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chapter four//undesired savior
As Sakura stepped through the door of the bar, a swift elbow drove its way into a pressure point in her neck. Her limp body was carried away, and nobody in the bar she'd left behind would know where she was being taken.
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Kakashi had been watching from his spot near Sakura's now-vacated bar stool. A man had apparently been watching Sakura, and he'd made his move once she (drunk and angry) moved to leave the establishment. Sakura's attacker was only just on this side of male—he had long, dark hair, and he moved with a feline grace.
Kakashi's conscience, which had been determinedly beaten down over the years in order to survive multiple assassination missions, started to show faint signs of life again. Should he go after her? Served her right for leaving a bar drunk. He'd told her that there were men worse than him in the world. With her gone, he reasoned, he could have the bed in the apartment all to himself. And he would never have to wait for the bathroom as Sakura did the typical female things in there. But again, without a roommate he would have nobody to talk to. He wasn't about to go schizophrenic just to carry on a conversation. Maybe he'd get a dog…
Finally making up his mind, Kakashi decided to go after Sakura's assaulter. After all, he did need to find out how much she'd seen of him when they'd been in the apartment. Well, not how much of his body, anyway, but rather the incident with his favorite senbon holster. Good thing she didn't seem to have seen the multiple holsters lying in his bags. An astute civilian was never such a good thing on a mission.
Leaving a pile of yen on the counter for his (and Sakura's) drinks, Kakashi made his way out the door. He put his hands in his pockets, something he had often seen non-agents doing, and took a look around. Apparently the attacker wasn't very quick, or Sakura wasn't very light, because he was only just a few hundred feet from the door.
Hiding in the shadows as any good agent could do, Kakashi silently came up behind the man with the silent grace he was known for. Pulling a senbon out of his holster, he calculated the point most likely to cause dehabilitating pain.
Just as he was about to attack, however, the man in front of him stopped and turned his head towards Kakashi's place in the shadows.
"Good evening, Kakashi. Mission going well?"
Of course, this left Kakashi stunned. Just as he was about to reply, the man spoke again.
"So because you haven't been around HQ so much, you're too good to say hello to another Sharingan?"
Fellow Sharingan or not, Kakashi needed to talk to this man, away from the other people who roamed the streets. He pulled him into a nearby alley, catching a glimpse of the other man's face in a nearby beam of light.
"Sai?"
Sai nodded and chuckled.
"Damn…this one's kinda ugly…and heavy to boot."
"Am…not…" Sai had been remiss in his attack, as Sakura was already starting to recover from it. Kakashi threw Sai a quizzical look, then nodded briefly as Sai went to knock her out again. They didn't need someone listening in.
"Damn…she came out of that? I must not have hit hard enough…that only took five minutes…"
"Why are you taking her, anyway? She's just a civilian."
"Oh? And how would you know?"
"She's my roommate while I'm here in town."
"Have you done her yet?"
"What? I only just met her yesterday."
"So that's a 'no'?"
"Why do you even care about my sex life, Sai?"
Sai gave a perverted grin. "No reason. But anyway, I'm taking her as part of a mission."
Normally, Kakashi would have left the conversation at that. Missions were not normally discussed with anybody not taking an active part in them. But he had just witnessed his civilian roommate attacked in a public area. Even as part of a mission, that was just bad form.
"If you needed her so badly, why did you do it in the bar?"
"Well, she was leaving, and I received a tip that she's an ANBU agent. Better safe than sorry, no?"
Kakashi was stunned by this information. He ran through his list of observations of Sakura, but none of them seemed to shout "ANBU AGENT HERE".
"Sorry, Sai, but you're wrong on this one. She can't possibly be an agent. I've watched her for about a day and nothing supports your theory. After all, she let her emotions get the best of her—a true agent would never do that."
"Eh? Fine, you can take her then. But…what do you say we have a little fun, first?"
"I'm not going to rape her, if that's what you mean."
"No, but you're going to need a story. Like, how Kakashi got Ugly Girl back from the Big Bad Thug."
"You're too feminine to be a thug. Five minutes, you said, 'til she gets up out of her stupor?"
"Yeah."
"Why don't we fight then? I need a story to cover up the reason why I had a senbon holster on me earlier. Then maybe I can convince her that I'm a…personal bodyguard. Or martial arts expert. Black-belt in karate and tae-kwon-do or something."
"Whatever. She's waking up again. Let's go."
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Sakura woke up in a dark and smelly alley to the distinct sounds of fighting. When she'd left the bar, she'd been so riled up that she hadn't heard her attacker coming. One hit to a pressure point and she was out like a clichéd light.
However, Sakura was an ANBU. And pressure point attacks were basically trained out of all orphans once they became genin. An average of four and a half minutes were needed to work oneself out of a daze. It took more when the agent was drunk, so her slowest wakeup was five or so minutes long.
She opened her eyes, rubbing her head as the vision of two men—was that black-haired one a guy?—fighting. She groaned when she saw that Kakashi was fighting.
Which one had attacked her? She hadn't seen a face. She wouldn't have put anything past Kakashi, since he'd obviously viewed her as a sexual object before. However, she'd heard the other man call her ugly from the general region of her hips. She'd been slung over someone's shoulder, so it made sense if that other man were the one who had hit her.
She was about to say something, but the sheer beauty of a physical fight stunned her. Faint lights from either side of the alley shone in distinct circles upon the ground. The two men went in and out of focus as they worked themselves in and out of the beams.
Kakashi executed a perfect high-kick, which was sloppily blocked by the other man. The man stumbled back, but returned with several punching combinations. The fight went on and on, until Sakura could no longer keep track of all the martial arts moves. Finally, the black-haired man was on the ground again, and Kakashi pulled out a shiny senbon from the holster she'd seen him putting on earlier.
'Why on earth would he have such a thing?' Sakura thought as the fallen brunette opened his eyes wide in fear. Kakashi smirked, and threw the senbon—lightly, but with perfect accuracy—into a pressure point on the man's neck. The brunette was knocked out. Kakashi looked a bit perturbed at winning, as if he were worried about the thug.
Finally, he turned to her.
"I told you so."
"None of this would have happened if you had just left me alone in the first place, you know."
"Oh really? So you would rather have been attacked in a bar without someone to protect you?"
Sakura wasn't about to tell this near-stranger that she had no less than three holsters of weapons on her body tonight. She was supposed to be a civilian, and she'd played along.
"Thanks, I guess." She turned to go back to the apartment. True to form, Kakashi caught up and caught her shoulder. She huffed, then turned to face him.
"What now, oh Great Warrior?"
"I'll walk you back."
This caught Sakura off guard. She didn't deny that it would help to have someone watching her back, especially if said someone were highly trained in all martial arts styles. However, said someone was also a royal pain-in-the-ass.
"Whatever."
Sakura started walking away. She heard Kakashi start jogging to catch up, but he kept a respectful distance between the two of them. She didn't realize it, but she let out a small sigh of relief. She didn't want to risk another attack—it was a sad day when a top jounin could be knocked unconscious by a common thug without first putting up a fight.
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Back at the apartment, Sakura waited until Kakashi was out of the bedroom as she closed the door and started changing for sleep. She didn't want to keep the holsters on because they made it awfully uncomfortable. However, she couldn't risk leaving them out where he could possibly find them. So, she left them on. They were slim holsters anyway. She could wear most clothing with the smallest worry of betraying outlines.
She got into the bed, pulling the covers over herself. She noticed that they had shuriken printed on them. It was a bit weird, sleeping under what looked like kid's sheets.
Sakura heard the door open, and sat up as Kakashi flicked on the light. He wasn't wearing the holsters she'd seen before. In fact, he wasn't wearing anything but a pair of low-slung long pants. He was in good shape, too—well-defined pectorals, subtly ridged abdominals…
All godly looks aside, he was in her room.
"What are you doing here?"
Kakashi plumped up a pillow on the other side of the queen-sized bed.
"Getting ready to sleep, of course."
"But you're supposed to sleep on the couch. This is…is…impolite."
"No, my dear, you dictated that I was to sleep on the couch. You, however, are sleeping on my sheets."
Oh. Apartments didn't provide linens…and she hadn't brought her own. She had just figured that the sheets were left by a previous tenant.
Sakura started lining up extra pillows down the middle of the bed.
"Your side, my side, don't touch me and good night."
She lay down and turned towards the edge of the bed, shimmying down under the covers. When Kakashi didn't turn off the light, she looked at him. He was still standing on his side of the bed—she sneaked another look at those broad shoulders and sinewy body.
"What now?"
"We need to talk."
"What?" Sakura had never heard of a man initiating a conversation this way.
"Can't it wait until morning? You're not the one who was knocked out today."
"Exactly why we need to talk."
Sakura groaned and stared up at the ceiling. With a great show of effort, she sat up again and leaned against the headboard.
"You were knocked unconscious today. You didn't do anything to stop it."
'Well,' she figured, 'he doesn't need to know that I had a kunai all ready to go when he showed up…'
Kakashi continued. "That is why I have decided to give you fighting lessons."
"Who are you to offer instruction?"
"I'm a…personal bodyguard. People hire me to protect them."
'Personal bodyguard? You're the exact opposite of that...you kill, not protect. But I could see rich women hiring you as a personal Chippendale…'
"I see. And when would these lessons occur?"
"Do you work?"
"No…I'm in-between jobs right now." 'Heh…in between actual missions, more like.'
"Well then, I'll teach you every day down in the gym. I'm normally working out around four, but we'll have sessions every morning. From nine until whenever I say that you're done."
Nine in the morning was nothing to Sakura. But, true to her cover, she had to pretend not only that she didn't normally wake up at five anyway, but that she couldn't punch a bowl of jello to save her life.
"Fine."
"Good night, Sakura."
Sakura grunted, wormed her way back under the covers again, and closed her eyes. She felt the bed shift a bit as Kakashi, too, tried to sleep.
"Kakashi?"
"Mm?"
"You never turned out the lights."
'I couldn't even get a 'thanks for saving my life'?' Kakashi thought, but he figured that it was best if he just did as he was told for now. After all, she would be getting a Sharingan-style boot camp tomorrow. This would be fun.
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A/N: Another chapter done…thanks for reading, and thanks to waningphoenix and daxxler for reviewing before I wrote this chapter.
I have no idea how long this story will end up, but I'm all in favor of a slow buildup to relationships in fanfics. Thus, I'm going to take as long as I need. (I also don't really plan my stories ahead of time, so inconsistencies may—and often do—occur.)