Chapter 32 - A Life, Built on a Lie

It couldn't be Rin.

He had killed her. He had cruelly snuffed out the shining light she had been. His world had shattered as he held her stiffening body in his arms. After blacking out, he had woken up in Konoha's hospital with an unbearable pain in his head, remembering every gruesome detail of her death, his hand twitching with a bloody memory of its own.

I am sorry, Minato Sensei had said with tears in his normally so cheerful eyes. I am sorry I couldn't be there for you. You shouldn't have lost everyone you care for at such an early age. I am so sorry.

It couldn't be Rin.

They had buried her at Konoha's cemetery while he hid behind the trees at the back. He couldn't get himself to go near the hole in the ground, his legs had shaken so violently he could hardly stand. It had taken weeks before he had been able to visit her grave and even more weeks before he had managed to find words to say.

It couldn't be Rin.

And yet, Kakashi knew in the depth of his heart with absolute certainty that it was her.

A Shinobi must never show attachment. A Shinobi must never show emotion. A Shinobi must always put the mission first. A Shinobi must always carry out the mission assigned. A Shinobi must...

The essential rules of a Shinobi rushing through his head in a desperate parade could do nothing to stop him. He had to go see her, go hold her, go talk to her…

… what would he say?

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

...which were not even remotely the words he knew needed saying.

Take my life in exchange, will that make up for what I have done?

Better. But was his life one he could give away freely? Did his duty to the village allow him such a decision?

What happened to you, Rin?

No headband. A face as hard as stone when it had once shone with the softest kindness. How much had she suffered, how much had she endured? Knowing she had been alive all these years without having the protection and appreciation of the village only brought renewed pain and made his guilt even bigger than it already was. He should have known. He should have...

"Kakashi, stop!"

There was a shadow trying to bar his way, but Kakashi dodged to the left, dismissing it as minor nuisance, his eyes looking for the quickest way down from the roof to enter the teahouse. He cared nothing for stealth, that would only slow him down.

"STOP!"

The attack that followed was swift and forceful, but he dodged again, roughly shouldering aside the annoying person, aiming for a pressure point on the assaulting arm when a flash of surprised green eyes pierced his tunnel vision and his gut contracted painfully, bringing awareness back into his mindless urgency.

But his outstretched fingers had already connected with Sakura's body. The feeling of snapping bones underneath her skin brought instant nausea. Horrified, he tried to grab onto her so that she wouldn't fall and hurt herself even more - when BAM, Sakura's chakra infused fist hit him square in the chest, knocking all the wind out of him, slamming his body backwards onto the roof with formidable force.

Serves you right. You hurt her.

"What are you doing?" Sakura hissed at him, furiously rubbing her injured arm with an expression of pain before sending chakra into it to heal herself, "It's surely a trap!"

Kakashi was trying to breathe but there was a sharp pain in his chest that spread to his throat. He desperately needed to tell Sakura how sorry he was, but there was no sound coming out of his mouth, only labored gasps.

"I might have hit a little harder than necessary, you spooked me," Sakura murmured, taking his arm and dragging him out of sight. Once that was accomplished she squatted down to check the street below.

"It didn't cross your mind that those guards gave up pursuit too easily? Mrs. Nohara probably only wanted to separate you from Sarada!"

Kakashi tried to sit up, which didn't go so well. Of course! How could he not have considered it? Someone who had been thick with Danzo would not shy away from using her own daughter to get what she wanted.

"Just lie still!" Sakura said, "it'll pass quicker that way. I didn't damage anything vital but there will be quite a bruise."

Now she looked guilty. When it was him, him who had messed up so royally. Suddenly feeling acutely embarrassed, Kakashi was glad his throat couldn't muster words yet. If he was lucky, he would be able to get his thoughts into a semblance of order before speech came back to him.

"It's definitely no reanimation jutsu," Sakura mused, joining him behind the chimney. "That's good. Right?"

No reanimation jutsu? Indeed, Rin's eyes had been normal. Orochimaru and Kabuto knew how to do that forbidden jutsu and though he could not think of any scenario in which it made sense that they had used it on Rin, he almost wished they had. Simply because he could not deal with seeing Rin alive, aged naturally, walking in the company of enemies when he had thought… all these years… tears stung his eyes.

"I'm sorry," Sakura said and lifted her hand, probably to comfort him.

He deserved no such sympathy. Kakashi turned his head away and closed his eyes in silent agony. If only he wore his mask, that would at least afford him some privacy.

Wordlessly, Sakura's hand reached for the scarf he was wearing around his neck and pulled it up to cover half his face, arranging it careful before averting her face too.

"It is really her, isn't it," she said unhappily. "You must be so shocked."

She had covered his face.

Earlier in the teahouse, Sakura had taken his side fearlessly, challenging someone like Mrs. Nohara who exuded authority that spoke of connections to the highest political levels. What business of yours is it whether I like him or not? she had hurled at the woman. So brave. So foolish. And she had said it like she meant it.

Don't like me. Get away from me.

"Don't think dark thoughts, Kakashi" Sakura said, her eyes looking into his with much tenderness, "I'm a doctor. I am sorry if I overstep boundaries saying this, but you were traumatized back then. Your PTSD went untreated because nobody in Konoha knew how to deal with battle-scarred youths. You still have it and Sasuke's Tsukuyomi made everything much worse. It is completely normal that seeing that woman who meant… means so much to you makes you lose your head. But hey! Nothing happened just now, you're safe."

How can someone like you exist in this world? Kakashi thought full of wonderment. Someone so kind and selfless, someone who says 'you are safe' when it is my job to keep you safe? I don't deserve your attention.

He wasn't quite sure what Sakura saw in his gaze but she blushed a very deep red and began fiddling around with her brown colored hair. Kakashi's heart shuddered painfully. Whatever happened, Sakura had to be safe. Sakura and Sarada. Even if his entire world crumbled, that he could live and die by.

There was still a lot of pain in his chest, but Kakashi pushed himself up and took Sakura's hand, managing not to sway or stagger. Even if the fool in him longed to stay, worse, longed to burst into the teahouse to see Rin and hear the truth about what had transpired - the fool in him also knew when to yield.

###

She had hit him hard.

Keeping an eye on Kakashi's movements as they left the town swiftly but carefully as not to be seen, Sakura reassured herself that she hadn't hit too hard and that he could breathe again with no impairment. She should probably have offered to heal him, he must be in considerable pain, but she knew him well enough to know he would refuse.

He remained silent even though she was certain he had regained his ability to speak. His eyes showed so much vulnerability and guilt she felt moved to hug him and tell him everything was going to be alright - but refrained from doing such a thing because she knew he wanted to be left alone.

Getting to Sarada and keeping her out of Mrs. Nohara's hands had to be their main goal now when he probably wanted only one thing: to be reunited with that woman he had thought he'd killed.

That woman.

Rin Nohara. How and why she was alive was beyond Sakura's ability to comprehend but whatever the reason, it was major bad news, she couldn't think of it any other way.

She had panicked and had hit Kakashi with too much force because she was afraid to lose him. It was as simple as that. As simple and as complicated.

She didn't even know what he had felt for Rin beyond camaraderie. It wasn't her place to ask and he had never offered to talk about his past. And yet, she had been in his mind twice, behind those seals, reliving very intimate memories that he had locked away. He had let her in there when he was the most private person she knew - well, apart from her own husband. She knew that Kakashi carried major scars from his youth. And she understood what the biggest, most painful scar was - not the death of Obito. Not even the death of his father. Kakashi had learned to make peace with those ghosts from his past. No, the biggest and most debilitating scar was Rin.

That she had diagnosed Kakashi with PTSD to his face without being asked to was overstepping all the professional boundaries she lived by - but that too came from her fear that their worlds were drifting apart and that by telling him his condition she would somehow be able to bind him to her.

Of course she wanted him to become Hokage, he deserved it like nobody else, no - Konoha deserved it. Hatake Kakashi was the most intelligent, most experienced, most capable Shinobi Konoha had, serving the village all his life with single-minded dedication. But if there were people like Mrs. Nohara who tried to arm-twist him into that office … maybe she didn't want him to be Hokage after all.

And very truthfully, maybe she didn't want him to be Hokage because she feared that with their statuses already being so different, the gulf between them would become unbridgeable.

Sakura sighed. How presumptuous of her to have such thoughts. To lose someone, you first had to "have" him. Quite unbidden, Anko's words popped up in Sakura's head: "You can't tie down the wind. Hatake Kakashi is not one to keep still, never was." Followed by Ino's cryptic remarks: "You can't fall in love with him, that would get much too messy."

Well, there was no use denying it. She had fallen in love with him. She of all people should know better than to pine after a man that couldn't be hers. She hated the vulnerability and the neediness it entailed. She had spent her entire dignity chasing after one man already. Would she be able to do it for another, knowing just how futile it was going to be?

It was an agonizing trip out of that town that prepared itself for joyous festivities, with dark thoughts getting darker and hope retreating further and further the more she thought about their current situation, but at least Kakashi seemed to know exactly where they were going and didn't seem worried or anxious, telling her he had faith in Kaeru's abilities to keep Sarada safe.

It was already dark when they stopped in the forest, somewhere to the South-West of the town. The sky was cloudless and moon provided enough light to see shadows. They had gone in a semi-circle and Kakashi had checked often whether they were pursued. That didn't seem to be the case for now, but he also deployed at least twenty clones at one stage.

What if she asked him whether she could have one of his clones? Just to keep her company. When he decided to go somewhere she couldn't follow.

Kakashi whistled low and seconds later, Kaeru let himself fall from a tree.

"Sensei! I was getting incredibly worried, why did it take you so long?"

"I'm taking first watch," was all Kakashi said in reply. "Where is our gear?"

"Over there," Kaeru said, pointing to a bush.

Kakashi went over, rummaged around in his backpack that he pulled from its hiding place and started stripping.

Sakura's eyes grew round and like the good girl she was, she averted her eyes when the shirt came off, but all that Kakashi did was get rid of of his Sukea disguise. After fastening his mask and stowing away everything neatly with what looked like considerable anger, he stomped into the forest, his silver hair disappearing into the shadows.

"Did you… did you fight?" Kaeru asked her with a worried frown.

"No, we didn't!" Sakura gave back, her heart contracting painfully with worry for Kakashi. "Something pretty crazy happened."

"Oh," Kearu said wide-eyed, "shit. ...what?"

"Can I ask questions first?" Sakura addressed him. "Where is Sarada?"

"On a tree," Kaeru answered. "We got here quite some time ago."

"What if she falls down?" Sakura worried, looking up but seeing nothing.

"No worries," Kaeru grinned, "I made her a little bed and tied her to it with chakra strings. She's sleeping. We should go up too, it's too dangerous down here. Need help?"

"No!" Sakura bristled and made sure to run up the tree he indicated a little faster and much more elegant than she would normally have done.

As Kaeru had said there was a little nest high up on a sizeable crotch and two additional ones not far from it. Very crafty.

"Just admit that you're impressed," he grinned after watching her face quite eagerly.

"You!" Sakura fumed, finding his smugness insulting, "you are one to talk. Gambling! Are you CRAZY? Your stupid stunt earlier jeopardized everything!"

"Shhhh," Kaeru urged her, edging away from her, probably fearing she would hit him, "Sarada will wake up."

Too late.

A presence stirred in the little nest made from a sleeping bag and chakra ropes and a head appeared.

"Is it auntie Sakura?" Sarada yawned, fumbling for her glasses.

Au… auntie?!

"I'm not an auntie! I'm barely older than… this one," Sakura heard herself utter before she cringed at her own reaction.

Kearu snickered contently while Sakura felt her face grow hot. God, as if it mattered what the girl called her. Auntie was at least better than mother.

"I'm very glad you're alright," she murmured to no one in particular. It seemed that Kakashi and Kaeru had agreed on this meeting place long before the incident today. It also seemed like Kaeru had retrieved all their possessions in time. Of course, Kakashi had known they were being pursued and had taken precautions without telling her. Sakura felt a little left out, but she was also suddenly too exhausted to care much.

"Who will eat all that food the Lady bought for us now that we're gone?" Sarada wanted to know and yawned again.

"Why, did you not get enough?" Sakura asked after a split second of not quite understanding what the girl was alluding to, then thinking she didn't want to be in charge of feeding little girls, it only reminded her that she hadn't eaten enough either. She'd have to take a food pill later if she didn't want to be miserable all night. And Kakashi? He hadn't eaten at all. Did he carry food pills with him?

"I had no sweets," Sarada said ruefully and with a little pout, coming to the heart of the matter.

"I'll buy you sweets the next time we stop somewhere," Sakura promised the girl. "Your favorite."

"Milk buns?" Sarada asked hopeful.

"Sure," Sakura nodded, "milk buns sounds good. The ones with cinnamon and sugar? I like them too."

"The ones uncle Kakashi gave me last time?" Sarada said, her sentence clearly containing a question, her eyes looking for someone who wasn't here.

"Kakashi is guarding us," she reassured the girl, "you will see him tomorrow."

Sarada nodded and put her head down, snuggling into the little bed high up in the trees. "Good night," she said.

"Good night," Sakura echoed and within seconds, Sarada had fallen asleep again.

"Phew," Sakura sighed, "close call today."

"What happened?" Kearu urged her, pointing to a branch a little distance away where they could talk without waking Sarada. The temperature had risen quite miraculously in a very short time - even though night had fallen more than an hour ago, it was still warm enough to sit around without extra layers of clothes.

"I haven't finished asking you questions yet," Sakura told him sternly once they had settled down there. "Hiroto, huh? You might want to do some explaining, maybe."

"Mrs. Nohara was the warden at the orphanage," Kaeru said quietly. His face grew very still, with not a trace of smugness left.

"Was there a… cult? That took children away?" Sakura asked.

Kearu turned his face in her direction. It shone white in the night. "How do you know about this?" he whispered.

"It was in Kakashi's memories," Sakura explained, which only confused Kearu further since he knew nothing about the Genjutsu sessions. "I really don't know anything, but I think I begin to at least see some parts of the puzzle."

"I was one of the children they took," Kearu admitted. He sounded pained and Sakura thought she wouldn't pressure him for more information if he didn't want to give her any. "As was my sister. They did… experiments. I don't remember much, I probably wanted to forget or… was made to forget? Mrs. Nohara knew about it, but she did nothing to stop it."

"Was it Danzo?" Sakura guessed.

Kaeru nodded. "Yes. But there were others too. I got selected into some special combat group, not many were that lucky. It took me a long time to come up with a foolproof plan: I had one chance to get my sister out of the laboratories. It worked and we ran away."

"When was that?"

"Ten years ago, a bit more," Kaeru answered.

"Where did you go?" Sakura asked, thinking back to that time. Before the war. When her and her friends' lives had revolved around how to get Sasuke back… dead or alive.

"Anywhere and nowhere," Kaeru said very quietly. "We lived on the street. In the forest. In abandoned buildings. We earned money with gambling, it was hard. When the war started, things got much worse. A group of bandits took us in, well… as long as we paid. After the war, I continued to gamble for them until things went very wrong and they… it was Kakashi Sensei who saved us. He went up against all of them by himself, there were more than thirty."

Kaeru grew quiet. It was obvious that there was a lot he wasn't saying but true to her earlier promise, Sakura didn't pry.

"You're worried about your sister after what that old snake said?" she asked instead.

Kaeru nodded. "I didn't know she kept track of ust," he said, "why would she even care?"

"I've never met her before today," Sakura sighed, "but I've met her type when Tsunade and I went to the capital to beg for money for the hospital some years ago. She seems to have connections. Only the powerful talk with that kind of arrogance."

"I'm more than a little worried," Kaeru admitted and sighed deeply. "I'm sorry I was so useless, seeing her so unexpectedly made me freeze up completely… Kakashi Sensei is very angry with me, isn't he."

Sakura sighed too. Another one with PTSD and she hadn't even asked him why they had grown up in the orphanage. There was a lot to do for someone who wanted to specialize in mental health, wasn't there?

"He isn't. In that teahouse, he fished for as much information as he could get out of Mrs. Nohara. We haven't spoken about it, but I'm sure the meeting was very useful. He knew us leaving the village would flush some interesting people out of hiding. Ultimately, the one that messed up is me - not you."

"He really likes you," Kaeru said sullenly as if that changed the fact that she should never have left Konoha with Sarada in tow.

"I like him a lot too," Sakura replied, raising her voice a little to make sure Kaeru understood every syllable. "I don't care if you approve or not. And I'm not just using him."

Kaeru didn't reply but he sighed again, looking up at the moon, shifting his weight a little on the branch next to her.

"She'll come after us," Kaeru said, "I think it would be better to head back to Konoha right away."

"I fear Sarada is not safe there either," Sakura said.

"What are we going to do then?" Kaeru asked.

"I don't know. I think I will have to go talk to Kakashi. I want to know what he's planning."

"Do that," Kaeru said. "I'm worried about him."

Rightfully so.

Sakura sighed once more. "We saw Rin. Rin Nohara. His team mate. It seems she is alive."

"Oh shit," Kaeru summed it up concisely, almost falling off the tree. "SHIT."

###

Anger was a convenient emotion. It suppressed others like sadness, anxiety, helplessness, not giving them room to surface. Kakashi was surprisingly good at stoking the flames of his anger for someone who was known to be laid back, with a tendency for laziness if circumstances allowed.

The problem with anger was that the higher the flames burned, the quicker it was over. There were only so many people he could blame for his current state of mind and most inconveniently, it was mainly himself he ended up blaming over and over.

But Kakashi was no stranger to self-loathing. It was what had defined him in his youth, bringing him to the brink, where the wish for self-destruction was the force that had kept him alive when all he had really wanted was to die.

He threw a small stone at a tree, speeding it up like a bullet. Rip. The resin that flowed out from the damaged bark looked like thick blood for a moment. How foolish these emotions now seemed to him. This selfish suffering, ridiculous!

One of his shadow clones interrupted his seething by messaging that he had come across people but that was far to the South and it seemed to be a group of bandits that had nothing to do with their current problem. Kakashi made a mental note though because this group of bandits was quite sizable and Konoha would be held accountable for not taking care of such insecurity in the Land of Fire.

There were no further incidents after that, only a forest full of sounds that grew more and more quiet.

He had expected Sakura would come but when she did, escorted by another clone, his heart started beating faster nonetheless. Why? Because he was a fool who was ready to grab onto a woman more than a decade younger than him for consolation. Burying his head at her neck was what he wanted to do, forgetting everything for as long as possible

"Are you the real Kakashi?" she asked when she squatted down next to him on his branch. "I thought I could tell, but this one fooled me again…"

She looked at the retreating clone's back with a pout. He didn't look back. They were all in a bad mood of course, the lot of them feeling sorry for themselves and their laughable state of mind. Shadows of him, a fully functional copy for however long he upheld the chakra link.

"Does it matter?" he asked back more sullenly than intended. What could he say to her? He had let her down, like he had let the lot of them down. He wanted to be alone and knew at the same time that wouldn't serve a purpose at all.

"Hm, yeah, I guess it does," she said and moved a little closer. "Did you take a food pill? I wasn't sure you carried any with you, I brought some just in case."

"I hope they're not self-made," he said.

"Hey!" she complained. "Rude. Here…," she picked one from a little pouch she carried at her belt and held it up to his mouth. "Eat."

He put out his tongue and she placed the black pill there with a small smile. How nice of her to smile when she must know how miserable he was feeling.

"Kaeru is worried," she began the conversation.

Kakashi nodded. "He always is."

"He told me about his past. You saved him and his sister even though it was extremely dangerous?"

"Not that dangerous," Kakashi shrugged. He had only been hurt a little because those bandits had played extremely dirty.

"You're a good man," Sakura said. "Thank you."

Kakashi snorted. Yeah… right.

"I hurt you on that roof," he said bluntly. "You should have hit me even harder."

"How are you?" Sakura asked, "does it hurt?"

It did and it should.

"Can I see?"

"No," he said.

PTSD she had called his affliction. It was a recent name for something he had lived with all his life, dragging it into the light when it wanted to lurk in the shadows. He had learned how to remain functional despite of it, but many had not been strong enough. It probably was the reason why he was one of the last of his generation on active duty, while the rest of them had settled down in the relative safety of the village.

Someone like him could have been bitter about his own sacrifices, going out into the field again and again so that others could live good lives. Maybe bitterness had never come to him before because it was all he had. His life only had meaning when he put it on the line.

But maybe that was a lie.

If he had not thought that Rin was dead… he would not be who he was today.

His life… built on a lie.

"Look, I brought the book," she said and pulled it out of her back pocket, "the one I bought you."

"It's dark," he replied.

"Hm, but I carry a flashlight," she said lightly. "Do you want me to read to you?"

No, his lips wanted to say, he was feeling snotty and ready to hurt those who cared for him, but how could they? What Sakura was offering was companionship and his entire being yearned for it. Her warmth, her wit, her strength, her determination, her righteousness.

"Yes," he said, "yes, please. I would like that very much."

"Alright!" Sakura said, switching on her flashlight, handing it to him to hold while she opened the book on page one. "Let's hope you like it!"

He watched her lips as she read to him, not even trying to hide his tears. He didn't really listen to the story, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was that she was here with him, offering consolation, offering the illusion of a world that wasn't crumbling. With her by his side, he could make himself believe that everything was going to be alright.