vindication | noun | vin·di·ca·tion | proof that something or someone is right, reasonable, or justified | the act of clearing someone from blame or suspicion
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There was a time where Kakashi was the strongest shinobi in the village. With the exception of the Hokage, of course. Even though he's lazy and always has his nose stuck in his book, there's no denying the difference in skill between him and his cute little Genin. After all, they graduated from the Academy no more than three months prior.
This illusion is shattered in the Land of Waves. Zabuza's sword lashes out and Kakashi is only barely able to jump far away enough to escape its deadly edge. The rest of Team Seven can do nothing but watch.
It becomes far too real when the tides turn swiftly and Kakashi is caught in the water prison. And though, ultimately, they win the battle, it is a bittersweet victory. None of them have escaped unscathed, and even worse, there is a realization that their sensei is not the strongest shinobi out there. There are dangers even he might not be able to protect them from.
Naruto puts on a brave smile, as he always does, and shouts to the sky that they won't have to worry because he'll become much stronger than Kakashi-sensei and that dumbass Zabuza AND the Hokage so he can protect everyone in Konoha. Sasuke scowls in response and snaps at Tazuna to lead them to the village.
Sakura says nothing and slips her arm under the limp figure of her sensei while Naruto supports the other side. But underneath her silence, she is heartbroken. Not in the same way she feels whenever Sasuke-kun refuses to go out on a date with her or when he casts her an especially icy glare. This feels somehow all the more real. It is the first of many.
She sits at the base of a tree, picking at blades of grass while Naruto and Sasuke bicker about who will reach the top of their trees first.
"You seem sad, Sakura-chan." Kakashi comments, when he awakes from his exhaustion-driven slumber three days after the fight with Zabuza. He hobbles over on his crutches. "Aren't you happy you beat those two?" They both look over to see Naruto fall from a third of the way up the tree, landing on a pile of broken branches with a exaggerated groan.
"No, it's nothing, Kakashi-sensei." She shakes her head and puts on her best smile, one that has even fooled Ino, before she stands and brushes off her dress. "Sorry for slacking off, I just got distracted. Ino used to teach me about wildflowers and I guess I was just reminiscing."
But apparently it's not enough to fool him, because his response is a frown, or rather, a furrowing of his visible brow.
Sakura doesn't think she's even seen Kakashi quite so serious outside of battle.
"Follow me," he suddenly says, turning on his heels and limping away.
"Huh? What about Sasuke-kun and Naruto?" She stumbles after him and receives no response. A pout tugs at her lips, but she chooses not to press him and simply follows silently.
They soon arrive at a small pond, a bit farther into the woods. "I want you to walk over that." Kakashi jabs his chin toward the body of water.
Sakura scowls. "You're kidding, right?"
"Nope!"
"But Kakashi-sensei," she whines, "I really don't know the first thing about-"
"Sakura." His tone is suddenly serious, enough for her to snap her mouth shut and lift her gaze to stare at him in surprise. "I won't be able to protect you all the time, you saw how it was with Zabuza. I know that's what you've been so preoccupied about."
"No, tha-that's not it."
He gives her a pointed look, which she doesn't quite care to respond too. Instead, she marches right past him towards the water. She falters momentarily as she draws near, her toes just inches away from the edge. It suddenly occurs to her, yet again, that she doesn't know how to even begin.
"Try concentrating some chakra at the base of your feet," Kakashi yells, having taken a seat at the base of one of the trees by the edge of the clearing.
Sakura huffs, but does as he instructs. It's similar to the tree-climbing, she notes as she takes a step onto the water. And if it's so similar, she should ace this just as easily, right? Instead, she promptly falls right through the surface, and though the water is fairly shallow, she's now drenched up to her waist.
Kakashi is laughing loudly behind her.
"Don't you have better things to do?" she hisses, pulling herself out of the water, "You know, for example, telling me something a bit more useful than just to use chakra?"
He looks contemplative for a second. "Mmm nope."
She wants to scream. She settles on just glaring at him for fraction of a second before trying again. And again. And again.
It takes approximately twenty three more tries (not that she's counting or anything). To stand on the water without falling right through. Sakura only holds it for a few seconds, but when she inevitably falls into the water, she stands right back up with elated shriek.
"Did you see that, Kakashi-sensei?" she screeches, her hands clenched and pumping the air in victory.
"Huh? See what?" he calls back over the top of his book.
She screams and doesn't catch the smile that he hides.
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Sakura knows that Kakashi sees a lot of Rin in herself. The whole team is a splitting image of his own, he confesses. There is so much of Obito in Naruto and himself in Sasuke that the memories flood back to him. Not all of them are good.
In all his regrets, it is the resemblance to his former female teammate that truly kills him. Rin is one of his biggest failures that, even to this day, despite the constant support and reassurance it is not his fault, he is just getting over.
Sakura knows he feels bad.
She knows because one time, when Naruto had left with Jiraiya, Sasuke had defected, and Kakashi threw himself back into ANBU, he appears in her bedroom. She has not seen him in a while. Months, at least.
It hurts, because she can feel the threads of abandonment ripping apart the second family she has grown to love, but there is nothing she can do about it. Because she knows Kakashi is hurting as well. This is the second team he has lost and it is the only way he knows how to cope. Sakura does not blame him.
She wakes to Kakashi standing in the middle of her room, which, besides the obvious strangeness of it all, should not be possible because she keeps her windows locked and her room springloaded with traps.
It is the dead middle of night and he is a bloody mess. As a medic, she wants to tell him to get his ass to the hospital. As his student, she knows that is neither what he wants nor needs.
Wordlessly, she uses what limited knowledge of medical ninjutsu to heal him. She has only started learning under Tsunade for a few months now, but it is enough to get him functioning again. Whether he likes it or not, she will eventually take him to get better care, but that time is not now.
Millions of questions ride to to her throat, but they die down when she looks in his eyes. Both of them. There's hurt in his normal black eye and a different, almost unrecognizable expression in his Sharingan. They plead her not to say anything so, for once, she respects his wishes.
"I'm sorry," Kakashi says quietly as she stitches together the shattered remains of his right palm. The burns are undoubtedly from a chidori that sat for a moment too long in his hands, building up chakra until it backfired upon him. It is so quiet that she almost does not hear him, even over the quiet that the night brings.
"For what, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura replies easily, trailing glowing green hands over the countless cuts and bruises that litter him. Despite not being able to do much for his internal bleeding or the concussion he has, she does what she can to the best of her ability. Tsunade would have her head if she did not do put her all into what she does.
He does not respond for a while and instead watches as she works. It is the first time, she realizes, that he really puts any attention into her abilities. It stings, but she pushes that deep down and focuses on him instead because he is hurting much more than she is and she has been selfish for long enough.
When she finally pulls her hands away and lets the glow of her hand flicker out, he speaks again. "I promise everything is going to be okay."
Sakura only nods because even though Kakashi always keeps his promises, she does not know how the hell he will manage this one.
He leaves as quickly as he came, but not before ruffling her hair affectionately and giving her his famous eye-crinkle smiles. She accepts this as thanks because she gets to see with with both his eyes instead of the usual one.
Sakura shuts the window behind him, watching as he disappears over the rooftops with leaps and bounds.
When she can no longer see Kakashi fleeing form, she breaks the four month, twelve day, and three hour streak she has maintained since seeing Naruto so close death and cries. She has no right to, because this is Kakashi's pain, not hers, but the tears continue to fall.
Wiping away her tears, she cleans the blood off her floor and tries her best to go back to sleep. It evades her and leaves her with treacherous bags under her eyes when morning comes, when she has to drag herself out of bed to train with her shishou.
The traps remain, but she does not lock her windows anymore.
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Three days later, Kakashi visits again and she is elated to actually get to see him again. Sakura has convinced herself that night was a dream, because really, who the hell goes to a Genin medic in training instead of the hospital?
He is carrying takeout from Ichiraku and a bottle of sake, the same brand that Tsunade likes. She has not had ramen since Naruto left because she promises herself that when he returns, she will take him there and eat and eat until she never wants to see ramen again.
But she is not the ungrateful sort and takes it anyway.
"I'm not old enough to drink, Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura laughs, splitting apart her chopsticks. A clean split. That's good luck!
She sits at the head of her bed and he sits at the foot, only allowed there after promising that he will not spill a single drop on her freshly washed sheets.
"Good," he replies, "Because this is all for me. I'm going to need it." He is as cryptic as always, but she has long since learned to accept this. Nevertheless, he talks. More than he ever has talked to her before and she figures it is more than he ever will.
And she listens.
He tells her about his team, his old one. Unlike them, they were never assigned an official number and instead went by the moniker Team Minato.
They were raised in times of war, forced to be adult before they even had to chance to truly be kids. Because of the loss of lives, they were given hasty promotions and were Chuunin before they ever had the chance to be Genin. Before they could experience the pains of D ranked missions and the excitement of the Chunin exams like teams born into an era of peace.
Kakashi describes his sensei, who turns out to be Naruto's dad but don't tell him because he has to figure that out for himself. How Minato was everything anyone could want in a sensei and how he sacrificed everything for the village he loved more than himself. Sakura wishes she could meet him.
Kakashi describes himself. He talks about being described as a genius, being Jonin at 12 and ANBU at 14. There is not pride in his voice, it is not self flattery, only stating facts. The topic then goes from himself to his father. For the first time since he starts talking, Kakashi falters. It is almost unnoticeable, she only picks up on it because she is such an avid listener.
But he is strong. He continues to talk, even though the memories are clearly painful for him. It makes Sakura respect him more than she already does. He describes Sakumo with all the love and care of any son. He tells her of his father's suicide, lowering his voice in respect. They have a brief moment of silence.
Kakashi describes Obito, the Uchiha who was so un-Uchiha in every way. For starters, he had emotions and no trouble expressing them, which is the most amazing part because most of his family had neither. Unconsciously, Kakashi smiles as he talks about Obito and the fights they had. It fades, though, as he recounts the very mission that takes Obito's life. There is so much that happens, first the boulder that crushes Obito and then the Sharingan that he offers Kakashi. The copy nintaps the cold metal of his forehead protector when he reveals that he is often late because he spends so much time at the Memorial Stone.
Lastly, Kakashi describes Rin. The sweet medic nin of his team who always healed his wounds, which he repaid by shoving his Chidori through her chest. He has the least to say about Rin and slips into silence after retelling her death. The bottle of sake is nearly empty, but his ramen is untouched. Instead, it sits in his hands, having grown lukewarm.
Her mind is reeling, processing everything that he has told her. She wants to cry again, not for herself, but for Kakashi, who has lived such a hard life but still puts on a brave front and fights for his village like nothing is wrong. But she holds back her tears, because he is the one who has lived through it all, not her.
There is so much she wants to say, but can not find the strength or courage to force the words from her throat. She wants to say sorry, which does no good for anyone. It is not that Sakura pities Kakashi, because pity is not the same as empathy.
More importantly, she wants to say thank you. Because she can not imagine how hard it is for Kakashi to live through all his memories at once. She knows he is trying hard, so hard, to let her understand him. Why he acts the way he does. Why he always protects her. Why he has never let anyone else in before now.
But while she can offer no words to take all the pain away, Sakura can do her best to comfort him. So she places her half-eaten bowl on the floor, where it won't spill, and reaches over to pat Kakashi on the head. Exactly the same way he does to her.
To his credit, he doesn't cry. He has done so much of that already. Instead, a small smile appears on his lips, stretching the fabric of his mask. It doesn't quite reach his eyes, but it crinkles anyways as if he's trying to convince her of it. Or perhaps to convince himself.
Because Sakura understands that she is all that Kakashi has right now. There is no more Team Minato and there is barely a Team Seven and those are the only people Kakashi have allowed himself to ever get close to.
So they two survivors make peace with both what they have and what they do not and finish their impromptu lunch in silence.
Sakura knows that Kakashi will always be protective of her, whether she likes it or not. Though he knows Rin and Sakura are separate entities, the similarities linger. But if it helps him cope, then she will accept it. Because Kakashi deserves more than the cards he has been dealt.
There is one thing he is thankful for, in the very least, is that the differences between her and Rin are too many to count. He sees the person that is distinctly Sakura and not Rin. It is the least he can do.
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Despite being perhaps the worst person to do so, Kakashi tries to comfort Sakura in the absence of Sasuke and Naruto. To make up for the four months he disappeared from her life, he reinstates their Team Seven training sessions (though now lacking half their members) and pushes her four times as intensely as he ever pushed Sasuke and Naruto. The Chunin exams are coming up again, after the first having been interrupted by both the invasion and Sasuke's defection.
The wounds are fresh, even when time passes and she becomes a Chunin, only half a year since Naruto leaves and a little over eight months since their other teammate had done the same, though Sasuke's departure is a bit more permanent.
She replaces Shikamaru on Team Ten and the teamwork between her, Ino, and Choji almost rivals that of the former Team Seven. Almost. Either way, the competition doesn't stand a chance. In comparison to the previous exams, this year is a breeze. (It may or may not be due to the fact that this year is lacking a certain two Jinchurikis.)
It hurts that of the boys, her boys, only one of them is there to celebrate her accomplishments. But it does not stop them from celebrating the momentous occasion instead of wallowing in pity. There has been too much of that already.
Kakashi buys a cake the moment they leave the stadium after she knocks out the Genin boy from Kusogakure, even though the title isn't official until three days later.
Actually, he bakes a cake, much to her surprise. Admittedly, it's not very good. It's flat and uneven, with just a hint too much salt and a hint not enough sugar, but she eats it anyway. All of it. It is the best thing she has ever tasted because Kakashi made it for her.
He insists on throwing it away, but she won't let him. Instead, she promises to make the cake next time and he can just buy some Ichiraku for them or something. Maybe that will make up for the times he has skipped out on the bill whenever they went as a team.
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It happens a week before her second Chunin exam. Hideo, a civilian man, comes in for his routine yearly checkup, as is required for all citizens of Konoha. Sakura has been put on rounds, with her Shishou demanding she complete at least sixty hours before they continue training.
Really, she thinks she should be training as hard as she can instead of working at the hospital, but when she voices her concerns, Tsunade only snorts and tells her "Of course you're going to pass. You're my apprentice." Sakura leaves her office with an unabashed grin.
It is the end of her shift and after a grueling ten hours of being stuck in the hospital, there is nothing she wants more than to collapse in her bed. She goes through the motions: checking his height and weight, comparing his statistics to previous records, and lastly sending a quick wave of chakra through him to check for any abnormalities.
Nothing seems to be the matter. Hideo leaves within fifteen minutes of being there and Sakura is able to avoid overtime for the first time this week.
She only finds out when she spots his folder suddenly moved to a separate section of the records. Her eyes flicker up to the sign placed on the bookshelf. Deceased. With shaky hands, she reaches for the folder.
Organ failure. It began in his heart, then, when the other organs didn't receive the oxygenated blood they required, the rest of his body shut down as well. It was not quick and merciful death. The paper crinkles under the force of her grip.
In other words, it was something that she could have prevented, should have prevented. But now this man, no, Hideo was dead all because she wanted to go home a few minutes early. Sakura's knees collapse under her and she lands on the floor, holding on weakly to a shelf for support.
Tsunade finds her hours later in the same position. She sees the folder and pulls the girl into a tight hug, already knowing the answer to the question that stalls in the back of her throat. In the moment, she remembers the first time she failed to save a patient, the pain that it brought, and the spiral it sent her down. She does not wish the same for her apprentice, her young and naive apprentice who has already been through so much in the past few months and does not need this grief.
Dry sobs rip through Sakura's throat, but tears do not appear in her eyes. Instead, she grips onto her shishou's top, fingers trembling with fear for the future and rage in herself. The weakness that she has been trying so hard to purge from herself has made a reappearance. It is in her failure to save Hideo just as much as it is in the tears that burn in her eyes that she refuses to let fall. At the very least, let her be strong enough to hold them back.
In quiet whispers, Tsunade tells her it's not her fault. That she has been pushing herself so hard, that the symptoms were hard to see and that it will never happen again. Sakura almost begins to believe it.
In an equally quiet voice, she asks her mentor if it ever gets any easier. If the pain magically stops and she won't feel herself tear into pieces every time she loses a patient. She does not Hideo past his name, his height, his weight, or anything else written in his medical file, but his death still brings her a pain she has never imagined.
Tsunade bites her lip and answers her honestly, because, above all, Sakura does not deserve being lied to. The pain will dull but it will always be there.
Hours later, Sakura collapses on her bed after weak promises that she will be alright. She does not know if it is true, all she knows is that she wants to be at home. The house is empty. Her parents have left her alone to go on a mission, as they have hundreds and hundreds of times before. She should be used to it by now, but their absence has never stung so much.
A loud crash distracts her momentarily. Kakashi has broken her window. He steps into her room, deftly avoiding the mess of broken glass, of which he is the cause, to sit on the edge of her bed.
Sakura rises in anger, ready to release the pent up anger and other raw emotions that have been bubbling up inside her. Instead, he grabs her by the shoulders and hugs her tightly.
"The window was locked."
She is stunned, because the last time she has locked her window was before that night he had suddenly appeared, bloody and bruised. Her lip quivers and the tears begins to overflow, so she takes the only reasonable action she can think of and pushes him away.
The last thing she wants right now is for him to see her cry. To see her as that weak girl from months ago who couldn't even hold a kunai right, much less keep the fabric of their team from ripping apart.
"It's okay to cry," Kakashi says quietly, not relinquishing his grip, "Everyone cries. It doesn't mean you're weak."
She takes in a shuddered breath. "You don't." Her words are almost accusatory, sharpened into a fine point meant to pierce and harm him.
But he is not wounded. Instead, Kakashi laughs and tells her stories of all the times he's cried. It starts when he's young, only a boy of 3 and he spills his ice cream cone. Some stories of them are recent. Actually, a lot of them are recent, especially surrounding the time of Sasuke's departure. During that time, he cried almost as much as she had.
Sakura sits and listens, even when he runs out of stories to tell her, though he assures her there's plenty more time that he simply can't think of right now. The tears have stopped, at least, though her breathing is still ragged and uneven.
When she feels she can make it through a full sentence without breaking down, she tells her that she won't do the exams. Even though it's only a week away and Ino and Choji will definitely be at a loss, she won't. She can't.
He refuses.
Her eyes, as puffy and red as they are, narrow and she again she pulls away in unbridled rage. This time, he lets her break free and she yells until her voice is raw and cracked. She grabs his collar, fingers trembling as they dig into the dark fabric.
Kakashi listens to her, even when she's no longer making sense and is yelling just to be yelling. But when she's finally done, he puts his hand on top of her head and ruffles her hair. "You've worked so hard for this Sakura," he says, "You're strong and I'm proud of you."
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I'd like to point out there is a difference between Kakashi and Boar. The chapter's title is important. At least, to me, it is.
I like seeing the more human side of Kakashi. And on that note, I really liked writing this chapter. So much so that when I first wrote it, it ended up being super long so I split it into two.