KakaSaku: Endure and Survive

- Prelude -

Startled awake from hearing a loud clack, Sakura bolted up from her bed to find that her window had been forced open. Grabbing a shuriken that was lying on her nightstand, her body relaxed when she saw a familiar silhouette in the moonlit shadows.

"Kakashi?" she hesitantly spoke aloud.

Squinting her green eyes as he flicked on the lights in her room, she let out a sleepy yawn before asking why he was barging inside her apartment at this hour, but then fell silent at seeing a large amount of blood stained across his clothes.

Immediately getting up from her bed in fear that he was seriously hurt, he held up a hand to stop her before she could touch him. "It's not mine," he evenly murmured. "I'm okay."

His hand slowly melted to his side as he looked in concern towards the window as a light breeze shifted the curtains. After a moment he seemed to relax, but looked towards the floor in deep thought.

Interlacing her fingers together, Sakura didn't feel any easier from the faint grim look etched across his partially masked face. He seemed more despondent than his usual self.

"Kakashi, what happened?" she softly asked.

Shaking his head from his lingering thoughts, he finally looked up to her and replied, "Sorry, we really don't have time. Get dressed and grab your gear. We need to leave the village as soon as possible."

"But-"

"Sakura," he sharply cut in. His lone eye softened in regret at his harsh tone. "Please trust me on this."

Taken aback at first, she knew something must be terribly wrong given how usually calm and collected he was even in a battle. Staring at the deep crimson across his hands and flak jacket, her mind rushed to thoughts of what could have happened. Had they been attacked? Was the entire village evacuating right now? It was unlike him not to discuss the situation. Noticing that he was staring at her, she realized that he was waiting for her to confirm that she was coming. Despite all the questions she had, she did trust him with her life. Their years together as teammates proved that much.

Once she nodded, he left the room. She got dressed as fast as she could but froze when she heard a distant scream outside. Running to the window, she poked her head out and gasped at seeing a large fire in the distance between several buildings. In the center of it was the Hokage Tower. Dread washed over her.

Running out into the living room, she found Kakashi quickly searching through her kitchen's cabinets. "Kakashi, the tower's on fire!" she blurted out.

Looking down into his bag for a moment, he hummed. "I know. I was just there."

"Why didn't you tell me? We need to go help! It's out of control."

"It's too late for that," he faintly replied. Lifting up his backpack around his shoulders, he headed towards the door and motioned her to follow. "Sakura, we need to leave."

Stunned, her heart sank as she couldn't believe the lack of concerned words out of his mouth. This man always put duty and the village before anything else. How could he want to abandon the very people they were sworn to protect? It didn't make any sense. What the hell was going on?

Hearing more screams in the distance, she grumbled and ran back into her room to grab her bag that she usually took on missions. Jumping out of her window, she landed on her balcony's railing before ascending towards the rooftop. Already making up her mind, she headed in the direction of the blaze hoping to not just help, but find answers. But before she had a chance to get too far, she had been strongly grabbed back by her arm.

"Sakura," Kakashi pleaded. "Please just trust me. There isn't anything we can do."

Yanking her hand away, she took a step back and looked hurt. "Look, I don't understand what's going on but I'm not a coward," she spat. "I can't just look the other way when people's lives are endangered. Not only am I a medic, but that's not what a shinobi does, or have you forgotten, Sensei?"

Running back towards the tower from rooftop to rooftop, she ignored his desperate warnings for her to stop. Hurt welled up inside her heart with each step she took, feeling betrayed and let down by the one person she cared for more than she wanted to admit. Increasing her speed, the closer she came towards the fires, the louder the screams were. Dropping down into the pebbled streets, she could see people were frantically running up ahead. Quickly moving towards them, her steps cautiously slowed until she realized what was happening before her.

Tears immediately stung her eyes and her stomach twisted as she stood in horror. People were tearing each other apart with just their bare teeth and hands, devouring all that they could. Blood filled the streets wherever she looked. Once the smell of death hit her senses, she held a hand against her mouth and nearly retched.

Never in her life had she ever seen something like this. As a shinobi she had seen her fair share of death, even more so as a medic, but nothing like this.

Nothing.

Women, children, men… Jouin and other shinobi alike. Some were people that she knew and had talked to not even a day before, but everyone seemed to have all lost their damn minds. Those who were being attacked and caught screamed in gut wrenching terror as they watched themselves being eaten alive and torn apart. It wasn't long before they fell quiet once they took their last breath.

Feeling light headed, Sakura knelt down towards the ground and steadied her breath. Her body shook and she couldn't understand why she couldn't stop. Feeling something grab her back, Sakura twisted around and stumbled backwards as a man with strange veined skin and white eyes rushed forward tried to pull her by the neck of her shirt. He strained to bite at her skin before she summoned the chakra to punch him back into an empty market stand.

The loud commotion immediately trigged the surrounding people to run towards her in an instant. Frantically rising to her feet, she slipped once before heading into an amber glowing alleyway. A strong heat washed over her as she passed tall flames of the buildings around her. Jumping to the top of a building that was still clear, she turned in surprise to find that several people were still chasing after her even up on the rooftops.

Kicking several of them down to the streets below, she raised her hand to punch the next but froze. Yellow hair and grayed over dull blue eyes met her gaze.

"N-Naruto?" her voice cracked in disbelief.

Fear shot through her veins as he grabbed her throat with an icy touch, throwing her backwards towards roof. The tiles around them cracked and broke apart which caused them both to slide and fall towards the earth below. Landing hard on her back, Sakura had lost her breath for a moment as she failed to summon to strength to hold him back.

A sound of what seemed like a thousand birds rang through the air, followed by a bright light which appeared through Naruto's chest. In an instant, he became lifeless and fell beside her with a thud. His eyes remained opened, staring off into the deep night's sky above. The fear she had felt quickly was replaced with anguish.

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she blinked. Her breath hitched as her throat burned. Looking up to Kakashi who kneeled beside her, he placed a shaken hand over the boy's eyes and closed them.

"I-I'm sorry… I'm really sorry," Kakashi strained out.

Everything was a blur as people began to drop down beside them and come from the back alleyway. Pulling her into his arms without sparing another moment, Kakashi leapt with all his strength fast as he could across the village and over the gates.

Eventually she asked to be let down, wanting to walk on her feet and not burden him anymore than she already had. The pair ran through the dark forest, taking cover within the trees and didn't stop to rest until hours later once dawn greeted them. Finding a large tree with wooden boarding encircling the thick trunk, the area was most likely used as an old wildlife lookout spot. Taking opposite sides of the tree, they hadn't spoken a word since they had fled the village.

Staring at her feet as she dangled them over the edge, the happy chirps of birds stirring awake made her feel empty inside. She still couldn't believe it. Her best friend was dead along with countless others. While she still didn't understand why or how, what she hoped for most was that she would just wake up from this never ending nightmare. But as the sun continued to spread over the horizon, the warmth of its rays reached her skin. The longer she sat there and listened to the faint rustling wind around them, the more reality set in.

This was real.

Glancing quietly back to Kakashi around the trunk of the tree, he seemed to be staring at his hands which were still dirtied with dry blood. After a long moment, he buried himself within his arms over his knees. Seeing him begin to slightly shake, she moved on her knees and sat beside him in concern.

Placing a gentle hand on his back, she said, "Kakashi…?"

He wouldn't look at her.

"…K-Kakashi."

After a long silence he finally picked up his head, but continued to look away into the distant forest as the sun rose over the horizon. Moving slightly closer, she could tell the side of his face above his mask seemed drained with color. Attempting to speak, he choked on his words before placing the back of hand over his eyes, weakly clenching his fist. His covered lips broke into a muffled sob.

Sakura didn't think her heart could manage breaking anymore than it already had in a matter of hours, but it did in that very moment. Reaching her arms around him, she hugged his back as she cried with him. She didn't have any idea where they would go from here, but they needed to find a way to keep surviving.

Together.

TBC

[ Author Note: Awhile back I had an Anon request from Tumblr to do a Last of Us inspired drabble which the above is the result of that (this chapter is also posted in A Pocket of Drabbles). But after thinking about it more, I really loved the idea of writing little snippets of basically what a Naruto apocalyptic world might be like run with ninja zombies. I wanted to do something that's not really a full multi-chapter story although everything will tie together as days pass, but I wanted to just do small moments of a day with time skipping.

A lot of this is inspired by the video game which is one of my favorites of all time, but this won't be a crossover as it's more just inspired. I may use same ideas or even same situations, so just a warning there if you haven't played the game!

Also warning that there will be lots of character death (Trust me when I say no one is safe. No one is safe.), possible sexual situations, gore and probably sad and depressing stuff.

I won't be posting any other WARNINGS after this, so please take note the risk to read any future chapter snippet things. None of this will be edited as I post like my drabbles, so there will be mistakes.

There will be an ending, but I'll be casually posting here and there.

Comments and feedback are always appreciated and I'd love to hear any ideas yall might have as I go along. And as always, thanks for taking the time to read my silly things~ ]