"Ah..."

If they were both here, it was something important. Kakashi slipped through the crack of his door, pressing chest to chest with Tsunade for a brief second before he let the door snap shut behind him. Jiraiya cocked an eyebrow, but didn't comment. Kakashi had become used to Tsunade's trademark "I don't have time for this shit" stare, but he offered them a fleeting peace sign.

"I have company, so..."

He had hoped that would diffuse the situation, but it only served to pique their interest. Tsunade pursed her lips.

"Well this is important, so if you would be kind enough to ask them to leave, we will respect your personal privacy. This matter is... delicate."

Kakashi rubbed the back of his neck. He and Sakura hadn't done anything that would be considered wrong, by any means. But it was easily almost midnight, and having the Hokage's apprentice asleep on his couch with Icha Icha in her hands wasn't likely to raise any innocent scenarios in Tsunade's head. In his defence, Tsunade had requested that he and Sakura spend time together. He was still trying to find the best way to explain himself when he heard a sleepy sigh, followed immediately by a shriek and a thud.

"...ouch."

Tsunade tilted her head and frowned at the closed door.

"Sakura?"

There was a long pause.

"...Tsunade-sama?"

Kakashi sighed and pushed his index fingers to the corner of his eyes. Great.

The door clicked open behind him and Sakura- bleary eyed and tousle haired- peeked out into the hall. Jiraiya's wide eyes were enough to signal that Kakashi had been right about the assumptions, but Tsunade remained stoic. Sakura, easily reading the situation, smiled and waved her hands awkwardly as she explained why she was in his apartment at such an hour. Kakashi could see that Jiraiya wasn't completely buying the story, but that wasn't the problem for the moment. Sakura was rubbing her lower back and she scrunched her nose.

"I fell off the couch,"

"We heard."

Tsunade sighed and tapped her heels against the floor of the hallway, arms folding in front of her.

"Sakura, since you're involved in this situation, you can stay. Now, to reiterate.. Hatake. May we come in."

There was no lilt of a question in her voice this time, only the flat tone of a woman with an agenda. Sakura stepped back out of the doorway, mouthing 'what do they want?" around the entering figures. Kakashi raised and lowered his shoulder as he let the door swing shut behind them. The ninken were peeking around the back of the couch as Tsunade made herself at home, crossing one leg over the other and folding her hands in her lap.

"Sit."

The ninken obeyed out of habit, and Kakashi snorted quietly behind his mask as he lounged back into one of the rickety chairs.

"The two of you will be happy to know that we believe we found the person responsible for the original kidnapping; the plot to steal the sharingan, and the attack on the village. And they're already dead."

That was the furthest thing from what he had been expecting. Between Tsunade's sombre mood and Jiraiya's tight shoulders, he had half expected to be handed a death notice. This was good new, it could have been delivered in the Hokage's office tomorrow morning; and yet here Tsunade was, Jiraiya in tow, sitting on his old couch in the middle of the night.

"Someone from the village?"

It wasn't hard to guess. They already knew without doubt there was a spy, but the circumstances leaned towards the mastermind behind the entire ordeal being a village. He knew he had hit the nail on the head when Tsunade's gaze flickered away from his own. She was a great kunoichi, there was no doubt about it. But there was a reason they called her the Legendary Sucker. The Sannin all had their downfalls; Jiraiya was too kind at heart; Orochimaru too prideful. Tsunade had never managed to perfect her poker face.

"As Jiraiya and I had both suspected, it seems as though Danzo was behind all of this. He was found dead in his home earlier today, and we have..." she swallowed, and Jiraiya clenched his jaw, "sufficient evidence to connect him to the crimes. Since he is already dead, however, he will be tried posthumously by the council of Konoha and they will decide what to do with his body, and his legacy."

That was more information than he had anticipated. Tonight was going to be full of surprises. Even though they had already divulged so much information, Kakashi could see something else tucked away under Tsunade's tongue. It was in the way she moved, the fidget of her foot and the tug at the sleeves of her haori. He had also spent enough time with Jiraiya to know that the sturdy line of his shoulders only wavered ever so slightly when he had an invisible weight bearing down on it. Sakura didn't notice the same things he did, she had softened at the news. Kakashi steeled his spine for whatever would come next.

"The cause of death, shishou?"

Tsunade pressed her fingertips together and sighed, "It appears as though he experienced a massive myocardial infarction- a heart attack," she amended off Kakashi's narrowed eyes, "Shizune found no traces of poison in his systems, and there was no notable damage to his chakra. Though his last medical exam showed no underlying issues, or precursors to this issue, for someone his age it isn't impossible for one to occur,"

Not impossible didn't mean it was likely, and Tsunade's unspoken words stuck in the humidity of the air. Jiraiya cleared his throat and scratched the blooming stubble on his chin.

"There's something else you should be aware of, the both of you- but especially you, Kakashi. We'll need to take you both to the hospital. It's not something we can explain. But to begin, we need to know if you were ever told of your part in Uchiha Sasuke's wishes for after his death?"

"His what?"

Sakura was chewing on the inside of her cheek, her anxiety radiating outwards into the room. He made an aborted gesture to grab for her hand, but thought better of it. He simply shook his head. He had no idea that Sasuke had considered him in anything, he hadn't played all that much of a part in his life. Only in his death. Tsunade met Sakura's wandering eyes and took over, her voice soft.

"Obviously, Sasuke had very little physical possessions left in this village at the time of his death. But, as an Uchiha, he was the sole heir to the Uchiha compound and what was left in it, as well as some person items. I believe Sasuke left Naruto several of his prized weapons, and he left Sakura his hitai-ate."

Kakashi hadn't known that. Though he hadn't made much effort to discuss Sasuke with anyone, if he could avoid it.

"As soon as I made it clear to him that I wouldn't be able to heal the extent of the damage his disease had caused, he asked if he was still their heir to the Uchiha compound. Since he defected from Konoha, the compound had been turned over to the Hokage, to do with what they saw fit. Given that he had little left, I returned his family home to him. Once he died, the village elders did request that they be allowed to search the area for anything Sasuke may have kept secret, or hadn't known about. But then they assured me that they would do with it what Sasuke had wished. And he requested that once he died... it be left to you."

What.

"What?"

What use would he have for the compound? It was slowly becoming part of the wilderness around it, rotting into obscurity. Eventually, the only remaining evidence that the Uchiha had once been a major piece of the village would be their names in ink and the stories people would whisper. There was nothing he could do with it, and he was sure any scrolls or notable information would have been taken and locked away by Tsunade. Sasuke had left him an empty shell, but it was the only tie he would have had left to the person he could have been. Tsunade was talking, but the words blended together into a dull murmur he couldn't decipher. He was thinking of Sasuke; how he had watched the light die from his eyes, how his mouth had turned up into the whisper of a smile as blood began to trickle from the cracked corner of his mouth.

"Kakashi!"

He blinked. They were all looking at him in various stages of concern.

"...I just remembered, there's a cat in a tree I need to rescue."

He was sure Tsunade could have stopped him if she really wanted to, but he was falling through the wet air as he leapt from his balcony only seconds later. What had Sasuke been thinking? He launched his way through the village in the darkness; the storm had sent most of the usual nightlife scurrying for cover. He found his way to his destination easily, not bothering with the gate and instead leaping over it, landing wetly onto the ground. The compound was nothing but mud under his feet. He didn't bother trying to use chakra to walk atop it, instead he allowed himself to sink to his ankle in squelching wet dirt that sucked him under with every step. The rain was still pouring around him, wind roaring through the trees as they bent and bowed with the assaults. What would Sasuke possibly have left him this for? He had spent his childhood with nothing but hatred for the empty buildings that mocked him at every turn. Kakashi had watched him from a distance under the Sandaime, seeing Sasuke linger outside the gates for hours before eventually being unable to pass through them. It had only been a year ago that Sasuke had brought himself to step foot back in here. The boulder marking Sasuke's grave was slick with water, the barest hint of moonlight forcing through the clouds gleaming off it and giving the appearance of a blood soaked stone.

"What were you thinking, Sasuke? Why did you leave me this? Was this another one of your strange little games?"

He was used to the silence of the graves he spoke with. But it never hurt to ask. The lightening stretched across the sky, catching the rotting wood of the homes and casting warped shadows onto the ground. It felt wrong to know this was his now. It was another part of the Uchiha he had that he didn't deserve.

"Kakashi?"

He hadn't heard the squelch of mud. She must have put her ninja skills to use. He, on the other hand, was probably going to have to buy new sandals.

"Ahh, Sakura. Fancy seeing you here."

She was holding his pug umbrella in one hand, though it wasn't doing much to shield the back spray of water that caught up in the rain. He wondered idly if Tsunade was going to be annoyed that he had left; there had been more to say, he was sure. But the feeling in his gut was too much to ignore; a sickening churn that threatened to burst up and slash his throat in two. Sakura's hand was in his own, the umbrella dangling at her side. The rain poured down over them for a long time, flattening his hair and plastering his mask to his face. Sakura's hair was dripping thick, wet blobs into the ground.

"Something happened between you and Sasuke... didn't it?"

I killed him, Sakura. I slid my kunai up and into him and then I watched yours and Naruto's lives crumble afterwards.

"What makes you say that?" he said, trying to keep his voice nonchalant.

"Tsunade didn't follow you, she just said when I found you we needed to come to the quarantine base at the hospital. And the way you reacted when you heard Sasuke had left you all this... like you don't deserve it..."

"I don't."

"You were the closest person he had to a father, Kakashi."

"Sakura-"

"No."

Her hands were on his jaw, forcing him to look at her. Even with water dripping down her cheeks and her hair smushed to her forehead, her eyes were bright and determined.

"Whatever happened that made you think you somehow let Sasuke down, I know you didn't. There's nothing any of us could have done to stop him, he told us that when he came back. You gave him the tools to not die out there when he left; you taught him the chidori that saved his life against Orochimaru. Even if he had never left Konoha, his genes were a ticking time bomb... there's countless documents from the Uchiha clan about their own getting the same disease. He... he died knowing we loved him, he died in Konoha, and he got to fulfill his lifelong ambition. You never let him down,"

Even under all her steel and power, she was soft at her core. Always seeing the good in people, always rummaging to find the spark of hope. The heavy stone still said nothing, gave him no clues as to what Sasuke had been thinking. Sakura slipped a hand into her pant pocket, removing a faded blue cloth with a tarnished silver plate.

"Do you think I didn't question why he left me this? He left Konoha behind; I annoyed him senseless every day of his life when he was still the person who wore this. At the beginning I almost wondered if he was mocking me with it, like all the progress we made while he was alive had been for show. It took me a long time, but I realized he gave it to me because we were a team back then. We were Team 7, taking on the shinobi world. Even with our differences, we had each others backs."

She tucked the hitai-ate back into her pocket and gestured out to the dilapidated buildings, "Maybe he left you the compound for a similar reason. To show you that you helped him become the person who got to avenge this. I don't know how you feel, but I can tell you for damn sure you're not a failure to him, and that isn't what he would have wanted you think."

She didn't say anything else after that; they stood in silence save for the roar of the storm, both staring at the rock that rested in the mud in front of them. He knew Tsunade was waiting for them with more news about Danzo. He also knew that Danzo's death and the supposed end to all his troubles should have brought him some relief. After all.

How much worse could things get?

"I'm going to have to warn you that what you're about to see is disturbing."

Tsunade didn't know if disturbing quite covered it, but it was the best descriptor she had for the moment. Shizune was hovering just behind her, the heavy medical gown and face covering obscuring her features as she compared her carefully collected samples. Kakashi and Sakura were dried off, wearing standard issue hospital scrubs, masks, and gloves. It was all precautionary measures, the likelihood that Danzo's corpse contained anything that could cause any major harm was almost nonexistent, but Tsunade knew Orochimaru better than most. She had no way of knowing what kind of unnatural experiments had been done to implant not only the sharingan, but the currently unidentified arm. Shizune was doing her best to compare the genetic samples from each sharingan, as well as the arm tissue, to anything they had in their database. Uchiha gene samples were, unfortunately, not easy to come across. Before she had become Hokage, the noble clans had been allowed to shroud themselves in utter secrecy, which had only forced Konoha to have large gaps of knowledge about some of its own people. The Hyuuga clan had been a hard sell, and they hadn't given up access to their genetic makeup and kekkei genkai scrolls easily. But for the Uchiha; Tsunade had been too late. Danzo was covered by a thin, white sheet that had been pulled up to cover his face. Tsunade hesitated as she caught the cotton between her fingertips, but lifted and pulled it down to expose Danzo's eye and shoulder.

Sakura gasped, but Tsunade's primary concern wasn't for her. If Tsunade hadn't had her gaze locked on Kakashi at the exact moment she had removed the covering, she would have missed the way his back stiffened and his hand twitched towards a kunai that wasn't there. He was relaxed in an instant, morphing back into his usual semi aloof self. Sakura was already poring over the body, her gloved fingers tracing the face of Hashirama that pushed forward out of Danzo's shoulder. Tsunade could see the look of horror dawn on her face as her eyes swept over the sharingan.

"Are they... none of them belong to..."

Kakashi paled white as china underneath his mask, and Tsunade was quick to dismiss the thought. Sasuke had surrendered a willing DNA sample on his return to the village, an it had been the first they had tested for.

"No. Shizune is trying to identify them, but we know for a fact none of them belonged to Sasuke."

"How long?" Kakashi asked, his eyes not leaving the multiple empty-eyed sharingan staring up into the bright lights. Shizune looked up from her work and gently tugged down her mask.

"I'm not sure, unfortunately. We don't have many samples to compare to, and there were a number of Uchiha in the village who had activated sharingan when they were mission or killed in action, despite the clan trying their best to always retrieve bodies. From what I've seen so far, there are at least four distinct samples in his arm, and one of them is a pair. The Sharingan implanted into his eye, however, is singular. Likely from someone much younger, based on how relatively undamaged the chakra paths seem to be in the original eye before it was implanted. The others show some age, perhaps from shinobi in their late twenties? The arm itself isn't from an Uchiha; though Tsunade-sama believes this is the work of Orochimaru, so the arm could be from any number of his test subjects."

Tsunade stepped back as Kakashi moved forward to inspect the body, turning the arm over in his hands.

"Why did you need to know if I knew Sasuke had left me the Uchiha compound?"

Jiraiya cleared his throat from the shadows, "Well, firstly because it was Danzo's responsibility to tell you about it. We think if he was doing anything underhanded, he's probably been using the abandoned compound to keep from getting caught, instead of turning it over to you. But on a more legal note; since you were left the Uchiha compound and everything inside of it... it's technically up to you what Konoha does with these Sharingan. They belong to the Uchiha clan, the remains of which was left to you."

If Tsunade had thought Kakashi looked shattered when he stumbled in here, covered in mud and smelling like a wet dog, she had no idea what was to come. He looked as though he had taken a chidori to the gut, but he composed himself faster than she had seen from many shinobi.

"Destroy them."

"Well, if you want to think about it-"

"No. Find out who they belonged to, and destroy them. Bury the remains at the Uchiha monument in the compound; but do not keep them for anything. We have no reason to continue looking into the Sharingan as a kekkei-genkai."

Tsunade watched as Sakura slid her hand onto the curve of Kakashi's bicep, stepping close and lowering her voice.

"Kakashi... if Orochimaru found a way to implant this many working sharingan into someone, how do we know there aren't more people out there with them as well? Tsunade-sama doesn't want to keep them to give them to anyone, she's just thinking of the medical advancements we could make if we could learn more about how the eye operates and replicate that in techniques. There's no telling what we could learn about the kekkei-genkai- about your eye, even- if we were to research them further. If you want her to destroy them, she will. But please don't think she would ever want something as disgusting as to try and implant them into someone. Also... Sasuke couldn't have known about Danzo, but he would know that giving you the Uchiha compound would by default make you the authority on anything that was connected to it, should it occur. Whatever you want to do, it's your call."

Tsunade felt a soft well of pride in her chest as Sakura spoke. The crux of the matter was that these eyes had been stolen from the bodies of good shinobi, and as distasteful as it was to imagine, being able to find out how Orochimaru had done it would be invaluable for a number of medical procedures. The Sharingan was one of the more complex kekkei-genkai, and knowing the intricacies of how it funnelled chakra and easily catalogued information to replicate could change the medical world.

"Sakura is right, Kakashi. I will respect your decision on this as final, as your friend and not your Hokage. When Shizune has finished with her genetic search, I will have them destroyed."

"...one month. Do whatever it is you need to for medical information, but then destroy them. The only people who touch the eyes are you, Shizune, and Sakura."

Tsunade was surprised at his change of heart, but nodded, "I'll keep you updated on who the eyes might have belonged to before they were implanted, it's our highest priority. For now, you're still off the active mission roster, but you're free to come and go amid the Konoha boundaries if required. There will obviously be an investigation into Danzo's past about this situation; interviews; reconnaissance; the works. I would like you both to be part of it."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

Tsunade took in the two in front of her; the singular dead eye of Kakashi and the wide, worried eyes of her apprentice. Knowing what she knew, Kakashi's reaction to Sasuke's requests had been expected, and it was the only reason she hadn't launched herself out the window after him. She had predicted it, but she had intended to send Jiraiya. Sakura's presence and response had been somewhat unexpected, but pleasant nonetheless. She held a soft spot for Kakashi, it was undeniable. He did what was right, sometimes to the detriment of his own health. It was one thing to kill your own student, it was another entirely to suddenly find out they had left their only clan affiliation to you to oversee. Kakashi was, unfortunately, a man who never could see the good in himself. He only saw the blood he left in his wake.

Maybe Sakura could change that.

KONOHAGAKURE- LAST YEAR- THREE WEEKS BEFORE THE FIRST DAY OF SUMMER

Kakashi knocked hard against the door for the second time, deferring to manner rather than pushing it open. He knew there was no lock on the door, Tsunade wouldn't allow it. The chakra seal around the small home had shimmered in the late afternoon light when he had stepped through, but no ANBU had jumped out of the trees to stop him from entering. He could hear the shuffle of feet before the door opened and he met with the dark, heavy lidded eyes of Sasuke.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," Sasuke said, "I was distracted."

He looked like hell. His eyes were rimmed with dark circles, his cheekbones sharp and defined as his jaw; the tremor of his hands didn't go unnoticed as Sasuke busied himself with boiling water while he gestured for Kakashi to sit at the table. There was a subtle bend to his back now, as though his body couldn't hold its own weight. His hair was still long, longer than the day he had arrived, though now it was swept up into a high ponytail and secured with a thin pink band adorned with an acrylic sakura blossom. Kakashi had seen those in Sakura's hair many times before, but he thought better than to comment. He didn't have the full details of what happened the last time Sakura had visited, but by Tsunade's sour face and the sudden destruction of an entire training ground- it hadn't gone well.

The teacup rattled as Sasuke set it in front of Kakashi; his own filled with something dark and smelling of moss. Tsunade had given him a number of things to try and combat the pain of the disease eating him from the inside out. Kakashi sipped politely at the tea, a little sweeter than he preferred, but didn't speak. Sasuke had asked him to visit, and he would wait to find out why. He took the time to keep drinking in the decline of Sasuke's health, now more obvious than ever. How they hadn't noticed when he first arrived was a mystery, though he was sure it was related to their joy of his return that had quickly spiralled into the plans to keep him from execution. Sasuke hadn't even revealed his condition to them all until recently, instead working with Tsunade in secret in the hope that she would find a cure for what had been plaguing him for nigh on a year. Tsunade had been absolute in her diagnosis, however.

Sasuke was going to die. Not now, maybe not for a few months. But he wouldn't last to see the winter in Konoha.

"I watched my father's uncle die from this, you know."

"Oh?"

Sasuke was staring out the window, his eyes flickering from tree to tree behind Kakashi's head; no doubt cataloguing the various lookouts that were keeping their eyes on the house.

"Mmm. He was a civilian, I think that's why it's so easy to remember. I knew from a young age that some of my family would go and never return, but I always knew that was the way of shinobi. When I found out he was sick, I tried asking my father why we couldn't just take him to a medic nin, like the ones who healed Itachi after his missions. He told me our clan had great gifts, and this was one of the sacrifices we had to make in order to keep them. He said the same when my grandfather went blind from overusing his sharingan. My mother was tasked with caring for my great uncle, he had no one else left. It dragged on for almost a year; in the end, he didn't know who he was, or where he was. He cried out for hours on end, screaming for someone to help him. To end his misery."

The tea began to taste bitter on his tongue, but he continued to drink. Sasuke was sipping from his own, face screwed up in distaste with every sip.

"You taught me a lot of things, Kakashi,"

"I did?"

For a moment, a flicker of the young pre teen he had taught was alive on Sasuke's face in his smug grin.

"Yes. But one of your most important lessons was the bond between friends. Are we friends, Kakashi?"

"I don't know, Sasuke. Are we?"

Sasuke was looking out the window again, the shake of his hand forcing him to set his teacup down on the table top.

"As soon as I started showing symptoms, I knew what was happening. I had been planning my fight against Itachi for years, and then suddenly I didn't know how much time I would have left. I sold information about Konoha to find him; I sold information about you, and Sakura. Even Naruto. I know I was pardoned, but I just didn't know what I would do with my life if I didn't complete my goals. Everything I did being wasted. So I found him, and he immediately knew what was happening. But he still fought me,"

A grin stretched across Sasuke's face, eerie and wide in contrast with his sunken features and too-red gums.

"And I still won. He called out for me as he was dying, he asked what I planned to do now, since I was just going to die anyway. I told him I was going to come back to Konoha and try to make amends... that I would die among family. I remember the look on his face when I said that; the sadness that radiated of him as though he wasn't the reason I had to sacrifice part of my life."

Kakashi was touched, but he could hear something in the words Sasuke wasn't saying. He rubbed a thumb absently along the rim of his teacup and watched as Sasuke inclined his head to the side, seeming to take all of him in.

"I need to ask you a favor, Kakashi. As a friend. As my family."

There it was. A favor. Kakashi didn't know what he could do for him at this point. Sasuke was dying; and there wasn't anything anyone could do about it, even if he had returned to Konoha the day he had begun to decline. Maybe Sasuke wanted to leave this house; to get out of the civilian district and back to the compound. Maybe he wanted a Team 7 mission; one last hurrah. Whatever it was, Kakashi would try his best.

"And what would you like from me?"

Sasuke leaned in close, close enough for Kakashi to smell the moss and peppermint on his breath and see the papery thin cracks in his skin.

"I want you to kill me."

:)

Thank you so much for all the amazing reviews that have been posted, they really make me smile every time I see them and I love that you guys take the time to drop a review. This chapter is a little shorter than I usually go, but since there was so much plot word vomit I felt like the next few scenes I had written didn't transition well with the chapter, so I've moved them to the next one.