi's pants up to his knee; he jolted slightly when it grazed the broken part of his leg. Shit, that hurt more than he'd thought it would. "The only person with bigger reserves than you is Naruto! A jinchuuriki!" Talking more to herself than anyone, she firmly held his thigh down to steady it while she pulsed more chakra into his system, shaking her head all the while.
"What I still want to know is how you of all people got ambushed," Shikamaru chimed in.
"Well, when I realized what was happening, I tried to use my sharingan," Kakashi drawled, voice casual despite the searing pain of his bone snapping back together, "but then I remembered I don't have one anymore."
The two stared at him silently with dead eyes, Sakura's glowing hand hovering above his calf, and for a long moment the only sound was a deer bleating several yards away. He gave them another eye smile.
"Maybe I should just go ahead and kill him," Sakura muttered with a nod of approval from Shikamaru.
"I'll dig another grave. No one will find him out here."
Kakashi cleared his throat. "It wasn't that bad. Sasuke was there so we managed to wipe them out."
Sakura immediately perked at the mention of her teammate, her hand tightening minutely against his thigh. "Where is he now?"
"Uh, I don't really know," he confessed. The details were hazy.
"Was he hurt?"
That he did remember. "Yeah. Pretty severely. He'd been experimenting with his rinnegan before we were attacked, so it ate up a lot of his chakra." It was probably what alerted the rogue-nin to their presence, too, but he didn't feel like mentioning that. "I told him I could make it back on my own, so he went off on his merry way."
Shikamaru snorted. "Typical."
"He didn't want to come back here? Not even for medical care?" They both knew that if Sasuke was anything, it was meticulous with his physical health and strength, and he didn't like to leave injuries unattended…unlike some other ninja.
"Honestly, Sakura-chan, he's probably fine." His voice was growing weaker the longer he talked, bordering on a croak, and the chatting was tiring him out on top of everything else. "He just told me he'd get himself taken care of, and that was that."
If Kakashi really thought about it, he probably was headed to meet that Uzumaki girl, but he couldn't really be sure if they were still in touch. Sasuke wasn't exactly notorious for his loyalty.
Sakura, surprisingly enough, seemed satisfied with that answer. Perhaps she was thinking the same thing. Or it could be she was just glad Kakashi wasn't sugarcoating things like he used to.
"If he said he's fine, then I'm sure he's fine." She rolled down his pant leg more carefully this time. "At any rate, we need to get you to the hospital. Shikamaru?"
"No."
"You take him directly to the west wing on the third floor. I need to go tell Tsunade-shishou about this." Standing up, she brushed dirt off her knees and clothes. Kakashi noticed for the first time that she wasn't wearing her usual garb, but instead a green sundress now streaked with blood and dirt.
"Don't feel like it," Shikamaru said dismissively. "And besides, he got blood on my favorite deer. I'm morally obligated to not—"
"You've got ten minutes." And then she dashed off, visibly pissed from impatience.
There was a moment where the two simply stared at each other, wondering why the hell Sakura depended on the laziest two people in the world to get their shit together, before Shikamaru rolled his head around like he'd just woken up. Then he mumbled, "Pain in my ass," and leaned down to pick up Kakashi, heaving him over his shoulders with a few aggravated grunts.
"You know, we could just…not go." It was worth a try.
Shikamaru snorted again. "Yeah, and risk getting yelled at and nagged to no end? I'm good."
"You're not worried she'll beat you to smithereens?" Kakashi asked as he was readjusted into a piggybacking position.
"Getting hit is one thing 'cause even if it knocks your lights out, it's over in a few seconds. Sakura nagging, though? That could go on for weeks." He hitched the dead weight of the limp body higher onto his back. "Troublesome woman, I swear."
Kakashi gave a knowing chuckle. "Watch the leg."
"You'll live," Shikamaru replied, but loosened his grip anyway as they took off through the forest.
They passed a few groups of deer as they made their way off the grounds, and eventually they passed one being cleaned of blood by a member of the Nara staff, the suds on its back an ugly pink-brown. "Oh yeah, and you owe me for the deer. At least one afternoon volunteering at the academy or a B-rank mission. Your choice."
"Mah, be reasonable, Shika-kun. I needed a crutch. Have pity on an old man." Drowsiness and motion sickness had hit Kakashi full force, so the words came out in one long, mostly unintelligible syllable.
"You know, since we're of equal rank, there's something I feel like I can finally ask you."
"Which would be?" His arms were draped over Shikamaru's shoulders as limply as a ragdoll. The whole thing would be funny if he weren't still brutally sore all over.
"Has anyone ever told you that you're fucking ridiculous?"
Kakashi felt his heavy eyes close and mumbled around a lazy smile, "Hate to break it to you, but you're not the first."
Shikamaru's humored hmph was the last thing he heard before falling asleep, wind ruffling his hair.
.
.
.
Less than an hour later, he was feeling pretty close to brand new. A shower, clean sheets, and a little lime jello did wonders for the spirit. Some morphine wouldn't have hurt either, but he was already on thin ice for requesting an entire room to himself, so he decided to enjoy the silence he was afforded once the nurses left instead.
"Who in their right mind gave you jello?"
Well, it was nice while it lasted.
Sakura marched over to the bed, donning standard white scrubs and a medic's coat instead of her dirtied dress. She poked around at the drip bag and frowned at his innocent expression. "You're supposed to be on liquids only, sensei. Please don't tell me you bribed one of the nurses again."
"I can't help it if my incomparable charm and manners afford me the simple pleasures in life." He kept smiling as Sakura tried not to. The sight pleased him. Now that she was back in her element and the imminent threat of death had passed, her mood had improved significantly.
"Do those simple pleasures include giving me a heart attack on my day off?"
"Ooh, so that's why you were wearing a dress. Were you and Shikamaru on a date?" Kakashi tried to wiggle his eyebrows but barely managed with gauze taped to his forehead.
An unattractive scoff sounded as Sakura took his wrist to check his heart rate, her fingers glowing with gentle pulses of chakra. "I don't know if us having yakiniku with Chouji and playing shogi counts as a date." She tucked a piece of pink bangs behind her ear with her other hand. "Plus, I'm way out of his league."
"His dad probably would have paid you to marry him," Kakashi drawled, feeling sleepy again and far more comfortable. Sakura's presence in the hospital always relaxed him; she was the only one he really trusted to patch him back up anyway.
"Hmm…I think Temari's a pretty good candidate, don't you?" A smirk touched the corner of her mouth. "She'll whip him into shape better than I could. She's done it before, and she's a lot more patient than me."
"Can't argue with that," he said, the last word louder than intended since she sent a bolt of chakra down his wrist—not enough to do any damage, just to startle him and bite a little. Even when she used it against him, he couldn't help but be impressed with her chakra control.
"Case in point." Her smirk grew smug as she set his hand back on the bed and reached over to remove the bandage at his brow.
After it got quiet, he began again, voice slow. "So, why'd you come get me if it was your day off? Not that I'm not absolutely grateful for your help, of course," he added with an eye crease, hoping she wouldn't shock him again.
"You know, it's kind of my responsibility to see what's going on when a frantic gardener runs around screaming about a dead old man on the Nara grounds." When she smoothed chakra over his forehead, he resisted the urge to wrinkle his nose at the tickling itch of the wound closing.
He sighed instead, feigning offense. "Must be the hair." Common mistake, he was aware.
"Or because you're old." The sing-song tone in her voice earned a deadpan look from Kakashi. Sakura's responding giggle was light and teasing, the same one she used to use with Naruto during training.
"You wound me."
She hummed thoughtfully, eyes sweeping over his arms. "Nah, but someone did, and pretty badly too." Her hand went to his tricep to heal a long, shallow cut in seconds. "Can I sit you up for a second? I need to look at that big one near your right side."
Seeing as how he was rendered immobile, he didn't have much of a choice anyway, especially since she'd already pulled him up slowly to untie the first two strings at the back of his robe. He went completely stiff—no matter how many times she healed him like this, something always felt a little strange about it. Probably because he wore at least three layers at all times.
When she set him back against the pillows and bunched his robes around his stomach, he was aware for the first time that not only was the room an arctic temperature, but he was completely naked beneath his gown and the thin sheets and blankets covering his lap. Except for the surgical mask, of course. And those socks with rubbery soles. But still.
Much to his relief, Sakura didn't seem to notice the goosebumps spreading over his chest and arms under the chilly hospital air, or the twitching tension in his abdomen when she set a steadying hand there to work on his injury. She was much more comfortable touching people than he was with physical contact, but to remind her would make it weird when it certainly didn't have to be. He focused on the strange lightness of having her chakra running through his system with his own, the knitting of skin and nerves and cells back to their regular state.
"Mind telling me exactly how you got this?" That line between her brows appeared again, directly under her seal, which his eyes were transfixed by as she focused. Under the florescent lights it looked pale blue and yellow at once.
"Like I said, false intel. I got set up. I had to take on…oh, if I had to estimate…two or three hundred missing-nin by myself. You know, the usual."
"That explains part of your chakra depletion, I suppose," she sighed, playing along with his casual tone, "and I'm guessing you used the rest to get home on a broken leg with a nearly-punctured liver?"
"You guess right," he chirped and threw in an eye smile for good measure. She shook her head and rolled her eyes.
"Only you would waste such humongous chakra reserves on avoiding a medical outpost."
She wasn't looking at his face, but he still pretended to pout. "Now, that's not fair, Sakura-chan. Maybe I just wanted to see my favorite team member instead."
Sakura pushed a bit more chakra into his side as she worked. "Flattery will get you nowhere," she mumbled, "especially if you're not alive to dole it out. You're lucky this didn't get severely infected, or that you didn't pass out in the middle of nowhere."
Perhaps mentioning the soldier pills he'd taken to shorten his trip wouldn't help anything. "Won't happen again. Cross my heart." He was too sore to make the motion, but if he had she probably would've smacked him.
The hand on his stomach pressed down more firmly in the midst of her focus. "Yeah, right. Now hush. I'm trying to reanimate your nerve tissue, which won't be very effective since you waited so long to get this healed."
It was silent for a few minutes, and there was little else Kakashi could do but notice the warmth of Sakura's hands and the tiny beads of sweat forming at her temples. He hadn't seen her or any of his team in months; any missions he'd received over the last year or two had been extended espionage-type deals to gather information on missing-nin, so he hadn't seen much of them since the assignments started. It almost felt like it did during their initial break when Naruto and Sasuke were both out of the village—Kakashi felt like he was missing out on so much, even more so now that they were all back in the same place.
It probably did worry the hell out of Sakura, then, that he showed up on the brink of death after months without contact. Now he felt kind of bad for not putting his leg in a splint at the bare minimum.
He couldn't help but look on as she worked. One of her teeth sank into her bottom lip and her eyes were full of that sharpness she always had in action. Maybe it wasn't such a good thing that he was this familiar with her healing habits.
"Sorry," he murmured, and after a pause, she smiled softly with a slight glance up. They both knew what he was apologizing for.
"It's okay," and she patted his abdomen sweetly, because it was always okay with them. He liked that he never had to explain anything to her.
After a few more minutes, Kakashi's side was completely healed. As usual with Sakura's flawless work there wasn't even a mark to show for it, and there was barely any numbness when she prodded at it to check for remaining bruising near his ribs. Her eyes and face were bright with pride in herself, which made him happy to see even now.
"Alright now, on to your leg," she said and moved to the end of the bed.
"Wait!" She turned swiftly with enough concern to embarrass him into clearing his throat. "Uh, I…heh…can you tie this thing back up first?" His nervous laugh matched his closed eyes.
"Oh! I totally forgot. You're probably freezing." With a few quick movements, he could finally loosen up again, and after spreading blankets up to his chest she went back to where she'd been standing.
A shock of cold air hit his bare leg when she lifted the covers off it, frowning when she noticed a thick cast wrapped around part of the limb. "Ugh, damnit. I should have just brought you myself so things could get done properly for once—"
The door to the hospital room opened with the hollow sound of a body shoving against it and a loud click. Sakura and Kakashi both looked up in surprise.
"You stupid son of a bitch," Tsunade half-shouted, shaking her head as she entered the room, Shizune trailing in behind her. The Hokage's scowl was a legendary one both Sakura and Kakashi knew unfortunately well, and the one she currently sported was no different.
"Tsunade-sama," Kakashi greeted cheerfully, which only deepened said scowl, "what a pleasure to see you." Sakura poked a warning finger into the side of his knee.
"Shut that smart mouth, Hatake, before I fuse it closed." Tsunade glanced at her apprentice with more than a hint of disapproval. "What are you doing here? I thought you weren't on rotation again until tomorrow night."
"I wasn't, but desperate times…" Sakura trailed off nervously, clearly aware of how little weight the explanation would carry with her master. "Sorry, shishou, I just feel better when I take care of these things myself."
"As incompetent as your team members are"—a sharp glare at Kakashi—"they're fine without you. You have days off for a reason." Sakura hunched a little under Tsunade's accusatory raised eyebrow. Kakashi couldn't blame her; the woman was a force to be reckoned with.
"I know," Sakura hedged hesitantly, "but someone already fed him solids and put a cast on his leg before I fully healed the compound fracture. I only closed the skin where the bone had been exposed and repositioned it so we could finish treatment here instead of in the woods."
"Hn. Good girl." Tsunade crossed her arms across her ample chest and tapped her fingers against her other elbow. "I'll have a little chat with his nurse before I leave. And I'll let you heal Kakashi's leg before I kick you out for the rest of the day. Okay?"
Sakura nearly jumped for joy, instead settling for an excited clap and a short bow. "Thank you, shishou. I—"
"Not right now, though," Tsunade continued with an arm out toward Shizune, who promptly handed her a stack of books. Kakashi, with no small amount of delight, immediately recognized the garishly bright colors and symbols on their spines. She smirked at the excitement he knew was apparent in his face. "He'll live for a little while more. First of all, Kakashi, we need to hold a debriefing, and then I've got some matters to discuss with you."
His burst of glee faded. Uh oh. Surely whatever it was couldn't be that bad, but the glint in Tsunade's eyes sparked his intuition and clenched his stomach. No matter what it was, it'd involve more work on his part, and he was never in the mood for that.
"That's my cue," Sakura said quietly, and glanced at Kakashi with a tiny smile. "I'll be back in a bit."
Kakashi nodded and watched as she left, not exactly ready to face Tsunade and whatever she had to say. He was still pretty damn tired and hadn't slept in hours, which he really needed to do given his current state.
Tsunade dropped the Icha Icha volumes on the bedside table with a loud thud. "I brought you these as a consolation prize."
"For?"
"Almost dying." She snickered. "And for what I'm about to tell you."
"You're not assigning me a new genin team, right?" Please don't, he thought. One was more than enough. But then again, giving her ideas was never a smart move.
She snorted crassly. "You think I would do that when you barely made it the first time? Not to mention that you can't teach for shit."
He knew all too well but didn't care for the reminders. "Thank you, Tsunade-sama."
"Anyway," Tsunade breezed by his faux formalities, "I'd like to congratulate you on your last intelligence mission for Ibiki. Not only did you completely eliminate the opposition or any future threats of it, but you're no longer under his command."
At that, Kakashi raised a skeptical brow. When he looked to Shizune for explanation, she simply gave him a nervous, half-assed smile. A nothing I can do now smile. "How do you figure?"
"Because I nominated you as my successor, and the council unanimously voted in agreement."
Kakashi blinked once, then several times. Someone must've given him morphine after all.
"Got anything to say to that, Hatake?" Tsunade tapped her foot slowly, impatient as a ticking clock, and suddenly he felt the doom closing in on him. The problem was that he couldn't move, quite literally, even though he longed to. He couldn't run away. She'd chosen her stage well.
"Uh…please no."
She barked out a laugh, one that reminded him of her true age. A lot younger than Sarutobi had been but old enough to be sick of running this place. Was that why she was retiring?
No, he reasoned as he took in her youthful appearance. She was ready to move on and do her own thing after doing this job for far longer than planned. There was no way he'd look that good after being Hokage even for a year or two.
"Can't you…" A weak sigh slumped his shoulders. "Aren't there any other nominees?"
"Oh, believe me, I tried to offer Sakura as a contender, especially after Shizune refused to take the position. But not a lot of people took me seriously since she's only twenty-one." Miffed, Tsunade flicked a pigtail over her shoulder, which hit a withdrawn Shizune in the face. "Not to mention that despite her insanely hard work, she's constantly overshadowed by those two other dipshit kids of yours."
Not the best segue, but it had to be asked: "What about Naruto? He's been wanting the position since he came out of the womb."
She huffed. "Same problem with the age, except he's still twenty. And I don't care how many battle victories and jutsu he pulls out of his ass—that boy is not ready to lead an entire country, Kakashi. I know you're not an idiot. Or at least I'm hoping you're not."
He cleared his throat with great effort to dispel the sudden lump of unease. "With all due respect, Tsunade-sama—"
"Hah. Cut the crap, kid. Just give it to me straight."
"Okay then," Kakashi started again, reeling in his tone. "You do realize that Gaara was fifteen when he was inducted as Kazekage?"
Tsunade's laugh had that haughty edge he dreaded. It meant that it would be nearly impossible to change her mind.
"Gaara and Naruto are far from comparable," she said with no slight amount of condescension. "Just because they're jinchuuriki and in the family business doesn't mean they're capable of carrying diplomatic and political clout. But, lucky for Suna, Gaara's got the temperament for politics, the intelligence, and the intimidation factor in his favor as well." A trademark smirk twisted her mouth. "You wanna try and tell me Naruto could negotiate treaties and economic policy? I'm not even sure he can read!" That awful laugh reverberated in the hospital room. He looked to Shizune for some backup, but the poor woman just shrugged helplessly. This wasn't the first time she'd been witness to Tsunade wielding her power.
"I don't think you're giving him enough credit, Tsunade-sama." Kakashi was so frustrated and tired at this point that it felt like he was talking to a rock, partly because he was trying to convince himself of his own argument. "Naruto's had exponential progress over the years, and he's had ANBU training as well. And the people love him."
"Yeah, yeah. Nice try." Tsunade pushed herself from the windowsill and began walking toward the door. "Talk to me in ten years and we'll see if he's ready."
Ten years? Ten years? Oh, God, he was seeing spots at the edge of his vision. There was no way he could do this job for ten fucking years. He was almost tempted to ask if Shizune had been drugging her sake stash.
"Don't we need to debrief his mission?" Shizune whispered as she followed, casting a rather concerned look at Kakashi.
Tsunade just smiled a saccharine grin, creasing her eyes with mock friendliness. "Oh, don't worry about that right now. We'll come back after he gets some much-needed rest. He's looking a little pale, don't you think?" With a hard pat on his foot, she and her assistant made their exit, and he was left alone in his misery.
As he laid immobile in his hospital bed, Kakashi could have weighed a thousand pounds, his aching muscles locked into place. He might have been starting to sweat, too, though it was hard to tell since he was numb all over.
He'd been through this once before, this looming threat of having to take the title, but that time he held on to the hope that Tsunade would come to—or that in some parallel universe Danzo would've gotten his shady act together. This time was final, and as much as he genuinely didn't want to, he'd have to face the music. The life of a shinobi didn't exactly cater to wants and needs in the first place.
He had been putting off thinking about this day since the Sandaime's funeral. The idea of him, Hatake Kakashi, with his track record of astronomical mistakes and carelessness, as Hokage…it was ridiculous. He could barely even keep himself alive. How the hell could they count on him to keep the entire country in one piece?
He expelled a long, almost painful breath just as Sakura reentered the room, mouth pinched to one side of her face with worry.
"You look horrendous." She came to stand by his bed, hand hovering unsurely over him before slipping it onto his forehead. "Ooh, you're clammy. We need to get this blood transfusion happening as soon as possible. Everyone's being so slow today, like you're not half-dead by now…Unbelievable."
He didn't say anything. If Sakura knew what news had just been delivered, she'd at least be showing signs of curiosity or, more likely, sympathy. Actually, no—she would laugh in his face. If anyone knew him to be a half-assed authority figure and leader, it was his former students. Especially her.
Suddenly his leg was being jostled. She was ripping his cast apart with her bare hands, or that was just what it sounded like. He was too exhausted to try and crane his neck to get a glimpse.
"Sakura…"
Immediately, she stopped and placed a cool, gentle hand on his calf. "I'm just fixing your leg. Everything okay?"
"Don't fix it. Don't fix anything. Just leave me to die." His voice had been reduced to a hum at the back of his nose and throat.
"Pfft. You're talking to the wrong medic, Kakashi-sensei." Her chakra entered his body through his knee, a warmth spreading down to where his bone had split and barely mended. She was going at a methodical pace this time, so the sensation of his muscles and ligaments threading back together was actually quite soothing. His eyes slipped closed.
"Nah. You're a big girl now. No one will miss me anyway." Her laugh hit his ears and he smiled sleepily beneath his mask.
"I would." His grin spread a bit wider, but then she added, "You're the only nice old guy who comes to this hospital."
"That's strike two, missy." It was said around a deep yawn, and Sakura laughed again.
"Tell you what, sensei. If you stop talking and let yourself sleep, I'll read you some Icha Icha when you wake up."
Just hearing the title was enough to get him to agree. "Deal."
And without another word or thought, he immediately succumbed to unconsciousness.
.
a/n: I really hate myself for starting a new fic before finishing another, but my Kakashi senses were tingling and I couldn't not. it'll be a little while before I post the next chapter since things are hectic right now, but I AM going to update, just bear with me in the meantime.
