AN Hello everyone! Special shoutout to Tarani Bosatsu, xgasai-yunox, lala1224, and Ketsweird for leaving lovely reviews! And thanks to everyone else for reading and following and favoriting! It means a lot! I'm really bogged down with uni but I've managed to get caught up enough to comb through this chapter and upload it finally! I hope you all enjoy it! Please R&R xoxo

Keane "Disconnected"

I feel like I just don't know you anymore

But I've been burned and I've been down so many times

We walk in circles

The blind leading the blind

We've been disconnected somehow

There's an invisible wall between us now

But I've been wrong and I've been down so many times

X.

Sakura held her face in her hands as a silent scream of frustration tore up her throat. She'd been in the lab for two days and had found little information about specialized chakra seals, which actually didn't matter because no one would tell her exactly what they had locked inside of Junko and why.

What was worse, she still had absolutely no idea where she or her teammates were. It couldn't be the same place. Well, it could. Sakura only knew three locations in the estate and wasn't allowed to stray beyond the path between the three.

She had hoped in vain that Kakashi could provide some counsel, but she hadn't seen him or Junko since she had arrived, despite staying in his room.

And what a room it was. Kakashi wasn't some low level minion, he was important, the kind of important that brought in a lot of respect and profit, which explained why he'd received such a beating for withholding information about her.

Sakura had searched every inch of the room she could but found nothing that alluded to whose home they were in. She knew it belonged to a daimyo. The style was traditional and was decorated with very old art from nearly all the five nations. However, her route through the estate was planned in such a way that she never encountered a window or even came close to a door that led outside.

"Sakura-san."

Her eyes snapped up to see Tetsuya. He smiled warmly and tilted his head, causing his incredibly long, auburn locks to tumble over his shoulder.

"Hello, Tetsuya. You're literally the only person who is ever happy to see me."

"That's because you're literally the only interesting thing to happen here for months."

Sakura found that incredibly hard to believe, but shuffled around a few things to make room at the table for him. "Please have a seat. I see you brought me lunch. And is that coffee I smell?"

"It's dinner, actually. I had a mission and apparently no one else in this place seems to think you need sustenance. And the coffee is mine, sorry." He smiled sheepishly, sitting down and pulling out a metal bento tied with a pink ribbon.

Sakura eyed it curiously, giving Tetsuya a questioning look. She gently untied the ribbon and pulled off the lid. Then a smile tore across her face. Her rice had been carefully formed into a fat, chibi cat sleeping on a bed of cabbage. It was a tabby cat, striped with curry, with seaweed whiskers, a little ham nose, and sleepy sesame seed eyes.

Tetsuya was grinning. "Jun-chan is right. You're much prettier when you smile."

"Well, I've not had much reason for smiles these days," she said with a sigh before shrugging it off. "So did Junko make this for me?"

"Apparently. But Hatake-san gave me a look that made me think it doesn't taste very good. She made everything herself."

"Kakashi was in the kitchen cooking with Junko-chan?"

Tetsuya stared at her oddly, clearly put off by the obvious question. "Yeah, he's on probation so he can't take missions or handle any internal affairs. Jun-chan has been dragging him around like a dog."

Sakura swallowed the ache of petty, jealous tears that tugged at her throat and took a bite, then coughed for a moment, eyes watering in disgust. It truly tasted horrible. She cleared her throat and eyed Tetsyua. "This place is very very strange."

"Why do you say that?"

"I mean.. Nobu is... malevolent, is she not? Weren't you listening to her the other day? She's cooking up something sinister and yet everyone is continuing on like business as usual, and Kakashi is making bento boxes. I just don't get what the fuck is going on here and I hate that feeling."

She hoped that maybe her feigned naiveté and obvious confusion would illicit some information.

"Sakura-san, I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't recall her saying anything of the sort. You must have been very tired."

Sakura opened her mouth to argue, but paused. His voice rang with sincerity and his eyes didn't show any signs of deceit. He truly believed that.

"So what exactly is your job title here, Tetsuya?"

"I'm in charge of the fuinjutsu research division. Nobu-sama believes that the destruction of Whirlpool was the biggest mistake in history"

'Bingo.'

"I'll have to agree there. And are you the one who is supposed to be working with me on Junko's seal?"

"Yes, and Hatake-san, but we're waiting for the records to be transferred from another facility."

'That information would have been great three days ago,' she groaned internally. "And where might that facility be? While we're on the subject, where is the facility that we're in now?"

He grinned in a boyish manner that made Sakura cringe. "We both know I can't tell you that."

She made a face at him. "Well it was worth a try. When will the records arrive?"

"Probably tomorrow. You don't have to hang around here, you know. I can take you back to your room and rest. I doubt you'll get any after today."

Something in the way he had worded that statement struck Sakura as odd. "I'll be just as bored there, but I could use a bath."

Sakura pulled herself, bleary-eyed, out of the large hot spring tub and clumsily wrapped a towel around herself. She normally wouldn't stay in so long, but the dizzying numbness brought on by too much hot water was the best thing she'd experienced since she was captured.

Splashing cold water on her face, Sakura tried to piece together the events leading up to her capture, but all she remembered was Kakashi looking at her with glassy, hungry eyes. The rest was a frustrating blur.

A wisp of memory awakened the latent anger she'd been ignoring successfully lately. The feeling started in the pit of her stomach and boiled up to her heart, spreading like a hungry virus through her limbs until her entire body hummed with it.

Despite having her chakra sealed away, the wooden sink she was grasping with white knuckles began to crack and splinter.

Then anger gave way to confusion. The obvious explanation was that he had played her strengths against her, which is not surprising as that was the Copy-nin's favorite battle tactic, but her incense trick wouldn't have been strong enough to work on just herself or Kakashi. She hadn't expected him of all people to wander into her trap. So there had to be an outside force tampering with the outcome..

There was no use thinking about it now. She was already here and she had a job to do with little time to complete it.

After drying off and slipping into a pair of starchy black pants and a sweater, Sakura stepped back into the bedroom, but stopped dead in her tracks.

Kakashi was undressing. She watched with rapt fascination as he inched the mesh undershirt upwards, revealing a toned, but unrecognizable back. So many new scars rippled over the muscles with his slow movements. She looked a little closer to see that the ones from a few days ago were healing quite nicely, but there were new ones scraping across his shoulder blades, red, irritated skin marked in four perfect lines on either side..

"Stop staring, Sakura," he said suddenly, causing the rosette to nearly jump out of her skin.

"Well excuse me for not having a camera present," she sniffed, stepping fully into the room and brushing passed him so that the itchy wool of her sweater would scrape across his nearly healed lacerations.

He quickly pulled on a shirt with an attached mask and turned to watch her towel dry her hair for a moment before making for the door.

"Wait," she pleaded suddenly, pouring doubt and desperation into her voice, silently praying that she could still affect him.

He paused, glancing over his shoulder. "What is it?"

"Can you just, I don't know, stay with me for a little while? I'm losing my mind. I have so many questions and I just.. Will you just stay with me for a little while?"

He turned back to face her, hesitancy and a touch of something more lighting up his charcoal gaze. His eyes swept across the room in thought before landing on the lip she was chewing between her teeth.

"Fine."

Sakura slid to the floor and leaned against the side of the large, four-post bed. Kakashi unlocked a cabinet in dresser to reveal bottles of shochu. Grabbing the closest one, he took his place beside her, an appropriate distance between them for a student and a teacher. She choked back laughter because she was worried that it might sound a bit too much like a sob.

Kakashi took a long drink through his mask, something she hadn't seen him do since the day he brushed his teeth in front of her all those years ago. Her chest tightened uncontrollably as he passed her the bottle without so much as a glance.

She took a long pull. "This place is really strange."

He nodded, eyes still looking at everything but her. "Yes it is."

"This place is someone's home, and everyone acts like nothing is wrong and everything is completely as it should be."

He nodded again, remaining silent as he took the bottle and gulped down the fiery liquid at breakneck speed.

"But you're not mindless drones like the rest of them, are you? You know exactly what's going on around here. What makes you so special?"

He smirked, but the action fell flat in his dead gaze. "I may be pushing forty, but I'm not an idiot, Sakura. If this is your idea of an interrogation, then you need to be sent back to the academy."

"Who said anything about this being an interrogation?" He eyes were burning with anger at the affront, but she kept her voice even, if not a tad formal. "I am simply making conversation since this prison seems to be severely lacking in that department."

"You aren't here to socialize."

This time she couldn't reign it in. 'How dare he be so calm?'

"Oh no, I'm well aware of that. I'm disposable. Once I've done my job, Nobu will have me dead. I wonder, will she do the job herself or have you do it for her? I've reason to-"

With lightning speed, Kakashi smothered her words with the palm of his hand, his eyes blazing as he finally turned his gaze onto her.

"You shouldn't have come here," he whispered, his lazy voice showing no emotion and barely louder than a whisper. "But you should know that I'm not going to let anything happen to you. Ever. Do you understand?"

She nodded, the familiar tug of tears pulling at her throat once again. He pulled his hand away and Sakura felt another tiny piece of herself go with it.

They sat in silence for a few moments before Sakura spoke, the shochu lubricating her tongue more easily without her chakra to aid her.

"I had just started to let myself come to terms with this," she said, pointing at him with a long, accusing finger. "I finally packed every reminder away and accepted that it was hopeless. Yet, here you are, forcing me into the middle of this."

She didn't watch as he stood up and silently left the room. Instead, she continued to fall deeper into her memories until sleep forced her to bed.

Kakashi slid the shōji door closed and leaned against the wooden frame, heaving a weary sigh that caused his body to become limp.

"Just your student, eh?" Genshi asked, leaning casually against the wall like a nonplussed sentry. Kakashi wasn't looking at him, but he could hear the mistrust in his grinning voice.

A response was tickling the tip of his tongue, but he reluctantly swallowed it and began the long walk back to Jun and Metsu's room.

Although only a few hours had passed since sunset, the estate was quiet. And when he did pass another person, Kakashi was very careful not to let his rampant emotions bleed onto the few visible features he had.

He needed to contact the Hokage, but Nobu had kept him pressed tightly under her thumb as of late, and when he wasn't with her, she was careful to place a tracker on him. However this evening she had either forgotten or simply found it unnecessary.

Making his way out of the servant's entrance under the stairs, Kakashi stepped barefoot onto the cold, wet grass and pulled out a piece of parchment. He always kept it hidden in his alcohol cabinet, which he always sealed shut with the excuse to keep Jun from getting inside and drinking any of it.

He did a quick sweep of the area. He knew Genshi had sent a shadow clone to follow him, but Kakashi had expected that and planted one by the service entrance earlier that evening to be activated upon his arrival.

There was blood-red harvest moon hanging low in the sky, watching him ominously as he began to scrawl a message onto the paper.

Hokage-sama. Wolf here.

He waited for a moment, hands shaking with anxiety. It had been weeks, if not months since he last made a report.

Kakashi-sensei you've got a lot of nerve making me wait this long!

He smiled despite himself, a bit of the stress leaving his shoulders.

I know, I'm sorry. Nobu has made it impossible for me to be alone. To confirm what your reconnaissance team already discovered, the market in Suna is run by the Teikoku. The compound should be deserted save for ten prisoners and three sentries. It's located twenty-five miles northwest of the village in Hanger's Cave.

Is Sakura-chan with them?

You know she isn't, but you need to extract the prisoners immediately. All women, all kekkai genkai users, and at least four are from Konoha. Sakura's teammates and a Hyuuga they captured at the border.

Kakashi waited an unprecedented amount of time, constantly looking around. Just as his nerves were starting to get the better of him, Naruto replied.

Understood. Thank you, Kakashi. Any news on Jun or the other project?

Negative. We've arrived at the Tea Daimyo's estate, though. We'll begin both shortly.

We need to end this war before it begins, Kakashi. And when we do, you better bring her back.

Kakashi, who hadn't even heard his former student's voice in five years, shivered. He could feel the threatening venom in Naruto's words.

Hai, Hokage-sama.

Be safe. Over and out.

The Copy-nin watched as the words disappeared, fading from the paper until it was nothing but a white sheet that shone orange in the moon's threatening glow.

Kakashi slowly folded the parchment and stuffed it, along with the pen, into his pocket. He moved like a malfunctioning machine, slow and jerkily.

Kakashi had lived through two wars. He had been dragged from the brink of death multiple times. He had felt what it was like to have his heart stop beating with no promise that it ever would again. He had used others, and others had done the same to him. He had been expected to die for his homeland over and over again, and many times, he nearly succeeded.

Now he lived his life as a missing-nin under the control of a terribly powerful leader who had the ability to shake the shinobi world down to its very foundation.

He had sacrificed his life and all the memories he would never experience for the safety of his home, a home that was hanging on by a thread.

Once again so much rested on his shoulders, shoulders that had grown weary and stiff, holding up arms that creaked when he stretched, centering legs that locked up at the joints on cold nights.

He was worried. More worried than he had ever been. He couldn't ignore the nagging feeling that Naruto and Sakura had their own agendas, two separate sides of the same idea. It almost seemed like Naruto wanted Sakura to get caught, and that Sakura herself wanted to get caught, or had at least planned on it.

His body had begun gasping for Sakura like a breath of fresh air after drowning hopelessly. No matter how calm and impassive he forced himself to be, he couldn't ignore the way his heart bled every time she was near, every time he caught a glimpse of the sad smile that unconsciously tugged at her pink lips when she looked at him.

He recalled the way she glanced up at him through watery, magenta lashes and held his gaze. Kakashi could see the faint lines that had started to creep from the corners of her eyes. How old was she now? Old enough for lines?

Then there was Jun. He didn't believe Sakura's diagnosis for one second. What was happening to Jun was caused by the weight of powerful chakra sitting dormant in her bones. Jun was the result of careful planning and held the strength of twenty Hatake.

Like her father, Jun was another tool, another weapon to be used and thrown away. Kakashi would do anything to keep that from happening. He already sealed away her most unpleasant memories with a surgeon's precision, not to be seen until she was much older.

But how much longer could he protect his daughter from the harsh realities of his world? How much longer could he continue to betray the Teikoku before they figured out he was the mole? And what of Sakura?

The anxieties began to make the clock in his mind tick a little faster. He despaired to think of what would happen if the ticking stopped.