Note: Update 3 of 4 on Jan. 7
Kakashi was a feral, out-of-control menace that threatened to do Konoha just as much if not more harm than he did good.
This is what Sakura had decided in the past week.
He needs to be put down, the Voice growled.
Sakura had also decided she would like very much to be the one who put him down.
Unfortunately, this was an impossible task at the moment.
"Your genjutsu technique is improving," the crow commented, interrupting her thoughts. The words were delivered indifferently.
Sakura straightened, wiping sweat off her face. "You said before that I could use you to produce better genjutsus. How do I do that?"
Shisui's wings fluttered rapidly, propelling it into brief flight before it landed on the bench next to her. It cocked its head to the side; the spinning sharingan bored into her.
"I suppose you're nearly there," it settled with. Something like a garish smile crossed the crow's features—only it wasn't quite a smile, because it was not human.
"There are rituals," Shisui told her, "that allow a summon and its summoner to share certain abilities, as if they are one."
"Your eye," Sakura guessed, a sour feeling in her stomach.
"The sharingan is a tool of illusion. Born of hatred and despair, the self learns to deceive and to see deception. When Uchihas confront this phenomenon, their eyes learn to do the same. Your eyes will see through mine, will use mine, to do the same."
Sakura leaned back into the bench, keeping her voice deliberately light. "Your other…contractee. Did he give you that sharingan?"
It pecked punishingly at her, drawing blood. For Shisui, she knew, this was its literal manifestation of biting amusement.
"You've grown bolder."
Sakura listed off to the blue sky. "You have a sharingan. You've taught me fire techniques that only… they know." That she had only ever seen Sasuke use.
"This is true."
Her gaze flicked to it and then away. "So it is true."
Not Sasuke, she knew. That left…the other one. I-ta-chi. Weasel.
Sakura paused, a metallic taste in her mouth.
"If your other master and I were ever to fight each other, who would you protect?"
The crow smirked. Then, Shisui descended from her shoulder to her lap, digging claws into her skin through layers of cloth.
"Shall I tell you a secret?"
Sakura peered down at it dryly.
"I hold secrets very dearly, girl," the crow said in a deathly whisper. "I tell you this because, at that critical moment, you must remember this."
She was unimpressed. "Go on, then."
It looked up at her, eyes burning straight through her. "You will never stand on opposite sides."
Sakura blinked at it. "Right."
"It is true."
"Well, I don't believe it."
"You will come to," the crow said genially. The crow cawed loudly, a cruel laugh. When she blinked again, she was alone, sitting on a bench in the middle of an abandoned park. Shisui had broken the genjutsu and left.
It couldn't be true, she decided. God, the crow had been feeding her rot since the beginning. Peace—sure, only if Sasuke's brother had a truly twisted conception of it.
So she resolved to forget about Shisui's words entirely, and headed to the bookstore on the other side of the park.
"We need to talk," Naruto announced.
Sakura coughed under her breath. It was a stunning coincidence, after all, that she, Naruto, and Sai had ended up in the same exact bookstore at 5 o'clock that afternoon. So much so, that it could not be a coincidence at all.
She placed the book in her hand back onto its shelf.
Sakura hadn't seen either of them for days, because Team Seven's training had been called off indefinitely. She suspected it had to do with something like a strong-arming effort on Kakashi's part against Tsunade.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
Naruto straightened sharply. "Nothing. Well—a lot, actually. We need to talk if this is going to work."
"Did you have such a discussion with the traitor Uchiha?" Sai asked innocently.
Naruto's features contorted in a snarl. "Don't call him that."
"Ok." Sakura said swiftly. "Let's talk. The park's right out there."
"This is fine with me as well," Sai said now, nodding seriously. "I read that communication is critical to the progression of any relationship—"
"Cool." Naruto said with forced calm.
"—certainly before any sexual activity," Sai added casually.
"No sexual activity," the blonde burst out, eyes wide in alarm.
"Of course. Not with that small dick."
"I'm going to kill you—"
Sakura grabbed them both by the collar and dragged them out of the bookstore to the park nearby. When she dumped them on the ground, Naruto rubbed the front of his neck ruefully.
But Sai had something to say. "You do that a lot, I've noticed. Are you into that kind of thing, Sakura-san?"
Sakura ignored him.
"Well?" she prompted Naruto.
He sighed, and his expression grew hard. "We don't abandon teammates, no matter what. We don't sacrifice teammates, no matter what. That's my ninja way, and I won't watch anyone else do it. Okay?"
He looked only at Sai.
"I understand, now," Sai responded slowly. His brows were furrowed. "Mostly. I'm still working out the minutiae of the rationale, but—I will act accordingly."
Naruto looked skeptical, but he clenched his jaw and nodded sharply. "Ok. I'm going to trust you."
Sai nodded back solemnly.
"Ok, next." Naruto swallowed sharply. "Honesty."
She stiffened. Then, she saw Naruto himself blanche. That was unexpected.
He looked back at both of them. His face was full of fear.
"Naruto?" she asked quietly.
He told them the story of the nine-tailed beast.
She didn't know what she looked like by the end, but her insides ached with shock. Now that she knew, of course, she could see the signs.
"Do you think I'm a monster?" It was clearly a question that had been weighing on him some time.
Sakura glared. "No. What it did is not what you did." If only she could say the same about her and the Voice.
"Indeed," Sai said blankly.
"And what about you Sai?" Sakura said sharply. "Why don't you tell us who you actually are."
Sai smiled generously. "I can't say."
"You don't get to do that," Naruto growled.
"I can't say," Sai repeated.
"And I said that you don't get to do that—"
"Naruto," Sakura cut him off, "I think he literally can't. He must be sealed."
Naruto's mouth opened and closed. "What?"
"I know he's ANBU, though."
The blonde pivoted with incredible speed, face red. "He's ANBU? Gaara's already kazekage, Sai is in ANBU, and look at me—"
"Stay away from ANBU," Sakura cut him off sharply.
He recoiled, looking hurt. "You know, I am working hard."
She exhaled impatiently. "I don't mean that. I just mean that you would hate ANBU. You should hate it. It represents almost everything that violates your—your ninja way."
"Oh. Really? I mean, I don't actually know what ANBU does, just heard someone mention it…." He looked pensive now. "Well, straight to hokage was the original plan anyway. Yeah, I can make that work."
"Sure, dickless," Sai scoffed.
"Shut up."
Sai's attention thankfully moved to her before the matter could escalate.
"I suppose I owe you an apology, Sakura-san. I would like to repay you," the boy said stoically.
"Don't worry about it."
"I insist," Sai said seriously. "I do not believe we can begin again as a team until I have repaid you. The book I'm reading says that no relationship can progress before all wrongs in the past have been properly addressed."
"That's right," Naruto said stubbornly.
Sakura looked tiredly at the both of them. "Fine," she sighed. "What's on the table?"
He pursed his lips. "I could kill someone for you," he considered.
We can do that ourselves, the Voice rumbled throatily.
"Hey!" Naruto shouted.
"Something else."
"Well. I am also…rather good at art."
Sakura laughed under her breath. Funny, that. She had never thought about it before (beyond the mandatory ANBU tattoo her false identity had been required to have). But then the painter—Asahi—had given her that scroll. And she had yet to remove it from her pack.
She never would have taken the initiative to search out a shinobi to do the job—this was true. But now such a shinobi had practically fallen into her lap. And he owed her a favor. And she just wanted that favor over with. (And, somehow, the idea of marking her body in a way that wasn't a scar or a burn wasn't entirely…unappealing).
"Have you ever done a tattoo?" Naruto gaped at her.
"I have…come across it," Sai answered.
"In that case." She pulled the scroll out and unrolled it. "This. I guess on my back. And then we call it quits."
"Wow," Naruto breathed.
It was impressive. Mihiko hadn't been lying when she suggested Asahi was talented; he was clearly the kind of artist rumored to sell their soul to be granted such talent.
"Ah," Sai said calmly.
Two figures met their gazes, drawn in a style intended to evoke the art of the temples. One figure's face was hidden—the woman's. One of her arms arched up above her head and then bent down, wielding a fan that covered most of her face and revealed only smiling lips, simply painted. Her dress was also tied simply, but from cloth in hues of such deep blues and reds that it looked bafflingly indulgent. Her other hand held an amulet. Her whole body was curved toward the other figure, as though she would just as easily dance with it as attack it into submission.
For the woman faced a demon—the second central figure, rendered in vicious reds and blacks. Its body was covered in ancient armor. A violent smile decorated its face, telling both of bloodthirst and of amusement. It, too, curled toward its opponent, caught indefinitely in a state of both attraction and repulsion.
Between the two figures were elements of smoke and other iconography common to the genre.
Those were Sai's words, not her own. He had picked up the painting and begun to explain its composition with something like passion in his voice.
The painting, he continued, was in the deep, rich colors of classic irezumi, but with such devastating elegance that it surpassed all that he had seen before—
"How long will it take?" she interrupted.
Sai paused. "Two hours because of the complexity. But it will be done by sunset."
She paused now. "Do I have to do anything to prevent infection?"
She didn't know much about tattoos. Shinobi wore them like scars. In the civilian world, only criminals had them.
"Not with this method," Sai said. "Now, then. Shirt off, please."
"Wait, wait, wait," Naruto said hastily. "You're doing it here?"
Sai looked at him without comprehension. "I prefer natural lighting. Also, this is an abandoned park. That means no one maintains it. Which means no one comes here."
"But we're here," Naruto argued with panic, gaze darting around as though he expected someone to jump out of the bushes. "People come here. We're people."
"We'll sense them," Sakura said. Then she remembered who she was talking to and corrected herself. "Sai or I will."
"But Sakura—"
She turned away from them and pulled off her flak jacket, then the shirt beneath. The ANBU tattoo on her arm was hidden by the jutsu she almost always used before she left the house.
"Do I need to remove this?" Sakura asked, referring to her bound chest.
Sai seemed paused to think about this. Finally, he said, "No. I can work around it. One hand makes the jutsus; the other needs to be in contact with the skin where they're being applied. I will have to reach under the bandage for those parts on your back, but I do not need to remove it."
"Good." She put her flak jacket down on the grass and then lay on her stomach on top of it. "Go on."
She heard Sai pull some more things out of his satchel, before a cool hand rested on her lower back. A second later, a painful, burning sensation made her skin throb violently. She gritted her teeth, but withstood it without flinching.
"I've been told it hurts more this way," Sai said conversationally. "About a thousand times more. Usually, only shinobi can stand this. And some civilian women who have been through labor. They've said that was worse, actually—"
"Why do you have so many scars?" Naruto burst out, sounding disturbed.
Sakura paused, nostrils flaring. "I'm a shinobi," she said lightly, after a moment. "Don't you have scars?"
"No," Naruto said. "I don't have any."
"That's probably because of the tailed-beast," Sai intoned helpfully.
"Right. The scars are normal," Sakura grunted.
"Oh," Naruto said, sounding calmer. "Huh. Who knew Kurama would be useful that way!"
The conversation elapsed into silence for a while. Until Naruto spoke up again, two hours later.
"So. Can I get one too? Like a dragon or something? You know—cool."
Three days later, her back felt just as it had every other day of her life.
A good thing—because three days later, she was called for another mission with the copy-nin's ANBU team.
She stumbled out of her bed that morning in a foul temper. She had fallen asleep later the previous night than she had wanted. Then, she had woken up late. As a result, she was forced to forgo breakfast, instead showering hastily and then hurriedly applying the jutsus to change her build and her features.
Although she had done it many times, watching her features morph into the olive-toned, inconspicuous ones of Saori Mori was still an unnerving experience. Avoiding her reflection, she tied the thin brown hair on her head up in a ponytail and set her mask in place.
She scanned herself one more time to make sure nothing would betray her; then she left her apartment and traveled the roofs of Konoha to ANBU headquarters.
Just as she passed through the doors, she realized that it hadn't even occurred to her to cover the newest addition to her back. She hesitated for a moment, debated sneaking into a stall to fix it. Her gaze fell on the clock. Ultimately, she continued inside. The only people who knew it existed on 'Haruno Sakura' were Sai and Naruto, after all.
"Meeting room 13A," Panther called out from behind her, sipping the last of her morning coffee beneath her mask.
"Thanks," Sakura muttered, sending her a distracted wave without turning back.
Stalking her way down the hall, she stopped at the worn, wooden door and gently pushed it open.
"Late," a low, rough voice said coldly.
Sakura scoffed below her breath. She realized only when Hyena stared at her with incredulous eyes that she hadn't done as good a job at hiding her animosity as she might have wanted. Moving away from the door, she sat down at the opposite end of the table without another sound. Bear straightened in his chair, sending Sakura a warning look.
"Right," Kakashi's second-in-command said. "Let's get started, then. Taichou?"
To Sakura's immense surprise, Kakashi stood up. The tilted chair he had effortlessly been balancing on—with both feet on the table—smacked to the ground with a dull thud.
"Scout teams have pinpointed Kino's location."
Sakura had never heard the name 'Kino' before, but it was clear the rest of Kakashi's team had. They all straightened in their chairs. Hyena picked up the scroll resting on the table.
"Finally," Bear growled.
Even Snail sounded cold. "Mouse died for that bastard."
"Where's he been?" Raccoon asked quietly.
"Deep undercover for the past six months," Hyena read from the scroll, eyes angry behind her mask. "Posing as a butcher just on the other side of the border."
"Smart," Raccoon said softly, shoulder tight. "We were looking for someone running—strangers passing through villages. And he went straight there and just settled down."
The amount of killing intent in the room was the most she had ever felt from Bear, Hyena, Snail, or Raccoon. And she had been on slaughter missions with them before.
"What's our play?" Snail asked.
"Kino was a genjutsu specialist," the copy-nin remarked coolly. "Crow and I will infiltrate. We will execute him."
Silence met his words.
"What about us?" Bear demanded, voice rough.
"You will dismantle his network of contacts, the ones who helped hide him," Kakashi answered. His tone brooked no argument.
Bear and Snail looked like they very much wanted to argue. The skin around their eyes was pinched. And yet, Sakura found, they voiced no protest. Whoever Kino was—he was obviously someone they wanted to face themselves. Possibly, for closure. But Kakashi seemed to run his team as tyrannically he did Team Seven.
Sakura scowled behind her mask. She wondered why she had been chosen to assist Kakashi.
"We leave in ten," he finished, departing from the room.
Hyena patted Bear's arm and Snail's shoulder and then followed.
Four hours later, Sakura and the copy-nin stood beneath a giant oak tree, a kilometer away from a modest shack at the edge of a modest village.
A gust of wind blew, rustling the matching black hair on her and Kakashi's head. They both stood almost a meter shorter than usual—just a brother and his sister, running a small errand.
Quietly, Sakura followed the copy-nin as he stalked to the door and knocked.
The wooden door swung open, revealing a large, grizzled man with red hair and a face with long, smile lines.
"Well, what d'you want?" the man asked, squinting down at them.
"Kaa-san wants cow meat," Kakashi said impetuously. "Let us in already, it's cold."
The man raised an eyebrow. After a moment, his gaze left him and turned to Sakura.
"Please, sir?" she asked. "He gets annoying when he nags."
"Does he?" Kino chuckled. "Well then, I guess I better get you two what you need, then."
He turned his back to them to go inside.
A second later, she ducked just as Kino's arm snapped back out, hurling a fuuma shuriken that would have decapitated her.
"Kaido!" the red-haired man bellowed. "Run!"
Sakura didn't know who Kaido was. At the moment, she didn't particularly care. Releasing the jutsu disguising her features, she felt herself grow to her usual height as she darted between exploding kunai.
Which—honestly—was rather juvenile for an ex-ANBU. She knew sometimes simple could be best. But, for god's sake, Kino knew he was facing the copy-nin now. Kunai were hardly going to kill him.
Speaking of which, Kakashi merely stood placidly beside her at his full height, black mask beneath tell-tale steely grey and sharingan red eyes. The fuuma shuriken was held aloft almost lazily in his hand.
"Switching to new toys now?" the copy-nin asked tonelessly.
Kino made rapid hand signals. Sakura felt the brief, jarring moment when the genjutsu slipped over her. The world vibrated for a moment, a buzz sounded in her ears. And then she found herself in the middle of a battlefield.
A mountain of bodies towered over her. Faces she knew peered at her from out of the pile, features twisted in agony. Every face she knew was there: Naruto, Sasuke, Ino, the rest of her year, her parents, her primary school teacher, even Sai…
Calloused hands grabbed her from behind, cutting off the circulation in her shoulders.
"You're just like me," it whispered, voice inhuman. "A monster."
"Kai," Sakura said coldly, clapping her hands together.
The world melted way, dark colors running like viscous oil as they withdrew. She saw that Kakashi had broken the genjutsu before she had, probably because of the sharingan. He spun the fuuma shuriken—a weapon she had never seen him use before—with deadly skill.
Sakura squinted at him, wondering why he hadn't attacked yet.
Kino barked out a loud laugh. "Alas, I'm no match for Konoha's rabid dog, am I?"
Kakashi's voice was arctic. "You should have thought of that before you betrayed Konoha."
The large man shrugged. "I'm a simple man, you know? They offered me a cushier deal. Of course, I do appreciate the irony of how it all turned out, seeing where I am now."
"Mouse died because of you," Sakura said stiffly, feeling dutybound to relay Snail's words in her absence.
Kino grimaced at her. "Do I know you? Don't remember. Mouse—yes, that was regrettable. Liked her, you know."
He looked up at the sky for a moment, something eerily nostalgic on his face. "Mouse," he muttered. "Funny woman."
His head dropped to Kakashi abruptly. "You going to kill me now?"
But Sakura's gaze narrowed, now, remembering something she had previously ignored. "Why don't you tell us who Kaido is?"
At those words, Kino's entire demeanor changed. Something terrifying possessed the man's face, twisting it into something unbelievably angry. "You piece of shit. You'd go so low?"
Sakura's jaw slackened, shocked by his sudden vitriol. His large frame trembled and then suddenly he was in front of her, on the offensive as though he hadn't seemed ready to accept death seconds earlier.
He was a physically imposing man. But his strength was nothing compared to hers. Each contact shattered bones beneath his skin. He noticed quickly, making hand signals in a shift to ninjutsu instead.
Halfway through the second sign, his head suddenly jerked to the left. Instinctively, Sakura's head followed. A pale hand flashed over his shoulder through where his head had been, cased in crackling electricity.
His fingers speared the space millimeters from where her own head formerly was.
Scowling, Sakura's hands snapped forward and grabbed the copy-nin's wrist (below the still crackling chakra). Propping her foot on Kino's thigh, she hefted upward and flipped Kakashi over the taller man's shoulder.
He twisted midair—a terrifying blur—his other hand already lunging out to finish the job. This time, the blow landed, gliding through bone, flesh, and blood like they were little more than butter.
Kino gave a terrible groan, crumpling to his knees. Kakashi pulled his hand out, towering over him like a vengeful demon.
Sakura hung back, wiping her blade clear of blood on the grass.
"You going to make it a slow one, taichou?" Kino hissed. "Gonna let me bleed slowly?"
Kakashi was silent for a moment. For a long time, they simply stared at each other.
"I see. You're a man now, aren't you," the man laughed humorlessly. "No longer the boy-captain who commanded ANBU hand spans taller than he was."
Kakashi was silent still. But a second later, his hand lit up again, the deafening sound of a thousand birds filling the forest.
Kino grinned like a shark.
But as his hand arced downwards, a form blurred into existence in front of Kino's. Kino roared, a sudden wordless vocalization of terror.
And Kakashi's hand froze.
In a terribly unfunny repetition of events, another boy glared up at the copy-nin, protecting the man behind him from chidori.
"Kaido," Kino hissed. "I told you to run."
"Move, boy," Kakashi commanded, face unreadable.
"NO!" Kaido screamed, arms flung out in front of the large man. He had red hair too. "Can't you leave him alone? Can't you all just leave him alone!"
"Is he your father?" Sakura asked with difficulty.
"He's all I have left," the boy spat at her. "I don't care what he did. I—He's all I have left. Please."
"I can't," Kakashi answered callously, gazing straight ahead of him.
Her body tensed at his words, wondering why the copy-nin hadn't lied. Why he hadn't said something else just to get the boy away.
"Then," Kaido panted, chest heaving, "then you're forcing me to do this."
He opened his palm, revealing an explosive that—with one small hand sign—would blast them all straight to hell.
Fuck, the Voice grumbled.
"Hey, look at me," Sakura said softly. Even though she was farther away, she crouched low so that she was near the boy's height. "He's already dying. Don't risk your life now. Mourn him. Then avenge him, if you have to."
The boy's trembling shoulders stilled abruptly. "A-already dying?" he asked woodenly.
"Move, boy," Kakashi repeated, voice dark and uncharacteristically urgent now.
"Run, Kaido!" Kino shouted, face puce. "For god's sake, you stupid boy—"
"I can't," Kaido wept, "I can't leave you. I'd rather—you know I'd rather."
"Move."
Sakura froze at this softer imperative, piercing even through Kino's wordless bellowing. It had been almost soundless, a harsh whisper. She had only just heard it.
It was unmistakable.
(The sound of the terrible copy-nin, killer of thousands—had she imagined it?—begging.)
But the boy had already chosen. His fingers twitched infinitesimally, rotating in just the right directions—and Kakashi's tanto swung out, swift and ruthless, decapitating him.
And Kino screamed.
The sound was terrible, as though his own heart had been scooped out of his chest. Sakura flinched. She had heard men and women burn alive—and even then, they hadn't sounded like that.
The terrible noise stopped only when Kakashi cut off his head too.
Kakashi held the dripping tanto in his hand, staring at the two fallen heads like he had never seen anything like them before.
She stood silently behind him. Her ears were…ringing. She wondered if there had been an explosion, only she hadn't noticed.
The wind blew again, rattling the rickety shutter doors of the shack. Goosebumps sprouted all along her arms.
Between that breeze and the next, the rest of the ANBU team appeared.
"The targets were dealt with, taichou," Hyena murmured.
Bear leaned forward with interest, pupils dilated. Considering his personal animus against Kino, Sakura supposed, she shouldn't have been surprised.
"God, I wish I'd been here for this," the ANBU said, voice low and mean. "Who the fuck's next to him? Did you give them hell, taich—"
Kakashi's crackling fist landed in the tree right to the left of his head. Singed chunks of hair fell in clumps onto Bear's uniform. But it didn't stop there. The lightning in the copy-nin's hands only seemed to grow brighter, bigger. Black spots flashed across her vision. And the noise was painful now, like knives stabbing her ear drums—
Dazedly, Sakura felt a hand fasten around her upper arm. They were shunshining, she realized belatedly, she and the person holding her.
When the ground beneath her feet settled again, she found herself kilometers away from where she had been seconds ago.
In the distance, great bolts of electricity lit the sky, brightening the dark clouds above for seconds at a time. It seemed as though the heavens had released lightning, but without rain or thunder as nature normally dictated.
"Fuck," she heard Bear curse behind her. She turned and saw them all: Bear, Hyena, Snail, and Raccoon.
"I thought you were dead meat," Snail said shakily.
"He almost was," Hyena said coldly.
Bear's shoulders tightened. Sakura watched them all like they were bizarre puppets she had seen move of their own volition.
"Well," she asked impatiently. "Shouldn't we go back?"
All eyes snapped to her, incredulous.
"No," Raccoon said quiet, reasonable. "We wait here."
Her lips twisted. "How long?"
"Until it passes," Hyena answered gravely.
"But he's going to alert every enemy-nin in a fifty kilometer radius that we're here."
The team shrugged like it was used to this. "He takes care of it."
Sakura exhaled. "You can't be serious."
"Crow," Snail said with forced calm. "I know you haven't been on this team for long. But trying to intervene in that is a fool's errand. You'll end up dead, trust me."
She should, Sakura thought, stepping away. She should trust them, their expert opinion on how to handle this. They'd probably been on this team for ages, knew Kakashi like the back of their hands.
She should, honestly, trust them and do exactly as they say.
Only, the sound of Kakashi whispering Move was echoing like a broken track record in her mind, over and over again, an alien, disturbing thing that had her teeth on edge.
And beneath that—
those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum
God, Sakura thought, tilting her head up to the sky. She really, really wanted to kill him.
Before she had consciously decided it, her body flickered and then disappeared.
Naturally, he did try to kill her.
He was quick too—too quick. She couldn't even see his face. In a blur, he was zig-zagging toward her, and she moved forward, flesh, bone, and muscle all burning, to meet him.
The weather had also changed for the worse in the seconds it had taken her to arrive there. As though called by the false-lightning, rain poured from the heavens, masking both their scents and making it exceptionally hard to see.
As it happened, however, Sakura didn't need her other senses. Soon, his body was so close that it didn't matter.
She defended with her shoulders hunched, frame tight and aggressive like a brawler's, before feinting to the side and then twisting over him—heat burning through her clothes at the contact.
Without pause, Sakura gathered chakra into her fist and drove it at his midsection. He shifted with blinding speed. The blow didn't make contact, her arm merely brushing along his ribcage. Unfortunately, the momentum of the punch carried her forward, and he took the opportunity to her cage her in.
A second later, she yanked her head to the side, the side of his hand just glancing her hair. The rush of air sent the rest of the strands flying back. His fist went into the tree.
Sakura twisted and her own fist finally landed. A swift, brutal uppercut that he avoided the full force of with lightning quickness, but still skimmed his cheekbone.
He snarled, a guttural, animalistic sound, sharingan spinning madly in his eye.
"Stop," Sakura growled.
Pushing off against the tree, she snapped her neck back and then forward, drilling her forehead into his. He grunted.
And then punishing arms wrapped around her midsection and tossed her into a boulder.
Sakura's back hit the rock with a thunderous crack—like lightning—shattering it. She landed on the ground on top of the rubble, cursing furiously.
"Calm the fuck down," she snapped.
A bit ironic, isn't that, the Voice whispered, sounding riveted by ongoing events. If Sakura had had the time, she might have rolled her eyes.
She dropped down a millisecond later. A ball of fire scalded the air above her.
"Seriously?" she hissed, heart rate pulsing at the look of unholy rage in the other's eyes.
She sidestepped his kunai and slipped into space between his arms. She reached up to grab wet, white-silver hair, fingers knotting in the long locks with one hand. With the other, she punched him in the face.
She didn't use her full strength, obviously. But she put enough force that it had to hurt.
His mask was in tatters around his neck. She noticed only when she saw his teeth. Because Kakashi was baring his teeth at her, like he wanted very much to tear out her throat.
Only, then, inexplicably, incomprehensibly—
His mouth was on hers.
It burned. Burned like a brand, like fire on metal.
(It didn't actually seem…amorous.)
Kakashi's lips were hot—hot like burning.
And he kissed her like he was trying to use her mouth to breathe. As though he couldn't figure out how to breathe himself.
That was the only reason Sakura didn't shove him away.
He was holding her, she noticed, calloused hands cutting off the circulation in her upper arms just like they had in Kino's genjutsu. Still, Sakura didn't pull away.
His lips moved savagely against hers, ragged breath fueled greedily by hers, and she didn't pull away.
Only when his hands moved mechanically down to her waist, maneuvering to slip under her flak jacket—soullessly, mechanically—did she react.
She grabbed his wrists with deadly strength. When mismatched eyes blazed down at her, she looked up at him neutrally. His whole face was exposed to her now, unmasked. His hair hung low, brushing high cheekbones, wetted by the rain. Kakashi's pupils were dilated, focusing down on her in rapt attention.
He looked feral. Wild.
Without warning—as though watching to see if she would flinch, as if this were a game of chicken—his head snapped down and his nose rested at her throat.
He inhaled sharply, hands flexing at the top of her arms. Sakura was paralyzed by a curious mixture of shock and horror.
He stayed like that for at least a minute. It felt like hours. When he left—as brutally and silently as his mouth had landed on hers—she did not follow.
Author's Note (yep, a long one this time):
Ok, so I do definitely feel obligated to address some things I've kind of glossed over until now; keep in mind that, in some regards, I am liberally abusing my creative license lol.
1) Sakura's ANBU henge
According to the story so far, no one other than Sakura and the crow, Shisui, knows the truth about her identity; additionally, (and please educate me on the sharingan, I am certainly not claiming to be an expert), I believe there is enough leeway for me to propose that Kakashi can detect the existence of the henge, but he doesn't necessarily automatically see through it to what is beneath. As for why he might not make efforts to see through the henge: I am also going to assert that it's fairly common for people in ANBU to use jutsus to disguise more obvious / identifiable bodily features / hair colors / etc. as measures for protecting their true identity.
2) Ages / Power Dynamic
I do want to say first that teacher/student romantic fics make me pretty uncomfortable, and I find them generally problematic if not handled in a way that ultimately negates the very imbalanced power dynamic usually inherent in such a relationship. The only reason I am okay with an eventual Kakashi / Sakura development here is because I genuinely intend to show that Kakashi has never performed (nor understood himself to be in) the role of the teacher and that Sakura has never truly felt she was Kakashi's student either. (Honestly, I find the idea of a character falling in love with someone he/she/they once considered genuinely to be a student to be kind of creepy, even in fics where both characters are much older). I know the 'fiction is fiction' defense exists, but I wanted to offer something a little more in case you have concerns similar to mine when reading about this pairing. I just find it hard to buy into the 'romance' when Sakura earnestly calls Kakashi 'sensei'-if you feel the same, I want to assure you that is not the case here. In my mind, I'm pairing Kakashi with someone he knew very distantly when she was thirteen, but only gets to truly know when she is older. Age-gaps exist in healthy, consensual relationships all the time. Essentially, I want to make it clear here that both characters are on a level-playing field by the time they engage in anything resembling a romantic relationship (and that there isn't and hasn't historically been a perception of power imbalance between them). Naturally, you could probably take issue with the fact Kakashi is Sakura's ANBU captain. Maybe. Eh. As of now, it really doesn't bother me-I think the role of a teacher is very different from that of an ANBU captain (and I think Naruto canon also lends itself to the same understanding).
Now to the point I've primarily titled these paragraphs with: ages. I am going to fudge the dates a little here to narrow the age-gap, because this too makes me more comfortable with this relationship. (As I said: creative license). I imagine that Sakura is actually around a year older than Sasuke and Naruto-currently seventeen. Kakashi, currently, is twenty three, nearing twenty four. To give some context, I think this means he was about eight when the kyuubi attacked. We're going to run with it. So: let's say he graduated from the Academy at five (when it was actually six). He became a jounin at seven (actually ten) and joined ANBU shortly after (i.e. he spent a year in ANBU before the kyuubi attacked). In my story, Sakura is definitely above the age of consent. I've based Konoha's laws on Japan's existing laws; I am relying on the de facto local "corruption of minors" laws and "obscenity statutes," which essentially make the age of consent 16-18 . In real life, I would still be wigged out by a relationship between a seventeen year old and a twenty four year old (not the seven year age gap, just the point in time in which that relationship is occurring, like barely legal). But now I am going to conveniently use the 'fiction' defense and not really think about that...
I mean, honestly, if you're still reading this story, you probably don't have a huge problem with how I have been constructing Kakashi and Sakura and their prospective relationship (beyond the fact that Kakashi is clearly an asshole with problems he needs to work through) (but also if you do, please don't read more beyond this, because I don't think I can shrink the age gap more and I'm forcing myself to make do with this). It is important to me, with how I imagine this particular story and what I want it to be, to try to reconcile what I would accept in reality with what I may be 'romanticizing' in fiction. I am trying my best. So, yeah, anyway-this is my spiel. Apologies for any typos, I wrote this in a rush!
3) Omakes?
Did you like the Naruto/Hinata one? Should I add more? Any requests? Let me know :)
As always, please leave behind a comment! Your feedback on the previous chapter really blew me away!