Ohmygod I'm so sorry for the wait! Lots of things have been going on right now, and I had such a hard time finding the opportunity to just sit down and write this bloody chapter! So much mystery, what the hell is going on with Harune?! Maa, OHR is almost over, but a sequel is going to be coming out one day :') I'm stoked to write it, and I hope you guys will be there to read it! Anywho, enjoy this chapter, and don't forget to review my darlings! *huggles*


Kakashi awoke to total chaos. Although he had been relatively sure that he had fallen asleep within the safety of his apartment, his shinobi conditioning forced him out of bed, the kunai he so stereo-typically kept under his pillow already in hand and poised to strike.

"Kuso, don't just stand there, answer the bloody door!" Harune hissed. Kakashi frantically looked around the room to find the source of her voice, and his brows furrowed when he noticed she was sitting on the floor, clutching at her right leg as though she were in extreme pain, but the urgent knocking on the door to which she was referring grabbed his attention less than a moment later.

"Matte!" Harune cried out just before Kakashi darted out of the room to answer it, and she tossed him the pair of pants and masked undershirt that had been long forgotten on the floor the night before.

"Shit," Kakashi muttered, quickly getting dressed and pulling his mask over his face, cheeks flushed with embarrassment. "Thanks," he nodded gratefully to Harune, who silently shooed him off in the direction of the front entrance. It had only taken one more knock on the door once he reached it for Kakashi to slow his heart rate down and regain his composure; there was only one reason why anyone would be at his home so early in the morning.

"Kakashi-senpai," a masked ANBU agent greeted the jonin respectfully, bowing the moment the door has swung open. "The Sandaime has assembled team for Harune-san's retrieval."

"Finally," Kakashi mumbled, but he made no move to follow his subordinate out to the Hokage's office.

"Kakashi-senpai, it's probably best if we head there straight away," the younger shinobi suggested, clearly confused by his superior's behaviour.

Kakashi rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully as he opened his mouth to explain the highly unusual situation, but he was interrupted by none other than Harune herself, who had somehow managed to sneak up behind him and place a hand on his shoulder.

"Seems the Sandaime's a little late," she said, eyebrows cocked and lips curved in her signature smirk. She looked fine, but Kakashi could feel her leaning on him a little too heavily; she was definitely struggling to stay standing.

"Ha-Harune-san!" the young ANBU agent gasped, making the kunoichi laugh lightly.

"Yeah, I suppose I've got some explaining to do," she said. "Lead the way," she added, gesturing ahead to their summoner. With a quick nod, the nameless ANBU boy turned on his heel and leaped down off the balcony, rushing back towards the Academy.

As soon as he left, Harune let herself fall beside the doorpost, releasing a huge sigh when she sat down.

"You okay?" Kakashi asked quietly, kneeling beside her. Harune chuckled at the concern visible in his grey eyes.

"Why do I even bother," Kakashi frowned in annoyance. "All you so is laugh at everything I say."

"I'm fine," Harune lied, though she knew she wasn't fooling her jonin counterpart. Kakashi rolled his eyes, but bent down to help her up.

"Kakashi, leggo of me," Harune shooed him off her half-heartedly, knowing that she needed his support right now more than she'd care to admit. "I'm a grown ass woman, I—"

"Yeah, yeah, you can stand on your own, mhmm," Kakashi cut the stubborn young woman off, and his usually scowling eyes flashed with a hint of a smile when she shot him a dirty look in response.

"Let's go," Harune grumbled, grudgingly latching herself onto her partner and allowing him to guide her towards the inner village.


"Harune, so you've defeated Orochimaru, is that why you've returned safely?" Hiruzen greeted the jonin kunoichi as she and Kakashi stepped into his office.

"I wish," Harune scoffed, crossing her arms as she shifted all her weight onto her left leg. She had managed to convince Kakashi to work with her and act as though nothing were out of the ordinary; whatever was wrong with her, she was certain she didn't want the Hokage getting into it.

"What do you mean?" Hiruzen asked skeptically, clasping his hands together on his desk.

"Orochimaru's still alive," Harune said bitterly, but she didn't linger on the topic of the renegade Sannin. "He captured me, and the Curse Mark totally took over. When he tried to perform the Living Corpse Reincarnation Jutsu, I released all my seals, but he escaped before they could destroy him too…" she swallowed, hard. "Honestly, Sandaime-sama, I should be dead right now."

"You say you should be dead; clearly you're not. Did you manage to escape?" the Hokage inquired, the gears in his mind already turning and trying to make sense of the mystery surrounding the kunoichi.

"Not on my own, no," Harune sighed, resting her head in her hand as she spoke. She found no reason to hide that she had in fact been rescued, but by whom: she wasn't sure she wanted to relay that much information, at least not yet. As expected, Hiruzen followed with the most logical question, and Harune cringed internally before replying, though she made certain that she showed no signs of it.

"So to whom do I owe the pleasure of your return, Harune?" he asked, and Harune snorted.

"I wish I could tell you," she replied, raising her head to look back up at the old man. He was old, yes, but he was no fool, and Harune knew she had to be on her A-game to be able to successfully withhold information from him without the least bit of suspicion on his part. Both of them were highly wary of each other by now; with lies going back and forth between them so casually since her initial return to the village, the pair had learned to take everything the other said with a grain of salt. It did help, however, that Kakashi clearly believed Harune's word whole-heartedly; as far as he knew, everything Harune had experienced was out on the table, and the complete trust in his aura was sure to influence the Hokage, regardless the latter's predisposition to doubt everything that came out of his subordinate's mouth.

"You have absolutely no recollection of how you came to find yourself here?" Hiruzen questioned, reading Harune carefully.

"I lost consciousness in Orochimaru's base; I woke up in Kakashi's apartment," Harune said. This wasn't entirely untrue, she had just neglected to mention that today hadn't been the first time she had awoken from her coma. Hiruzen eyed her, then looked at Kakashi, who nodded slightly as though to confirm the kunoichi's word.

Hiruzen leaned back in his chair, inhaling his pipe deeply. Unlike Harune suspected, this time, he believed every word she said. He just had one more question.

"Where was this base located?"

Harune's brows knitted together at the inquiry, but she quickly straightened her expression and replied honestly.

"The Land of Sun."

Then there's no doubt about it, the old man concluded internally. Harune hadn't given him much to go on, but there was really only one explanation Hiruzen could come up with that could justify Harune's very unexpected and puzzling return. Of course, it made sense that the young jonin hadn't been able to make sense of it all; Hiruzen thought that she was handling the confusing situation quite well, in fact. She wasn't however, he decided, ready to be bombarded by a new slew of information; his discovery could wait until she had fully recovered from her exploits, both physically and mentally. What Hiruzen didn't know was that Harune was already piecing together all the intel she had, which was more than she had relayed.

"Sou ka," the Sandaime finally said pensively, before nodding to the young woman. "Well, that is all I have to ask of you, Harune. You may go. If you're injured, be sure to pass by the hospital to be tended to. I'll be giving you a 7 day leave; Kakashi, you too. Rest well," he dismissed, much to both Harune and Kakashi's surprise.

"H-hai," Harune nodded curtly, shunshining off before her left leg gave out, and Kakashi followed.

"Kuso…" Harune hissed the second her Body Flicker Technique lifted, and she let herself fall onto her bed in her own apartment.

"What the hell is wrong with your leg?" Kakashi asked as soon as he materialized in her bedroom. Harune hadn't needed to explicitly say where she had been headed when she left the office; he just knew where to go.

"Well if I knew, don't you think I'd be doing more than whining about it?!" Harune snapped, unravelling the bandages wrapped up to her mid-thigh. "Don't scream," she half-joked before pulling the white wrappers away.

Kakashi grimaced when he saw the grey skin that reached Harune's thigh; but he instantly regretted it when he caught the ashamed look in Harune's eyes before she turned her face away in embarrassment.

"Harune, I didn't mean it like that, I just—" he began, sitting himself beside her.

"Nah, it's fine, it's pretty nasty," she laughed it off, but she still couldn't face him. When she had woken up that morning, she was thrilled to find that what had happened between her and her best friend hadn't been just a glorious dream, but neither of them had had the chance to talk about it, about them, since the incident, what with the circumstances of her return to the village. Ideally, they would have been able to figure out what the hell all that meant when they had woken up side by side that morning, but their lives had never been ideal. And now, just to top it all off, she had this disgusting, greyed-up leg that certainly wasn't doing anything to up her hot factor.

"It looks more painful than anything else," Kakashi said quietly. At this, Harune scoffed.

"It feels like hellfire," she said, her typical casual tone heavily contrasting against the words she uttered. "But not the whole thing, just where it joins," she added, running a finger along the jagged line where her dark skin met the grey. Kakashi's natural eye lit up as he slid down to his knees on the floor, positioning her leg so that it rested right in front of him. Harune watched him, thoroughly confused and extremely tense, unsure of what to expect from the Copy-Nin.

"Here?" Kakashi asked, placing a hand on either side of her thigh where the foreign tissue and her natural leg met. Harune nodded, but she reached forward to hold both of Kakashi's wrists firmly.

"What are you doing," she demanded, her tone dangerous.

"Just relax, Haru," Kakashi soothed her, lifting his hands and placing hers to her sides before returning his to her leg. She remained tense as he began to massage her thigh, focusing on the joined tissues. Harune's first reaction was to grab Kakashi's wrist again, and she dug her nails into his skin for the first few moments when the pain became even more intense, but her grip slackened as the pain turned into pure relief not too long after.

"Where did you learn that," Harune breathed, watching Kakashi rub out the burning sensation that had not left since she became aware of it that morning.

"Maa, I think I've spent as much time in the hospital on recovery time as I have on missions," the ANBU captain explained. "You pick up a thing or two from the nurses when you're there as often as I am, you know?"

Harune laughed lightly before moving her hand up to run her fingers through Kakashi's silver hair.

"If it's relieved with a bit of massaging, I don't think this is dead tissue, Haru," he said thoughtfully, looking up from her leg to her eyes.

"Look at you, you may as well just become a medic all together, Kashi-kun," the Kamineko smiled affectionately. Kakashi shrugged.

"I'm serious, I think this is a 'live prosthetic', if you will," he continued, dismissing her comment. "It's burning because your body isn't used to it and it doesn't know what to make of it."

"Where the hell would the guy who patched me up get a grey leg?" Harune asked sarcastically. Kakashi actually thought about it, much to her amusement.

"Your second stage. Your skin turned grey when you transformed," Kakashi pointed out, and Harune's eyes went wide.

"Holy shit, I was just kidding," she said, but she realized as soon as he said it that he was more than likely right.

"Wait," Kakashi said suddenly, "You said 'the guy who patched you up'…You know who rescued you?"

"No… Well, I don't think I know him," Harune replied quickly, shaking her head and cursing internally for having let that slip.

"You don't think you know him?" Kakashi questioned, stopping his massage and giving the young woman his undivided attention. "You told Sandaime-sama you don't remember anything."

"I lied. Big surprise there," Harune said bitingly, crossing her arms now. When Kakashi's disbelief made itself clear as day on his masked face, she continued before he could chastise her. "There was this guy, I mean I'd never met him before, and he was careful, so careful, to keep me from seeing his face. It was disconcerting, really, the way he always walked around in a cloak. I didn't come to very often, but every time I did, he'd just knock me out—" Kakashi stood up, fire in his eyes when she said this, "—with a tea, Kashi-kun, it was a sedative," Harune explained quickly, grasping his hands in hers to calm him; he looked like he was seriously going to run out and beat the stranger senseless when he thought that he had hurt her. The dangerous glint in his eyes disappeared as instantly as it had come, and he sat back down on the edge of the bed beside her, allowing her to continue.

"Anyway, one time I had woken up, and I finally had enough chakra to use my Byakugan… I looked through his hood and…" Harune trailed off, looking down at her lap.

"And…" Kakashi pressed, eager to hear who Harune's mystery healer was.

"I swear to God, Kashi, he looked exactly like my father," Harune whispered hoarsely, struggling to speak now. "He looked identical to Tou-chan, the hair, the eyes, everything, just… he just looked younger."

"Do you…do you think it was him?" Kakashi asked uncertainly. "Because if you were constantly being knocked out by a sedative, I mean, that could have messed with your sight, maybe it was a hallucination—"

"The Byakugan doesn't hallucinate, Kashi," Harune snapped impatiently. Of course she had already considered this possibility, but it was hardly even a possibility to begin with. "It wasn't my father, he's dead; it's impossible. And the chakra signatures didn't quite match up… But there's no mistaking the resemblance."

"How did he know to save you and then bring you here?" Kakashi asked. Harune sighed in exasperation and lay down on her back, not bothering to answer him.

"The Curse Mark is gone too, I don't know if you noticed or not," she said instead, eyes closed as she racked her brain for answers she knew she didn't have.

"Yeah, I saw this morning," Kakashi replied, gently brushing her bangs back out of her face. Harune pressed two fingers on her forehead, as was her habit when she thought deeply.

"Are you going to go back and tell the Sandaime all this?" Kakashi asked inquisitively, in a way that told her he would support either decision. When she shook her head, he nodded, and lay on his side next to her. "How's your leg feeling now?"

"So much better. You've got magic hands, Hatake Kakashi," Harune chuckled, relieved that he had changed the subject. She was much too drained to think about her anonymous saviour.

"Well, massages aren't the only thing they can do," Kakashi smirked mischievously, pulling down his mask and pressing his lips to Harune's, said 'magic' hands already finding their way up her shirt and under her bra. Her tiny gasp gave him the opportunity to slip his tongue into her mouth, and Kakashi grinned when he felt her entire body relax as she melted into the kiss. Her hands reached up to embrace him when he climbed over her body and hovered over her, but he quickly pinned them down on either side of her head before pulling away.

"Nope," he said simply, his eyes darkened with desire and longing. He had opened his Sharingan, determined to commit every intimate moment with Harune to memory. She was the love of his life, and though Kakashi hadn't believed in such a thing for the longest time, the way he had felt when he had found her in the forest those 6 months back erased all doubts that such happiness actually existed. Because it did, and it was in the form of the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen, and God help him if he ever forgot the elation and beauty that was Kamineko Harune.

"You had quite a bit of your own way last night," Kakashi hummed in Harune's ear, relishing in the way she shivered with pleasure when he nipped on her earlobe and suckled at the base of her neck. "This time it's my turn. Are you gonna behave yourself?"

With a needy nod, Harune watched as Kakashi pulled away to take off his shirt and pants before moving to do the same. He quickly stopped her though, and bucking his hips into hers, he pushed her down onto her back again, this time with his fingers entwined in hers.

"You are gonna stay put. I'm in charge right now," he said sternly, and Harune raised an eyebrow, but went along with it. She was too hot and bothered at this point to argue with him anyway, and she found that she sort of liked when Kakashi took that tone with her. "That's my girl," he smirked, satisfied when Harune obliged. Soon she too was stripped down to just her underwear, all, of course, by Kakashi's doing, and her body was more than ready for him by the time he dipped a finger into her, followed by a second, and then a third. The night before, it was at his point that Kakashi had lost all self-control, but today he remained determined to stay disciplined against his body's pleas to take Harune right then and there. Last night was quick, desperate, and fiery, but today he wanted to take his time and savour her. But God, if she kept grinding down against his hand and purring like that…

Kakashi kissed Harune hungrily one last time before making his last command.

"Turn around," he said into her lips, desperately fighting the urge to cum right then and there at the sound of her mewling for him.

"What?" she breathed, eyes closed and clearly unable to think very straight. She was completely lost in the pleasure he, he was giving her, and that was outright one of the sexiest things he had ever seen.

"I wanna try something," he cajoled, manoeuvring her so that she was bent forward over the bed. The sight of her open to him was amazing, and Kakashi couldn't help but rip of his boxers off and slide right into her, electricity running straight down his spine as her warmth engulfed him. He hadn't even been able to take off her panties, but pushing them off to the side did just fine, and he soon found himself bucking into her as fast and as hard as he could, both hands holding a firm grip on her perfectly rounded ass. Harune let out a loud cry when he had first entered her, completely unprepared for him, but her shock quickly transformed into pure bliss, and it was all she could do to call out his name as she gripped tightly to her sheets.

The sound of her muttered 'oh fuck's and moans egged Kakashi on even further, and he leaned in close to her body as he jackhammered into her, placing his hands over her balled up fists and fastening his fingers between hers.

"You are mine," he growled in her ear, breathing in her sweetness and feeling every inch of her body suck him in with each thrust.

"I've always been yours, Kashi," Harune panted, and Kakashi felt her tighten around him as she orgasmed. Kakashi followed not a second after, and the feeling of his release run through her sent waves of pure ecstasy through her from head to toe.

"Don't ever leave me again," Kakashi murmured when the pair collapsed back onto her bed, both beaded with sweat and breathing heavily.

"Never," Harune promised, weaving her fingers through his and snuggling into his chest. "Kakashi?"

"Hm?"

"I love you."

"I love you too."