It was a strange thing to say that this was not the first time Sakura had been pursued by the dead, but it was the truth. There were a surprising amount of jutsus out there that dealt in matters no one should mess with. That, however, did nothing to quell the nausea that rose in her whenever she dwelled for too long on the wrongness of what was happening. There were many faces she did not know, but she clearly recognized Zabuza and Haku, who had haunted her own dreams after her first serious mission in Wave Country. Her own demons had sprung to life and she wasn't sure how she was going to deal with this after she came out of the jutsu.
She tried to remember her training and keep her breathing under control. It was at times like these that a shinobi had to control the natural panic that arose in the face of an insane situation. One mistake, one slip up. That was the difference between surviving and dying.
She couldn't make full use of her agility either, keeping in mind to let Itsuko keep up with their pace. She had seen Sosuke move at great speeds in battle and knew he was consciously staying close to the priestess too.
"They're catching up," Sakura said. Her voice was partially swallowed up by the air whipping past them. "Itsuko, get on my back." She hated to do this, knowing how humiliating it could be to the other woman.
"I can carry her," Sosuke said.
"Now is not the time!" This man and his jealousy—even at a crucial moment like this. Sakura slowed, bending forward slightly and shortly after felt Itsuko's weight settle over her.
"I'm sorry," Itsuko whispered, tears and shame thick in her throat.
"Hush," Sakura said. She understood what it felt like to be considered a burden and never wanted to inflict that onto someone else.
Cracks in the earth raced along with them, forcing them to leap to solid ground when a fissure broke directly beneath their feet. They were definitely moving faster now, but the pursuing dead were nightmares incarnate whose advance was more accelerated than she had ever seen their real life counterparts move.
Because they were not limited by reality.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the shards of deep darkness revealed by the ground breaking beneath them. The land they stood on was merely a thin crust. There was something unknown below—perhaps accessible now because of the jutsu failing around her. If she was still in Kakashi's mind while it broke, would she be trapped with him? Where did this darkness lead?
Sakura bit into her lower lip as Sakumo's lesson came back to her. Could she take this chance now? Maybe she didn't have a choice. The unnatural energy signatures on the edge of her senses prickled like hot needles.
"Sosuke, I'm going to punch a hole into the ground. We're going to jump in," Sakura said.
"What good is that going to do?" he exclaimed.
"Get us out of this." Hopefully. She inhaled, gathering chakra into her core. "Hold on, Itsuko!"
Using every bit of strength, Sakura vaulted forward, smashing her fist into the earth upon landing. She aimed directly at a crack that had already formed, widening it into a passage into the empty space, so dark it seemed to be a solid wall of black. She was correct—there really was nothing below the shell. She fell. It was less by her own momentum and more like she was drawn in by an unseen force.
Sosuke dropped after her just a few seconds later and Sakura was grateful that he had trusted her one more time.
Itsuko's arms tightened in fear as she whispered, "What now?"
"We go find him." Nothing to grab to slow her descent. No ground to angle her descent. She was at a terrifying and complete loss of control of everything…except for herself. Sakura squeezed her eyes shut, reaching out and gripping Sosuke by the arm, just in case she lost him. She took a breath, concentrating on Kakashi, wherever he was, calling out to him through this void with all of her heart.
She thought of him, the real him, the man who had been her teacher, with all of his flaws and the feelings that he evoked in her. She couldn't imagine a world without him. She couldn't leave this place without him by her side. There was still so much she needed to say to him. The idea of expressing all the realizations she had made felt just as terrifying as falling through this infinite unknown space, but more than anything, she wanted to take that leap.
In his own, strange roundabout way, he had been trying to tell her something too.
She landed in a heap on something solid—no, on someone.
Kakashi grunted in pain because the point of her elbow was jammed into his gut. "Hello?"
Sakura cried out incoherently, throwing herself on him and pressing a kiss on his lips, forgetting to keep her restraint in the face of the immense relief of having survived. She remembered a moment too late their situation, who she was supposed to be, before breaking away and meeting the shock in his eyes. "Sorry," she blurted.
He brought his hand behind her head and brought her back down to his lips again. She melted against him in the delicious pleasure of the kiss. The small sigh she emitted made him clutch her more tightly and she had the distinct thought that there were too many layers of clothing between them.
Sosuke coughed pointedly. Sakura flushed red, sitting up, but still straddling the man beneath her. She was relieved to see that even though she had forgotten about Itsuko almost entirely for a few moments, the priestess had discreetly extracted herself some time ago (hopefully before the impromptu makeout session) and was standing a respectable distance away.
Kakashi turned his head and glared at Sosuke. "Why do you have to be in my dream?"
"This is not a dream," Sosuke replied, scowling. A lot of strange things had happened to him in the past few days and it appeared that he no longer wished to question it. Those questions would only lead to more questions in a neverending loop. There was just no time for that.
"Speak some sense, dream-Sosuke. Sakura falling on me out of thin air and then kissing me is not something that happens in real life," Kakashi said.
"I don't know how she did it." Sosuke eyed the cramped cell and how uncomfortably close all of them were presently.
They all looked to the gaping hole in the ceiling, which didn't show the floor above, but the same pure black void they had jumped through.
Sakura stood up, straightening her clothes, trying to bring her focus back from the kiss that had just knocked every wit she had into the stratosphere. Who taught this man how to kiss like that? "Sosuke is right. We're here to get you out."
"I can't leave," Kakashi said, slowly shaking his head.
Sakura took hold of his arm, tugging on it as if she could drag him against his will. She would throw him over her shoulder, cave-man style if it came to it. She was not going to let him die by zombie. "Don't be silly. We know you were framed and there's no need to be executed over it."
"If I leave, it will only confirm that I was the assassin." Kakashi gently pried her fingers from his wrist. He patted her hand. "It would be best if all of you leave."
"The clan would suffer disgrace for certain," Sosuke muttered.
"Screw the clan!" Sakura reached down, picking up Kakashi as if he weighed nothing and setting him on his feet. "Where I come from, there has been nothing but grief because of the clans. All I know right now is that there are people I care about and those are the ones I'm going to protect. I will not leave you after the hell I've been through."
Kakashi brushed her cheek with a light touch. "You don't understand."
"No, you don't understand." Sakura jabbed his chest. "I made a promise to everyone who cares about you that I would get you out of this—" His brows drew together in confusion, "—and you are not going to make a liar out of me."
He would have stepped back from her if he could. There was suspicion written all over his face. "Who are you, really?"
Sakura went up to the front of the cell and used her strength to push through the heavy wooden bar keeping the door locked in place. Standing in the open frame, she looked back at Kakashi, locking eyes with him. "I'm the woman here to free you."
Kakashi remained silent, scrutinizing her, just as he did the day she had an audience with him at the Taiyo complex. Before he could answer, someone else fell through the opening in the ceiling on top of him.
Sakura's stomach twisted as the stench of rotting flesh filled the air. One of the dead had followed them.
The unknown shinobi boy with the crushed face wrapped his gnarled hands around Kakashi's throat, a broken chuckle burbling from his gaping mouth.
"O-Obito," Kakashi choked out.
That stopped Sakura in her tracks just as she was about to rip the dead boy off of her friend. Kakashi recognized him. She shook the revelation off and kept going, wrenching Obito into the hall. She narrowed her eyes up at the opening. They had escaped, but she had led the dead straight to Kakashi. "I don't know how many more might come through. You can't stay here."
Kakashi ignored her, pushing her aside and going to the open doorway of the cell. He slumped against the frame. His voice cracked in pain. "Why do I know this boy?"
Obito snarled and got on all fours, ready to lunge. Sakura grabbed Kakashi's hand and pulled him along, trusting that the others would follow them down the hallway. The prisoners they passed slammed against their wooden bars, begging to be freed also.
"The rebels will be here," one claimed. "They'll slaughter everyone on the palace grounds!"
They turned a corner, only to be met by a rush of guards. Sakura swooped low, delivering a few punches to their guts and knocking them off balance. Kakashi and Sosuke managed to knock them unconscious after her and they stepped over their bodies and kept going. Sakura barely noticed that Kakashi's hand was in hers again.
Obito was relentless, pursuing them no matter how many times they fought him off. He forced his broken and mangled body forward in his single minded goal of tearing all of them apart. The screams of the other prisoners echoed from the hallway they had just left behind. It mingled with inhuman screeches Sakura identified in the back of her mind as that of the dead. Her fears were confirmed. The dead were somehow using the shortcut she had created just as Obito had.
"That's the way to get above ground." Kakashi pointed to the stone stairway ahead of them. The door at the top burst open, flooding the area with light and soldiers.
They fought their way up, leaving anyone who survived as a distraction to Obito. The soldiers forgot the escaping fugitives once they realized there was a monster in their midst with more coming at them from the depths of the dungeons. Their ranks became a jumbled mess of fear. Sakura and Kakashi broke free from the tangle of soldiers first, then Sosuke and Itsuko pushing through shortly after.
They found themselves somewhere deep within the palace grounds. Sakura searched for the main building in an attempt to orient herself. She said, "I think we are in the eastern area. We should head for the edges—I can break through the walls and get us out."
The palace grounds was like its own city within a city, a complicated labyrinth of streets and buildings. Strangely, they passed no servants or other inhabitants that would normally be walking the area. Small trays of food had been left behind on the walkways wrapping around living areas. Papered doors were left open after a hasty escape.
Sakura, sensing energy signatures approaching, ordered her group to duck into the narrow alley between two buildings. Swarms of soldiers, armed for battle, jogged by with a muted thunder of heavy boots pounding the path.
"The rebels are at the gates!" the captain of the squadron shouted as they moved in the exact direction Sakura and her friends were headed before.
Sakura cursed. All of the palace forces would be concentrating there then. They would have to take a different path. She peered around the corner, making sure the coast was clear. Her stomach dropped.
Hordes of the dead, even more than there had been before, lurched towards them only a short distance away, blocking their path. Her initial thought was to go further into the alley and find a way around, but there was one problem with that: the specter decided then to make a reappearance, dropping down and blocking the way she would have taken. It was as if the jutsu had decided that this was the best moment for everything to go to shit all at once.
"Why now?" Sakura hissed, jumping back, forced out of the space along with the others by the specter's charge.
It was then that Kakashi noticed the dead too. He froze, unable to tear his eyes away as he looked upon the walking corpses. "I know them," he rasped. His breathing came in short, uneven bursts. The slight tremble in his shoulders grew into a violent shudder.
He bent over and began screaming, hitting the ground with his fists. A spiderweb of cracks ringed around him. Sakura's attention flew to the sky. A dark red, like old blood, crept up from the horizon until it smothered the entire expanse.
She went to Kakashi's side, but nervously glanced over at Sosuke who was keeping the specter at bay. "Snap out of it—you have to snap out of it!"
He shook, curling into himself. She wrapped her arms around him, whispering, begging. Hot tears fell from her face. The jutsu couldn't fail now. Not now.
"Kakashi," she whispered.
He flinched, head jerking up. "What did you call me?"
"That's your name." She choked out a sob. "You taught me, you were my captain, and you are one of my dearest friends. We've fought monsters and enemies together and beat impossible odds. Please stand—stand and fight by my side again." She tore the chakra blade that had been strapped to her back. "This is yours. Your clan name is inscribed on it."
He took it. There was a quiver in his hands as he unsheathed it. He stared at the steel, the metal catching the remaining light.
Sakura was forced to leave his side to fight off the dead that reached for him. She kept up a silent prayer that he would regain his senses. Please. One more time. He was so strong—just one more small miracle from the man she had come to expect the impossible from.
Behind her, so quietly she thought perhaps she had misheard, he breathed out, "Hatake."
She focused on the battle and keeping them alive as he remained on the ground. Filthy, skeletal hands clawed at her with unnatural strength. Their eyes were filmed by a gooey layer of sickly blue, unblinking as they continued their mindless attack.
A crackle of energy sparked through air and, for a moment, Sakura despaired that the specter had pulled out its own blade.
She was wrong.
Kakashi sliced through the ghosts of his past in a blaze of white electricity. Laughter, bordering on hysterical, escaped her lips to see him move like that again. To fight like himself again. He had been just a shadow of his form before this. There was no doubt that the man using this weapon could be none other than one of the most infamous ninja of their village.
Itsuko's shriek pierced the air. She was backing up against a wall as the dead pressed in around her. Sosuke shouted her name, but he was caught still in his battle with the specter. Sakura jumped high, using the dead as stepping stones to get to Itsuko more quickly. Kakashi followed using a different method, clearing a path for himself through force. The dead could not die again, but the chakra blade cut through their putrid flesh, often times splitting their bodies apart and leaving them immobile on the ground.
Sakura was too keenly aware of everything that could go wrong. Sosuke could lose to the specter. Itsuko was a vulnerable target. Kakashi's mind could break. This might be her last chance. It was very likely, given the state of the jutsu now, that there would be no do-over.
But the story wasn't over here. She didn't know what to do to free herself and him.
"Sakura," Kakashi said as he fought off another corpse. "I remember who I am."
"That's really great." She grit her teeth, punching a hole through a body. As happy as she was to have him back, their situation was not made any better because of it. "We'll celebrate in just a second, when we're not about to die."
"We have to get to Sosuke. There's no way that he'll last for much longer—you know what'll happen."
"I've been through this a few times. You don't have to tell me twice." Sakura looked over her shoulder at Itsuko. "Try to stay between us until we can get to Sosuke."
Itsuko recognized there had been a change in Kakashi, but knew better than to ask about it now. She nodded.
They were halfway there when the ground shook again. The sky that changed colors earlier had yet to revert back. The cracks in the earth deepened, splitting and falling away into the void beneath the shell of the jutsu.
Sakura turned sharply to Kakashi. "Are you all right?"
"It's not going to hold up anymore. I hadn't counted on the layers of my subconscious to rise up like this." He panted, grimacing as he plunged his blade into the dead. He quickly shoved the body away and pressed his lips into a thin line. As horrific as it was for Sakura, she could only imagine what kind of hell he was going through right now.
Entire chunks of the ground beneath them dropped away, taking some of the dead with it, back down from the dark place where they'd emerged.
"Sakura," Kakashi said suddenly. "I'm sending you back. The longer you're here, the more you're at risk."
"I told you before: I'm not leaving without you."
"Now is not the time to be stubborn!" He grunted and shoved the opponent he was engaged with into the hole.
Much of the world had crumbled away, leaving floating debris and small hunks of the earth in a blanket space. Even the sky began to fall, as if it had been a ceiling stretching above them this entire time. They leapt from place to place on the remaining pieces of ground to get to Sosuke. They reached him just as the specter had him backed onto the edge of the land that served as their limited battlefield.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Obito leap from his piece of land onto Sosuke's back. The unexpected weight anchored Sosuke backwards, causing them both to drop.
"No." Sakura pushed herself to reach him in time.
"Sosuke!" Itsuko slid on her feet, unable to balance herself on the ground tilting below her. She screamed his name again as she watched the man she loved disappear from her sight.
The last of the jutsu broke in that moment, all semblance of the illusion dissolving into the blank space.
Sakura fell. Where she was falling to or if there was a bottom to land on, she didn't know. She managed to see Itsuko and Sosuke find each other before they too faded away. They may not have been real, but they had been her friends. The tears from her eyes drifted upwards, away from her.
"Sakura," Kakashi called out to her, reaching to her. "Go back. Now."
The tips of her fingers brushed against his and then managed to grab onto his hand. "What will happen to you if I go? You might be here forever."
"I knew that risk when I did this. I just didn't think he would show up." He jerked his head toward the specter, who fell with them.
"Why is he still here?" The other pieces of the jutsu had gone.
"He's a part of me. I didn't intend it, but there were parts of me that split apart. That's why I was stuck—I couldn't bring myself together." He squeezed his eyes shut. "Do you understand? You can't save me so at least save yourself. It might not be too late."
Her gaze lingered on the specter, who stared blankly back at her. The chilling words it had spoken to her, the only words it had spoken throughout this experience, echoed back in her mind. The undercurrents of the statement churned beneath its emotionless delivery. It came from a part of Kakashi's life she had never known and perhaps was afraid to know. There was no spark of the man she knew in this version of him…but it was still a part of Kakashi.
She had found him once before. Maybe she could put him back together too.
"I might be able to fix this," she said.
"Don't take the risk. I never would have asked you to come here if I had known what a shit show it would become." He brushed back her hair. A futile effort, given that the force of falling blew her locks in every direction.
Sakura didn't answer him. She tightened her grip on him, closing her eyes. She called back to everything he had shown her. Every emotion she'd uncovered along the way, the crushing grief, loneliness, and pain he kept close to his heart—but there was more to him that. Through it all, he was still able to go on and survive.
She thought of the specter, but also of the boy she had seen mourning the death of his teammate and friend. She thought of her teacher. She thought of the man who argued with her about a silly book series as if they were theories on the highest shinobi arts.
I'm here, she called to him silently. Come back to me, Kakashi.
Then, she felt the edges of his consciousness respond, reaching out to her. She reached back, opening her heart and mind, acting as a beacon.
"Sakura."
She opened her eyes and found both the specter and Kakashi gone. Panic flooded her. She'd made a mistake. Something had gone wrong.
"Sakura. It's okay." Kakashi's voice came from somewhere she couldn't see, echoing around her. It surrounded her completely.
Slowly, the rate of her descent came to a gentle halt, as if she were being lowered by ropes onto solid ground. She was able to stand on her feet, although there was still nothing but the void around her. The edges of the darkness began to fade into a pure light that nearly blinded her.
"Wait—Kakashi." Had it worked? Why wasn't he saying anything?
"It's going to be okay," his voice responded, already knowing what she was going to ask.
She fell to her knees as she felt her connection to his mind break.
#
Sakura opened her eyes again in the real world. The heart rate monitor beeped steadily, the sound becoming clearer as she woke. Someone had put a blanket around her shoulders, which fell to the linoleum floor when she shifted. Her fingers were tangled with Kakashi's and she squeezed his hand affectionately. She raised her head slowly, looking to his face first.
"Kakashi?" she rasped, her throat dry from disuse. Her body felt heavy now that she was outside of the jutsu. It was a real weight she hadn't been aware of before.
Initially, there was no response. She tried not to let the disappointment overwhelm her. Maybe it would take more time for him to wake up.
Or maybe he never would.
She put her head back down, sighing. All she could do was wait.
The heartrate monitor flatlined. She jumped, ready to perform an emergency ressusitation if needed. Her hands already glowed with chakra, but they returned to their normal state just a second later. She met his gaze as he sheepishly smiled at her. He held out the pulse oximeter he'd just taken off of his finger.
"Can you shut that thing off for me?" he asked. His voice was gravelly and subdued, unlike what she had heard when she was still in his mind, but it was him. The real him.
She wailed, throwing her arms over him. He stiffened in surprise, but eventually stroked her hair and made calming noises.
A nurse burst through the door, obviously because the vital signs of the patient had suddenly ceased. When she saw that Kakashi had taken off the clip off of his finger, she glared at the two. "Sakura, you know better than to let him do that. You almost gave me a stroke."
"I'm sorry." Sakura was a little annoyed that she was the one doing the apologizing when it had been his fault. "He just woke up and the first thing he did was to take the damn thing off."
"Typical." The nurse huffed. Kakashi's famous dislike of the hospital was well known by the members of the staff. "I think I liked him better when he was unconscious."
"I'll check him over."
The nurse nodded and left.
Sakura straightened, wiping away her happy tears, composing herself again. She reached around the machine and shut it off.
Kakashi sighed in relief. "Thanks."
She rummaged through the pouch around her waist for the small flashlight she would use to check his pupils. "I can't believe you did that." She snorted. She tried to sound as admonishing as possible, but it was difficult given how happy she was to talk to him again.
"The sound was getting to me. It woke me up from a really interesting dream."
"I'll bet." She grinned, leaning over and adjusting the bed so that he was sitting upright. She removed the eyepatch covering the left side of his face. "Keep your eyes open." His pupils reacted normally to the light she flashed on them, even the sharingan.
"Sakura, thank you." He looked down after she was finished.
"I'm just glad you're back," she responded softly. She touched his cheek before remembering herself. Whatever had happened inside the jutsu—she wasn't certain where that put them here in the real world.
"Me too." He met her eyes this time.
They didn't talk for the rest of the diagnostic exam. The silence was comfortable, as it usually was between them, but she was still holding back everything she wanted to talk to him about. Her questions. Her realizations about…them. That could wait until he had recovered a little more.
She didn't know what to make of the way he continued to watch her. Finally, she asked, "What?"
"This is real, right?"
She was taken aback by his doubt. "Of course it is." Then again, she herself had witnessed the illusion created by the jutsu. It made sense that he would question reality. She hooked her pinky finger into his. "I promise."
"That's exactly what you would say, if you were not real."
She snorted. "You'll just have to see then, mister."
He settled back onto his pillows after she took her hands off of him, mumbling as he fell asleep again, "I don't think I could make such a perfect copy of you in my head, anyway."
