Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of it's characters.
PAST - Konoha, Secret Safehouse
Sakura
"Sakura you're staring off into space again, are you feeling alright?" Kurenai's voice brought Sakura back to the present and she shook off the dazed feeling and smiled reassuringly at the girl who was sitting next to her at the low table. Cards were strewn about on the glossy dark surface-they'd been playing different card games to keep themselves and the only one who'd consistently been losing was Guy who was currently challenging Asuma to their fifty-third game of speed.
"I'm fine." Sakura quickly replied hoping to put her new friend at ease before standing and heading over to the open door to sit on the porch where only five hours before she'd sat and talked with the man who in the future would be her special someone and had actually enjoyed herself. It was almost a surreal feeling.
Kurenai sat next to her and let her legs swing idly as she stared up at the little circle of stars that could be seen overhead. "Wanna talk about it?" she asked and Sakura smiled, she and Kurenai had become fast friends-she didn't know whether or not it was because they'd been around each other for more than five minutes or the fact that Kurenai didn't have very many female friends in her younger years.
"No… I don't know… I'm a big ball of confusion." she admitted and Kurenai opened her mouth to say something but Asuma stepped onto the porch and stuck a clove cigarette in between his lips, Guy could be heard inside challenging Asuma to another match but the younger man ignored him.
Kurenai made a noise of disgust "Those things'll kill you-you do know that." she chided him and stood, whipping it out of his mouth. Sakura smiled inwardly before turning to look up at the bickering couple, before Asuma had died everyone had always made bets on when the two senseis would get together-since they were seemingly perfect for one another. But little did they know that the two had been together for a lot longer than any of them had ever thought. Their relationship was personified in their daughter Fumie.
"Yeah I know that, better they kill me than something else." the teenage boy replied gruffly as he stared off into the darkness, suddenly he made a surprised noise "Kurenai. Get Sakura into the house."
Kurenai didn't ask questions she began to drag Sakura up from her seated position but Sakura caught a glimpse at just what had set Asuma on edge.
Standing near the tree line was a young white haired boy, the light from the house illuminated his stark features-but something was off about him, something about his disappearance didn't seem right. Then she saw the red tinge that covered seemingly his entire body. Kakashi stood in the darkness covered from head to toe in blood.
PRESENT - Konoha, ANBU Archives
Kakashi
"The third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, pulled me into his office one day and asked me to lead an ANBU squad to eradicate a gang that had been burning and pillaging villages all a crossed the land of fire. They were getting to close to Konoha and it was making him nervous." Kakashi began, ignoring all of the looks of shock on his peer's faces.
"They were called the Karasu-or the crows-they were undetectable to the normal operative and even to most ANBU were having trouble. It was decided that the only way to take them down was to catch them in the act of pillaging a village. One of our best strategy ANBU was able to pinpoint what village they would attack next and it was a stroke of luck that we were able to get the right time…
"Anways, I led a team out and we began to systematically take them down. But we all began to notice that not all of these… these gang members were adults. Many of them were young men-boys even. Some were even younger than I was at the time."
"Which was how old?" Hinata asked gently.
"Seventeen." Kakashi replied emotionlessly, everyone sat up a little straighter in shock "You are all surprised for people who were neck deep in a war when they were seventeen."
"So you noticed the younger members of the gang, surely that dissuaded you from carrying out the mission." Ino demanded her hands gripping together.
"ANBU was different back then. Back then orders were orders-if you disobeyed you were never seen again." Hinata gasped into her hands and Naruto placed an arm around her shoulders.
"I wasn't as thorough with them as a could have been," Kakashi admitted "The little ones I could bring myself to… anyways some of them must have gotten away and formed the new Karasu." Kakashi finished his eyes widening a little bit as his memories roared to the surface of that bloody night.
"But why are they targeting you in particular?" Sasuke asked leaning on his steepled fingers, a habit he'd picked up when he was younger.
"Because I killed their leader, If I didn't exist their leader would still be alive." Kakashi shrugged his shoulders up and down once.
"Many of these gangs start the kids out young." Naruto said gravely "So that they can look upon the leader of the gang as an almost father figure-someone who they view as their savior. It's a tactic to gain unerring loyalty."
"They think that they can bring their leader back by making sure Kakashi didn't exist." Kiba stated as he glared at the file in Kakashi's hand.
"But why send him back fifteen years?" Ino asked "Why not send him all the way back to when he was born?"
"I think I might know the answer to that." Hinata piped up and everyone turned to look at her "Well I've been going over all of the documents that mention time-travel jutsus and the like with Shikamaru-san, and I think I have a fairly firm grasp on it.
"Time travel is-in essence-one of the most delicate jutsus that I've ever seen. It has to be specially calibrated or else it has the potential to go haywire."
"So when Sakura pushed me out of the way she threw the calibrations off and it sent her back only partially in time instead of all the way?" Kakashi asked and Hinata nodded.
"Is there any way to pull her back from fifteen years ago?" Sasuke stood and pushed his chair in, Ino did the same signalling that it was time to head back topside.
"You'd have to ask Shikamaru for sure but I don't think so-at least not without the exact calibrations from the original jutsu, altered slightly to fit Sakura's parameters. And those lie with the Karasu." Hinata frowned her apology.
"Then we need to find this gang and we need to find them fast." Naruto proclaimed, determination flaming in his eyes.
Kakashi sighed and put his folder back into it's box-he needed to find a way to get away from them. He was tired of putting those he cared about in danger and he had an idea of where the Karasu might be…
PAST - Konoha, Secret Safehouse
Sakura
"Kakashi!" Sakura exclaimed, shaking free of Kurenai's iron grip and launching herself off of the porch and running to him. He stood catatonically and when she reached him he stared past her into nothingness.
"Are you hurt?" she demanded as her fingers ran over his arms, checking for injury-she found a couple of scratches and cuts but nothing that would warrant this amount of blood.
"It's not mine." he mumbled emotionlessly and Sakura's chest seized up. He was wearing his ANBU gear, though she barely recognized it since it was caked with blood, and his ANBU cat mask dangled from his fingers. Realization dawned on Sakura, he'd just been on a mission.
Kurenai, Guy and Asuma stood behind her silently and she stared into Kakashi's dazed looking eyes-he looked impossibly young like a confused child.
"Make them go away." he whispered to her and she around and looked at them "Please leave."
"But we can't leave you alone with him-" She cut Asuma off "Leave now!" and they shuffled quickly past them, she could hear Kurenai whispering angrily to Asuma about going to talk with his father.
After they'd left she turned to look at Kakashi who hadn't moved and gently grabbed his hands "Lets go inside." she told him softly and he allowed her to pull her up onto the porch and into the house, but his knees shook in the main room and gave out and he slid down. Sakura went with him and he gripped her sweater and wouldn't look at her.
"Kakashi?" she asked but she could feel his shoulder wracking in violent sobs as he pressed his forehead to her chest. She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her cheek to his red tinged hair as he cried, tears stinging her own eyes as she rocked them.
Kakashi in the future never talked about his time in the ANBU black ops, it was something that she knew never to ask about-the only time she ever had was when she was eighteen and had been offered a position on the black ops. Kakashi reacted to violently when she'd told him and told her that the ANBU was no place for her-that it would change her. It's made her angry at first, she thought he was doubting her ability as a ninja. She ended up not taking the position and was suddenly glad for it. ANBU had changed a lot since this time but it was still a covert ops group and that would never sit well with her.
After his sobbing had abated some Sakura stood and headed to the kitchen and filled a large bucket full of warm water and grabbed several washcloths before kneeling in front of Kakashi "We need to wash as much of this blood away as we can-the rest will have to be bathed off. But I want to heal your cuts."
"I don't deserve to be healed." he mumbled looking down at his blood covered fingers.
Sakura grabbed his chin and forced him to look up at her "Hey! Don't ever say that, you hear me?" he didn't reply and she began to wash the blood off the places she saw cuts and heal them. By the time she had finished the water was a murky red color and she dumped it outside onto the ground.
"Come on." she held his now clean hands and lifted him to his feet before leading him down the hall to the bathroom.
"Go in there and wash the rest of the blood off, i'll get you some clothes." she shut the bathroom door and headed over to his room, taking a quick breath she entered. The room was adequately furnished-similar to her own. She quickly found his clothing and pulled out a black shirt that had a longer neck to it, it would go over his face, and a pair of jeans a long with underwear. She turned to head back to the bathroom but remembered that he would need towels, hurrying back to the main room she opened a small closet where a seemingly inexhaustible number of towels always seemed to be and grabbed a few.
"Kakashi? I'm coming in." she knocked and slid the door open. The room was steamy and smelled of minerals.
Sakura squinted trying to see where Kakashi sat in the mineral pool but couldn't make out a figure, panic bloomed in her chest as she saw a flurry of bubbles break the surface. Dropping everything in her hands she ran for the pool, splashing inside and ignoring her wet clothes as she felt around the bottom the bottom of the pool until she felt the soft flesh of his arm. He'd wedged himself under a crevice to keep himself submerged. She grabbed his shoulder and yanked him to the surface, he instantly gasped for air and she shook him hard.
"What the hell do you think you were doing?" she yelled hitting his chest with her closed fists. "You don't just get to leave me like that, you are supposed to live damn it!"
"Is that so you can have your future Kakashi or is it for me." he mumbled nastily and Sakura felt as if he'd sucker punched her in the stomach.
"For you! I need you alive. Past, present, future, Kakashi I need you!" she stood indignantly in the water, looking up at him and his resolve seemed to crumple. He leaned his head onto her shoulder, "I don't want to remember this anymore, please make me forget-make it stop hurting."
He took her face in his hands and kissed her, his clumsy lips moving over hers before he pulled away and looked at her with pleading eyes, one red from his sharingan and the other greyer than the harshest hurricane.
She felt her eyes tinge with tears as her mind told her one thing and her heart screamed the other. Making the snap decision she slowly nodded, tears rolling down her cheeks.
Author's Note:
So this chapter was a hard one to write since it does deal with some very sensitive topics such as death and desperation, I hope I handled it as well as I could. The next chapter will feature smut, I know it's a bit surprising the way that it's happening but I would like to illustrate that sex isn't just about passion and pleasure-it can also be for comfort and understanding and thats what Kakashi needs most at this moment.
Also; Naruto and his team are one step closer to finding the Kurama and Kakashi already has a hunch on where they will be-who will figure it out first and what will happen. This story has about four or five more chapters so stick around, I'd be very grateful!
Please Read & Review!
-LittleMoonLover-