Standard disclaimer applies. I hope y'all enjoyed the prologue. Now for round two!

Totally Transparent
Chapter One

In all her years she never expected this.

That is to say being dead in her sensei's apartment, on her knees, looking for his raunchy books for company. (Of course, she never expected to die at such a young age either, but that was besides the point.) Back on topic. If this was really his room, even a replica, those books had to be somewhere. Raunchy books were better than no books. To be honest, and she was when the mood suited, raunchy books were better than most books. Hey, who didn't like a little escapism now and then? She was dead and suck, and for those reasons alone Sakura thought she was entitled to an epic diversion right now.

Hell, she deserved it!

It was getting on in the day when Sakura roused herself from her stupor of self-pity. The sun turned orange and the clouds purple when she had decided to stop thinking about the before and after her entrapment, as she now called her situation. Instead, she should try to take her mind off her circumstances, and what better method to do so than reading. It was a brilliant idea. She was stuck and there was nothing she could do about it. Might as well make the best of it, and raiding her ex-sensei's erotica collection was the best idea she could think of.

So here she was on her knees peering under Kakashi's bed.

It was getting harder to see by the minute. Twilight made the room dark, casting long shadows across the floorboards, but there was still enough light to see that there was nothing under Kakashi's bed but a seal to keep away vermin. No boxes, no dirty stashes of old hentai magazines from twenty years ago like she found in Naruto's place. (He swore that he got them at a discount price from some old man he met. She had sworn she stumbled upon them by accident.) There was nothing. Not even his closet, the small thing that it was, held a simple book collection - no classics, no shinobi training manuels, no Bingo book, and sadly no smutty books.

Maybe this wasn't his bedroom. This could have just been a room she was placed in by some cruel gods. Sitting back against the bed Sakura closed her eyes. The room was darker now. Well, if this really wasn't his room in the living world then hopefully she would be able to turn on a light. She had been able to open that door to nowhere and search through his things. Pause. Were ghosts supposed to move things? Ugh. She just creped herself out.

Rolling her head to the side she was able to clearly see the door. The light switch was next to it, but Sakura didn't want to go near it. Her choice was clear: either don't turn on the light and remain totally in the dark with the creepy door to void-y-ness, or turn on the light, high-tail it back to the window, and at least keep an eye on the other side of the room for any door opening signs. She sighed, the choice clear.

The whole business took less than five seconds, but Sakura was out of breath by the time she made it back to the bed. A cold sweat dotted her brow, but when she tried to wipe it away she felt nothing. The feeling remained growing down her body till it reached her toes. The urge to retch overwhelmed her but ability to so was lost. She was not a physical entity anymore. Sakura knew that much, but she could almost still feel physical sensations.

Leaning against the bed she breathed in deeply. A deep calmness fell over her and slowly, like a sluggish tide, she felt herself numb and wash away.

When Sakura felt herself become conciseness once more it was because of the weirdest sensation. Something was in her. Sakura remained motionless on the floor unable to scream or move as a sensation akin to pain whistled through her spirit. The feeling of something going through her was akin to being violated. It was not physical but emotional. She tried to scream but nothing would come out. She gaped like a fish, her mouth opening and closing, tears forming underneath her lashes before her strengthed returned.

Flinging herself off the floor, Sakura tumbled to the other side of the room and looked up to see that a very familiar face was staring back at her.

Hatake Kakashi. Unmasked.

Sakura wished that she had something witty and insightful to say, but her mind was blank. This was not how she expected to see Kakashi unmasked ever. She was slowly finding that all her expectations were being ruined one by one that day.

"Sakura?" Kakashi croaked his voice barely above a whisper. His eyes, one red and the other brown, were wide and glowed in the faint moonlight. His body was tense as if he was about to fight her, which was impossible even for Kakashi. She was dead after all. Suddenly it kind of made sense.

She was a ghost. The knowledge came from some identifiable source, but it rang true. She was a ghost. Maybe this was her haunting victim? Damn, this was getting better and better by the second.

"Kakashi." Her voice sounded strange and that same emotional sensation of pain followed, but it was lighter, softer this time. She felt as if her spirit was on fire, her energy drained with that one word. This dead thing was not working out Sakura thought vaguely trying to regain her balance.

Kakashi's face was unreadable, more of a mask than the one he wore. Shaking his head he stood up and walked quickly to the sink. Coupled with the beer, there was now an opened bottle of vodka and a half full glass of rum. The pain ebbed away as quickly as it had come. When did he get back? How long was she gone? Where the hell did she go? She didn't recall falling asleep.

The sound of the faucet running brought her attention back to the present and to the man now huddled over the sink washing his face. Sakura watched with abstract amazement as his muscles contracted underneath a standard Anbu black undershirt. If she had been a physical woman she would have felt sexual desire, but now there was nothing and for some reason that loss grated on her nerves more so than being dead.

It was strange thing to know how one would have, should have felt but not be able to do so. A desire to be alive crept around her, but Sakura pushed the feeling away. What was gone, what she wished to be, was impossible. She could never live again as she once had. Turning her face away from Kakashi, Sakura sat on his bed and wished herself to be invisible.

Kakashi probably thought he was dreaming. How many days had it been since she died? She had no idea. It could have been a week or a year and that unknown information terrified her. To know that she could just disappear from consciousness and lose herself completely, to not know where she went to, scared the shit out of her. Where had she gone? Was it like only a few minutes before when she woke up to Kakashi's body in her own, when she had lost herself at twilight in that slowly, pulling motion?

As a child Sakura thought death would bring all the answers, but it only brought more and unlike when she was a child there was no one to talk to, to confide in. Kakashi probably thought he was crazy.

"Sakura." She barely heard Kakashi's voice it was so low. For a crazy, heart stopping moment she thought he was talking to her, but when she looked up she found that she was wrong.

Kakashi stood next to her looking out the window, but he was not talking to her. His hand reached out and touched the pane glass window. Sakura gulped and stared at his naked face. The mask was gone and in the moonlight he looked...There wasn't a word to describe how he looked at that moment. His features were undeniably sad and distant, more untouchable than a ghost.

Sakura had expected him to be extremely handsome, but his looks were not so above par. He was a very attractive man yet not an extremely handsome one. He had a strong nose and chin, but his lips were a little too thin. His nose was a bit crooked and there was a scar along his chin bone. Some of his features overwhelmed others, but there was something about him that oozed sexual virility.

Kakashi looked made for sex.

His hips were narrow but thick enough so he could pound into a woman instead of sliding between her legs. His chest was finely cut and lean but heavy with dense muscle. On any other man his muscles may have bulged, but not with Kakashi. The fingers that touched the glass were long and well shaped like a musicians. How many women had he touched with those fingers Sakura wondered before catching herself. She would have flushed if she still could. Instead she turned away. She felt like she was intruding on some private moment, one that no one had a right to witness. It made her uncomfortable. She clasped her hands together and regarded the floor.

Try as she might she could not think of anything else but Kakashi. It was an odd thing really that she couldn't feel any sexual desire for him. She almost wished she could. He was a fine specimen of man and surprisingly she only felt the tiniest bit ecchi for thinking about her ex-sensei in sexual terms.

She was brought to the present when his fingers curled into themselves and his knuckles whitened. He turned towards her, looked right through her, and moved to the bed again. Not wanting him to go through her, Sakura jumped off the bed and ran towards the other side of the room. She pulled out and chair and sat down and it wasn't until he gasped that Sakura realized what had occurred.

He was staring at the area she was in, regarding chair she just pulled out. She let go of it as if it were on fire. Which in reality shouldn't have bothered her. Pro number one Sakura thought glumly.

"What the hell?" His eyes flickered for a moment before he murmured to himself, placing a hand on his head. He shook his head in self deprecatingly way and pushed the chair back in its proper place. He was murmured something but it was so quiet Sakura didn't catch what he said.

So he couldn't see her anymore. Sakura look down at herself. She looked as solid as ever, what changed?

"Kakashi." Sakura called out. No response.

She touched her throat. Her voice sounded normal and there was no pain. What was going on? The analytical side of her mind rushed forward. A little experiment was in the order. A smile tickled the corner of her lips. This would scare or at least freak him out if it worked, but this was Kakashi. She had no problem giving him a little fright. Besides, she was the one stuck and his serious emotions were getting a bit too...personal for her liking.

Concentrating on steadying her voice, willing him to hear it, she took a big metaphorical breath. "I was going to use that chair, sensei. I might be dead, but I still need to sit."

He was just laying down to bed when he froze. Slowly he stood up and looked straight at her. Through her. "Who's there?"

His voice was rough and unwelcoming, his body taunt, and his dark eyes wary. He held a kunai in his hands and his sharingan swirled around and around. Sakura walked right up to him and stared him down. She couldn't stop the smile that erupted on her face.

The sharingan was beautiful and useless. Boon two. Looking at his body Sakura knew that he aware of another presence. He relaxed and his body turned fluid. This was a dangerous Kakashi. He was completely relaxed and ready, aware everything around him.

"Come out." Kakashi's voice boomed in her ears, his eyes turning sharp and deadly. Shit. She was scared. This haunting thing was not going as planned, but she would be damned if she let him know it. Besides, she was the ghost! He should be the scaree.

"I'm right here, sensei." Sakura let the smile echo in her voice and wished herself to become visible to him. She focused her spirit and energy in becoming visible and was rewarded, because he was not longer looking through her but at her. It seemed like she was getting the hang of this business. She wasn't a fast learner for nothing. She was proud of herself for a couple of seconds before the unexpected happened.

He turned and left the apartment.