Kakashi was starting to think that he was a terrible person.
Well, no. That was a lie. This wasn't the start of such thoughts, but this was definitely some sort of confirmation from the universe. It definitely wasn't enough that he had failed Sasuke and allowed him to fall into the hands of a particularly nasty shinobi. It definitely wasn't enough that he had (let them die) failed Obito and Rin. It definitely wasn't enough that…
Well. He could go on. He had gone on, in the past. He'd let himself wallow in the misery of his failures, let the past distract him from the present he should have been in. If he hadn't wasted so much time, if he hadn't been so distracted, could he have kept Sasuke safe?
And now, more importantly, could he have convinced Sakura to stay?
He'd been so stupid and Sakura had taken advantage of it in a way that he hadn't thought her capable of. Lying to his face, using him to ensure that the only people who would have known something was up weren't anywhere near her, and then…
I can't live without him. I'm going to join Sasuke and Orochimaru.
And then he read that letter and every single barrier he'd put up against his emotions had come crumbling down, every single failure crushing down on whatever strength he'd had left, and suddenly there was only one thing he could do, only one thing he had to do, and that was stop her before he failed her too.
Tsunade had tried to stop him. Claim that there was no way Sakura could have gotten far, she certainly wasn't the Uchiha, a good team of chunin could probably track her down in a day, and the part that really stung was that Tsunade was probably right. Sakura had always been behind her teammates in terms of skill and strength, but this wasn't just a problem for the village anymore. This was a problem for him. He'd thought he could count on Sakura to keep her composure, to stay safe in the village and learn at her own pace, but he couldn't even get that right. He had to be the one to retrieve her, no matter how much Tsunade yelled at him to stay. If not him, if not someone who understood…
Not to discount, of course, that he was fairly good at tracking. The dogs of his clan could pick up on any scent, so he could catch up on Sakura in no time as long as he moved quickly. Then, once he found her, he could work on picking up the pieces of himself, the pieces of this team that had fallen apart like brittle glass.
His run came to a stop in the direction of the Land of Rice Fields, where he knew the Sound Village had been established. Orochimaru was there, and that was the direction that Sasuke had fled. Sakura would have gone here. He held in his hand the headband that Sakura had left behind, no doubt bathed in her scent. It would have to do.
Some blood and a few hand signs later, a half a dozen shinobi mutts stood in front of him. He held out the headband for each to sniff.
"Find her. As quick as possible."
The dogs dispersed, and the waiting, the impossible waiting began. Kakashi worked to push down his anxieties, though he couldn't even dwell on the fact that it had been two days before anyone had noticed Sakura was missing. Not even her parents, who had assumed her absence had been due to her shinobi schedule, not even her new team who had assumed her ill. In two days she could have covered a considerable distance.
But he was faster. He could catch up. He had to catch up.
It was a long half an hour before all six of his dogs returned to him. But the few seconds of realization seemed to last even longer.
"None of you found anything?"
"Not a thing." Pakkun replied, looking about as grave as Kakashi felt. "Whichever direction she went, it wasn't this way. Either that or she found a way to completely cover her scent."
Unlikely, Kakashi figured. There was no way Sakura could have gotten that good so quickly, he could count the number of shinobi that good on one hand. But if she hadn't gone in the direction of the Sound Village, then…
Which direction had she gone?
Kakashi couldn't help but let a small smile come to his face. One of the first lessons he'd taught her was to 'look underneath the underneath'. Sakura had been devious enough to lie to him, to get information out of him, then maybe, just maybe…
"You little minx." He said aloud. He gestured to his hounds, and began the trek back in the direction of the village. He'd have to start from her house, he supposed, and hope her trail was good enough to pick up the real direction she had gone.
The only question was: where would Sakura Haruno have gone if not to Sasuke? She had no way of knowing where Jiraiya had taken Naruto; that had been the point. But there was nowhere else immediately obvious that came to mind. Sakura had put together some sort of plan and had gone in the exact opposite place that anyone had expected her to. She had used a letter to convince others that she had gone to Sasuke, maybe in the hopes that they would get distracted long enough to get her a head start. (Maybe in the hopes they wouldn't have looked for her at all.)
Alright. Maybe he hadn't completely failed her yet. But come hell or high water, that girl was getting a lecture once he found her.
