Chapter Five
Healing
For a moment she thought he was dead and it was like the world had caved in around her, dwindling in size until all it encompassed was the clearing, Kakashi and herself. A hundred scenarios flashed past her eyes and each one ended up in tragedy because he wasn't there to protect her, wasn't there to make her strong.
Then his chest rose and fell. Tears she didn't know were there spilled over as she reached out a shaking hand, hesitating before laying her palm against his masked face.
She snatched it back - he was burning up! Horrified she began the methodical check for wounds, but nothing was apparent on the front of his body. She gathered him up gently and tensed when her gloved hand came away from his shoulder slick with blood.
Carefully she rolled him onto his side in order to examine the cause of the bleeding. It was hard to tell exactly what had happened as the cut edges of his flak vest had adhered themselves together with congealed blood, but as far as she could see the entry point of what she assumed was a kunai was fairly small. To have rendered Kakashi unconscious with such an ignominious wound left only a few possibilities, and she didn't like any of them.
The attack had unnerved her. It hadn't been entirely unexpected, but the targeting of Kakashi was something that confused her still. Orochimaru was only seeking her and Naruto, wasn't he? She conceded that Kakashi had been their teacher but it wasn't a relationship she would immediately class as friendship, and even though he'd mentored Sasuke in the use of the Sharingan and Chidori it was quite a leap...
She shook her head. Such thoughts could wait. First, she needed to clean the wound. There was no room for guesswork in the role of a medic-nin and this time she was doubly frantic because this was Kakashi - her teacher, her teammate, and her friend.
And the only question remained: how exactly was she to do this?
----
Kakashi was lulled out of unconsciousness by a sense of swaying. He also ached all over, and his limbs felt alternately floppy and stiff. Sluggish memory returned, and with it came worry. What had happened to --
"Sakura?" It was meant to be an almost-shout but all that came out was a sleepy mumble. The swaying stopped and he felt himself being shifted slightly, the movement accompanied by a muttered curse.
"You're heavy, you know that?" Her voice was flippant but he could hear an undertone of distress. "Anyway, don't talk. We're nearly at the stream, I can have a look at you there and we'll get you all patched up."
She sounded optimistic, so he took that as a good sign and opened his eyes.
Light near-blinded him. It took a few tries before he managed to keep his eyes open, but when he could he surveyed their surroundings with interest. Lifting his head still presented too much of a challenge, so from his sideways view he came to the conclusion he was being carried over Sakura's shoulders, slung across her neck like a side of beef. She gripped both his right arm and leg, letting his left side dangle freely, stopping his wound from being pulled too much.
The trees had thinned - it appeared they were nearing the edge of the forest. Judging by the sun's position high overhead, it was nearly noon, and he realised this meant Sakura had to have been carrying him for hours. He processed this slowly, along with her words.
"Stream?" Ah, that was better. He sounded more coherent now. Maybe next time his questions would graduate to two words.
"Yeah," she panted. "I sent a Kage Bunshin to scout out ahead. She reported a stream to the north-east and a town to the north-west." She paused to heave him forward slightly. "Well, the stream becomes a river, and the river runs through the township, but we're heading to the source."
Kakashi listened to her explanation with one ear. He wondered if it was unseemly to be carried on the back of a seventeen-year-old girl. Sure, he'd been injured, but it couldn't have been anything bad enough to warrant this annoying display of weakness.
"Sakura," he said, inwardly pleased with how strong his voice sounded this time, "you can put me down now."
She laughed. "I don't think so. I've given your wound a basic check, and that's no ordinary kunai injury. Somehow whoever gave it to you imbued the blade with a malevolent jutsu, and their chakra has almost poisoned you."
"No, really," he insisted, pushing ineffectively at her arm, "I feel fine." That was an enormous untruth, but she didn't have to know.
"Liar!" she scolded him, much as she and Naruto had done when they were younger, and he'd given them yet another excuse as to why he was late.
"I'm really--"
"We're here!" She cut off his last protest and he could feel her increase their speed, renewed strength giving her power now that they'd reached their destination. The loamy soil of the forest gave way to a rocky streambed, while the thinning trees finally did as they'd been threatening to and disappeared altogether.
Her sandalled feet crunched across the gravel, and then with a grunt, he was being lowered painstakingly to the ground. She raised his shoulders so he was sitting, then rocked back on her haunches and surveyed him worriedly.
"Hmmm," was all she said before she was on her feet again, rummaging around in her hip pack for medical supplies. "Now take off your vest," she ordered, withdrawing strips of gauze and a palm-sized basin from the pack. She moved off without looking at him and went to crouch at the edge of the stream, where she rinsed the bandages and filled the basin.
He was slow to oblige. Sakura must have been feeding him a trickle of her chakra while she'd been carrying him - now that they were no longer touching the intensity of the pain had increased tenfold. His back felt tender, while the wound itself felt like a mix of old and new aches, as if he'd been branded and his skin wasn't sure how to react.
His hands were shaky as they fumbled with his vest, and he was absurdly relieved when Sakura returned and wordlessly took over. She knelt before him, laying the vest neatly to the side and frowning at his undershirt.
"Do you have a spare shirt?" she asked, fingering her kunai pouch almost nervously. He nodded and she looked relieved. "Oh, good. Because the blood has set, it's going to be easier if I just cut your shirt off."
There was humour in this situation, he knew it. But the ache in his shoulder was growing lazily, a fiery spiral of pain that threatened to take over his whole body.
"Go ahead," he said tonelessly, thinking how ironic it would be if this wasn't Sakura. If that person from earlier had decided to come back and finish him off. He was weak, wounded and she had him at her mercy. How Obito would laugh when they met up again, and he'd be forced to explain he'd been done in at the trusted hands of a young girl.
By this time she'd crawled behind him, and he tensed involuntarily as her kunai sliced down, starting at the top of his neck and shearing through his mask. It then traced along his spine, fabric sloughing sideways in its wake. She worked quickly, cutting out and leaving a patch of shirt where it was still glued to his skin. Sure hands guided him out of the sleeves and when she'd removed him as best she could from the garment, she sat back, clapping her hands together with a small sound of satisfaction.
"Right, now we can -- oh!" She broke off and leaned forward, an intrigued expression on her face. "Your ANBU tattoo," she breathed, moving closer to the mark emblazoned on his left bicep.
"May I?"
He shrugged, and she reached out, tracing the scarlet whorls with a child's curiosity. Which is only natural, since she is still a child. He kept his face impassive, but it was a struggle to suppress a shiver at her gentle, curious touch. He didn't get touched very often, and a small part of him wondered if lack of physical contact made one extra-sensitive...while another part noted absently that it really was rather warm.
He went to breathe and the air caught in his throat. The sound seemed to remind Sakura of the task at hand and she pulled her hand away.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Kakashi-sensei!" she said, picking up the basin.
"Don't call me that." She started at his abrupt response, spilling water all over her leg. He ignored her probable confusion, and thought instead of the enemy they were facing. What a terrible skill, to use comrades against each other. He had enough faith in his own abilities to know that had the enemy-nin not beguiled him with Sakura's face, he wouldn't be injured now.
Never again, he swore to himself. Never again will I believe in an illusion.
"Then...what should I call you?" Her voice was small and he felt a twinge of guilt for snapping at her when she'd just carried him halfway across the countryside.
"Whatever you want." He didn't care. Anything that wouldn't remind him of the time an enemy caught him, weak in a moment of his own creation.
I have no special people, he told himself like a mantra. And I won't be caught like that again.
----
Sakura refilled the basin, surprised at Kakashi's sudden vehemence. And it was sudden - he didn't have a problem with being called "sensei" last night.
Unless...unless he was angry with her? She'd acted impulsively during the fight; maybe he didn't consider her fit to be his student any longer. The idea pained her, but Inner Sakura rallied instantly, daring her to prove him wrong if that was the case.
She steadied the basin, along with her nerves, and walked back. Pulling a medic pad from her supply pack, she knelt behind Kakashi and started sponging gently at the piece of shirt still stuck to his back. She explained what she was doing while she worked, something Tsunade-san did to soothe the patient.
"I need to wet the cloth and skin before I pull this last bit off," she said quietly as she went along, "because I'd tear the wound and possibly worsen it if I just pulled it straight off."
He said nothing, his shoulders stiff. She noticed with belated surprise that he wore nothing above the waist. Of course he's not wearing anything...I just cut his shirt off! But she'd been deep in professional-mode at the time, and now that she was free to think about it, it occurred to her that this was her childhood fantasy fulfilled.
Her cheeks burned and she amended hastily to herself that more specifically, seeing Kakashi without his mask was something she'd always wanted in her younger days. She remembered the escapades Naruto had convinced her to join him in, and how she'd feigned reluctance when really she'd been just as curious as her teammate.
And now...
"What's wrong?" Kakashi intruded into her thoughts and her flush deepened.
"N-nothing," she stammered, wiping faster. "Umm, I think I can pull it off without it sticking now."
He gave a curt nod and she worked the edges of the cloth free before pulling it down slowly. It came away from his skin easily, and her breath caught at what was revealed in its wake.
"A seal?" She hadn't been expecting it.
"I felt her chakra after the contact and performed the first seal that came to mind," he explained, almost casually. She nodded, processing. Her?
He hadn't mentioned he'd been bested by a kunoichi. In fact, he hadn't mentioned the fight at all. It was odd he hadn't felt the need to debrief her, to identify what went wrong and right and tell her what to work on so she'd be better prepared next time. She'd failed in her own fight, and strangely, she wanted him to tell her so. This distracted, reticent Kakashi was someone she used to know, and suddenly it seemed like the last five years had never happened.
But they had. She wasn't the single-minded genin from that time any more, and now she had a chance to prove herself. Tsunade-san believed in her and Sakura tried to do the same.
"Um, it's not complete...the seal." Runes and symbols chased each other around a broken circle. Like everything he did, the seal had been executed perfectly, but he'd been too drained or had not enough time for the ritual to complete. Whatever jutsu this (female!) enemy-nin had performed, tendrils of malignant chakra were leaking out through the opening and poisoning his body.
Sakura laid her palm flat against the mark, dark like a bruise against the pale flesh of his back. His skin was for the most part smooth and unblemished, and she guessed it was only to be expected since he was usually covered from head - well, nose - to toe. His shoulder was hot to the touch and she frowned, pressing her other hand to his neck. His pulse was steady under her hand, and his temperature seemed fine. She tried his lower back, away from the seal. Normal. She reached around to the flat plane of his stomach. Fine again. Looping her arm over, she was checking the area just below his collarbone when he grabbed her hand, asking in a strangled voice,
"What are you doing?"
"It's just that you're so hot," she replied worriedly, moving her hand back to the seal.
"I'm what?" If she didn't know for a fact Kakashi never raised his voice, she would have sworn he yelled that last bit.
"You're burning up," she told him patiently, afraid that the jutsu may have affected his hearing. "Now please, sit still and let me check you out."
He seemed annoyed by that as well, but she ignored him and closed her eyes, directing chakra along the inner coils to her right hand. Theoretically, she could use either, but she was right-handed in most things and found that medical work done with her right hand was more effective than when she directed with her left. A strong hand had more control, and she could use more detailed techniques with less effort, all of which worked out rather nicely in the end.
When she was satisfied with the chakra gathered in her palm, she moved her hand over the wound, taking care not to touch the skin. Working slowly, she pushed the chakra out through her hand, pressing it down through the air until it rested lightly over the seal. She made sure it covered every inch of affected skin, then pushed again, this time sending her chakra into Kakashi's body.
She met with resistance after only a few seconds. His chakra sensed no threat, and had let her entry go unmolested, but traces of the enemy chakra were strong here. The jutsu lingered, a sour note amidst Kakashi's otherwise clean and steady chakra.
Concentrating, she sent tiny chakra probes out along his inner coils, feeling them as they moved throughout his body. They followed her instructions and set about gathering what was left of the enemy-nin's power, cutting off pathways and gradually steering the remnants back to where her hand waited, poised.
It was slow going, and draining, and Sakura was experiencing the unpleasant sensation of being in two places at once. One consciousness had sore knees from being on the ground for so long, and had sweat running down her face; the other was weightless, bodiless...flying along nerve pathways working to save Kakashi, racing through his body like speed itself.
It was giddying, and confusing.
The last of her chakra soldiers made its way back, pushing a particularly stubborn piece of nasty jutsu. Finally, she thought, dragging her palm back a bit so she could manipulate the chakra below. She formed the chakra still in Kakashi's body into a scoop of sorts, then pulled it up and out, ignoring his stifled gasp at the shock.
With a flick of her wrist, she sent the bad chakra flying. She opened her eyes and saw it hit the water, its entry accompanied by a hissing sizzle.
"Is it done?" His voice sounded rusty and she wondered how much time had passed. Often operations had required her to work through the night, and she was frequently astonished to come back after starting on a patient in the early evening only to find it was morning, or even late afternoon when she was finished.
"Yes," she croaked, her own voice raw. She got painfully to her feet and hobbled over to the water, drinking gratefully before filling one of the waterskins for Kakashi. It was a sign of how exhausted she was when a hand pulled it from her grasp and all she could do was stare at it dumbly.
"Thank you," he rasped, then frightened...hopeful...she turned slowly and took her first real look at him.
She didn't know what she was expecting, but it wasn't what she got, which was complete and utter normalcy. He wasn't scarred or disfigured and there were no horrible acne marks or strange facial growths. His cheeks were smooth and beardless; his nose was straight, if a little long, and his lips were thin and presently wrapped around a waterskin. He took his time drinking, then met her gaze with a level stare.
They didn't speak for a long moment - she too busy taking in every little detail, he too busy enduring it.
She broke the silence first, proffering a hand, which he regarded curiously.
"Why hello there," she said brightly, with more energy than she currently felt. "I'm Haruno Sakura, and you are?"
He stared at her a second longer, before throwing his head back and laughing like she'd never heard him laugh before.
And I haven't, really. It's the first time I've heard him laugh freely and unmuffled.
"Lovely to meet you, Sakura," he replied, taking her hand. "You can call me Kakashi."
----
Against his better judgment he made them rest for two days more by the stream. Sakura had all but collapsed with exhaustion following her marathon healing session, and he'd needed time to recover from whatever the enemy-nin had done to him.
"I can't be certain I've removed it all," Sakura had said while repairing the seal that afternoon. "You're sure you don't know what jutsu this ninja - this woman - performed on you?"
He'd ignored her blatant curiosity and reiterated that no, he hadn't, then changed the subject, reluctant to tell her the truth behind his wound without really knowing why.
"Funny story, Sakura. Want to know who stabbed me? Well - get this - it was you!"
Yeah, right. He didn't really see her believing that one.
He could hardly believe it himself. He'd racked his brain for anything relating to a Shoten no Jutsu but comprehension eluded him. It was irritating because he knew he'd heard it before and it was like his mind was taunting him, deliberately not letting him piece together the memory. He hoped it was a side-effect of the strange chakra wound, because if not...it meant he was getting old.
Rather than reliving the fight, he decided to think about the possible ramifications of it. Currently they were ill-prepared for another one, having both been weakened somewhat, and their food supplies were running dangerously low - while they could live off the land it wasn't something he enjoyed particularly. His spare clothes were no more, and Sakura's could do with replacing as well.
When she woke up that afternoon, she remembered she'd left the larger packs behind at the old campsite, and they'd been further delayed. He sent a Kage Bunshin back to recover them, waving off the trouble. He hadn't actually expected her to carry him to safety - he couldn't even imagine how she would have managed to make it here weighed down with camping packs as well.
Finally he was patched up to her satisfaction, and they started walking on the third day, returning to the forest. They made their way slowly and carefully while remaining on the alert. She made him do stretches every hour, and he was rolling his neck and flexing his shoulders for the fifth time before he realised they had nearly reached a township.
She was as astonished as he was, having been told by her own shadow clone the village lay further west. He hesitated a moment then told her to wait with the things. She nodded and he was off, using Shunshin no Jutsu to reach the edge of the forest in no time.
He balanced on a high branch and surveyed the village. From his vantage point it seemed much smaller than Konoha, and he wondered what, if any, school of ninja the town was affiliated with.
Closing his eyes, he extended the reach of his chakra, flexing his shinobi skills for what seemed like the first time in days. Sakura had done a fine job, and he felt good as new. He'd now be able to hold his own in a fight, should it come to that, and Sakura looked fully recovered as well.
If they were going to battle again, they'd be prepared, but he had yet to decide whether or not they'd be entering the village. By his reckoning it had been around three months since they'd been exposed to civilisation - recent battle notwithstanding. Were they ready to re-enter society? Was it safe to do so?
He shaded his eyes and stared down at the village, willing a decision to come to him. They could skirt it easily, but supplies were low. They could endanger hundreds, but who was to say the enemy-nin had been sent by Orochimaru? They could talk with other people again, but would they ever regain the quiet camaraderie this forced exile had grown into?
Questions chased each other around Kakashi's skull, each one increasing his dilemma. One stood out from the others, however. It was simple, all-encompassing.
What were they going to do?
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I don't have a name for the medical jutsu I had Sakura use - there was no opportunity for her to go, "Oh, btw, I just performed Insert name no Jutsu on yew heart". If anyone can think of an awesome title for it, let me know as it may be relevent later on.
I've also decided to drop the rating on the story for the time being. I'm always at least one chapter ahead (currently at thirty percent of chapter eight) and there's nothing in the immediate future that requires an M rating. It's always better to be safe than sorry, but I can't justify it at the moment. This could and most likely will change further down the line. (And I'd expected this story to be over in 10 chapters, too)
Thanks so much to DarkenedSakura as always - you rule :D. Thanks also to IcarusT and Magus, who both gave me feedback on this chapter; and theblackestfaery, who looks forward to each new one. Aaaand special thanks to everyone who takes the time to leave a review, it makes my day coming home from work to find those little comment emails. Yay.