AN Whadduuuuup! Bet you thought you'd never hear from me again! Lolol and yet! Here we are. Special thanks to kagomelove2, MissChih, Alexmichaels, agentcaroline, cocoablossom, and the anons who left reviews. It was YOUR reviews that made this happen because it was SO FAR out of my mind. Also, to the guest who asked about the Peter Pan fic, I recall being the beta for that but the author decided not to use my help anymore. I can't remember the name though so send it to me! Once again, R&R, please forgive the typos and please don't hate Naruto to much lol.
Mitski - First Love / Last Spring
XIII.
Sakura was not a quitter, and she was a lot of things. She was a shinobi, a best friend, a godmother, a healer, a teacher. She had faces for every day of the week, masks for every person she knew, and skills to get her out of nearly every situation. Sakura was a hard worker. Probably one of the hardest she'd ever known, but she was biased. And the things she did give up on? She was gonna get around to that at some point, so not so much quitting, just putting a pin in things.
That's not to say she wasn't a stranger to wanting to quit. She wanted to quit frequently. When Kakashi disappeared from her life, she wanted to quit living. And then she wanted to quit missing him. And then she wanted to quit not having him. Then quit looking for him. And now, as his unconscious body writhed on the table beneath her, she wanted to quit causing him pain. She wanted to put a stop to anything that would ever cause him pain.
Unfortunately pain was always going to be in the cards for Kakashi, and there would be no avoiding it today.
Sakura and her teams had managed to replicate the seal perfectly, and by the way Kakashi was reacting, it was a wonder that Jun was even still alive if the seal was having such an effect on him. Sakura had put him to sleep, although it was without drugs so it wasn't technically against his wishes, but she wasn't sure she could handle the endeavor if he was awake.
A few of the other "seal specialists" heavy on the quotations, had joined them now, either in observation, or offering their insight. Although Sakura didn't wish to give them the time of day, she was not one to turn her nose up to help. Not anymore.
"It's really hard to fight back the urge to pull that mask down and see what he looks like," quipped Tetsuya during one of their brief moments of reprieve. A few other people chuckled and that caused Sakura to raise a pink eyebrow.
"You've never seen this face?" She asked, genuinely curious.
"No… have you? What exactly was your relationship before you both ended up here?"
Sakura ignored the way the bustling room seemed to quiet a little at the question. "He was my teacher. And he was reckless. I've seen him on a hospital bed more times than I'd like to count. This is probably one of the least stressful times he's ever been on a hospital bed," she lied, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"Rumour has it that he's very handsome," said a redheaded, younger woman. She stuck her tongue out in a mock joke. "But only Nobu-sama is allowed to see Kakashi's face."
This elicited a wolfish grin from Kai, who was wiping the remnants of his meal from his shirt, "Heh, yeah. I bet."
Something uncomfortable clicked into place in Sakura's sleeping mind. What did that mean? And why had he said it that way? It would take an idiot not to find that answer. Kakashi was the confidant, the lover, the scapegoat to their shining leader. The reality twisted her heart in its place, knocking it against her ribs.
The timer rang out, letting Team A know that their break was over, and effectively breaking the unwelcoming train of thought her brain had taken up. Team B stepped aside, relaying any information or changes in Kakashi's state. There were none. And then they went back to work.
Over the hours, Kakashi's skin began to take on a horrible shade of grey and as they continued working, he moaned in his unconsciousness, his muscles twitching involuntarily. Bodies weren't meant to be without chakra. Everyone had chakra. Every bird, person, ladybug, even the grass. Everyone except Jun. Hers was locked away, as was Kakashi's in this moment. And he was not fairing well.
The hours wore on, and Sakura's forehead dripped with sweat, every now and then a lone droplet landed on Kakashi's bare stomach. But the captured kunoichi was no longer absolutely uncertain that this wouldn't work. In fact, she knew that it would. It had to. More lives than just her own depended on this. She had a sneaking suspicion that this was the exact reason Naruto had sent her out, or rather this had been someone's plan along, whether or not it was her best friend seemed irrelevant at the moment. But the feeling that she was being played like a pawn, exactly as Nobunaga insisted she was, was unshakable. The indignation fueled her, made the chakra come more easily, she wasn't even having to call upon it. Chakra was like an extension of herself and the stronger her will, the more control she had.
"Just a few more adjustments," she groaned, pausing to take a sip of water. Most of the people here looked almost as bad off as she did, although no one else was putting in the time and energy that Sakura was.
The entire day had been spent in trial-and-error, and she bemoaned the state of Kakashi's body when they were finally finished. It would probably take him a while to fully recover. He wasn't necessarily hurt per se, but she knew from that it was the safety of her chakra that kept his body from shutting down completely. Whatever experimentation they had done on his daughter had greatly affected the way her body operated. It was inhuman. Kakashi was fully grown, just on the other side of his prime, and his body was fighting not to shut down from the lack of chakra. Jun had survived since infancy this way, and she was definitely worse for wear because of it, but she didn't look the way her father looked right now.
Kai finished up the very last of the seal and shot Sakura a questioning look. She nodded, all silently agreeing that now was the time. As soon as the last rune was in place, the seal shined a sparkling blue and almost immediately colour returned to Kakashi's face.
Dropping the spell that had kept him asleep, Sakura gently shook his shoulder. He groaned as he opened his eyes, trying to stretch but his body clearly too stiff from being in the same position for very long. He trembled, panting breaths coming our between bloodless lips.
He drank water handed to him by someone on the B Team, drinking it through his mask, then sat patiently as everyone as someone checked his vitals.
"How do you feel?" Sakura finally asked.
"Sore,'' he admitted honestly, "and tired. Not sure if it's because I've been asleep all day or because you've actually succeeded. I definitely can't feel all of my chakra like I usually can."
"Lay back down," Sakura insisted. "You can be awake for this next part because I'm pretty sure it's going to work."
Kakashi did as he was told and Kai came up beside Sakura. The silver-haired ninja pulled his shirt back up, and watched in amazement as the pair seemed to adjust the seal on his stomach as though they were turning a dial. And he felt his chakra slowly trickling into his body again until it was completely back to normal.
"I think we should leave the seal overnight and check it in the morning,'' Sakura said. "And then if everything still seems to be in order, we should be able to do this to Jun tomorrow."
There was a muted kind of cheering that echoed throughout the small lab. Chattering ensued as a the teams work together to clean up. Tetsuya, Kai, and Sakura were left to relax against the against the wall. They had worked the hardest, and had earned their right not to have to do clean up.
"I really need a shower," Sakura mused aloud, tucking her sticky sweaty hair behind her ear.
"What makes you say that?" Kakashi joked, his voice lighter than it had been since she'd seen him, despite how hoarse it was from groaning all day. This caught her off guard and she shot him a strange look but didn't comment on the change of tone.
"Well you know, some of us had to work all day." She gave him a small shy smile, but it fell as soon as it came and she looked down at her feet. Don't get attached, she reminded herself. This is not going to is no best case scenario and you're better off not even entertaining it.
"Let me walk… you to the shower," Kakashi offered awkwardly. He ignored the interested expressions that had settled on the surrounding onlookers' faces. He was having to take breaks between words as though he was trying to figure out which word he was supposed to say next, or was too tired to formulate the thoughts.
She agreed and he led her out the door, followed immediately by his teammates who had been flanking the entrance since that morning.
"Good to see you're still alive," Genshi said, a big grin on his burly face.
"I was in pretty good hands."
"Jun's already been put to bed," Ieyasu supplied. "Nobu-sama insisted that you guys would be ready tomorrow, so she made sure Jun ate a lot and went to bed early."
"Wow," Sakura clipped sarcastically. "Quite the vote of confidence. What if we hadn't succeeded?"
Nobody said anything, because there was nothing but success, and there was not any other reality in which they didn't succeed. That sent a shiver up her spine. She knew it was futile to dabble in the what if, but what if it hadn't worked? Would they all be dead?
They reached Kakashi's opulent rooms, and he pushed the door open for her, walking inside right behind her and locking it behind him before his team had time squeeze in and ask for an evening nip.
"Shift change!" Genshi yelled through the door. "Somebody'll be here to replace us."
Kakashi murmured in understanding and turned to look Sakura in the eyes.
"You said you wanted to take a shower?" he asked, voice low and gravelly.
"Yeah, I guess…." she trailed off, watching in confusion as he walked into the bathroom and began turning the knobs until the water was scalding. She stepped into the steaming room, and averted her eyes immediately when she saw that Kakashi was stripping down.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
He turned to face her, face bare, and rolled his tired eyes in exasperation. "This is probably the only privacy you and I are going to get. And we need to talk."
Sakura nodded in understanding, and slipped on one of her more professional masks as she pulled off her sweat drenched lab clothes. They stepped into the large shower, both of them pointedly not looking at the other.
"I think I've told you most of everything before, but you probably don't remember." Sakura looked at him, confused, and Kakashi bit his lip, his eyes trailing down her body briefly before snapping back up to her face. "At the market,You tried to seduce me. I know how that drug works. You were foolish to try to use it on me."
Her flush skin managed to turn an even brighter shade of pink and she covered her face with her hands. "Well in my defence, I didn't know I was going to see you until I saw you. In fact, I wasn't counting on seeing anybody I knew. It isn't often that I'm doing these kinds of missions and I run into old acquaintances, you know." Her voice was spiteful, but he could hear the soft sadness around the edges. It made his heart dip deep into his abdomen.
"I just happened to have a poison-tipped season with a powerful sedative on it. It would have killed a lesser person. That's probably why you don't remember a lot of it."
"Everyone around here seems to be really confident in my abilities."
His handsome mouth curled into a crooked smile that made Sakura's blood pound. "I will never stop believing in you, Sakura."
She felt her mask slipping, and became acutely aware of her nakedness. She folded her arms over her chest, curling into herself, and looked down at her toes as the water swirled around them before disappearing down the drain.
Kakashi put his hands gently on her shoulders and she tensed for a moment, then relaxed, meeting his gaze once again.
"I'm a spy. I have been this entire time. I didn't know that all those years ago when I was assigned a mission to go into enemy territory and impregnate a kunoichi that it would lead to this. If I had, we would have just run away together."
Sakura scoffed sadly. "As if you'd ever turn your back on the village. You're so hell bent on not turning your back on the village that you haven't even seen the village in years."
"Hindsight is 20-20," he whispered, his voice barely carrying over the sound of the water hitting them. "I'm sorry, for how I've been treating you. I'm being watched almost all the time. The only way I know I'm not being watched right now is because…" he trailed off. "Either way, I'm thankful you're here, despite what it may seem."
"Why are you here?'' she asked. "Why are you still here? I understand that you're a spy. But why can't you be extracted now? Why must you continue to stay here and feed information to the Hokage? That is what your doing, isn't it? Took me a long time to put together. Too long really. No matter what I say, my brain never works quite as well when you're involved. Which is funny, since I've made you my profession."
Kakashi laughed, but there was no joy in it. He knew the depth of her sadness for he felt it himself everyday. Sakura was his person, and he'd let her down and abandoned her. And although one would argue that he didn't have a choice, everyone knows that there is always choice. And he chose wrong.
"The council has likely convinced Naruto that a full out war is the only way to get rid of the Teikoku. And they want the former Uzumaki's before anyone else can get their hands on them. They also want Jun. She is a shining example of what tireless human experimentation can get you, or will be once you fix her seal." His voice was bitter and cold and the water seemed to follow suit, rapidly cooling until they were both shivering. They didn't turn the water off, instead they huddled a bit closer.
"Do you think Naruto is capable of calling his long lost family to his side? I mean, the whole world knows that Konoha is welcome to all Uzu refugees, and there haven't been any."
Kakashi shook his head.. "Doesn't really matter. Konoha has the Kyuubi, we will win and that's the end of it. I think Naruto wants to bait the Teikoku into a battle, wants them to believe that everyone is coming for Konoha, then turn the tide and make every village participating side up against the Teikoku."
Sakura's blue lips twisted in displeasure. "That's stupid, but also terribly clever. Well, Naruto has his work cut out for him. Even Gaara is losing his patience."
Kakashi nodded in agreement. "Nobunaga already has everyone placed on the board, so to speak. She was waiting to bait Naruto into a full blown fight."
"He may be a leaf ninja but he isn't so rash, what could she possibly do to make him full on attack them?" Kakashi stared at her, as if he felt sorry it was taking so long for her to figure it out. "Oh, oh I see. It is me. The Hokage's best friend. She wants to publicly kill me."
"I wasn't expecting him to do something like this, but when you showed up I realized that was probably the long game."
Sakura's minty-green eyes filled with tears. "That's why he said I would be declared KIA if I failed to report back. He's sacrificing me, isn't he?" She could hardly get the words out before burying her face into the familiarity of Kakashi's broad chest.
He wrapped his arms around her, reluctantly at first, then tightened once her sobs became too powerful to be completely silent. "Let's not give Naruto too much credit. I think a lot of this planning was made without his approval or understanding. The Council must have been pretty upset when you turned your back on the hospital to chase after me."
Kakashi shut the water off, and Sakura pulled back, her lips trembling, her throat sore from crying. "I always thought I was ready to die until it was about to happen."
He brushed her wet hair out of her face, letting his thumb trace over her yin seal, then her eyebrows, cheekbones, chin, until he finally outlined her lips. "I'm working on a plan. Nobunaga will put you to use and keep you alive until it is the right time. So we have a little while."
"Will you come?" She choked out, hating how pitiful and broken her voice sounded in her ears.
He knew breaking eye contact would be an admission of abandonment, so he didn't. Instead he leaned down to place a chaste kiss on her lips. "I have to stay with Jun, no matter where she is. If that's with you, then so it is. If that's only another continent with different names and lives…"
Sakura nodded in understanding, before pulling away and wrapping in a large fluffy towel from the basket next to the shower. "I appreciate your honesty," she murmured, loathing the jealousy in her tone, but unable to keep it out of her voice.
"Your team is safe, Nobu left them to be collected at the last compound. I'll let you know the plan when I have it finished."
Sakura didn't respond, she simply pushed into the bedroom and collapsed in the unmade bed, easily pulling the covers up over her.
"Okay," he said unsteadily, pulling on a set of clean clothes. "Kai will be in here to reseal your chakra."
"Wait!" She halted him, shooting up into a seated position. "I… thank you, Kakashi-sensei."
His sad smile mirrored her own, and he disappeared out the door.
…..