"I hate you."
"Hmm, heard you the first twenty times. Want to tell me something?"
"Yes, that I hate you."
They get to Sachi's house early in the morning, having stayed well past midnight within the Inuzuka household. Tsume was a treasure chest of stories that involved Sachi's previous shenanigans, and more importantly, those that ended badly for her.
Hana and Kiba, with their respective ninken, had joined them at some point. They had been sparring when the scent of freshly baked cookies brought them in. If they were surprised to find Hatake Kakashi in their kitchen, they didn't show it, instead Kiba had glued himself to him and asked him, not so subtly, about ninja stories.
Kakashi had listened as Tsume recalled how Sachi was an absolute disaster when it came to jutsus. How she had blown herself so many times that the Inuzuka had made bets on how many fingers she was going to lose by the time she graduated. How she had cheated every Academy test with pure spite, and how Kasui and Anko decided that it was a good idea to make Sachi the leader of their team.
Her apprenticeship under Orochimaru, how Ashi punched the Sannin after a mission gone wrong. Sachi's botched up seals and how she didn't know what a dog was when she first came to Leaf, and confessed she had eaten a horse before, literally.
Stories and tales, painting the lost years that was Sachi before the war. He also had to sit through a very detailed commentary about their performance in the Chūnin Exams, and somehow ending in a proposition for a spar anytime he wished, as long as he didn't try to break their skulls.
It was… amazing.
"Are you mad at me? I was a respectful guest."
"Guest? Didn't hear the part where Tsume invited you to New Years spars? You're family. Fuckin' dammit, I'm not taking you there again."
"Why not? They like me." he teases, a flicker of hope in his chest.
"'course they do. Kiba had heart eyes the moment he saw you, and Hana's planning something, I can feel it." she hisses, taking out her sandals. "Don't get my wrong, darlin', you can go to the Inuzuka Compound any time, but don't expect this to go as smoothly as today."
He tenses. "Why?"
"Because they've got your scent now. Once they mark you, it's over, you become an Inuzuka want it or not. If Tsume doesn't greet you with a tattoo machine then Obu will, or Kiba, or… you get the idea."
"It's a bad thing?"
"Huh?" she says, gulping down the pills. They were the reason they had to come back, Tsume offering them to sleep in Sachi's old room like the 'old days', whatever that meant. "I mean, if you wanna… Inuzuka Kakashi… has a nice ring to it."
"You wouldn't oppose?"
"Why would I? I think you'd fit right in," she said with full honesty "you'd make a great alpha too, if you want to go for it. Please do tell me if you do, I would pay to see you go against Tsume."
Kakashi is at a loss, but in a good way, that easy welcome that comes so naturally to her. It's jarring for someone like him, that know rejection and apprehension best. He wonders if it's a ruse, a trap, but Sachi has been nothing but not truthful ever since her injury. Was it brain damage? Or he had simply missed all of it in his blind hatred?
"How you found the Inuzuka?"
"They're fine, I guess."
"Fine? They're crazier than Water's hunter nin, you have to see 'em during spar contests. Have you ever seen a fighting tournament of drunk Inuzukas?"
"I… haven't had the pleasure."
"Well, they're nuts, it's beautiful. Ever since Kasui got his magic hands they've gotten more rowdy and wild. It's only taijutsu, though, so no weapons or jutsus. And dogs, but they aren't compulsory."
"Are they… always so nice?"
"Nice? What do you mean?" she frowns.
"The Inuzuka didn't put my head on a spike. I thought they hated me."
"Have to break it to you, darlin', but not everyone hates you, it's mostly just me. The Inuzuka, dumbasses as they are, bless 'em, aren't the sort of clan that are prejudiced without motive. Sure, we got into more fights than we can count, but that's between you and me. Last time I checked you didn't bash the head of another Inuzuka, so they aren't going to go after your ass for retribution." she explains, taking her hair out of her ponytail. "They respect you, you know? As most if not all of the village does. You've done many great things, and they recognize that."
"Do they?"
"They and Leaf, darlin'." she smiles at him, easy and simple. "Kakashi, the only one that blames you for anything you've done is yourself."
"You really like to drop bits of wisdom, don't you?"
"That's what I'm here for." she shrugs. "Hey, Kakashi, don't look at me like I'm lying to you. You can ask anyone, and they will tell you that you're the best man this village has ever had. Stop, I'm not stroking your ego, okay?"
Kakashi never trusted praise coming from people he did not know. They've told him, again and again, that he was a good soldier, the best, in some cases, but they were always empty, an incentive to keep him going. He didn't believe them, but he did believe Sachi, because she never thrived to please people, and he knew she wouldn't gain nothing from giving him a pep talk.
"Do you? Think that I'm the best man in the whole village?"
Sachi stops in the middle of the hallway, her eyes reflecting an emotion Kakashi couldn't quite place. "I think you are human. You have your ghosts and regrets, and loyal to a fault. Victim of your circumstances, but a fighter instead of a survivor. Not perfect in the least, you are petty, stubborn, infuriating and really annoying to deal with during your moods." she lists, not hiding anything. "But you love this village, and you've given Leaf much more than it has offered you. I think Leaf should be damn grateful to have you."
He… didn't expect that, nor the solemn expression she delivered that speech. It twists something in his chest, painfully, reminiscent of the fear of his nightmares, but there's also a bittersweet hope that he doesn't know what to do with.
"Why do you hate me then?" he says before he stops himself, Sachi remains neutral, and answers.
"Same reason as you hate me."
Kakashi doesn't know how to answer that, and the implications sits heavy at the back of his mind.
You don't, the voice laughs.
.
Kakashi wakes up with Sachi spooning him and her arm wrapped around his middle. He should have been more weirded out about his predicament, if Sachi wasn't so damn warm. Furnace fell short, and when you were the human equivalent of an ice cube in winter, it was blissful to be able to steal body heat from another person.
The mirror was reflecting the scene accusingly back at him, and Kakashi can see Sachi folded over his back, breathing softly on his nape. Kakashi, not even in his worst nightmares, would have pictured an universe in which he and Sachi shared a bed, much less cuddled, without one of them being dead. But… it's not that bad.
Thank the Sage Sachi sleeps like a log. She doesn't move in her sleep, at all, and Kakashi could kick her out of the bed and she wouldn't wake. Sachi had agreed to let him sleep in her bed, and only sleep, if they shared.
"I might want to help you, darlin', but this is my bed too."
And Kakashi, who his embarrassment was overrode by the bewitchment of the best bed in existence, agreed. The bed was big enough for five people to stand side by side, and they began the night at an arms length, with Sachi's palm on his temple but as far away as possible from him.
Kakashi woke up a while later, not because of his dreams, but because he was fucking cold.
Sachi, for all her luxurious lifestyle, lacked the most essential item: a blanket. Or two, or ten.
Because Sachi was practically irradiating heat, it was inevitable for him to scoot over until they touched. Sachi had stirred then, mumbling something about numbers, and put an arm around him and fell again once more. When she didn't move or stab him for daring to touch her without her explicit permission, he fell asleep again, embraced by her warmth.
And that's how they ended up in that position, just by chance and Sachi's lack of appropriate bedding.
Or so he told himself.
"Meds, meds!" the snail chirped, Kakashi trying to get out from Sachi's grip and failing.
Sachi's arm was stiff around his middle, an unmovable object that makes Kakashi consider a kawarimi. "Sachi, wake up." he tells her, but she doesn't even let out a groan of acknowledgement.
Kakashi turns in her grip, facing her. He stops short, finding Sachi so close that their noses touch. It's… nerve-wracking.
Sachi has always been the type of person that one regarded more like a threat rather than a fellow comrade. She had earned that kind of respect by brow-beating anyone that tried to get smart with her; not one for regular strength, she was equally dangerous as any S-rank nin. She was intimidating because of how normal-yet-not she appeared to be. Tall, severe and yet mischievous, her eyes were so striking that people couldn't help look at them, only to fall into her trap and have their souls open for her to read.
Right now, Kakashi didn't feel that tension that was between them. Normally, only a glance was enough to set them off, but now he's closer to her than ever before, and all he can think is:
"You're drooling."
The great Watchtower, the woman that ended a war by herself, that played against all of the Elemental Countries and won, drooled in her sleep. She's just like anyone else, human, just like she told him. Kakashi can see the scars of her temple, three sets now, and he sees now, that Sachi is just as fallible, and mortal, as any other being.
It's an obvious conclusion, but it shocks him all the same.
"Sachi, wake up. You have to take your meds." the snail agrees, but the woman doesn't wake. "Sachi…"
Kakashi shakes her a little bit more, to see if the previous day's method worked today, but the only thing he manages is for her nose to crunch up and bare her teeth before she brings him closer to her. Sachi is strong, and Kakashi slides across the sheets into her arms and he freezes.
His flight or fight instinct kicks in as his shock keeps him in place, Kakashi calls her again, definitely panicking because this was not how it was supposed to go that morning, and he prays whatever god there is above to not let anyone enter the bedroom at that moment. The image of Kasui, discovering him in his teammate's arms like a loving couple, or Anko, after all the times he complained about her was… terrifying.
Sachi, noticing his unease, wakes up slowly, murmuring nonsense and—
She kisses him.
Sachi gives Kakashi a peck on his forehead, like a mother would do to a child, and she gets up, yawning and leaving him still as a brick in the bed.
"Oh… fuck."
.
Breakfast is strangely normal. Sachi is fully awake then, after he changed the dressing, and she's eating a bowl of cereal leaning against the counter.
"How did you sleep?" she asks around a mouthful. "You're flushed, you good?"
"I've noticed that you don't have any heat in the house." he says instead.
"Oh, right. I forgot to tell you, I don't like hot things."
"That's why your shower has only cold or ice cold water?"
She makes a face. "Yeah, sorry about that. There's a seal that can heat up the water, but everything's set on cold."
"Your house, your rules." he amends. "And the blankets…"
"Fuck, right. There's a scroll in the chest in front of the bed. Were you cold or something? Because it's going to be real fun for you to catch a cold while taking care of me."
"You don't use any blankets? Not even in winter?"
"Nope. I don't even use the heating seals, the cold doesn't bother me, but Anko and sensei are always complaining about it. They say the house get very cold in the night, but I don't notice it. Most nights I leave the window open."
Sometimes Sachi seemed like any other human, and other times she was like a monster out of their world. "I can't believe you."
"Why, you get cold toes, Kakashi?" she says, teasingly.
"I get cold easily." he defends himself. "Not everyone's got a fever at all times."
"It's not like I want to run hot." she counters with an odd implication behind. "I get by with what I have. Ah, but in winter, everyone wants me around. Anko and Kasui drop by just to sleep together while smooching off my heat like leeches."
"Do you sleep together?" he asks, startled.
"Yeah. A habit since we were in the Academy, Kasui and Anko can't stay warm for the life of them, and we started sleeping together so I warmed them and they cooled me down. Pretty good deal, especially when on missions."
"So… you sleep together just for temperature purposes?"
"And cuddling, obviously. I'm not ashamed to show that I love them, and there's nothing wrong with sharing a bed without anything frisky going on. Anko and Kasui come here just to sleep, and if we sleep on top of each other then it's our business. You never slept in a puppy pile?"
That explained the giant bed.
"No." he cuts. "Not with my teammates, we didn't get there before they…"
"And with your summons? You have a whole pack of them."
"... maybe once or twice." he confesses, for the sake of honesty. "Not since I graduated from the Academy."
"Hmm, well, it's not for everyone." She finishes her breakfast, putting the bowl in the sink.
Kakashi was about to argue with her about dish cleaning duty when she became completely still and her head whipped to look around him. Kakashi, recognizing the feeling of an incoming threat, spins around with a kunai in hand.
Minato is there when he does.
"Oh— oh. Am I… interrupting something?"
"Not at all, Minato-san. What is it?"
"Um, it's good to see you well. I mean, how are you feeling?"
"Recovered, mostly. Kakashi is a very good nurse." she lies like a liar without a hair out of place.
"I'm… you can refuse, okay? I don't want you to overwork yourself, not after Kasui-san was so… clear about the consequences. But… there might be a problem in the logs, and can you…?"
"I'll be there in five minutes."
Minato lets out a sigh of relief, Sachi exiting the kitchen to change her clothes. "How are you doing, Kakashi? Good, I hope?"
"Yes, sensei." he answers, a bit more tense than he intended. "Is there an emergency?"
"Not at all, we just need Sachi to look at something."
He knows a dismissal when he hears one, and he doesn't press. He might be an S-rank ANBU soldier, but he wasn't in the inner circle of the Hokage Tower. Still, he was annoyed that not even a contusion kept them from putting Sachi to work when a few days ago she wasn't even breathing.
"You should visit Kushina sometime." he begins. "We're practically neighbours, we could have dinner together."
"If Sachi's up for it."
He blinks, confused. "Oh. Oh! Right, of course, Kushina would like to have you both. Naruto will be really happy."
"Let's go." Sachi appears, not waiting for them to follow.
She's dressed in a long necked black tunic, with red hems and her hair up again. Kakashi figures her hair up means business, and can't help but miss the sight of her hair down on her shoulders, or the kind and warm eyes instead of the hard and analytical ones.
But Leaf doesn't need Sachi, they need the Watchtower.
They cross the garden in less than thirty seconds, and now Kakashi understands why she's needed so close. They climb up the renovated Hokage Tower — because Sachi took it down in the war— and there's Shikaku waiting for them at the doors of Sachi's office.
The old Nara tilts his head, glancing between them as if he was reading what happened in the days they spent together, and he nods, satisfied.
Sachi opens the room, and Kakashi stares. The room is as big as the Hokage's office on the opposite side, with brand new reddish wood that decorates cream colored walls. There's a curving set of windows at the end of the room. The difference between both offices is that Sachi's is filled with ceiling high shelves, filled to the brim with books that clutter on the tables in front of the couches on either side of the room, both red in color.
The middle of the room is occupied by a giant table with a block of obsidian on top that could serve as the ceiling of a small home. Sachi puts her hands on the rock and it lights up, very much like the replica in her study, and Kakashi watches as she falls into the role she created for herself.
Minato and Shikaku don't interrupt her as after a silent minute she takes out a scroll from her belt and unseals a mountain worth of paper. "This are the reports from two days ago, I'll have yesterday in an hour."
"So…?"
"Yes. I'll keep an eye out, nothing today though."
"You knew." Shikaku states, which seems redundant when speaking to Sachi. "How long?"
"Three months, aprox." she straightened her back, and Kakashi was met with the sight of the Watchtower. The light of the morning illuminated her back, casting her front in shadows while her eyes remained impossibly bright. Her lips were a cutting crimson, set in a thin line.
"What are we going to do?" Minato asks, and Kakashi has the impression that he's asking her like a subordinate would do to a captain.
"Nothing. Let them guess. I'll review the samples."
Shikaku nods. "You know who?"
"I've had my suspicions."
"Good. You know what to do, I want the reports as soon as possible." Minato says, and leaves her office.
"Nice to see you back, Sachi." Shikaku says, without the tension in his shoulders. "How's the head?"
"Stitched up." she says, breaking the seriousness and going to her desk, a reddish mahogany behemoth that it's filled with papers in different paper towers. "Kakashi keeps it that way."
It has double meaning, and Shikaku chuckles. "You're staying today?"
"Hard not to when you can't live without me. This is going to cost you a pretty penny, I'm on medical leave."
"Aw, you aren't doing it from the depth of your heart?"
"I don't have one. Now shoo, I have to deal with your messes."
Shikaku shrugs his shoulders, in a 'what can you do' kind of way, before leaving and closing the door behind him.
"Am I allowed to be here?" Kakashi asks, taking a seat on one of the couches. Damn, they were better than his own bed.
"My office is open to anyone, including my most prolific nemesis."
"You have more?"
Sachi smiles, reclining in her chair. "Trade secret. I was wondering when one of those two was going to get me, they lasted more than I expected."
"Is it a thing? For sensei and Shikaku-sama to drag you out to work?" Was that how she got up in the mornings?"
"It's the other way around. I'm head of Surveillance, but when there's something suspicious going on I have to go wake 'em up to know what I'm going to do."
"Not to give permission?"
She huffs a laugh. "I know my Barbican more than anyone else, and I'm the one that controls it. If I need to do something, I will do it but tell them why. What's the point of me being the Watchtower if I don't do any watchtower-ing by myself?"
"Minato-sensei sought you out today, is it bad?"
"Fishing for secrets, Kakashi?" she says, easy-going. "I won't give you any details because it's my job, but I can tell you that I've got it covered. Nothing I haven't dealt with before."
Kakashi takes that explanation as any other, not about to question her about her role. It would be the equivalent of asking his sensei to divulge the village's secrets just because he wanted to know and he had been his student at one point.
"Kasui told you no work." he reminds her.
"He also said no murder attempts." Kakashi tells her, again, that he said spars, and she continues. "My job is not regular office work, I don't stop being the Watchtower because I'm not at my desk." she gathers paper and puts it in her typewriter, starting to silently type.
"How does the Barbican work? Or you can't divulge any secrets?"
"Putting aside all the sealwork, is quite simple. The Barbican is formed by pillars or engines, meaning, they are like a scroll with an obsidian core. The scroll contains the orders and the core makes sure there's a constant flow of chakra." she points to the table. "Obsidian is a chakra conductor material, but it also keeps the chakra trapped. Think of the core as a battery of sorts. Now, the Barbican is a giant seal that allows it to detect a certain amount of chakra in real time. Because humans have a specific chakra range, including undeveloped pathways in case of the civilians, I tweaked it so they show up on the map."
"The table is the map."
"Yep. It's the center of the Barbican, or something like that. Chakra goes from one pillar to another, one wave below the chakra umbral of the seals and one above, leaving a gap to detect humans." she finishes writing and puts another sheet of paper. "That's the detection part. Because we need to see who's from Leaf and who's not we need a record to set them apart."
"Blood."
"Exactly. It's difficult for people to pass chakra to chakra paper, mostly babies and civilians, but blood is very close to the chakra pathways, and carries enough of it to create an imprint. The Barbican recognizes the individual chakra imprint of anyone included in the records, and they appear as…"
"Red dots."
"Yep. And black when they aren't included. Here comes the kicker, I included a defensive set of seals in the pillars." Sachi's voice has a threatening edge to it. "The pillars receive constant waves of chakra that go from one to another in very fast motions, to keep the Barbican updated to the millisecond. If someone steps into the Barbican, I will know, but then…"
She looks up at him, her eyes glittering with a predatory glow. "I can choose to kill them."
A shiver runs through him, a reminder that Sachi is far from helpless, and very, very far from weak.
"That's what you did in the war." Kakashi points out. He remembers the last day of the war, not when they got the notice that it was over, but the night in which it truly ended. The earth shook violently, and a wave of chakra put them all to their knees, while a beacon of light engulfed their enemies and they dropped dead like flies. "You killed them."
"Yes." she agrees, carefully devoid of emotion. "We were surrounded on all flanks, and we were only a country against four others." she recalls. "There weren't many options then. If we didn't do something to stop our enemy from finishing us, then we would lose the war. I did the only thing that I could think of."
"Shock and Awe."
"Shock and Awe." she repeats, smiling softly. "The biggest gamble I ever took."
"How… how did you do it? Or is it classified?"
"The Barbican of the war spanned the whole country, and it had three Monitors, they were like… imagine three Barbicans, and every ring they mapped was a Monitor. But I couldn't safely use the defensive seals because they overlapped. I… very rookie oversight on my part."
"And what happened? You did do something."
"I brought the Barbican down." she says, simply.
"You… what?"
"Brought it down, destroyed it. Do you know why we had to reconstruct the Hokage Tower? The first Barbican was set in the basement, and I destroyed its core. Blew it up spectacularly, and when the pillars didn't have any more chakra to function, the chakra that had been circulating between them made the obsidian explode. It… amplified to the light show that you saw that night, and it took down anyone that had been inside the perimeter."
"And then some." he says. "Borders were set into bedrock, miles deep and even across."
With hundreds of bodies at the bottom.
"I saw it." she responds ruefully.
"How did it make you feel?" Kakashi asks, seeing Sachi's expression.
He knew her reactions, the careful crafted ones, and then those that she only let him see when they were alone. This one, however, could only be described as 'conflicted'.
"Like a god." comes the quiet answer. "I spent the entire war in that basement, seeing the dots crawl around the map… when… when I brought the Barbican down, the dots… all of them disappeared," she snaps her fingers. "like that. I… I was the one that did that, that killed them all."
She takes a deep breath, steeling herself. "I was glad to do that, happy— the second I killed them, I was smiling."
"And now?" Kakashi asks after she falls quiet, fighting her own emotions with what looked to be a regular issue.
"Now… I see that it was dangerous. Nearly died for that stunt, you know? But I thought it was worth it, as long as I ended that fucking war."
Kakashi thinks back to coming back from the war, how the village was untouched by the savagery of the fronts. He had believed them lucky, that their efforts had kept their home safe, but now—
Sachi did it.
Sachi was the one that ended the war.
"Nearly died for that too? Do you know any other outcome that doesn't involve death?"
She pauses. "Actually… I think I don't."
The heaviness lifts somewhat, but Kakashi can tell it's a touchy subject. Other people might have taken credit, boasted about ending a war, but never had he heard a word come from her. Minato and Shikaku, as well as the Third, had put the laurel crown on Sachi for ending the war, but the common folk hadn't stopped to think how she did it; or what it meant for her.
"What… did you do, during the war?" he asks, because that had always bothered him. Sachi would have served them well in the fronts, and her remaining in the village like some sort of doll hadn't sat well with him.
(She should have been there with him.)
"Argue, mostly." she admits, not overly fond of those memories. "I couldn't fight, because I'm crippled and all that, so I found another way to help. Made tags, and then created the Barbican." Kakashi remembers the tags, and knew from the second he touched them that they were her work. Difficult not to, when she was their only seal master with enough time to do them. "From there… it was just playing the game."
Sachi wasn't mocking the war, and Kakashi could only imagine what she did during those days wouldn't be too far off from what she did now. "How?"
"How, what?"
"How did you play the game? How did you win?"
Sachi stops working and stares at him, those maddening eyes of hers looking him up and down as if she was figuring out what he meant. "War is like chess."
"... what?"
"Chess." she repeats. "The pieces… every civilian, every soldier, every kage… is a piece. When you know how to play chess, you know how to play war."
The simplistic explanation rubbed him wrong, almost as if Sachi didn't take the war seriously. Kakashi knew, again, by her expression, that she was completely serious. "I get that you… are good at chess?"
"I'm the best." she says with total confidence. "The Hokage knew this, and so he let me try to play. I was appointed under Shikaku as his assistant during the war, only telling him when enemies got inside the Monitors, how the fronts were moving, who… who died…"
Sachi knew every name on that table, and she had known many more before the war. Kakashi pictures it, watching a dot that you knew was someone you loved, snuffed out and having to say their names outloud one more time.
He wouldn't have been able to do it.
"But… that wasn't everything you did."
Sachi chuckles, pointing to the room. "Shikaku is a smart man, and he understood me. We worked together, and with the Barbican showing us what happened in real time… we were able to come with the strategies."
Obviously.
Kakashi momentarily stills, a sudden revelation striking him.
"You… you were the one that moved us." he says, actually sitting up from the couch to look at her. "Those strategies… you told us where to go, what to do—" he stops, letting it sink in. "Like chess."
She smiles at him, apologetic. "Like chess."
Kakashi doesn't say anything for a long time. He knew Sachi was a genius, everyone knew her by how smart she was, but he hadn't realized just what that meant. The Watchtower… that moniker fitted her in more ways than one; without being touched by war, she had looked over them and moved them as if she was the master and they her pieces. The Aburame, stoic as they were, had only told them to follow the orders if they wanted to win the war, and they did, because no one had time to question how strange it was when they were too busy not dying.
But Sachi—
All those deployments, how all the teams were changed and replaced, the fronts swapped up, the Sannin switched to where they were needed most…. Kakashi hadn't fought a war before, and he had foolishly believed that they were as… organized as the Third had been.
The death toll had been bad, any death grievous enough, but too little considering that they had been against four Elemental Countries, each on every flank. That they had managed to win… it was a miracle.
Kakashi turns to her, watching her work as she always did. She didn't stop, and Kakashi was sure that she hadn't stopped during the war, either.
"Sachi…" he calls to her, not sure why. She hums, glancing briefly at him before continuing. "what the fuck?"
She doesn't acknowledge it.
.