( a/n; i disclaim rights to anything of course. i probably won't do many author notes with story. this is not my first time around the block with naruto ff, but i haven't posted them here in a long long time, so i made a new account. this will be a romance, and it will be an intense romance probably. going to be a bit long, and probably no triangles or anything, just pure kakasaku. gonna be rated M, because there will 99.999% be mature/adult themes and especially sex, in this story, though that won't be for a bit. i'll be posting the next chapter very very soon. this is the backstory/set up, so it's just a set up. the story will be a hokage kakashi setting, focusing mainly on his feelings, him as hokage, and his developing relationship with sakura. set after the final war, but before the final timeskip chapter in canon. follows canon up until then however, for the most part. sasuke has returned to the leaf, but i'm excluding sasusaku as a thing here. anyways, reviews make my life complete. )
chapter 0. opaque.
As the wind wrapped him in a deceptively soothing embrace, scented like smoke and spring flowers- a mix that deceptively masked the mayhem that had ensued just hours earlier -and beneath a hazy blue veil, Hatake Kakashi came to a heart thudding decision.
He couldn't be certain how long he stood there and gazed through uncovered eyes at the woman before him, with her pink hair matted and her back hunched over a civilian who lay broken upon the ground. It was a mindless sort of entrancement, as he helplessly watched, with his hands crammed in his pockets, and his own postured a defeated curve. One dark eye, and another sharingan, aimed on the medical shinobi before him as she intently worked, with her chest heaving from concentration, pouring her chakra into yet another wounded upon the battlefield. Every moment or so, she would blink away sweat and occasionally tears, from her vision, and once she had lifted her hand to smear a streak of coagulated blood across her cheek.
A realization so profound he had yet to even process how to respond, how to feel, how to think, where it was concerned, came upon him.
As the sounds of shinobi came and went, smoke died down and the moon moved inches higher in the sky, he stood swaying lightly at her side. Never once did she look up at him, not even long after her hands stopped their ministration, not after her head hung itself low and he could no long find her features behind a curtain of that flowery hair. Cradling the body in her lap, with her hand softly laid upon the still chest and another brought up to her face, presumably pressed tightly over her eyes.
He remained, silently observing, long after they were the last two on that battlefield that night.
As he peered at the comrade he had once taught as a young girl and had seen grown into a young adult. One who was a very fine medic, who he felt incredibly proud of on a daily basis, he couldn't stop the single, dominating thought from overtaking him.
It crawled up his tired muscles, which were trembling from overexertion and chakra depletion, and it settled into the bow of his lips which remained hidden away below his mask. Covered from sight, they bent beneath the weight and they settled into a pensive, distressed frown.
And several hours later, when she finally stood, and her legs shook terribly from being bent for so long, or perhaps from pure emotion, he wasn't certain—Hatake Kakashi moved quickly to her side without a second thought to slip one hand around her back, and another arm beneath her knees. He smoothly took her into his arms the moment her eyes rolled back and her world went black.
Her head rolled like dead weight on her neck over to lightly land against his chest, and he unconsciously tightened his grip.
As he held the overworked, distraught, rumpled form of Haruno Sakura in his embrace, he released a deep breath of acknowledgment: he no longer considered her a student, no longer considered her a child, no longer saw her as a little girl. She was a woman, a shinobi of the leaf who worked herself to the bone just as he did, for her people. And she was someone he never wanted to see crushed by a loss like this again, if at all possible.
It was that night, while he slowly traveled back to the hospital of the leaf with Sakura in tow, that he decided he would finally accept the job of Hokage.
He would protect them all, especially those who had managed to become precious to him, even after he had so long ago promised himself he would no longer allow anyone that close.
{ opaque } : not able to be seen through; not transparent.