They ignore each other all day. Kakashi took Sachi for her word and used the dōjō, distracting himself with a dummy until his body gave up. He didn't come up for lunch, but he found a covered plate of fried fish with rice and noodle soup after his shower.
Sachi was nowhere to be found, and Kakashi couldn't muster enough energy to find her after their stand off that morning.
Guilt appeared after he calmed down. Sachi was right, he admitted begrudgingly, but it didn't make it any easier. He was exposed, his soul laid out for her to see and judge, and he hated that vulnerability. But then, she had confronted him, and told him about her family, and regretted it.
Sachi's past, before coming to the village, had been dismissed by everyone. She was an Inuzuka through and through, and trying to imagine her in another place than the litter of that clan seemed… absurd.
Kakashi too, had forgotten, that Sachi was not from Leaf.
It frustrated him, to be on an impasse with her. She knew his story, maybe not all the details, but enough to understand; he didn't.
Sachi was right. He didn't know anything about her.
He had let his hate blind him for many years, because it was fine. She never complained and fought back, and they had a deal, they fought, didn't ask questions, and in exchange they didn't kill the other in their exchanges.
But he had crossed the line.
When Sachi fails to show up for dinner, Kakashi peels himself from the comfortable couch in the living room and seek her out. He doesn't want to, but he forces himself up the stairs because Kasui could drop by at any moment and have his hide.
Or that's what he tells himself.
The house is quiet because there are muffling seals on every piece of wood. Sachi could be screaming her head off in her room and Kakashi wouldn't hear a thing beyond the faded static of the seals. He rasps his fists carefully on the doorframe, the seals shutting off in what he believes is a pass to enter.
"Kasui said no work."
Sachi is at the desk in the middle of the room, near the Barbican table, surrounded by a mountain of books and her typewriter. "He also said no murder attempts."
"... he said no spars."
"Same thing." she stops her typing to glance at him, before going back to it. "Need something?"
"Yes, I'm hungry."
"You're a big boy, make yourself a sandwich."
"Can't find the bread."
"Then starve." she says, punching the keys harder than necessary. "I'm busy."
"Have you changed the bandages?"
"Yes."
"No!" Mi shouted in her tiny voice. "Did not!"
Sachi doesn't answer, continuing to work on her machine with forced focus.
"The meds?"
"No!"
"Now I get why Kasui keeps you around. Let's see, did she eat breakfast?"
"No! Tea only!"
"A shower?"
"No!"
"That's disgusting, Sachi." her chakra is all over the place, barely contained. "Has she worked all day?"
"Yes! Didn't stop!"
"That's it." she gets up at once, and her glare does nothing for Kakashi. Had she not been in a hot pink shirt and her hair sticking out she might have looked intimidating, and her scowl even threatening. "Get out."
"Not going to happen. I'm here to take care of you."
"Does that include massaging my neck with your hands?" she says, pointing to the bruises around her skin. Damn, he didn't control himself. "I can take care of myself, so you can go and do your thing downstairs for the rest of the week or leave now, I don't care. Thing is, I don't want to see your ugly mug around my office."
"Maa, might want to hiss a little bit more, adds emotion." Sachi opens her mouth to cuss him out, but he continues. "I'm sorry for choking you, and yelling at you this morning. You… didn't deserve that, and… you're right.
Sachi stiffens, her mouth hanging up as her brain restarts. "Say that again?"
"I'm sorry, and you're right."
She takes a deep breath, and Kakashi sees her indignation leave her face slowly. She frowns, suspicious "You're stroking my ego."
"Of course, I'm hungry and I can't find the bread. Can we have dinner now?"
"You're an asshole." she accuses him, but there's no heat or cold shoulder. "Fine. But I'm cooking."
"If you let me bandage you."
"I clean the dishes."
"You don't work anymore today."
She considers it.
"Fine." she huffs, passing him. They reach the kitchen, Sachi pulling out a scroll from the pantry. "The bread was right here."
"Oh, look at that, didn't see it..."
"I hate you."
Kakashi watches her work a meal, glad that she wasn't as angry as before. He… didn't like seeing her sad. It reminded him of the days after Ashi's funeral, and if it sickened him then, now was no different.
You only like it when you hurt her, a malicious voice told him.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Do you?" she shots back, toasting bread in a pan.
"Not really, but that's how it always goes."
"I'll show you mine if you show me yours?" she tries, not sounding as happy as she did when proposing a deal. "Don't want to give you nightmares, though."
"You don't have them?"
"I… don't, I don't dream either, for that matter." she confesses, making eye contact with him to show she was being honest.
"You don't dream? Sounds like a blessing"
"More like can't. My brain isn't wired for it, so I've never dreamt a thing. Nightmares don't seem fun."
"They aren't." he states, the afterimages of his teammates corpses flashes in his mind.
"... what do they look like?"
She was asking out of curiosity and not morbid interest, and so Kakashi let himself answer. "They don't make any sense, but it feels like they do. You… see things that you've seen before, hear their voices… but they aren't them. They feel real, the pain too, but then it's not." he sighs. "A great way to begin your day." She hums, asking if he wanted cheese with his sandwich or not. "What it's like not to dream?"
"... like being awake, pretty much, only that you're in your head. I'm… sort of awake? It's strange to describe it, I spend my time going through my memories, so it's sort of like dreaming, only that I get to choose what I see."
"Sounds fake, but okay." he says, hoping that Sachi was joking. "You're serious."
"Usually am, what, is it weird?"
"You go through your memories instead of dreaming?"
"Well, duh, how else I'm going to process information? I'm very busy, do you know how many reports I have to go through the day? This way I memorize them and read them when I sleep."
The kitchen falls into a pregnant silence, Sachi turning around, confused. "What?"
"Do… you're really telling me that you work even when you sleep? Because that's disturbing."
"It's better than wasting eight hours of every day to hallucinations." she defends herself.
"They aren't— whatever. Are you incapable of dreaming because of that scar on your skull?"
Sachi takes out the plates, putting the toasted bread with thick layers of bacon, lettuce, tomatoes, onion and cheese. "I forget that you're a smart one. Yes, you've caught me, I can't dream because I was lobotomized as a child."
"I don't get the joke."
"It isn't." she pushes a sandwich his way, taking out a scroll from the fridge and unsealing a bottle with iced tea. "They shoved two needles into my brain when I was one year old to let me organize my mind like I wanted, not dreaming is a side effect."
"I don't believe you. One year old?"
"And then at eight, but that time was done for a different reason."
"... why?"
"Tradition." she shrugs, sitting down and pouring him a glass of tea. "It's not sweetened."
"Thanks. So… what, someone decided it was a good idea to put needles through the brain?"
"As I said, tradition. My clan had the firm belief that life should be dedicated to gathering knowledge, and letting your brain sort it out wasn't good enough. You do it like this," she reaches behind her to take a chopstick and grab it so it was parallel to her temple, making a movement so it seemed like she put it through her skull. "they are there to open the first two chakra gates."
"Yeah, no. That's not... okay, let's do this. If we want to pretend that we are each other's shrinks we have to be honest. Don't lie to me, and I won't lie to you." an offering for an olive branch. "Let's straighten… whatever is between us. A fresh start."
Kakashi didn't want to hurt Sachi anymore, because annoying she was, but he would rarely get an opportunity to get to know her without trying to spill her brains out. Might as well see if he was justified for hating her.
"I'm serious, Kakashi. I accept the deal, I'll be honest if you are, but I'm telling the truth. My clan used to manually open the chakra gates to allow a continuous state of consciousness; not anymore though, they're dead."
"Okay… we'll talk about that later. What about your clan, where did they come from?"
"Land of Snow."
"Sachi, take this seriously—"
"I am." she says, biting into her sandwich. "My clan settled in the Land of Snow, stayed there for a thousand years, and died in a single day."
"No clan is that old."
"Mine was. We had this big settlement a little bigger than Leaf, and at the center was what we called the Mother Tree, bigger than the Hashirama Trees. You see, the Mother Tree was the center of the Land of Snow, and its roots spread out around the Heart, that's what we called it, and became the Needle Forest. Because, you know, it had these vicious giant spikes of branches that fed from your blood—"
"Wait, wait, wait— bigger than the Hashirama Trees?"
"That's what surprises you from what I've told you?" she scoffs lightly. "Yes, the Mother Tree was bigger, much bigger, than the Hashirama Trees. It covered the entire Heart, and the Land of Snow, all the way to the shores."
"And it fed from blood?"
"Yes. Nothing grows in the Land of Snow, so the Needle Forest offers protection for sustenance. Every time we killed an animal we had to bled it into the roots, to pay the toll."
Kakashi stops chewing, and Sachi won't meet his eyes to show her just how little he believed her. "Okay… why have I not heard about your clan before, does it have a name?"
"It has, but I don't want to tell you. My clan made sure that no one knew about us, because, like I said, we dedicated ourselves to finding the truth and record it. Imagine the history of this world, all books that had been ever written, the lives of important figures and average people, secrets, battles, sensitive data… all in one place. As you can guess, we didn't advertize ourselves, not when ninja were around." she stops, murmuring. "Not that it mattered, in the end."
"What happened... in the end?"
"They died, that's what happened." she said, bitter. "We were celebrating the Summer Hunt, you know, hunt a few beasts and eat together and all that. The whole clan was gathered together and I… slipped away from my duties because I wanted to speak to my cousin, who was participating in the Hunt. In the Needle Forest… there was this thing…" she shivers. "black as tar, two bright pin needles for eyes and a two rows of jagged teeth… it… smiled at me."
Sachi gathers herself, drinking the tea with trembling fingers. "That thing chased me across the forest, and when I got back to the camp, all my clan was laid out on the snow in pieces. The forest was burning too," she chuckles darkly "fire burning snow, imagine that. Anyway, I slipped in the snow and avoided getting killed by that thing. My cousin appeared after that and took us home, but everyone was dead by that point. Then, I came here, and my cousin died, so… here I am."
She sets her cup down, her meal forgotten. "What about you?"
"Well, I come from this place that has rivers of lava… we used to poke it with sticks and throw lambs in it to avoid th volcano ripping us apart. Didn't work, came here."
"Oh my, what a gut-wrenching story. Must've been hard." she snarked. "What about your clan?"
"What about it?"
"Tell me about them."
"There was no them… or it wasn't when I was young. My father and I were the only ones left, my uncles and aunts died in the previous war, and so we were alone."
"What about your mother?"
He bristles. "Don't remember her, died before I could."
Sachi doesn't say anything, conflicted about something. "If you could meet her… or see her, at least, would you?"
"What kind of question is that?"
"Would you?" she presses, not deterred.
"... yes. Why not? My father didn't have a photo of her, so I would like to know if I looked like her or not, see where I take from."
She smiles, a little thing that it's not given with pity. "That's nice."
"Who do you take from?"
"My father… I think? Mother was more lean and tall than I am, so no cutting cheekbones."
"Taller than you are? Sachi, you and I are the same height."
She laughs. "Mother was almost six foot six. Grandfather was taller still."
"Damn, and I thought you were tall. Turns out you're the runt of the litter."
She chokes on her tea, coughing her amusement. "M-my brother used to tell me that. Said that I was born twisted from the start."
"What a nice guy."
"We didn't get along. At all. He hated me more than you do."
"Difficult to imagine. Did he try to break your skull too?"
"Nah, he made me fall through a crevice in the ice and left me for dead. Had to hike my way back to the Heart. I was five."
"... really?"
"Yep, nearly died of frostbite."
"Sachi, how many times have you nearly died?" he asked, genuinely curious and concerned.
"I don't keep count, let me see. I was born two months premature, was sick for most of my life, Brother threw me into a crevice… the thing that killed my clan, what followed after… Then again here… the missions… the war… you, you, you gain..." she trails off. "Are we counting my failed seals?"
"Incredible. You're a walking disaster, how are you alive?"
"Hey, it's not like I'm chasing death, death is chasing me. I really like living, you know?"
"Despite what you went through."
"That's the thing, Kakashi." she says, grinning. "Every time I got knocked down, I want to live even more. My life's been fucked since the start, seriously, two months premature with barely matured lungs; and then my clan dying… but I've got a pretty nice life for myself. I've worked hard to live, and I've worked even harder for building another family after losing the first one." she drinks the rest of her tea. "I intend to live this life until death comes for me, not to wait for it. Was the pain worth it? I don't know, I think it wasn't fair, but my brother wasn't lucky enough to survive and complain, or my friends. I love my job, have a nice house, and have friends and family. What's more to want?"
Kakashi takes that in, letting it sink. They weren't comparing trauma or how many punches life threw at them. Sachi already knew his, his father's suicide, never knowing his mother, his struggles to take care of himself… She had been there, during the war, when his whole world crumbled to the ground again and again, until there was nothing left to take away.
Sachi had been through the same, perhaps not the same context, but the same consequences. Learning to live again when you didn't want to, bettering yourself when you felt nothing but broken beyond repair.
"That's… very optimistic of you." he says, because admitting that she's right twice on the same day was too much. "Did you figure it out yourself or was it the lobotomy?"
"Two lobotomies, come on, keep up Kakashi." she laughs again, and it's free and cheery, in spite of the heavy topic. "I mean what I've said. I've made many, many mistakes in my life, and there's so much that I've regretted for a long time. But you know what? Ghosts can suck a spooky dick, because they don't have any business sucking mine."
"So poetic."
"That's me." she says, "What's your poem? Depression and anxiety?"
"They sing my tune. You don't approve? Not many can have your outlook on life."
"Not my place to decide. My life philosophy is terribly selfish, living for myself and what I want, but you seem to know yours isn't working well."
"You're judging me."
"Constructive criticism. There's room to change, you're never old enough not to learn new tricks, would be a shame not to try while you've got the chance. Obito was pretty sunny, Rin though, was a realist, poor girl."
"... you really don't hold off, do you?"
"Obito and Rin were good people, you know better than anyone, would be a pity to remember them dying rather than the souls they once were. It hurts, I know, but it won't get better if you don't show your wound and let it close."
"You sound like Kasui." he grumbles.
"Inevitable to rub off one another. I don't like speaking about my issues, Kakashi, but I try, you know why?"
"Because you have a sick sense of humor?"
"Please, Orochimaru is my sensei. No, because it helps me. I use humor so that I don't cry, because I know that if Ashi was still there and found out I was sulking in the corners because she bit a cyanide tooth, then I would be in for a beating." she explains, sighing. "Don't get me wrong, I miss them all, but I won't waste my life just because they are dead. Sucks that they aren't with me? Yes, absolutely, but then I wouldn't be here."
The kitchen is silent for a good while, each ninja with their own troubles to digest, until Sachi gets up and says. "The only thing I can do to honor the dead is live for them too."