Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own Naruto or any of its affiliations…I am merely borrowing its characters and settings to indulge my own fantasies and then share said fantasies with other people who equally do not own Naruto. I am not making any profit off this.

Author's Note: Thank you so much to those who regularly review and to those who review just once!

O O O

wrote on the wall, I got a new inspiration, watching you fall

O O O

Leaves or roots – where did she fit?

Where did that one want her to fit?

He knew that the girl had checked out of the hospital several hours ago and he let her have that time to herself, waiting until it was evening before tracking her down. He found her in the district that had taken the most property damage, helping retie canvas over the holes in a four storied building. A florist's shop on its ground floor, judging from the colourful, near beautiful, spread of petals and debris around its front. Half the structure was gone and he thought it a lost cause, but who was he to judge the actions of others? All he had to do was his mission.

Retrieve Haruno Sakura and test her abilities.

He estimated that it would probably take about half an hour.

From the way she looked, Haruno was expecting him. She had on a similar outfit to the one he'd seen her in last. He remembered it for the cropped top as he happened to prefer those as well. He could see her gear, too. The hitai-ate on her head. Wraps around her forearms still in place and he entertained the question of whether or not she still had scars under them.

The damage from the Forest of Death had not been minor, her skin probably looked like – ah, well, analogies weren't so much his thing. Not so good, he thought, it probably looked not so good. He wondered if he would be able to see them, though he was happy the thought was private. But the juxtaposition of her scars held to frame her delicate face. The shade of her hair against the shade of her scars... would make for something worth drawing.

Right, but first his mission. Always the mission first. Art was superfluous and it was unnecessary. He knew that.

He was on the roof of the building next to the one on which his target and another kunoichi, Yamanaka Ino if he remembered correctly, which he did, were working. A man had just gone inside, looked like Yamanaka senior from the Intelligence Division. Haruno had some weighty connections.

As he made his observations, something moved, caught his attention.

On the third floor above the two girls there was an overhanging window, pushed out from the wall as a dimensional architectural feature. It was hanging out just a little too much, and with a crack, the whole thing dropped. No response from him was necessary, but he saw that the Yamanaka daughter was under the thing – and more importantly, in a quick second Haruno had moved to block her from the falling structure.

Ah, perhaps necessary.

A hand seal, a cloud of smoke, and he was on the ground with an ink bird spread above his head protecting what he thought would be two girls from getting crushed under several hundred pounds of construction.

But he was alone.

Above him there was a yell and the sound of something getting smashed to pieces and then the pieces were joining the rain around him.

He had thought Haruno was running to cover Yamanaka, when instead she had gone directly to taking out the problem.

As for the other girl...

"Who the hell are you?"

She was a few feet away, having had the sense to move out from under the fall of the window, and was completely unharmed. Her wide blue – no green, maybe aquamarine? Well, a pretty shade that didn't seem to settle on any clear descriptive word; ah, he was needlessly loosing focus – eyes were on him and she was pulling her eyebrows together in an expression he identified as curious. Or mad? A little bit of both, if that were possible.

"I'm..." he started.

"No, never mind, I don't care," the kunoichi cut him off with a raised palm, and her eyes were looking up. "Sakura! The hell are you doing up there? Was that really needed?"

He dispelled his ink bird to join Yamanaka in staring up at the second floor, where Haruno was straddling the wall in an odd sort of crouch. She hesitated, mouth open for a second before answering. "I was...trying to help you?"

And the other girl started laughing. "I don't know whether I'm touched or irritated. A bit confused, I didn't know you were the type..."

"Whatever, Ino, that's a fake laugh."

"Oh, I assure you – it's real."

He didn't get it...

"What was that noise?" The man from before had appeared in the blown out door-frame on the ground level, holding a box of splintered wood and other discarded things. Yamanaka senior leisured into the street, concerned but not enough to make him hurry. "You girls arguing again?"

This was his cue to leave, he thought, using a shunshin to join Haruno where she was still latched the second floor. She wasn't startled by his arrival. "Hello again, Haruno-san. I'm here for your assessment."

"Oh, it's you," and she dipped her chin. "Right. Ino, Yamanaka-san, I'll be going now!"

"What kind of goodbye is that, Forehead?"

"Later, Sakura-chan..."

But with a nod of his head and a polite, 'this way, please,' they were off.

Early observations about Haruno Sakura: actions appear to be motivated by emotion, execution appears to be practical and offensive, she has notable speed and some amount of monstrous, ah well, noteworthy strength. She could keep pace with him as well. Part of his assessment of her involved travelling; he wanted to see her stamina, how well she moved in the rain.

"Where are we going?"

Hm. Well, that was something to mark against her.

"And what's your name, by the way? How long do you think this will take?"

Haruno asked too many questions. That was never a good thing.

He stopped on the glass ceiling of a commercial building, brilliant with the lights and noise of a shopping centre bellow. She joined him a second later.

"From here I will be using a scroll to get to our destination," he explained, watched her face twist.

"That's not really an answer –"

"ANBU training arena. That's what I can disclose."

Her face relaxed a little. "ANBU?"

"It's been reserved for our use, since this is a special case. We don't want any interruptions."

The ANBU arena they entered through the scroll was underground, rectangular, cavernous and sparsely lit. The stone walls and the ends of the dirt floor disappeared into darkness. Dull, orange lights above that hung down from cable. Noises echoed and the air was cool, damp. Somewhere in the darkness there was running water, and he knew this to be from the pipes that came out of the stones and drained into the edges of the arena.

He also knew there was an observation deck hidden behind a false stone façade and cameras recording the arena from several angles. It was possible no one was there to watch them in real time, but someone would watch the recordings.

Haruno stood up from her crouch, looked around, a hand raised tentatively to her mouth. Eyes darting about, making observations.

Not that he wanted to give her that opportunity.

He attacked, tanto out in one hand, ink brush in the other. Close-range assessment first. Her initial instinct was to outrun him, disappearing from under the strike of his blade. She moved a few metres away and he watched her take in his stance and weapons, took a moment to throw off her cloak and he did the same, but he tossed his out and camouflaged his movement behind the fall of the heavy fabric.

An impromptu surprise attack, and he wondered if it would unsettle her.

Light strikes, timid, testing. She was the type to rationalise in a fight, which went against her emotional reaction to danger earlier, but she would probably now go for his brush. It was a logical choice, being the blunt, rather harmless option of the two.

And he had also let that side give a small opening, just to note if she would pick up on it, if she would take the chance.

Haruno found it, closing in and forcing him back with a series of kicks, seizing the offensive. An Earth Country style, or something reminiscent of it, a little more loose, like she didn't quite need the forcefulness to such an extent.

Why was that?

Being that he had a duty to report back about her abilities, he let one of her punches catch his side.

A glance. A ripple of energy through his abdomen.

It brought him to his knees and made him throw up. Another strike, two hands locked and coming down for his neck. He rolled away, sheathed his tanto, and created ink clones. Disoriented, he managed to make a mental note she wasn't comfortable countering his tanto with her own that she carried at her lower back. Unfamiliar with the weapon, more certain about her hand-to-hand. With good reason, he thought as he wiped his mouth.

She withdrew, vaulting back into a handspring, letting his clones approach her, dispatched one immediately with planted explosive tags. Of course the handspring hadn't been for theatrics. She deflected all the kunai but one, which she caught and sent back at his body while still attacking and countering the clones. Those she ruptured with a single strike to each, one closed fist, the other open, same effect both times.

He couldn't explain her techniques, they were unusual coming from a kunoichi with her background.

The last clone burst into a splatter of ink and he was watching for her to appear from behind the dissolving form, but instead he was instinctively throwing his head back to avoid a kick. Her shunshin was quick, unannounced, not disguised by any smoke screen, and she was familiar enough with it to use it while executing strikes.

Onto mid-range, then.

He dodged her onslaught, winced when he went to deflect a hit with his brush and it turned to a splintered dust, and decided mid-range and distance was truly most desirable. Tanto out again, which held against that odd technique better than wood, a scroll tossed to her face to fan it open. She dodged as he retrieved a second brush and drew out an ink bird.

A knee up and another kick to send him flying that he sidestepped. The bird came out from the scroll, making Haruno rear back to wisely avoid a close hit. Distance again as she tucked into a flip and he used the momentary distraction to get himself onto the ink creature and into the air. He directed it into the corner of the arena, slipped into the black.

Kunai she could deflect, but he wondered if hardened ink projectiles, lance-like and hard to detect from the shadows, would prove so easy.

Somehow, she knew they were coming. The noise? Had she spotted their sheen from the lights? But she was only barely able to avoid critical hits. Returned his volley with her own, guessing his location by the way the ink projectiles had stuck into the ground. She used kunai and he let them sail harmlessly by to sink into the stone behind him, made the mistake of not seeing the explosive tags.

Nothing special, low grade, but it was effective. She liked the tags. He moved around the periphery of the arena, continuing to send out more projectiles, noticed she had closed her eyes as she waited for them. It must have been the noise, he thought.

So he sent a puddle of ink down the wall to slink over the ground to her feet.

Impossibly, she noticed that, too. One stomp of her foot and the puddle erupted. Hand seals raised and she conjured a suiton to knock his bird from the air. The suiton was successful and he had to launch himself off his ink bird to avoid the crush of the wave, but her other tactic was less useful.

He had made a rough landing, aided by a second stomp from her foot that was strong enough to shake the room's foundation, knock him to his back. Haruno forwent the shunshin and made to run for him. She was fast, but her movements halted as he manipulated the ink from the regrouped puddle up her legs. He heard her hiss as she went sprawling into the chewed up dirt.

It was a full body bind, one he developed for assassination. Cover everything, suffocate the person trapped inside. The ink was invulnerable to weapon stabs and physical attempts to scrape it off; it was fluid, too quick, and too invasive. She would black out after ten seconds if she didn't use an effective ninjutsu.

Of course, if he held his ink strong, kept her arms separated, forming the hand seals for any jutsu would be null.

He hummed, got to his feet to admire the work up close. Mouth and nose covered, her eyes remained clear. Green eyes but he couldn't read what they were saying to him. He thought his mask might be the last thing she saw, backlit against the ceiling, as she lost consciousness.

He let out a huff of air.

The odd thing was, the last thing he saw before blacking out was her face, followed by what must have been her fist.

Darkness the shade of his ink. Pain across his face, jolting through his skull. A dull orange light above him, the grey smudge of someone hovering over him as he came back around. His face was bare, but he could feel remnants of something against his skin, digging into it.

His mask. Pieces of what used to be his mask.

A ten minute fight and he had been blacked out, recovering, and disoriented for two of them. He let Haruno help him sit upright, pick the porcelain from his face as he gathered his thoughts and his breath. His chest was heavy, as if someone were pushing on it, though he saw nothing there. Had she hurt him internally? But some pokes and prods presented nothing too debilitating. He looked at the kunoichi kneeling next to him and the sensation grew.

Strange. Unpleasant.

Something about his face made Haruno laugh. A breathy sort of sound. "I mean, I would apologise, but I'm pretty sure that ink was strangling me."

"It's fine," he said, knowing that it was actually probably very intriguing to those tracking the fight. She had nothing to be sorry about. This was a good development for her. ...Though it probably meant more strenuous training for himself. Well. He could deal with that. More importantly, the manner in which she had broken from the grip of his ink...

The bruises on his face could wait, he needed another round to try and discern her methods.

With intermissions for quick recharging and patchwork from a medic, they fought another seven. He thought he would have her figured out in thirty minutes, but it was four by the end of the night and he was finally able to put the puzzle together. Exceptional chakra control.

To the point it was ...unusual.

The only other person he had seen manipulate chakra in such a fashion, to where it could be crafted and utilised throughout the system, was a person who had been able to see the system and visually map it. Haruno had felt it out, memorised the way her chakra flowed, and could harness it from points other than her fist or feet, and simultaneously in small amount.

The ink had been dislodged from an influx of chakra from points all over her body, destabilised and rendered useless.

As for his projectiles, she had sensed those from his own chakra laced throughout the ink.

Fascinating, and not just to him; apparently their bout had gained a bit of an audience, including his leader. As Haruno was escorted out by another operative, he noticed the head of ANBU Root standing in an entrance to the arena.

It was a new expression the man wore, joining him as he took a seat in an adjacent hallway. As he gave his first hand report, the crux of the man's mouth twitched up.

O O O

When Sakura had tried to find him that morning he hadn't been anywhere around. She had wandered the streets, looked into bars in case he had that indulgence, especially after the Third's death, but hadn't had any luck. The memorial stone had been her first thought, but it was crowded and he hadn't been around. And so she went to various training grounds, checked the crevices of the Hokage monument, even the observation deck of the tower.

Nothing then, but a few minutes from midnight, when her walk was wobbling and her head pounding, sure, that would be the time when he found her instead. She had gone through the ringer and looked it, too. At least the rain had probably washed some of the blood and spittle from her face, and she had combed her hair out some. Nothing to be done about the dirt stains on her cape and clothing.

She took her time to walk the streets to her parents' house. Her chakra was low and taking to the rooftops wasn't a choice, so hobbling along it was. The night was loud with the sound of steady rainfall; no wind, no talk and bustle. The reflection of lights on wet pavement, glossy and abstract in the distortion of the water. Made her think of that time in Iwagakure...

Earlier she had time to organise her thoughts before she had wanted to speak with the man who had been her sensei of sorts for the past few months. Equal to over half the time she had spent with Deidara, and she had thought it was strange how the two compared. She must have looked very different to them; the way Kakashi saw her, the way Deidara saw her...

Not that she wanted to dwell on that now, she was too sore, too open. She needed rest and more time to think about the words she would use, how she would present her argument logically and rationally.

Her feet scuffed, kicked up water from a shallow dent in the road and she realised she had company.

She was slow finding an empty stoop with an awning to stand under. Sakura wrapped her arms around herself, shook her head to shake her thoughts. Didn't work, found something else on which to concentrate. The rain hadn't let up since that afternoon; had soaked through her cloak to drench her shoulders and hair and she wrung out the darkened locks as best she could. She shivered, the summer night was unseasonably cool and so she artificially circulated her meagre amount of chakra to keep her body warm.

Sakura told herself it was the weather bending her shoulders, it was the toll of the fight that made her body heavy.

"This isn't a trick you can copy, Kakashi-sensei, if that's what you're trying to do."

Still dressed in the mourning clothes from the funeral, Kakashi took a place next to her under the awning. More drenched to the bone than even she and they were two black smudges together in the shadows of the night. He'd been lingering some metres away as she had walked for the last few blocks. She watched him replace his hitai-ate, push his disagreeable hair from his face.

Kakashi shrugged. "I was actually just trying to get a sense of your chakra level. See if it was normal again. Were you doing something just then?"

"Right," she made sure to draw out the single syllable. "I forgot that the Sharingan is inferior to the Byakugan in that way, huh."

"No reason to rub that in." A sigh.

Sakura listened to the rain, frowned as their attempted banter idled and ended. For the best, really, something like that should be kept to people who knew each other well. Kakashi wasn't someone she knew. They didn't have much between them, and it was obvious, wasn't it? If they did – if they did – he wouldn't have – "So did you have something to say to me?"

It wasn't impossible that he was aware she had been looking for him. Perhaps he had been looking for her? Would have been nice. Maybe he had something to say, something to clarify, to explain.

"Not particularly. It's good to see you're all right."

"Oh." From Gaara's attack. Of course that was all he had to say. She doubted he meant even that much, it sounded so shallow to her. This was the man who had taken off for a month without notice.

So many things they didn't say.

And what they did say to each other left quite a lot to be desired. Like how he had conveniently forgotten to mention the state of her team mate. Rather, she suspected, purposefully withheld the information.

Feeling bitter, "during the invasion, I saw Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke who had been consumed by Orochimaru's chakra. The memory made her shiver.

"You did," said lightly, unaffected, a hint of 'oh, I hadn't heard' in his cadence.

Sakura felt a vein spasm and she closed her eyes, dug her fingers into her temple in a painful massage. Her voice was rougher when she spoke. A curse under her breath. "I don't... I know it's not like I could have done anything... but why didn't you tell me? Why did you make it seem like everything was fine when it wasn't? It's not. It's so far from fine that it's ridiculous..."

It might have sounded vague, but they spoke so little to each other that Sakura knew the man would be able to follow her thoughts. They had only ever talked about so many things.

"What's this about?" He asked, deciding to be difficult.

"The curse seal." Sakura raised her frown to his profile, a heat licking at her throat. Anger, sadness, a weird mixture of things. Kakashi was staring across the way, his eye on the trees that blocked the view of the memorial stone. Was his mind always elsewhere? And the words were scratchy from that mixture of things. "Why did you tell me you had taken care of it? Back at the preliminaries, you disappeared to check on Sasuke, didn't you? And I asked you about it and you said, 'don't worry, it's been taken care of.'"

"Oh. That," he said to himself, thoughtful. "...I did say something along those lines..."

He didn't seem to get it. Sakura's frown twisted with visible incomprehension. He definitely didn't get it.

She had to spell it out, "you lied to me. You said you wanted me to trust you, and then you lied to me."

"Not a lie."

"You gave me a misleading impression on purpose! You made it sound like it was gone, like it wasn't a problem any more." She was fidgeting with her hands, unable to keep calm. She turned to face Kakashi fully, angered more when he refused to do the same. "Don't you understand? ...Sasuke-kun will seek out Orochimaru because of that thing! He'll die. That's what is waiting for him if he bends to the will of the curse seal."

"Sakura..." He seemed to say, 'you don't know what you're talking about.'

But he hadn't been there in the Forest of Death. How could she trust that he knew what he was talking about?

"Kakashi-sensei," she returned, throwing his tone back at him. "Do you know what Naruto and I did to keep Sasuke-kun safe? How we fought? We were willing to die to protect him. And you can't even be honest with me... You could have just said it hadn't been resolved. Could have said it was classified, I don't care! You didn't have to..."

"You're misunderstanding the situation." Flat. Final. Nothing more to say. Kakashi glanced down at her with his dark eye, hands in his pockets. He didn't even seem concerned enough to stand from his abysmal, forever disinterested slouch.

Well, he was doing a hell of a job clearing things up for her with his threadbare responses. The sight of him was infuriating, his whole attitude was too much and she raked a hand through her hair. "No, I get it. You don't trust me. Ever since we met you've been this way. Isn't it because you don't think I'm trustworthy? But really, you just refuse to see it – what I'll do to protect my...my team mates – that I-I –"

"This isn't a burden you need to carry."

"Well you're too damn late," Sakura stomped her foot, let chakra out and felt the concrete buckle. Burden. He knew nothing of her burdens. "As usual, you're late and I've already had to – to – months ago I had to –"

Sakura couldn't say it and she stumbled over her words. Put a hand to her mouth to hold in her confession, took a step back to shrink away from the unsaid words that hung before her. She thought she might have seen Kakashi raise an eyebrow, but she wasn't sure. A second passed and another, and more.

Quieter, she finished what she had started. "For months I've been dealing with my own burdens. So you're too late to save me from anything, all right?"

Kakashi was back to observing the rain, something else to look at.

Sakura traced his profile over, wished he would reveal more of his face so at least then she would have a chance of discerning whatever it was he felt. Maybe it wasn't anything. Maybe he really was as unmoved as she was agitated. Opposite ends of the spectrum.

He didn't show his feelings very well; more like he didn't seem to have any at all.

It was probably unfair of her to resent him so much for it.

But she didn't want to be the one to crack in front of him again. Not like back then, at the tower, in the stairwell, when she had been anything but professional. When she'd been vulnerable and he'd seen all of it; had seen her falter. Maybe he resented her for that weakness. Was that why he had kept her in the dark? Because he thought she wouldn't have been able to handle it?

To him, she must have been a burden.

And oh how she was. Sakura looked to the concrete under her foot, crumbling from her earlier ire, and it was proof enough.

He had made the right call. She was weak to show her emotions like that. Incapable.

"That's how it is then." Sakura's eyes stung and she turned her head away from the man to glare at the pavement. Disappointment. Swallowing the tightness in her throat, the heat that had turned to a vice. Hard to speak. "It doesn't matter now. I'm not in your cell as of today."

"Is that so?" No change in his tone, ever elusive and distant.

"I'm going back to Iwa to finish the last few months of the exchange. And you'll go back to training those three. ...It's now... it's none of my concern." That last part was her own lie to Kakashi, to herself.

That was the state of their relationship. Distrust, lies, everything nice was false and hallow and it hurt. That part of her that wanted to be a good student, a good team mate, that wanted to be trustworthy – she felt it wither just then. The reality of being a ninja, Sakura thought. If he didn't want to reciprocate, then she would put her loyalty elsewhere.

There were still people she had yet to let down.

"On whose orders?"

"What?" She'd been too introspective for a moment, and she looked back at Kakashi to see him watching a growing puddle. Its surface bubbled a low simmer in the rainfall.

He said, "without the Third... without a Hokage, on whose orders are you going back to Iwagakure?"

Sakura bit the inside of her lip, thought back to the day she had first accepted her mission to take part in the exchange. She had never actually learned the bandaged man's name. It didn't matter. "The advisers to Hokage-sama. His team mates, Utatane-san and Mitokado-san."

"Hm." A lapse in the conversation followed. Kakashi moved a little to let someone through the door on the stoop they were occupying. She thought she would take that distraction as cover and leave. But he stopped her, "don't."

"I have somewhere else to be." Not really.

Kakashi exhaled, a frustrated huff through his nose. "No. To Iwa. Don't go back to Iwa."

Sakura didn't think he could have said anything else that would have more surely made her want to go. To leave the conversation, leave the city. Taking the steps and pausing on the last, her back to him. "I'm going."

"Haven't you ever wondered why they sent you? Have you thought about that?" He'd stepped away from the wall, but she couldn't see as much.

Didn't matter.

"I know why they sent me, Kakashi-sensei. They came to the same conclusion you have, didn't they?" It was appropriate that she looked him in the eye, but she was unable to bring herself to do it. Out from under the awning, back to him from over her shoulder, "I'm someone you can risk losing."

It was a long time before they spoke again.

O O O

Author's Note: Sooo... I made myself sad. ...Issues, man.