A/N: This is inspired by Caius and Yeul's (from FFXIII-2) Guardian/Ward relationship where Caius is immortal and protects the Yeul reincarnations. I added some vague FFXV lore too.
I published this on AO3 too. :)
ooo-ooo
First
He is a warrior first, a man second.
For a plague had killed his wife right after he married her. She wasn't the only one inflicted by the disease because only he was left alive in their small village. It was a miracle and a curse. He didn't want to live without her.
But their Goddess had a plan for him it seems; he is alive because of a little girl. She healed him and she did it when she is six, only six. Her name is Sakura, all pink hair and green eyes. He wanted to weep at the sight of her. His wife in a small girl. Kaguya-sama you've blessed us.
But she isn't the same, this he learned. The same face and nothing more.
"I am Sakura. I am the cure." She told him and that's when he knew, she is the healer of not only him, but of this world.
The plague of the stars was the Goddess's lethal dose. The poison she crafted to kill humanity. And she had given him eternal life, her heart beats in his chest. For as long as he is alive, she too will send forth the plague.
"I am Kakashi. My purpose is to protect you until the last of you dies." Because Sakura will succumb to the plague soon, with every person she cures, death shines brighter in her sea glass eyes, consuming her until she is all but alive.
.
Second
The second time he meets her she's holding onto the body of a drenched blonde boy. Her shoulders are shaking and she's got fat tears and snot dripping down her chin.
"Sakura?" The name isn't foreign on his tongue even though he's only met her once. Twice now as she seeks his eyes.
"He's dead!" She shrieks and clutches the blonde boy tighter. "I'll kill him!"
It's not the plague that claimed the boy's life. It's murder because he drowned right under another boy's hand.
"I'll be your friend now. Don't cry Sakura." He tries to console her but she doesn't let the blonde boy go.
"I'll kill Sasuke." She says and he shakes his head. Little girls aren't supposed to be murderers.
"How old are you anyway?"
"Nine."
"Only nine?"
She nods and he feels a weight dropping on his chest.
"Four more years." He says plainly.
Before you die again.
.
Third
He'd never seen a baby not wailing before.
Someone left a crib on his front door with a hastily written please, they'll kill her on a piece of paper. He peeks in the basket to find that shock of pink tuff and sea glass.
She is a month old, only a month old, and she's the first one he raised. The only one because he knows he'll never have a child as long as Sakura keeps living. The goddess is cruel like that but he accepts their fate nonetheless.
.
Fourth
He thinks it doesn't look right when he sees her in a voluminous miko hakama. The head shrine priestess they call her, because she's the best at drawing out the plague from a dying soul.
He doesn't get tired standing watch of her through her days as she heals and heals with a line that is as long as the roads in the village. She gets tired with every passing moon and he knows this because she's nearing that age. Thirteen, only thirteen, wherein she slumps forward on the shrine floors but he catches her before she hits the mahogany that's polished of blood and sickness.
It's the fourth smile he sees on her cold face and never the blur that's always in his eyes in moments like this.
.
Fifth
The thing about being immortal was that he stays absolutely the same. But his silver hair is ancient she says. It grows so long he has to tie it into a ponytail. She likes braiding it and he lets her because she's twelve, only twelve. And girls her age are about beauty and small things, so he lets her. She'll die next year after all.
.
Sixth
"Sakura, I thought I said no pets."
"Naruto's not a pet!"
"You named it?"
"Naruto. And he's not a pet!"
Sakura stands at four feet and three inches but the set of her shoulders are threatening; he doubts that she's seven, only seven with that stance. He eyes the creature hiding behind her impressive display, and is more surprised of the animal's-boy's-blonde hair and diamond blue eyes than the nine orange tails he's trying desperately to hide.
"Kitsune." He mutters breathlessly, and remembers in vivid detail the drowned blonde boy in her arms.
Is Kaguya sending gifts now?
.
Seventh
She's thirteen, only thirteen when she remembers her short lives and his same face.
She's the first of her seven lives that remember.
He hears her laugh at the cruelty of their fate.
.
Eighth
She's crying when she gets back to their tiny tree house, forehead and sea glass eyes hidden beneath unevenly cut short hair. He rushes to her side when he sees the small cut on her cheek.
Who dared hurt the healer of this world?
"What happened?" He asks and she sniffles softly to herself.
"Ino said my pink hair is a curse."
You're a gift to this world. "You're not cursed."
"She cut it."
He balls his fist in rage but outwardly, he stays calm. With a sigh, he straightens himself and walks to sit at the table. Grabbing a pair of scissors, he beckons her.
"Come, I'll give you a cute haircut fit for cute six year olds."
She stops crying, her eyes lighting up in that way he knows how he's spoiled this Sakura.
"Cuter than Ino-pig's?"
"The cutest!"
.
Ninth
When he meets her he is speechless. Her hair is longer than his. He's been growing his for longer than this Sakura is alive but hers is ridiculously longer. He doesn't understand how it happened because she's four, only four, and he's well over a hundred now.
Tenth
By the tenth time he meets her, he is convinced that every Sakura is unique but is still the same old soul. That same soul that is tethered to his, driving a knife in his very being between the years of the last death and the next life.
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Eleventh
Oranges are her favorite while tomatoes are her least favorite, this he learns. He wonders if this is a foreshadowing of some sort, of her future lives. He hopes it isn't sour of any sort but he knows each of her lives will inevitably be in that taste one way or another. He could only hope.
.
Twelfth
She came to him covered in dirt and blood. Dressed in rags and pink hair a horrible shade of brown and carnation. A group of men came bounding from where she came. Laughing and leering, and there was nothing more he desired than to rip out their eyes and cut each of their fingers off.
He's never murdered for her before but it took a hundred years for him to do so. He left the bodies to rot and gave her his coat and boots.
"How old are you?" He asks this time because this is the first time he's met her older than thirteen, the age she usually dies by the plague.
"Sixteen." Only Sixteen.
Kaguya is teasing him.
.
Forty-eighth
He was given three students to teach the arts of the shinobi. A blonde boy, terribly and wonderfully blonde as the rays of sunshine. Another boy with hair the color of the night sky when the moon is neither silver nor red. He teaches them. Far more interested in their little competitions than his third one.
She doesn't fit with either boy but she seems to think that the two of them match, all light and scattered colors of spring and fall. She is twelve, only twelve but she believes she'll be a good shinobi. One who he'll fear one day, she says. It is comical but Kakashi smiles kindly at her. He doesn't believe her. How could he? When all she cares about is her long soft hair of cherry blossoms instead of the smell of blood that's forever stuck on her palms.
She seems to think-this one likes to think, he notes-that love would be her constant strength.
But he knew better.
The day the next clan village raided their small one was the day this Sakura's first friend fell. The blonde boy was the Sun made human. Morning was killed that day and thus, the world was plunged in eternal night.
The dark haired boy was her only friend then. He did not teach nor approach her. He grew tired of her chasing that boy. But he protected her from a distance. He never could protect her from each death because the plague won her over for the forty-eighth time.
.
Sixty-second
It seems that with the absence of the sun 26 incarnations ago, the plague became more selfish and hungry. Two thirds of the world had been wiped out already, only two million remain. This Sakura died healing over a million. The most she did in any of her lives combined. And she died at nine, only nine. This Sakura is the one most loved by the people.
.
Ninety-ninth
The first time she asks about her past selves, she cuts her long bubblegum hair short of her ears. It's the shortest he's seen her wear her hair and it's a breath of fresh air for his already weary soul.
"Do I always have hair down to my butt?" She is fourteen, only fourteen and he laughs because she's never used the word butt before. This Sakura is one of his favorites-but then again he has ninety-nine favorites.
.
One-hundredth
The next death isn't any kinder than the rest.
She's three, only three, born with weak lungs. She had only saved this life's parents when the plague had claimed her for the hundredth time. This was the youngest he'd seen her die.
.
216th
Night still reigns, sunlight is yet to return, but under the silver moon, he watches her murder the boy with hair that blends with the night sky. She is fifteen, only fifteen when she does the opposite of why she's always born.
"Just this once." She tells him and promises to heal a hundred the next day in repentance for this sin.
He helps her bury the body, shoveling dirt on the boy's pretty face. The warmth of something long forgotten caresses the skin of his forehead when he finishes with the crime. The sun rises from the horizon as she grins at him through the blood on her face.
"It's done. It's finally done." She says and he looks at her curiously. "Sasuke killed Naruto. I sacrificed him to appease Minato the Sun God."
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330th
His hair has gotten longer than his whole length. It feels like being reborn when she offered to cut it all off. He thinks that this must be how Sakura feels when her soul restarts at age one, always one. But despite the lack of weight on his head, he knows he'll never truly get the one in his ribs off.
.
395th
She's back to dying at thirteen again, only thirteen, and he's getting tired of seeing her smile on her death bed.
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477th
"Kakashi. How old are you now?"
"I don't know. How old are you?"
"Come on, Kakashi."
"Twenty-three."
"Six thousand then."
"I had silver hair since the day of my birth, excuse you."
"I remember."
"What?"
"I remember it. The first time I met you."
". . .you were six."
"Yes, and it's been 5,977 years."
"Good at math, congratulations!"
"Whatever. That means I'm 5,983 years old."
He scoffs. "You're eleven, only eleven."
.
501st
He's lost count how many times he's seen her cry when she couldn't save a soul from the plague. Although it is a hundred thousand times less than how many she heals, she grieves nonetheless.
.
627th
She tried to braid his hair again, this time though, he refuses. She's seventeen, only seventeen and she is a child in his eyes even with the way her waist dips only to swell to a very inviting hip. He must keep her away from him, keep his hands to himself.
.
783rd
He hates how she's growing up and dying at seventeen now. Though he never fails to meet her at eleven, only eleven.
.
888th
She promises to marry him one day and she said this on the precipice of death. Promises him this one last thing, but he couldn't answer because if in the next life she doesn't remember about this, then he can't hold her to her promise. She's seven, only seven after all and seven year old girls are not supposed to get married yet.
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959th
"Why do you always say that?" She asks, looking straight at him.
"Say what?"
"I'm only whatever age I was." She furrows her brows at him. Pink and slender arching on a forehead too big but she's beautiful still.
He sighs, shaking his head, refusing to meet her gaze. Because you're always too young.
.
1000th
He doesn't say it out loud nor ask what her age is. He can't have her asking the same question again. But despite this, he knows she dies at seventeen in this life.
And never fails to do so in the next lives.
.
1,287th
This Sakura is different, he could feel it. She's still fluffy haired and chubby cheeked but there's something absolutely different about her.
"What do I look like to you?" She asks cheekily and he frowns, refusing to answer. "Hey, Kakashi."
He ignores her in favor of staring at the diamond on her forehead. It's new. He's never seen it on her before. It must be some kind of sigil that she's wearing to appease the people who believe she's some sort of goddess in the body of a child. She's the 1,287th rebirth and he's inclined to believe it.
"Tell me, 'Kashi." This Sakura has given him a nickname.
He's amused but he doesn't show it.
"You're eight." He tells her as he pokes the diamond roughly.
She glares at him through big sea glass eyes, and it makes him pause, heart sinking in his gut. A child's eyes but it doesn't belong.
It's like seeing through a mirror. The thousands of years he's lived condensed in her eyes on a face of a cherub.
"You're eight." He repeats, breathless and an ache blooming in his chest. "Only eight."
She scoffs at him. "There you go again." She frowns and crosses her little arms on her chest. She notices the look of despair on his immaculate masked face and her own softens into melancholy.
"I'm sorry I ruined this." She says and holds his hand. He doesn't respond, only closes his eyes.
He doesn't want to hear her say it. Not when she looks so young, so young like a rose still without its thorns; so young and enough to be his daughter. He despises himself when he thinks like that.
"I'm eighteen." She says quietly. "Finally eighteen."
Kakashi cries but he doesn't show it. But why do you look eight?
.
1,580th
He doesn't understand why she dies at eighteen now. Kaguya's plague beats hard and alive in his chest as a reminder that she will always die. He's too heartbroken to piece the clues together.
.
1,999th
If he keeps counting, every death after would just be a passing. Just that, a passing. Because he would look forward to seeing her again and again. But with each last breathe she takes, she keeps in her death bed an infinite percent of his soul.
.
2000th
"So, Kakashi. Which is faster? The speed of light or Minato the Flying Thunder God?"
"Hm?"
"You know, the superhero in the new comic book you bought me?"
"Oh, that."
"So, which is it?"
"Naruto."
"Who?"
"Nothing, Sakura-chan!"
.
2222th
Tears have dried from his eyes now. He's become hardened with each smile on her last moments. The blur in his eyes has turned to diamonds, hard and yet beautiful still. Exactly what he is, a hard long life with a beauty always slipping between his fingers.
.
2650th
He is reminded again that she is not a child when this Sakura walks all over their apartment in nothing but her plain white school girl panties. She doesn't care if he sees because she remembers all the times he's seen her naked when she was under sixteen. There wasn't any kind of desire in his eyes only the exhaustion of seeing her nude and bloodied for the three hundredth or so time.
The red of her blood flashing in his eyes at the memory but this time she sees something different. He looks boldly at her and she doesn't flinch. Removing her last piece of clothing, she stands before him, unashamed.
"Is this the first time you're seeing me?" She asks with a roguish smile and he just stares at her, dark and brooding, piercing yet nervous.
"I've seen you many times."
"But I was just a child."
"Yes you were."
"How old am I now, Kakashi?"
"Twenty."
Sakura cheekily smiles at him, as if she's won a bet against him, and brings her arms to wrap around his neck. She's so close to him that her breathe fans on his chin. Even though she's reached this age in this life she's still much smaller than him. It amuses him. He can feel her breasts pressing onto him and his hands twitch at his sides. Seemingly limp but it's buzzing with restraint.
"I have a favor." She whispers and lifts herself on her toes. The ghost of her lips just a hairsbreadth from his own.
"Hm?" He hums, unable to open his mouth, afraid that the space between them could close with the movement.
She quirks her lips in a lopsided smirk and he has to close his eyes to deny himself this game she has. How could he, an immortal, let her, a mere twenty year old, toy with him? And the truth of his answer is because it's her.
"Kiss me." She says and he trembles, opening his eyes to meet her sea glass. She's so painfully beautiful and it takes him a while before he responds.
He kisses her. Just that gentle tap of a kiss. And then he runs.
The next morning, she dies at 21.
.
3000th
He's tired. So tired.
Of watching her, guarding her, standing vigil over her, standing still beside her, protecting her on her death bed. He can stop it. The only way it ends is if the plague in his chest stops beating. He figured it out after all.
He is just so, so tired. But he doesn't want it to end. He'll have her kill him instead of driving that shattered rusty sword of his long dead clan into his heart. He knows she will never. So he lives and she lives. He remembers each life and death. Sometimes she does too but consistently, in every life, she loves him in all forms.
And that's where he never fails; he loves her too.
ooo-ooo
A/N: This is tagged as complete even though it's open ended. I plan to extend this but I don't know how I'll end this yet. I have a vague idea of how but I still can't form it in my head.
Thank you for reading! Review and tell me what you think please!