Disclaimer: Standard Disclaimers apply! Naturally any character that is not associated with the show belongs either to someone I have permission to use or to me. Please ask permission to use any character that I own should you desire to do so. Thank you. If there are any similarities between my work and another author's then I apologize. I suppose great minds DO think alike.

Series: Naruto

Title: Sacrificing Spring

Author: Tiasha

AN: This IS a Death Fic! You are forewarned…

This is from Kakashi's point of view; I wanted to get back into the swing of writing from first person so I thought I'd try it for a chapter or two. I think it gives it a little more depth but that could be just me. Enjoy!

Chapter Two: One More Name in the Name of Winter – Spring

It had happened so fast I remembered seeing only a pink and red blur move past Jiraiya and myself and head straight towards Orochimaru. Upon realizing just what that blur was, I felt my chest constrict painfully and I cried out for her to wait. But she didn't. She didn't even falter in her steps as she raced directly at the deadly Sannin, fingers flying as they formed seals and as she withdrew what looked to be a summoning scroll.

I only recognized a few of those hand seals, catching the sequences for "kekkai" and "wind" but as to what she was going to do with those, I had no notion whatsoever; but something gnawed at the pit of my stomach, something told me that she was the one being rash this time and not Naruto. Something wasn't right…

It wasn't until she had unbound the scroll and ran a blood-drenched hand across the writings that I realized she was not summoning an animal familiar. She was summoning something far more deadly and I felt my limbs grow numb as the winds picked up inside the barrier she had erected around her and Orochimaru. She had learned Kamikaze.

The fact that she shouldn't have even known that there was a proper Kamikaze repeated over and over in my head. She shouldn't have had access to the manuscripts needed; she shouldn't have known where to look; she shouldn't have known what to look for…

I heard Naruto and Sasuke run up behind me and as I saw Jiraiya grab Naruto to prevent the blonde from nearing the barrier, I did the same to Sasuke. Both boys were thrashing in our grasps, cursing at us to let them go and for Sakura to come to her senses and drop the kekkai. I knew she wouldn't and as the winds grew stronger and more deadly, I felt less resistance from the boy I was holding back, which caused me to glance at him momentarily. The sight that greeted me caused my chest to ache even more.

Sasuke was crying.

Granted the tears were no where near as large and gushing as Naruto's were at that moment, but they were there. Two small, silent saline tracks that carved down his face, eyes focused on the hint of pink that was barely visible in the windstorm before us.

And in those final moments, I could have sworn I'd heard her voice.

"To save them from you, I would die by the winds of Kami for all eternity."

"You lost, Orochimaru. Let it go. It'll be over soon."

And then the explosion followed, an explosion so great that not even the chidori and rasengan combined could have measured up to it. They were gone. Not a smidgen of proof that the two had even existed. The Kamikaze was complete. And I felt nothing but sorrow upon realizing that my student had completed a summoning that should have been out of her league.

Needless to say, her name was carved into the memorial stone, and it was one more name to add to the list of names that I went to visit every morning before dawn. She and Rin had loved the moments before the sun broke the horizon, when the sky was painted with hues of pink and purple, and Obito had loved those moments after the sun had risen, when the sky brightened with hues of red and yellow.

Perhaps if I had paid more attention to her training when she had first been assigned to me… Or if I had just tried harder with Sasuke…or not tried at all… There were so many ifs and they always played through my mind as I stand in front of the memorial. And while I know that it had been her choice, I can't help but feel as if I had let her down. I was the teacher; it was my responsibility to protect her. It should never ever have been the other way around. And I knew that I had somehow been the one to cause our cherry blossom to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Haruno Sakura was one more name to visit at the memorial. And she was one more name to mourn over and blame myself for until the day I take my last breath. Spring had been sacrificed in order to save winter, but I knew that winter would have preferred to have been the sacrifice… That is perhaps one of the very few things Sasuke and I agree on.