"Uncle Kakashi! Uncle Kakashi!" a weight plopped down next to him and a hand touched the side of his face in a clumsy caress, jolting him from a place of restless, violent dreams. "You are back!"
"S… Sarada," he groaned. What time was it? He carefully opened his right eye. It was still dark outside. He felt like he hadn't slept at all. And there was a particularly vicious enemy shinobi hammering red-glowing nails into his skull from the inside.
"Auntie is still asleep," Sarada whispered in a conspiratorial tone.
"Good. Don't wake her," Kakashi whispered back, finding his voice hoarse and his throat raw. Damn, he was thirsty, almost as if he had walked through a desert all night.
He turned his head to look at Sakura's sleeping form. The brown color of her hair gave him pause every single time he set eyes on it. Only when he looked at her face and into her green eyes did the strangely discomforting feeling of looking at someone he had once known but lost since go away.
He turned his head in the other direction, finding Kaeru sleeping with his head against the wall, his sword across his knees, his mouth hanging open in a rather unflattering way.
Well, no need for everyone to get up this early.
"Did you just wake up?" Kakashi asked and pushed himself into a sitting position. The pain in his head promptly intensified and he briefly pressed the palms of his hand against his eye sockets, which helped exactly nothing.
"Yes," Sarada said, "I'm not tired anymore."
"Let's go to the kitchen," Kakashi suggested, kicking his legs free of the blanket and standing up, fighting down a surge of dizziness.
There was a kitchen space across the corridor, to be shared by the different parties staying at the guest house. Nobody else was here at the moment though, which meant they had it all to themselves. A small though important blessing on this very early morning.
Last night, after somehow getting back here, Sakura had forced him to eat fruit and drink water. She had scolded him for a whole list of things, but he had been too distracted to listen. Some of her skin was visible through the towels she had wrapped around herself for the way home. Her clothes had gotten a little wet - or maybe not only a little, he noticed they were still draped over a chair in the corner to dry.
Long story short, instead of peeling his orange, peeling Sakura out of the towels had appealed to him much more.
Shaking his head at himself as he remembered her cute and slightly outraged squeals, Kakashi filled a glass with water from the tap and emptied it in one go. And again. And again. Had he misbehaved last night? It was all a little hazy but the more he thought about it the clearer it seemed that he had shamelessly misbehaved.
Oh well. He put down the glass resolutely. It had been very enjoyable. Even if it would shock a lot of people, he should maybe misbehave more often, it sure helped to get his mind off the many troubling things he needed to resolve.
Tomorrow, he would leave with Kirigakure's Hunter-nin. If Karin really was near like Naruto had suggested, they would find her. Eventually. The Land of Water was large though and if she had moved on… Kakashi sighed.
"Do you want an omelette for breakfast?" he asked Sarada, noticing she was watching him attentively in his struggle to hydrate and collect his scattered thoughts.
"Yes, please, uncle," Sarada nodded politely.
The girl had been so frightened again yesterday. At least, she would be able to stay in this village for a few days, with no enemies chasing her. It was as much as he could offer her at the moment. That and breakfast.
The fridge contained a few basic ingredients including eggs, pickled fish, and cucumbers.
"Do you know how to make tea?" Kakashi asked the girl after taking all the necessary things out and looking for seasoning in the cupboards. She nodded.
"That's great. Would you like to make some for me?"
Beaming from ear to ear, Sarada got to work, filling a water cooker and taking a teapot down from a shelf. Watching her put in tea leaves carefully and then waiting for the water to boil, Kakashi made the omelette after his very own recipe, folded it neatly into a pile, cut it into cubes and put it on a plate with the fish and a bit of cucumber that he cut into a flower shape.
"Breakfast is ready," he declared.
"But… I'm not finished making the tea yet," Sarada lamented.
"You can eat first," Kakashi told her, "no problem. This type of tea is better with water that has cooled down a little."
Sarada was obviously very hungry, she ate fast and without looking up even once. Kakashi tried a bit of fish but his stomach revolted. With a sigh, he swallowed a food pill instead. Had he made enough food for her? Children were not on diets like aging shinobis.
She assured him she was full when she took her dirty plate to the sink. He helped her pour the hot water into the teapot, after which they sat quietly while sipping tea for a bit. It touched his heart how eagerly she tried to hold her cup like a grown up and how she watched him carefully to copy everything he did. One of the things he had always had an issue with was children looking up to him like he had any real wisdom to teach them when he clearly knew so little even after living for almost forty years. The biggest reason why the original Team 7 had so quickly become an important part of his life had been their flatout refusal to idolize him. All three of them, Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura had in fact always been his biggest critics, which had given him a reason to do better.
"Let's go to the roof," Kakashi told Sarada after her cup was empty, "there's something we need to do before everybody wakes up."
He only realized that he had created a crisis for her when he was halfway out of the window and looked back, wondering why she wasn't following. She stood in the middle of the room wringing her hands, her eyes huge and startled behind her glasses.
Oh, right. Normal people used the stairs. But stairs were too easy to watch if one wanted to be informed about certain guests' movements.
"Sorry," he went back in, "I should have explained. I don't want people to see us. Hop on my back, I'll take you up - unless you want to try yourself that is."
"I can climb up by myself?" she asked timidly.
"Of course," Kakashi assured her, "remember what Iruka Sensei told you about chakra and how to control it? It's the basic for everything and I am sure you will get very good at it very fast. You could even become one of the strongest shinobi of your generation."
"Really?" Sarada asked, sounding doubtful.
"Much stronger than me," Kakashi nodded. "I have no special abilities whatsoever. You on the other hand combine the bloodlines of two very powerful clans."
Sarada looked even more doubtful, but she climbed onto the window ledge and poked her head outside. "We used to climb rocks a lot," she said. "Where I lived."
"Then you don't even need my help," Kakashi said lightly.
He stayed close to her to make sure he would be able to catch her if she should fall, but there was no need for it. Though Sarada did not seem to know how to use chakra efficiently she bravely climbed up using the rain pipe, various ledges and other possible hand and footholds, right to the top.
The day had sneaked up on them with a faint, gray hue over in the East. The majestic mountains in the West showed their impressive jagged height through wafting patches of mist. The air was fresh and cold with just the necessary bite to help Kakashi clear his head further. He turned around his axis once, checking the adjacent rooftops for the presence of Kirigakure Anbu, but they were alone.
"Sarada," he said to the shivering but proud Uchiha offspring in front of him, "I'm leaving this place for a bit tomorrow and Kaeru will leave too. Auntie Sakura will stay with you though. You will be safe with her. But I have to make absolutely sure nobody will get the wrong idea about your eyes."
"Will you take them out?" Sarada asked and made a step forward. "I don't want them anymore."
"Take them out!" Kakashi echoed. "Child, what strange ideas you have!"
"It hurt so much the first time," Sarada whispered. "Everything was so red… I thought I was dying too."
"Come here," Kakashi said and extended his hand. "Sit down."
He guided Sarada to a low stone bench in the middle of the rooftop. Then he went down on his knees in front of her so that their faces were about level.
"I cannot take away the pain and I cannot take away the fear," he said, "but I will show you how to use these eyes in ways that will make you feel good about them. I promise."
Sarada extended her hand and touched his brow.
"You have them too?"
Kakashi heaved a deep sigh. "I am not an Uchiha like you. I was only gifted the power of your clan's eyes - twice. But I'm sure Sasuke will teach you everything I can't. It will be alright."
Sarada nodded reluctantly.
"What I will do today is put a seal on them," Kakashi told her. "It will suppress their power while I'm gone. Besides, it will act like a barrier talisman. That means… nobody can take them."
Sarada nodded again bravely though it was unlikely she understood the details of what he was saying.
"Those earrings you're wearing, can I touch them?" Kakashi asked. No need to use talisman earrings like Ao did to protect his Byakugan, these would provide a nice and inconspicuous anchor for the seal too.
Sarada's hands went up to her ears to touch the small blue stones. Her face fell as if a wave of sadness had hit her out of nowhere.
"My Papa gave them to me," she said in a small voice. "Please don't break them."
"I don't mean to break them. Hey, do you want to see my Papa?" Kakashi asked and his hand went to his pouch. He didn't look at the picture often - it was enough to just carry it with him.
Sarada took the crumpled photo from his fingers gingerly and her lips curled upwards a little as she studied it.
"He looks just like you!" she declared, giving it back.
"You're right," Kakashi smiled. "That hair runs in the family."
Hopefully just for boys, he added in his head as he put it back into his pouch. Wouldn't a girl look very strange? Then again… he imagined a girl with his kind of hair and smiled broadly.
"My Papa didn't look like me at all," Sarada said. "Is it because he wasn't my real Papa?"
That wiped the smile off his face quickly. They got smart much too fast. Every day, a little less carefree - if they had ever had the chance to be children and not worry about all kinds of things. Maybe not having children was the much better choice.
"Yes," Kakashi said, "your real Papa looks very much like you."
"I know," Sarada said, suddenly sounding whiny. "But please don't make me live with him. I want to stay with you."
"I told you I will find your mother," Kakashi said with a heavy heart though he had already promised her something along those lines only a few days ago like the biggest fool, "and then we will have to see. But do you want to tell me what your other father looked like?"
Despicable, Sakura would probably say, cold. Unfair, that would be his defense, he was neither, but he also wasn't going to miss out on gathering more information that might help him locate Karin faster.
"He was no fisherman, am I right?" Kakashi said.
Sarada nodded. "But he sometimes helped with the fish," she said. "He had… white hair. Whiter than you. His eyes were purple."
"Pointed teeth?" Kakashi asked indicating the shape with his fingers.
Sarada nodded again. So it really was him! Maybe a part of him remembered that meeting Sarada and Karin had talked about after all? From the moment Sarada had told them her father had been killed by the Demon masked soldiers, Kakashi had almost been certain she had grown up with Suigetsu Hōzuki by her side.
This confirmed it, he had made the right decision to come to Kirigakure. As far as he knew several members of the Hōzuki clan lived in this village. It was highly likely they knew about the incident and the circumstances of Suigetsu's death.
"He was a very brave man," Kakashi told Sarada, "highly skilled with the sword and very devoted to his cause. You can be proud of him."
Those were the kind of words people said to grieving children, well knowing they were just words with no real power to heal. But words like these were better than nothing. When his father had killed himself there had only been silence - a deafening silence all around him. Would it have made a difference to hear people say something nice about Hatake Sakumo? Kakashi pulled out a few kunai from his pouch, feeling a familiar bitterness constrict his throat. It was possible his heart would have hurt a little less all these years. It was possible the bitterness would not have taken over so easily and so completely.
He drew two circles around the bench on which Sarada sat. Then he positioned six kunai around the inner circle and three on the outer.
Turning his back so she would not see it, he deeply cut his index and middle finger and wrote the necessary signs on the circle with his blood. Sealing Barriers were complicated and strenuous jutsus. The combination of Fūinjutsu and barrier ninjutsu necessitated utmost precision, but he had learned from the best: from Kushina Uzumaki and his Sensei Minato Namikaze.
"Please take off your glasses and then put your hands to the side - yes, like this," he instructed Sarada. As quickly as he could, he wrote the sigils from the outer circle up the side of the bench, onto her hand, up her arms, her shoulders, her bare neck to her earrings - twice from both side.
"Okay," he said, taking a deep breath. "Are you ready?"
Sarada nodded. Kakashi first ran through the necessary hand signs in his head, but he remembered perfectly well. Signalling them in quick succession, he put both his palms on Sarada's eyes.
"Fūin Kekkai!" he said and watched how his written words raced up Sarada's arms towards her ears until they were all gone.
"Done," he said, leaning close to have a look at her earrings. There were tiny markings around them that were barely visible. That had gone really well.
She blinked at him.
"You can put your glasses back on," Kakashi said. He really wanted to go back to bed now.
She did, but continued blinking.
"Something the matter?" he asked alarmed.
"No," Sarada said happily, "it doesn't hurt anymore. Thank you, Uncle Kakashi."
Kakashi smiled. Not bad for someone with a headache like his. Not bad at all.
###
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Sakura asked.
Kakashi sat down at the kitchen table and put his hands down resolutely.
"Yes," he said.
Kaeru had gone out with Sarada to give them sufficient privacy. More than half the day had flown by in the blink of an eye, with another visit to the Mizukage's tower, this time Keiki's office (if she liked women, why did she look at Kakashi even more hungrily today?), the viewing of Kirigakure's labs (impressive infrastructure!), the shaking of hands of the main researchers (the head of research was barely older than her, he must be really smart), an extensive tour of the town (there were restaurants but not near the Mizukage's tower) - and a lot of swooning over Kakashi's carefree, dishevelled looks on this day.
Sakura wasn't quite sure what had changed, but she couldn't look at him without getting wobbly knees anymore. It was almost like he had put a button in her head and pressed it every time their eyes locked.
"But what if it affects your performance? You'll be in danger with..."
"It won't," he interrupted her. "I won't let it."
Sakura sighed. He could be so stubborn.
"Sakura," Kakashi said, "this is really important. I will give you the key to unlock the barriers I put up with the Mind Sealing technique. I need to know what I can still access."
Still access… ah. Sarada nodded. If his theory was right, the Uchiha blood had done additional damage to his memories. Maybe this would help clarify which ones were affected that way.
"There is one memory in particular I need to retrieve," he said quietly.
She could very well guess what he must be referring to. The killing of Rin. Or the not-killing.
"How does it work?" Sakura asked and sat down opposite of him. He had asked this of her what seemed half a lifetime ago already. A genjutsu - wielded by him against her. Her fingers moved over the smooth surface of the kitchen table aimlessly. It was spotless. Sarada had polished it with great vigor after lunch, likely to impress "Uncle Kakashi". Who had praised her polishing skills like there was nothing greater in the world. It had made her all warm inside.
"The key I'm going to give you will be implanted in your subconsciousness," Kakashi said. "With it, you will be able to enter my mind and open all the seals at once."
That sounded goddamn risky.
"Whom else did you give this key to?" Sakura asked.
"Yamato," Kakashi answered. "We were in Root together, remember? But it's not the same key. Different people get different keys and neither you nor me will know what it is."
"I understand," Sakura said. But did she? "Do I give it back afterwards?"
"No," Kakashi said. "It's yours to keep forever."
How hormonal was she to find this breath-stoppingly romantic?
"Okay, let's just do this," she said because she knew him well enough by now to know he would not answer the millions of questions she had.
"There's no risk," he said, "you really don't need to look at me like I'm doomed."
Sakura laughed. "Did I look at you like that?"
Kakashi nodded. "Like you're already planning my funeral."
Sakura shook her head, still laughing, but it sounded a little fake in her ears. No wonder, because she felt more like crying. He was leaving. All she wanted to do was grab his legs and hold on to him so he wouldn't. And if he didn't stop joking about dying… dammit, water was beginning to pool in her eyes.
"Sakura…," he sighed. He sounded sorry and sad and that just made her more miserable.
"Just do it," she said sharply, almost convincing herself to be angry, not sad.
"Are you angry?" he asked a little puzzled. "Do… do I need to apologize? I thought so..."
"Apolo... what?"
"Because of last night," he said. "I'm thinking I might have offended you somehow or…"
"Oh no," she interrupted him. "No. Last night was perfect. Well, you broke the door, I think they'll need a new one. So you might have to apologize, but not to me: To that woman who wants to eat you."
"Perfect?" he asked and his ears turned very red.
"Perfect," Sakura repeated, her throat tightening by the second and her heart beating so loudly he had to be able to hear it too, "I would want to spend the rest of my life in a hot bath with you while you're drunk and incredibly sweet."
"Hm," he coughed and scratched his head in embarrassment, "see, I'm sorry about being that drunk. I think I said things I maybe shouldn't have said and…"
"Dummy," Sakura said tenderly. "You didn't. I will cherish every slurred word that came out of your mouth while you're gone."
"Okay," he said. "Okay," he repeated and smiled, "I'm glad."
He reached over the table to take her hands into his. They were warm and a little calloused and she loved how his thumbs began caressing her palms like they couldn't help it.
"Thank you," he said. "For everything."
Quite sure she wouldn't be able to say anything coherent without starting to bawl her eyes out she nodded… and the next moment, she was standing in that place with the many doors inside his head. Two doors stood open and a pleasant, fresh breeze ruffled her hair.
She hadn't even felt his Genjutsu, that's how skilled he was.
"What now?" she murmured. Had he given her the key or what? She looked at her hands, but they were empty. She searched her clothes, but there was nothing.
I love you, a voice whispered into her ear.
Sakura squealed and jumped, but nobody was there when she swiveled around. Of course. She laughed at her own silliness. Her heart beating in her throat, she walked to one of the locked doors.
There was a door handle. Huh. That had definitely not been there the first time. She tried it - and it opened.
It was fairly dark inside. With a slight shudder, Sakura stepped back. She didn't want to pry into Kakashi's secrets - well, wrong, she very much wanted to know what he had locked away, but she would be stronger than her curiosity. Besides, there were many doors, so she quickly continued to the next and the next… they all opened with no resistance at all. It got lighter and lighter too, as if every opened door let in a bit of sunshine until all of them were open.
"I'm done," she said proudly, "Kakashi, you can let me out."
Release, a voice said.
It took mere seconds for her to be back at the kitchen table. A glance at her watch told her that about an hour had passed. She felt quite exhausted, which was ridiculous, since she had only opened imaginary doors, but that was the nature of most Genjutsus… they sucked energy away from you.
"How are you feeling?" she asked Kakashi.
He didn't answer.
Concerned, she leaned forward to look into his eyes. He looked stunned and overwhelmed and she grasped his hand to tell him she was there.
"Ask me questions about that day, please," he whispered.
"Questio... to trigger the memories you mean?" she asked nervously. "To draw them forward?"
He nodded.
"O… okay," Sakura said. How would one do that? Like Ibiki when he used his psychological tricks on prisoners?
"Do… do you remember k… killing…," no. Horrible. Wrong.
"Ask me what it felt like," he said and looked at her with haunted eyes. "I can almost grasp it. Almost."
She had wanted to try hypnotherapy on him, hadn't she. It couldn't be that different. Sakura quickly went over the things she knew in her head.
"That day, what kind of weather was it?" Sakura then asked.
"It was raining, though only lightly," Kakashi answered with not a second of hesitation. "And a cold wind blew from the sea. It was getting dark."
"What are the sounds you remember?"
"My breath. The… dripping of blood… the… ask me something else."
Her heart clenched in her chest when she saw the raw pain in his eyes.
"What did your surroundings look like?"
"There were trees to the South and a pile of rocks to the North. I remember thinking that it would be perfect for an ambush, but the Kirigakure Anbu did not hide there. They came from the front, likely thinking they would easily kill a single boy."
"Did they attack you?"
"They did not," Kakashi shook his head. "Rin got to me first. And I…"
"Did you check for Rin's vitals?"
A short pause.
"I didn't. I… I held her, my hand had… she was bleeding so much, I... then I felt an incredible pain in my head. I… I… I must have fainted. Damn!"
Kakashi slammed his hand on the table in frustration.
"That was probably the awakening of the Mangekyo," Sakura said gently. "Who found you?"
"I woke up at the hospital," Kakashi answered. "It was a team of shinobis from Konoha, I was told."
"You might want to talk to them once we're back."
Kakashi nodded.
"And the Kirigakure Anbu? Do you know who was there."
"The only survivor is Keiki."
What?
"Because I tied her to a tree half an hour away," Kakashi said bitterly. "Everybody else was killed. By Obito, as we now know."
"Could Obito have put a different body there?" Sakura wondered. "You know, to t… oh!"
Not Obito. Someone else.
"You're thinking White Zetsu, aren't you," Kakashi said gravely.
"Yes! Body Substitution Jutsu! He would have been able to fake a dead body! Obito couldn't have known, he grieved until the very end."
Kakashi nodded slowly, then his head snapped up.
"Madara's hideout. We never found it after the war. Anko and Yamato who were both kept prisoner there couldn't remember a thing and Kabuto always claimed he didn't either. That's where White Zetsu would have brought her."
"You're not going there alone!" Sakura immediately said.
Kakashi said nothing.
"Do you hear me!" Sakura insisted with a sinking feeling.
"I don't know where it is," Kakashi said instead of an answer, "but I remember that I've been there. I thought it was a dream, but it is a memory. That time I let those Demon Masks catch me. I met Rin. She was there."
But how in the world...
"We know that Madara had a gallery of Sharingans hidden away. So we can assume Rin has someone's Mangekyo Sharingan too. 'Don't even try', she told me. 'You won't remember. I made sure of it.' I bet her Sharingan has a special Genjutsu ability."
Kakashi got up rather abruptly, making Sakura spring to her feet too.
"But there are things I will never forget," he said quietly.
Rin. He will never forget Rin.
"I will never forget who I am. I will never forget that I live to protect my village. And I will never forget you. Whatever happens - that will always be true."
