Disclaimer: Do not own Naruto.

Raindrops fell softly in the field, small clear drops resting on blades of grass that contrasted sharply against the darkness of the mud and the paleness of her skin. Gloved fingers traced the cenotaph in quiet disbelief, every caress placed into the grooves of the stone making the pain a bit easier and harder to deal with at the same time. Sadness filled every pore of her body, made a bit easier to deal with due to the stinging bite of the cold. Thoughts echoed in her head and she closed her eyes, the words sounding light-years away inside her mind.

A sound entered her sanctuary, the sick squelching sounds of standard issue sandals trudging through thick mud as the rain bounced off something else, causing another sound. It was an umbrella.

"Forehead?" a voice asked tentatively. Sakura turned her head with a small smile.

"Hi Ino," she returned quietly, watching as worry darted over the pale blue in her friends eyes. Ino stared at her disbelievingly.

"Sakura, how long have you been out here?! You're soaked to the bone!" Ino said rushing towards the pink-haired girl sitting in the barely-visible shadow of the cenotaph. Her umbrella flew from her fingertips, landing in a rustle of metal and synthetic fabric as she looked at her friend. Her hair clung to her face in thick wet strands and her clothing clung to her small body. Her eyes were slightly red and puffy from crying, but she couldn't tell if the streams of water falling on her face were from crying or the rain. She hugged her friend.

"Sakura, what are you doing here?" she asked softly as she pressed her body against her friend's, hoping some of her body heat would get through to Sakura to keep some of the chill off. She could feel small tremors against her chest as Sakura shivered, but Sakura didn't seem to notice. Her eyes were a million miles away.

They stayed like that for a while as Ino tried to get Sakura warm. She could feel the small puffs of air against her shoulder as Sakura stared into the forest around them. "I miss him," she said suddenly, her voice lost and forlorn. Ino bit her lip and held the girl closer.

"I know you miss him, Sakura, but you can't be stubborn and visit him in this weather. Look at yourself!"

But she didn't.

"But I miss him…"

Ino sighed to herself and held the girl away. "Sakura, I know it's hard. Believe me, I do. I lost my sensei a while back, but—"

"I loved him, Ino."

"I cared a lot about my sensei too, Sakura, but you have to—"

"You don't understand, Ino. I loved him!" she shouted, pushing her friend away in frustration. The twenty-yr-old stared in shock at her friend, eyes wide as her mind fought to process the information. Sakura turned away, whether in shame or to stave off tears, Ino didn't know.

"W-w-wha…How—"

Sakura looked past the cenotaph to the horizon painted in dark streaks. Rain fell on her cheeks. Were the heavens mourning for him also?

"It was three years ago. We were on an escort mission with three others and I had just become a jounin. We were attacked—ambushed by a group of assassins after the lord we were protecting. I was trying to save one of the nins who had gotten his throat slashed when I heard a low whistling sound…"

Flashback

Sparks flew across the air as metal clashed, blades grating against one another as the people behind the weapons struggled for dominance. The air that had hung still and heavy now reeked of spilt blood and acrid smoke. An exploding tag went off on her right and Sakura flinched. The sound of gargled blood reached her ears.

"Hold on, Taka!" she screamed to the man below her as blood poured between the gaps in her fingers, eyes widening as he began convulsing under her hands.

'He's going into shock.' And her hands pressed harder against his throat as she focused harder, forcing the severed arteries and tissue to reattach faster as he jerked under her, body thrashing wildly against the forest floor covered in the dying leaves of autumn.

'Come on. Come on!' And she felt the skin meld under her fingers as his tremors began to subside, panting heavily as sweat slicked his pale skin. Despite all the blood he lost, he was going to make it. She wiped the sweat from her forehead in relief when she heard a strange, familiar sound and she listened to its steady whistling hum.

"Sakura!"

She turned her head, watching as a kunai came sailing towards her, a man with a sword not far behind. She cursed softly. In her rush to save Taka, she had exhausted most of her chakra and forgotten about the others. Forgotten about the fighting that still had yet to be done, and with her arms lying limply at her sides, she realized this was how she was going to die.

She watched as the kunai knife came closer and closer, watched the broad metal sides gleam in the light of the full moon. She closed her eyes, accepting her fate when she felt something cold waft over her face and looked up to see a shadowed figure as the kunai knife flew to the side and the sound of metal meeting flesh rang in the air. Blood droplets fell on the dry autumn leaves as silver glinted in the moonlight, gently wafting in the air as two figures sailed into the trees behind her.

'Kakashi-sensei!' she thought with alarm as the sound of snapping twigs grated on her ears and her heart leapt into her throat. Looking behind her, she saw her other teammates resting against trees, sweat shining in faint firelight with their bodies weary from finished battles. With a last glance at Taka's unconscious face, she ran after her captain.

Air whistled past her ears as she leapt from branch to branch, eyes flitting to the trail of blood as she searched the forest floor. Suddenly, she spotted something moving and fell to the ground below, watching as a green-haired figure moved slowly to his feet. She felt a lump form in her throat.

"No…"

Suddenly, they jerked to the side, lying in a lifeless heap of blank stares and spilt blood as they collided against a tree. Rough coughing met her ears and she turned her head to see a head of silver move. He was still alive.

"Kakashi-sensei!"

And mismatched eyes locked on her face as she gazed upon his. Blood poured from under his hairline and stained his mask. She didn't have to look any further. She knew it was bad.

"Hold on, Kakashi-sensei. You're going to be fine," she said, trying to convince herself as well as him as she forced whatever chakra was left to her hands. A splatter of blood hit her pink vest.

"Sorry," he rasped, mask hanging loosely around his neck as the moonlight was caught on the blood smeared across his face. Against his pale skin, the blood seemed to proclaim death more startlingly than usual.

"Don't talk. Conserve your energy," she ordered as she pressed gauze against his side, wincing as she felt it soak through to her hands. She grabbed more gauze from her bag.

"Sakura, stop…"

"No! You are going to make it. I refuse to let my teammates die," she snapped, forcing her chakra to clean the wound, wincing at the extent of the damage. Dammit, why did she have to be so reckless?

Hands pressed hers in a bid to stop and she looked up, her hands pressing gauze against him tightly to staunch the bleeding as a hand reached up to cup her cheek. "Sakura, stop," he said softly and she watched his face as his thumb brushed against her lower lip before falling away. His eyelids fell and his breathing was becoming shallow. He was dying.

"Sakura, I'm glad…to have met you," he said as he struggled to keep air in his lungs. "You are a very bright girl and…you care very much about everyone…and…I'm…very glad…to have known you in my…lifetime."

"Sensei, I—"

"I love you," he said in a whisper, eyes gazing adoringly at the girl before him from under lids that were too heavy to keep open any longer. With a fond smile, he let himself be pulled into the lulling comfort of death. She finally knew, and he had no regrets.

Sakura watched as he closed his eyes, the ghost of a smile on his face, features set into skin too pale. Tears stung her eyes. He loved—

"You jackass! Don't tell me shit like this just so you sound cool before you die!" she shouted, adrenaline surging through her system as a vibrant blue glow formed around her hands. She pressed them to the weeping gash to his side.

"I'm not letting you die, sensei! You still have to keep up your end of the promise. You said if I became jounin, you would buy me my first drink. You're going to make it. I'm not going to let you die! You—you just can't, damn it!"

Chakra pulsed against his heart and she flew back from his fallen form, heart pleading for his to start beating again—that her efforts hadn't been in vain and that their conversation wouldn't be left at just that. It couldn't be left at just that. It couldn't!

And suddenly, a slight flutter and she waited with baited breath, hoping that she wasn't hallucinating when she saw another twitch in his finger. His brows knitted in concentration and she crawled towards him as his eyelids pressed against each other before forcing themselves open. He glanced around groggily, voice soft and heavy as he spoke.

"Is this heaven?"

Sakura choked back her sob to laugh, tears sparkling in her eyes as the moon shined brightly above her. "No. You're alive," she said with a teary smile before throwing herself over his torso, fingers gripping the fabric of his torn clothing as she pressed her face into his chest, the scent of sandalwood wreathing her senses as she reveled in the fact he was alive once more. She felt her throat close tighter at the memories of her fear and nestled closer against him.

"Don't ever do that again, sensei. Don't scare me like that ever again."

End flashback

Ino stared at her friend, head bowing slightly as she swallowed the lump in her throat and forced the words from her mouth. "He…loved you?"

Sakura nodded her head slowly, fingers tracing the grooves in the stone as the rain beat down on her back. "And you loved him too?" she heard her friend ask, nodding once more as she continued the task she had been doing since this morning when she first found out. So far, she'd been the only one to come besides the person who carved his name into the stone. A small rock slipped past her fingers and fell from the groove. Strange. She thought she got them all out.

"Does…Does Tsunade know? Does anyone know?"

Sakura shook her head. "No." Ino looked at her worriedly.

"Sakura, why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell anyone?"

Sakura suddenly stopped her finger, teeth gnashing as her spine locked and she stared at Ino with loathing. "Because you wouldn't understand. You'd all be looking at me—at us the way you're looking at me right now."

"I'm only worried about you, Sakura. He was your sensei. He—"

"Never did anything I didn't want him to do to me. This is why I didn't tell anyone, Ino! You'd all make him out to be a monster! Some sicko that likes little girls when he wasn't. Konoha would've ostracized us. Tsunade would've killed him, Ino! Tsunade would've killed him! They would've stripped him of everything he had and publically executed him!"

"They wouldn't do that…"

"Well, how do you know?!" Sakura snapped defensively.

"Because they're our friends. They—"

"Sasuke was my friend. That didn't stop him from leaving me on a bench and almost killing Naruto."

"But…if you loved each other…"

"Stop it, Ino! Life isn't like the fairytales we thought them to be as children. It isn't as simple as that! We were teacher and student. I was 14 years his junior and he had to endure having everyone he ever cared about die, but despite all that, he loved me. Despite all my dreams of marrying Sasuke and being with him, I fell in love with Kakashi, but life isn't that simple. Despite all what all the fairytales tell us, society would've never accepted us because a teacher-student relationship is immoral. Because I'm so much younger, I must have been coerced into this by my teacher. Because I'm Haruno Sakura, it's impossible that I would love a man like Hatake Kakashi, but it happened, and no one would ever believe that. No one would ever accept the fact of us ever being together. You've proved it quite clearly," she answered looking up into eyes that held so many feelings. Disgust, sadness, regret, disappointment, hurt, and shock to realize that everything she had said was true. Ino bit her lip in regret.

"Sakura…"

Sakura shook her head, a small wistful smile crossing her lips as her fingers traced the slightly-warmed grooves in the stone tenderly. "But none of it matters. Despite everything, love wasn't enough, but it doesn't matter anymore. He's dead now and there's nothing I can do about that."

And she suddenly stood, wind blowing the tendrils of her hair as she walked past the cenotaph, disappearing over the hills as the sun came up over the horizon.