Chapter Thirty Seven:
"Fuck." The word came from her battle partner and Sakura turned to him.
"Again?" she asked, sliding to the left to avoid their combatant's stone covered fists. They were slow and heavy which made them easy to dodge. So she felt quite comfortable to put her back to the target of their latest mission and turn to Kakashi.
She met a grey eye and a black one, the hitai-ate up in his hair and the sharingan wiped from the battle. "Will you let me finish this myself or is this still a pride thing?" Sakura moved away from another kick without breaking her gaze with Kakashi. Their foe was predictable. And relied far too heavily on his strength. There was minimal training into his agility or evasion.
"No. Don't finish it." Kakashi insisted. "I just need to get it back."
"Yes, because you really need your sharingan for a rank C." she muttered sarcastically. "Just beat him to a pulp and then we can go."
"Hey!" Their fighter shouted across the field, covered in sweat and looking exhausted but still demanding their focus to the fight.
"Look, even he's getting pee'd off with you now." Sakura continued, barely sparing their opponent a glance. "We've been tracking this guy because of some feud you have and you really hate him enough to need to use your sharingan?"
"Woah, woah, what feud?" the man asked, halting the poor formation of cobra stance.
"We'll just take 5 minutes break." Kakashi suggested, relaxing his stance. "Until my eye comes back."
"I don't get what's happening here, but… I'm not quite sure I deserved this." the fighter spoke.
"Listen." Sakura started, turning to the opponent finally. "That's a load of bull, you know exactly why we are here."
"Because I stole some jewellery?" he offered, lifting his stone covered hands in a shrug. "It was hard times and I just wanted something to give my little girl."
"Not that. The other incident." Sakura corrected him.
"No... honestly, that's all I did." And it sounded honest, and scared. "I think my bounty is only the price of the necklace." he admitted. "And I know who you are, you're in the book, but I really don't think I've done anything to warrant either of you chasing me down."
Sakura paused and dragged her gaze slowly over to Kakashi. Kakashi who was rubbing his hand in his hair, as if searching for a lie.
Busted.
Someone wasn't being honest here, and it wasn't their C mission.
Finally, Sakura turned and gave their target her full attention.
"You've never insulted my partner's bloodline, have you?" Sakura guessed rightly and met a wild shake of a head, an innocently shaken head. So Sakura's harsh eyes wheeled at speed, cutting to face her Sensei. "So when I asked why we were taking a C-rank from the board and you said it was a personal issue…" she began. An eyecrinkle corrupted the innocence of his face. "And when we stalked him for a week through the blistering desert."
"You followed me for a week?"
"And you said we couldn't approach him until you had 'sufficient information'." She approached Kakashi slowly, like a lioness approaching a cornered gazelle. "It wasn't because of some ancient family feud."
"Well…" Kakashi began. "I may have stretched the truth."
"Look, I don't want get in the middle of some spousal debate, I got my own issues." The combatant tried. "I've made enough money from my last job to repay the jeweller, I promise I'll go straight back and pay what I owe."
"First," Sakura turned sharp on their surrendering target, one single digit extended into the air. "You're not going anywhere." She summoned her hidden clone and with a flurry of finger symbols they had dragged their scared target into the dirt, buried up to his neck. Just a head in the mud. "Second, you are going to update your village that we-" Her fingers jabbed between Kakashi and herself "Are not married. Contrary to the many bingo books we have seen on our travels." She drew her kunai, not having needed it yet for such a weak target, but now her mission plan was evolving and a new intel source was going to be stepping forward. Or meeting the end of her kunai. "And third," she approached Kakashi again, easily welcoming herself into his personal space, kunai embraced pointy side up. "You are going to start explaining why you needed to hunt down this man."
Kakashi pointed to the black eye, the one that should have the sharingan.
It took Sakura a few moments to piece together what his silence was saying whilst he tried to blink the eye back to sharingan, completely unfazed by her apparent threatening behaviour. "You want to copy a jutsu." she summarised.
She took a beat to review the fight so far. It hadn't been much of a fight. There certainly wasn't anything worth Kakashi copying. Which explained why he was still holding out, he hadn't used the jutsu he wanted to copy yet.
Which meant he was hiding a talent.
Sakura took careful steps across the distance and crouched before the head in the mud that was their target.
"What can you do that he would want to copy?" She threw her head backwards to jab in Kakashi's direction. "Other than cover your hands and feet in stone."
"Um, that's it. Honestly." he swore, panic sweats starting again on his brow as his eyes kept darting to the kunai she had yet to withdraw from her hand. "I make my living in the mines. I- I just finished a job in Rock."
"Doing what?" Her head tilted with curiosity. There must be something worth Kakashi's time.
"I pull the stone from the earth and use it to create the support beams to hold up the tunnels."
"Hm." A sigh escaped Kakashi and Sakura turned to it.
The red sharingan was back spinning and active and he was stood next to her crouched form.
She straightened to regain her height and power stance.
"And what possible use do you have for that?" she questioned her sensei.
He could be cunning, he could be manipulative, but he'd never sought out a jutsu to copy before like this. It must be important to him.
She watched the cascade of thought tumble across his mind.
He eventually shrugged like his answer wasn't anything important and rolled his shoulder before stepping out of her swinging range.
"Stone would be keeping with the original structure." Kakashi offered as he slid a hand into the pocket on the bottom left of his uniform. Where he kept the ration bars and pills. "And it would benefit the Hatake clan." he allowed as he pulled out a ration bar. The words tumbled around and slotted into place.
"Your family house?" she asked, paused with the enormity of the idea. Kakashi had very few family ties. Hell, he hadn't even been to the family estate in all the years he had lived in Konoha. His family name had caused his problems as a youth so it made sense. But to restore the family home… it was… Well, it was a bit out of character actually.
"Seemed only fair." Kakashi offered and the ration bar in his hand was thrown to land before the head in the mud. Sakura ignored it.
"You were going to rebuild the residence?" she checked, concerned for his mental state.
"Neither of our apartments are big enough for us both and the ninken."
His words hung in the air.
He wanted them to move into it?
Together?
She felt the corners of her mouth lift into her cheeks, felt a heat rising as a blush on her face.
"So, can I go?" the dirt head asked.
"Mah." Kakashi walked past the gobsmacked kunoichi who was still processing his comments and with a single hand he pulled the man out of the ground and back to his feet. "I need you to show me your technique, then you can have the ration bar and she'll deal with you." He nodded at his partner who was still in her processing state.
20 minutes later, the man was chakra bound and being walked between two overly qualified nin to return to pay his debt.
And, Sakura had finished processing her partner's comments, finally.
"Why now?" she asked, looking across the prisoner like he wasn't there.
Kakashi withdrew the stone from covering his fists and turned his head to her as if he'd missed the question. "Why repair it? We could just get an apartment in the village."
"It's got good square foot." he offered simply.
"That's all?"
"Hn."
"Have the elders kicked you out of the village or something?" she quizzed. Something wasn't making sense.
"Not recently, but they would probably approve of the decision." he chuckled to himself.
"You sure you two aren't married?" The voice came from between them. It earned an elbow to the ribs and a reminder to be quiet.
"Think we'd make a good couple?" Kakashi asked, finding the humour in the prisoner's comment.
"Well, you argue like you're married." he justified, siding himself closer to Kakashi on the path to avoid the glare on the other side. "And me and my missus had the same thing. Her parents pushed us to get a bigger place as soon as we got married. Think it was a hint to start filling the empty rooms with kids." The bound fighter offered with a companionable laugh.
"Hm." Kakashi offered.
"Kids… Do you want kids?" Sure, he'd mentioned before that he was the last in his line and the elders wanted his skills to be passed down, but that was a conversation further down the line right? That wasn't in his consideration for desperately chasing a stone miner across the county… right?
"The council do." he offered, before withdrawing the book from his top pocket.
"Do you?" Sakura asked, suddenly feeling swept of her feet for the second time that hour.
"Hn." A shrug came through her eyeline.
"Oh," the captive between them piped up again, before thinking better of it and snapping his mouth shut.
"No, go on." Sakura allowed, it seemed her mission target was more useful than originally believed.
"Well, I mean, I guess you two haven't talked about it before you got married, but, it was a pretty big thing for me and my lady. She was always planning a big family, had me make our first dining table big enough to seat 12." He laughed jolly at the memory. "It was too big for the house, we couldn't even walk around it without bumping into an edge."
"And you?" Sakura asked the deviant between them, knowing Kakashi had drifted out of the conversation as soon as his book came out. "Did you want a big family?"
"I didn't have a clue what I wanted, but, you know, it made her happy, so… I was more than willing to give her what she wanted." Was it that simple? "Was worth it when our first came along. I'd never seen her so happy."
Sakura looked across at Kakashi. Was that on his mind? Was he seeking children now they were dating?
Kami forbid, was he actually following the will of the elders now? Had the fear of retirement hit him too hard? Was he staring down the barrel of his own morality and considering his legacy?
She waited exactly 10 seconds after they completed the mission and handed the target over with the returned finances then she turned her questioning to him, direct and arm barring across his body to prevent him from not answering.
"Do you want kids soon? Is that why you want to restore the family home?"
"The elders want me to have them." He side stepped her blockage easily.
"I know that, you said that." She fell into pace with him, feeling a little like Gai when he was chasing a battle with Kakashi. "But do you?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe isn't an answer." she huffed, cutting in front of his route again. "Did it factor into this jutsu hunt?"
"Hm." He stopped, lifted his hand to rub at his masked chin as if deep in thought. "I suppose a little rugrat or two with you wouldn't be so bad." he accepted, leaning down to her height, meeting her eyes. "And I certainly wouldn't mind the process of making them, or the thousand of hours practice we'd need before then." He passed her an eyecrinkle and then was stepping around her, continuing at his sedate pace.
Kakashi stepped back into his apartment and he felt her chakra immediately. He was sweaty from the stonework, covered in a fine layer of dust from the rock and bordering on chakra drained. But he dropped all thought of a hot shower and took his aching muscles direct to her.
She was sat on his living room floor, the ninken around her in various stages of relaxation.
She had said she was going out drinking with Ino. He was expecting she'd be half drunk if he was even going to be seeing her tonight. Possibly half naked on his bed, asking him to remove what was left. Not that they had anything planned.
She passed him a weak smile as he stepped out of his footwear and onto the hard wood flooring.
"Ino cancel?" he asked, striding over the paws until he dropped to a crouch in front of her.
"No." She lifted her face to him and he saw the emotion all over it. The fear, the worry, the concern. It was painted all around her eyes, and it was spreading to him within seconds. Was she back in that place? "No, but she was late." She tried a curl to her lips, a breath of a laugh, but it didn't settle right; it wasn't genuine.
"You'd think you'd be used to that by now." he teased, trying to lift her spirits.
He earned a light nudge to his balance in response. The gesture gave him a bit more comfort, she wasn't in too deep, too dark.
"Intel have lost comms with a unit sent to investigation civilian murders." Her words were with purpose, brimming with the emotion she was chewing over. "Over 12 hours unreachable."
"Could be a variety of things." he spoke, but they both knew what she was suggesting, and they both knew the likelihood.
"They've put the situation on high alert, Ino said they were scrambling other nearby units, to establish any signs of life." Protocol. "He'll be dead." she concluded pessimistically, dropping her eyes back to the shirt on Pakkun's back, fidgeting with the hem while he stretched out in her lap. "Another death…" she whispered.
Kakashi felt the connection to her strongly, he understood exactly what she meant when she looked up to him with a pleading gaze in her wet eyes.
"You want to go and end this." he read.
"I can't just sit here while they send more and more forces to their deaths." Her passion flared strong. "Not when I can do something. Or that I might know something that can stop this."
He reached across, hand resting on her head, a kiss following to her forehead. Slowly, he rose to his feet.
"We'll go and see Tsunade in the morning." he agreed, finding a path between ninken to pack a bag.
Footsteps followed him and she stood in his bedroom doorway with his dog against her chest like a baby.
"Kakashi… I know we said we'd do missions together, but… this could be a suicide mission, I don-"
"I'm going with you." He approached, only to pick up the pug from her chest, give him a glare and a half for being such a baby and setting him on the floor, away from his woman's bosom.
"We might not make it back… I can't guarantee I know anything that will make this successful."
"We'll get our effects in order, say goodbyes tomorrow morning." he offered, finally drawing her in, an arm around her waist as the pug trotted back to the living room.
"I have a meeting with the elders tomorrow morning." He rose an eyebrow, a question of what the elders could possibly want with her. "I think it's about the relationship, they want to know if you seduced me or anything." Of course, there is that.
"Doesn't matter." he summed. "If we return from our mission, they'll be too grateful to cause any problems. And if we don't, we won't be a problem anymore." He pressed a kiss to her cheek, his mask still in place but the heat coming through.
"I don't know how you can be so… practical about it." She had expected to have to rationalise why she felt like going on a potentially suicidal mission. Instead he was holding her hand, right next to her side for it.
"We don't live forever." he replied softly, his free hand tangling with hers, fingers wrapping solidly around each others. "We're at the peak of our careers, one of the strongest pairings Konoha has ever seen. You've survived this before." However damaged she was when she returned, she still survived this. "I can't think of anybody better suited to be responsible for this task. If it takes our lives, I can't think of a more worthwhile cause to give it to." He could see the anxiety bubbling in her eyes. "We serve the village." he reminded her.
"I know. And if I didn't do this and something worse happened… I couldn't live with myself. I'll protect Konoha with my life." Her body moved closer to his, the divide sealed and she rested her head on his chest. "Tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow."