"It's impossible!" Sakura clawed at her eyes. The fire continued to burn in highly conventional colors, mocking her. "Why can't I get this right?"
"Don't be so hard on yourself." Sakumo held up a sock, examining the hole in the toe. He scooted over to the part of the room where he kept a sewing box and brought it back over. "I probably only can do it because I'm not even real."
"He needs me to do this. That's why he sent you to help me—I can't let him down."
"Relax. Have some faith in what you can do."
"What I need to do is master what you showed me."
"Is that really what you need?" He squinted his eye and held up the needle, trying to gauge where the thread should go.
"Yes." If she could do this, then maybe she wouldn't even need to complete the story at all. She could make her way and find the real Kakashi and hopefully wake him up. "I have to help him."
"You'll be fine. You'll figure it out, just like everything else. He knows you."
She laid back, staring up at the wooden ceiling. "That's a lot of pressure. What does he think I can do that someone else far more qualified than me can't?" Like Ino. Ino knew way more about justus of the mind.
"I guess you'll just have to trust that he trusts you."
"Confusing as hell." Sakura nodded without understanding. "I can see why you're related."
"Like father, like son." He winked.
#
After their meal, Sakumo offered to help them find their way back to the main road. Sosuke crossed his arms, lips twisting into a frown. "Why are you being so helpful?"
"Ah, it is in my nature." Sakumo hauled a pack onto his shoulders.
"We don't have money. Surely you saw that," Sosuke stated bluntly as he trailed after the group out of the cottage. "And the man we seek to rescue cannot provide you a reward."
"Not everything is about what you can get in return, young man."
Sosuke's lips puckered in response. There was no arguing against that. Instead, he spoke in a lowered voice to Sakura, "Did he say anything to you while we were gone? Anything suspicious?"
"No. I think we can trust him."
"I don't like it."
He had grown more comfortable with Sakura, after the initial wariness, but that didn't mean that anyone else could simply pass muster in Sosuke's eyes. She wondered what had changed along the way when he'd decided he could tolerate her enough to confide that he didn't trust someone else for a change.
"He's only taking us as far as the main road," she replied lightly.
"Hmph."
"By the way," she said, grinning wide, "how far away was that creek? It sure took you two a long time to bring back a few buckets of water."
"It was very far." Red dusted Sosuke's cheeks. He stumbled on a root because he wasn't paying attention to the path.
"Mhm." She leaned in closer, lowering her voice, "Do you want to know what she said about you?"
He inhaled sharply. "What?"
"Well," she took a deep breath, knowing she was being somewhat cruel, "nothing. She hasn't said anything to me."
"Oh." He deflated. His eyes followed Itsuko walking ahead of them like a love starved puppy and Sakura felt a stab of pity.
"But if you ask me, I think she likes you a lot."
"Really?"
It was rather odd that Sakura got the feeling that if Sosuke had lived in the real world, he would have a notebook full of poetry dedicated to Itsuko…and possibly with "Mr. and Mrs. Sosuke Whateverhislastnameis" written all over the cover.
"Have you talked to her how you feel?"
He flinched as if Sakura had struck him. "Talked to her?"
"Buddy, how else is she supposed to know?" She rolled her eyes.
"Not everything has to be spoken." He crossed his arms, sniffing. His brow creased as his gaze shifted to Itsuko talking to Sakumo just ahead of them. "It would be foolhardy of me to offer myself. I have no trade except my sword. I've dedicated myself to the Taiyo. I could never give myself to her fully, as she deserves."
Sakura resisted the urge to coo over his tormented, heartbroken mutterings. This was why he was her favorite character. She couldn't stop the sappy smile on her face. "But you love her," she practically sang.
"Keep your voice down!" he hissed.
"It's better to be honest with your feelings."
"You're one to talk."
"Excuse me?"
"This trip has been insufferable, with you and Kurou staring at each other like you are star crossed lovers about to be separated by the heavens." Sosuke snorted.
It was her turn to blush now. "We do not."
"What was that about being honest?" Sosuke cocked his head. "You're not allowed to lecture me about this. Admit it. Admit you have feelings for him."
"Why, so you could tell him?" she asked.
"End his misery. I'm begging you. If I hear another sentence out of his mouth pining for you as he tears his hair out over whether you'll leave forever after this—I will take my sword and drag it into my gut."
"He really wants me to stay?"
"Oh, he wants much more than that." Sosuke scratched his chin. "Probably wants you to marry him and bear his children too."
Her jaw dropped and she stopped in her tracks. Sosuke kept going, leaving her behind to stew over his revelations. He had done this on purpose to get back at her for teasing him. She didn't dare hope it was true.
Why would he have feelings for her? She was just the former student that he barely tolerated. Maybe he liked her more than other people…but she had no idea what went on in his head.
….
Right, she was already inside his head.
#
They settled down to eat lunch. Sosuke, despite his insistence of maintaining his distance, paired up with Itsuko almost immediately, choosing to sit with her apart from Sakura and Sakumo.
Sakura rolled her eyes as she bit into her onigiri. Then, a question occurred to her. "Do you think Kakashi has feelings for me?" If Sakumo was tapped into the subconscience in any way, then maybe he would have some answers.
Sakumo paused mid-bite, squinting at her. "Are you serious?"
"I guess you're right. It's impossible." She stared down at her feet.
He started laughing, slapping his knees. "Oh boy."
"Do you think I'm annoying him or something?" she asked anxiously.
Sakumo's lips twisted as he tried not to smile. "You'll have to ask him yourself."
"But you're right here. You could tell me." She poked him. "I think you already know."
"What's the fun in just telling you?"
"I thought you're here to help me." She glared at him.
"I'm here for a very specific reason and it's not for this."
"Pleeeease?"
"Trust me. It'll be better for you to talk to him." He wagged his finger then bit into his rice ball and chewed.
"But it might blow up in my face. He might tell me that he doesn't feel that way about me at all and I'll just look like a fool." Kakashi had practically run away when she'd said that she would miss him. It wasn't like she'd suddenly declared her love for him.
Oh no.
Did she love him?
"You've got a funny look on your face. Here, I'll draw it in the dirt for you," Sakumo said, picking up a stick.
Sakura watched him, her voice sounding far away, "That's pretty good."
He paused, turning to her, then back to his drawing, which was not 'pretty good' by any definition. It was rather unflattering and the eyes were going in different directions.
"I think I might love him," she whispered to herself, not realizing that she was saying it out loud.
"Fantastic!" Sakumo nodded happily. "The other voices in his head will be very pleased."
"Voices?"
"My son has a lot of issues." He grinned. "Good luck!"
#
They reached the main road and Sakumo parted with them. Sosuke watched him go until he disappeared back into the trees.
"Nothing happened. See?" Sakura said, turning away to climb the grassy slope leading to the road.
"I don't understand. Why did he just help us? Who does that?" He threw his hands into the air.
"There are kind people in the world," Itsuko said, tugging on his arm so that he would follow rather than stand there fixated on Sakumo.
Sakura stood on the road and called back, "Are we going to save Kurou or not?"
Sosuke finally snapped out of it, hurrying up the slope. Itsuko trailed after, giggling to herself.
"Was that really not strange to anyone else? Am I the only one?" Sosuke muttered.
"I didn't think his generosity was suspicious—but are you sure you didn't see the resemblance between him and Kurou?" Itsuko asked.
"No," Sakura and Sosuke said at the same time. They looked at each other then looked away.
The road would lead them straight back to the capital. In fact, Sakura could see it on the horizon and she estimated that it would take them perhaps half a day to reach it.
"Those caverns took us really far out," she commented, shading her eyes.
"Indeed. We should be more vigilant from now on. The rebels and the specter are clearly not the only ones we need to worry about." Sosuke tucked his hands into the inside of his robes, lifting his face and listening for any threats.
It would seem that they had reached the point in the story where some of the court factions had begun to move. Sakura sighed. Originally, Itsuko's kidnapping had been resolved with Kurou and Sosuke saving the day. No cave-in. Plus, there was the reveal that an evil lord opposing Itsuko's mother for the throne was entering the game. They were way off at this point.
As they got closer to the capital, it became clear that something was amiss. The usual traffic headed down the road was nonexistant. The fields they passed smoldered, the crops blackened to ash which rose up at the slightest breeze, coloring the air in a cloud of dust. A kind of smothered silence followed their footsteps, broken only by the wings of crows taking flight.
The only living souls they saw was a woman with a child on her back, who ran at the sight of them even though they called out to her. Sakura cast a worried glance back at her companions, disliking the sense of dread hanging in the air.
She jerked in surprise when a series sharp cracks, like ice breaking over a frozen lake, rattled her ear drums. The ground shook. "Get down!" she ordered, flattening herself to the dirt, the others following her lead without question.
Fissures punched through the emptied fields, a strange glow of light glaring through the raw openings. The trembling beneath them stopped. Sakura cautiously got to her feet, scanning the area around them and keeping her ears on alert. Sosuke's grip never left his sword. The grim line of his lips deepened, his gaze fixing on the sudden appearance of the jagged edges before them.
Both Sakura and Sosuke stepped protectively in front of Itsuko, readying themselves based on a sense of danger that both of their instincts picked upon at once.
The sight of a pale hand bursting out of the crack and clawing the edge sent a shot of frost down Sakura's back. A boy dragged himself out. Gray ash fell from his spiky black locks with his jerky movements. His flesh was mottled, blackened in areas and missing entirely in some places, leaving the tendons and muscles beneath exposed. She had no idea who he was, except that he did not belong to this story, just as the specter did not.
One eye, his only eye, blazed a furious red. The sharingan. A gaping hole sat in the other socket that left his skull partially caved in.
He cocked his head, cracking the bones inside his neck. A smile like a thin knife growing as he took the sight of her in. It was then that Sakura realized that a girl with a crater in her chest had also appeared out of the earth. Much of her scalp was left exposed beneath the thin threads of brown hair still there. Both of them wore scratched up forehead protectors with the sigil of Konoha carved into the metal.
More followed with increasing speed.
Zabuza. Haku. Itachi. She didn't stay any longer to see how many more of the dead would appear. They had to get behind the walls of the capital.
"Run!" she screamed.
Note: Sorry about the belated update! Please leave a review~~