Chapter Thirty Three:
"Been a while since I took a weapon on a date…" Sakura followed Kakashi further out into the treeline. They had left Konoha 5 minutes ago and she still had no clue where they were going.
He'd simply dropped into her window, asked her if she was free and that they were leaving the village for an hour or so.
Sakura had assumed it was a mission. She was only informed it wasn't when Kakashi passed leave papers to the gate guards rather than a mission brief.
She'd punched him in the arm when she'd realised he was using the 'leave' as their date and instantly complained he hadn't let her get dressed up or sort her hair out from midday madness.
"Hm."
"It's common decency to let a woman prepare." she advised with a bite in her tone, knowing Kakashi didn't care.
"Why?" Kakashi asked, slinging the word over his shoulder before dropping from the trees and onto the dirt path to the east.
Sakura complied with his leading directions and joined his sedate pace. There wasn't much but farm land in the immediate area, which meant either it was a long trip, or, there was something halfway decent about the muddy paths ahead.
"Why?" Sakura repeated. "Well… because a woman wants to make a good impression."
"I already have a pretty good impression of you."
"Because she wants to look nice."
"You always look nice." He shrugged and carried on walking ahead.
"Yeah, but… it's not the point. You've only ever seen me as working-Sakura, you haven't let me dress up for you."
She watched his head tilt as he considered her words.
"I suppose I do have a thing for women in a maid's outfit."
The comment earned him an elbow into his ribs as she stomped to his side.
He dodged it and released a short laugh.
Short, because she landed a stomp to his foot.
"I can't believe this is my first date in 2 years and I'm being dragged out of my house to go walking through farms."
"Hm."
"… Please tell me you are not reaching in that pocket for Icha Icha." she snapped as she caught his hand movement. The hand retracted. "I can't believe you." Then Sakura reflected on her words in the silence. "No, you know what, I can believe you. I have no idea what I expected." she laughed at herself. "Of course you're going to do what you usually do." she sighed. Perhaps she had built this up in her head.
She'd toyed around with the idea that at least a physical relationship might benefit them, but she was wearing the biggest underwear she had because he'd dragged her out of the house without any warning and there was no way she was showing him those. So sex was off the table today.
And… it looked like it was going to rain.
"Did you at least pick up a mission in this direction?" Sakura asked. If the date was shambles, they could at least earn some credit with the neighbouring farms, and besides, Kakashi's military approach to dating probably meant being in the area for a job.
"On a date?" he questioned. "What do you take me for?"
"So then why am I out here?" Deflated, she slowed her pace. She thought he'd take her to a dark table in the back of a restaurant, or a homecooked meal in a training ground where they could roll around with each other. Heck, she even considered he might delay it until the next festival and use that so he didn't have to do any planning. "Can I plan the re-write of this date?" Sakura's inner need for perfection crept up.
"Re-write?" Kakashi repeated. "I don't think we'll need one."
"Suit yourself." she muttered under her breath, eyes on the skies, tracking the incoming black clouds.
She followed him in silence, hearing the occasional turning of a page from her partner. He didn't even fear her enough to keep the porn book in his pocket anymore.
She'd already chalked it up as a failure, so at the point she caught the colouring of the hardback pages sliding out of the pocket again, she didn't really care.
And then the silver hair at the edge of her eyeline, to the left of the approaching rain clouds, stopped.
She stopped alongside it.
He turned left and nodded at her to follow him into the foliage.
He encouraged her close as he lifted branches out of her way, assisting her over fallen trees like she didn't have the chakra to shatter the obstruction into a million pieces with a single kick.
And then the indiscriminate 'path' he had chosen started to form. There were works of stone that suggested a very overgrown walkway. She passed derelict gate posts and her attention was sufficiently peaked.
"Where are we?"
"Where do you think?" His tone was curious, it suggested her answer was important to him.
"We can't be too far from the strips of farmlands in this area. The path we were on led to the Orin's land, so logically… we're boarding their west fields?" she guessed, deducing her location with minimal logic used.
"Hm." he replied, his hand to the small of her back as he encouraged her forward through the broken gate posts. "It's not what it was, but…" She turned at the change of his voice and found him crouched to the broken stonework, rubbing his hand against the moss to remove it from its established residence.
Sakura approached from behind him, leaning over his shoulder.
His gloved hand exposed marks on the material, carved marks.
It looked like a grid, 3 by 3, tilted like a diamond.
It made no sense, but there was something in the hesitation of her partner's hand over the carvings that clicked it.
It was a clan marking.
The Hatake clan marking.
"Kakashi… where are we?"
"Well, I suppose it used to be home." he answered, rising to his height, turning to face her with a smile.
"I thought you grew up in the village?" Numbly, she followed him as he led her further down to where the trees hid the grounds of what used to be a house.
The stonework had fallen, the wood that supported the home had worn under the elements and lack of care and the earth had reclaimed the land.
It was a sad sight; unloved, uncared for, completely nothing to look at.
But, it felt like she was looking at Kakashi's heart. And it put a swelling in her throat, an ache in her chest, and urge to wrap herself around his vulnerability.
"Hm. Never been here." he confirmed. "But I figured I'd see what I owned."
"Owned?" She tilted her eyes up to see him, to read what he felt.
"Passed down the clan." He smiled at her but she felt the truth behind it. He was the last Hatake.
"You never came here?"
"Saw pictures of my elders here. Before the family name fell to ruin."
"And what do you think now?"
"…Needs a lot of work." Practical, cold, emotionless.
"Are you going to rebuild it?" Curious, she stepped further into the ruin, chasing the paths and corners she could make out in the overgrown vegetation.
"Don't know." He shrugged but his footsteps came behind hers as she freely explored the size of the land. It was impressive. Even had a stream at the edge of the ruined fencing.
"Not to be rude… but why did you bring me here?" she quizzed. "Isn't this… private?"
"You know everything else about me." And it sounded exactly that simple. For Kakashi he had few who he loved enough to share with, but those he did, they had access to his entire world. "Besides, I don't have any heirs, who else am I going to leave it to?"
"Leave it to?!" She whirled around fast, checking him over with a medical scrutiny. "Why?"
"Nobody lives forever."
"Something happened, didn't it?" She proved yet again that she knew him too well to let his actions go without explanation. "You're getting worse." Her focus was on the sharingan eye he hid.
"Occupational blindness." he confessed. She wished she could see through the sharingan, the object of his 'occupational blindness'.
"No, I can fix it, I can heal the damage, we can keep on top of it-"
"Been happening for a few months now." he admitted softly. "Healing helps for a while, but it's getting worse."
"I can do more reading into it. I can try a different approach. I-"
"I'm not leaving you." His hands rested on her shoulders, a comforting gesture. "Tsunade told me about the other idol. I won't leave you for that. But… I'll either be facing medical retirement, or… things will end another way."
"You'll die." she edited for him.
"Nobody lives forever." he repeated.
She slipped under the hands on her shoulders and wrapped herself around him.
"Worst date ever." she mumbled into his chest.
A rumble of a laugh left him.
"I just promised you a few acres of land when I die. That's got to count for something." he chuckled, pulling her in tighter, his head resting atop her hair.
"Nothing." she answered into his vest. "I wanted dinner and a dance."
"Women are so fickle." he offered with humour. "Well, I suppose we should hurry up if we want to beat the rain." He recoiled his hands and she let him step back from the hug.
"I guess."
But as they reached the dirt path to lead back to Konoha, Kakashi turned the other way and set off at a gruelling pace.
Sakura followed, as she always would, but flying through the trees towards the rainclouds only brought up more questions.
She didn't get a chance to voice them until they reached one of the fishing villages based just off the main river that ran through the country.
Raindrops just started to fall when he turned her under the balcony of one of the buildings and through the door.
The place smelled delicious.
First impressions always counted and this one was doing exceptionally well just on smell alone.
Kakashi waved at one of the wait staff and with a hand on her elbow, he escorted her to the table at the back, in a booth away from the others. He didn't even give her much chance to gawk at the glass floors that showed the carved cavern under their foot with the aquatic wildlife swimming under their guest's feet.
He sat opposite to her, got comfortable with his head rested on his hands and invited her to begin the thousand questions on her mind with a roll of his fingers.
"Why didn't you tell me about your eye?" she fired off instantly.
He rose a questioning eyebrow, having expected something more with regards to the restaurant, or the menu, maybe even something about the old clan territory.
"Because you'd be killing yourself over books looking for a solution that doesn't exist." Her lips turned into a thin judgemental line. "It's not my eye, Sakura. There's no jutsu that can change that, or no force of will that can make my biology accept it." He lifted the hitai-ate to show the redness around it. "I shouldn't have it, and I've been rejecting it since I was given it."
"Why recently though, what's happened to cause the blindness?"
A server came by the table and his answer was paused until Kakashi had ordered the house special for both of them. Sakura was too concerned with getting her answers to her questions to be bothered by him ordering, he knew what she liked and didn't. She trusted him to choose her food, just not to tell her medically relating matters.
"It started after I used the Mangekyo the last time."
"And you started going blind?"
"Hm."
"How long?"
"Few minutes each time. I thought it was exhaustion. But it's happened a lot more now."
"Can you make it happen?" She earned a curious gaze. "I want to see what happens to your chakra when you go blind. If I can figure it out, I can fix-."
"There is no fix." he repeated slowly. "And no, I can't cause it at my own will." He lowered his hands and relaxed against the booth, eyes flashing to the heavy rain outside before turning back to her. "Besides, this is a date, no morose topics."
"No morose topics?" she repeated. "You just told me what I'm getting when you die about 15 minutes ago!"
"Such an awful topic to bring up when I bring you to such a lovely restaurant." he chided with a smirk.
"Fine. Where are we?" she shot out.
"Heard about it from Gai."
"Gai's talking to you now?"
"We had an understanding."
"And here I thought he was convinced you were trying to ruin me."
"He mentioned that."
"Hm. Did you leave any of his bones whole?"
"Is that what you'd think of me? To damage my longest rival?"
"Yes." Her expression demanded an answer.
"No sparring necessary. We came to an understanding, like I said."
"Hm." She tilted her head in thought. "Good fish here?"
"The best." He smiled at her.
"Good wine?"
"You mentioned something about celebratory sake."
"How did you get Tsunade on board with this?" There weren't any Kakashi-shaped craters in the training fields and she hadn't grilled her about it at all. She'd merely asked if she was happy.
"Celebratory sake." he repeated with a smile.
"You didn't actually buy her sake, did you?"
"She just wants the best for you."
"That's not an answer." she noted.
"There was a suggestion I would be allowed a certain jutsu to be performed." He rolled his gaze slowly over her.
"Oh, yeah, well there was a suggestion that this was a date. So far, I've just heard morose topics."
"I guarantee this jutsu would turn the conversation." He grinned.
"Perhaps. And what would you see, if I could use it on you?"
"You." There was a heat to the word, a dark confession, a vow. It knocked her off her back-and-forth flirtacious banter with the raw truth in it.
"Did she try it on you?"
"Hm."
"What did you see?"
"You." he repeated. "Everywhere." he continued. "Doing everything."
"I want dessert before you do your parlour trick." she decided. "And, I want another date. In Konoha. With enough warning to get dressed up for you."
"I suppose I can agree to that."
"And I want to know why Tsunade isn't objecting to this." She darted her finger back and forth between the two of them.
"I'm the last Hatake." he spoke, like it was clear.
"And what, you know a secret family jutsu to make her more agreeable?"
"I'm the last Hatake." he repeated slowly. "The elders have tried to set me up with various women for years."
"What?" She'd never heard of this. Never seen this. And she'd been his partner for ages.
"It has been discussed, at length, of the advantages of creating heirs with my bloodline."
"And Tsunade is happy with me being a baby machine?!" Sakura hissed.
"Far from it. But since I turned down all of the other women they threw my way, she's in the elder's favour now I'm one step closer to fulfilling their grand master plan."
"And what was wrong with all the other women?"
"Mah, wrong hair colour." And his eye flickered to her pink hair before flashing her a grin through the mask.
"Seriously?" He turned his head to the window and she knew she wouldn't get any better answer. "So… just for my own curiosity, how long have you been into women with pink hair?"
"A spring mission to land of Lakes."
Their first mission after she graduated.
"You perv." But the words had no venom and she smiled.
"Words hurt Sakura." he faked the insult. "Especially since you are no better."
"Excuse me."
"You realise I've always tracked your chakra when we are on missions together."
"And?"
"And you've watched me bathing more often than not."
Sakura flashed up red on her cheeks.
"You told me to watch your six." she answered. "We were in hostile territory."
"You watched more than my six." He smirked, earning a subtle kick under the table. "I won't describe the many occasions you complained about the cold so I would lay next to you."
"You started that."
"And the thorn that got stuck in your bust?"
"I was thrown into the brambles during a fight."
"Or the shower where you forgot your towel."
"I'd had a concussion in that fight."
"So, what excuse do you have for when I caught you reading my Icha Icha?"
"Boredom." she answered, quick thinking on her feet to save herself the embarrassment of the truth.
"You weren't sexually frustrated from watching me seduce the target earlier that night?"
No, she wasn't, she was jealous of her target and desperate to find out what made him tick. She came for the erotica, she stayed for the plot.
"Sometimes, a girl just is desperate for something to read, we had been travelling for a long time."
"Hm."
The seafood platter came decorated to the nines, plate after plate of garnish and sides to cover the double table.
"There was mention it was big portions." Kakashi commented, mainly to himself, contemplating that he may need to take Gai more seriously. He'd just assumed 'spring mountain of delicious morsels' was Gai-code for good food. Might have been more literal.
"If you can't finish yours, I'll eat it too." Sakura offered politely, cocking her head to throw him a smile. She wasn't a typical date. Ino would have insisted upon just eating the salad and only sneaking the fries like a starved freight train when her date wasn't looking. "What? I've been working none stop at the hospital."
"Theatre?"
"Poisons lab. Shizune has a new recipe." Her eyes lit up with enjoyment. He knew she adored her work there. She excelled at it. "And, I've got a new idea for the Southern Lotus Leaves you brought back." Sakura paused to shovel the loaded fork into her mouth, a ghost of a memory whispered for her to chew with her mouth closed, but it was a close call to manage it. "They have healing properties for open cuts which are well documented." Another fork loaded up, eyes trained to cast at her meal to give Kakashi the privacy he wanted with his mask down in public. "But they work with burns too. And I think I can turn them into an adhesive patch to apply after jutsu burns to neutralise the effects and not only soothe, but repair the skin." She risked her eyes up to await his marvel.
"Useful." he commented, mask tucked under his chin, the shadow of the lighting casting over him in such a way that very few others could see. "Would have saved me a few scars in my time."
"I'm wanting to review the med pack given to nin. If we can include the blood pills, the chakra pills and the burn adhesive with the updated packs, it could be a game changer."
"You'll need to travel to Suna?" She often taught medicine over there as per the alliance. He'd take a few solo missions in the area whilst she was locked in the classroom eagerly making a new class of medics try to avoid puking up their lunch. She loved her work.
"Possibly. I don't know." She dismissed it with a wave of her fork and changed subject. "Did you hear what Suna are doing to prepare for the Chunin exams?"