Disclaimer: This piece is created based on Naruto series, which is created and solely belonged to Kishimoto Masashi - no profit is made from this piece for it is used resolutely for fun. No copyright infringement intended.
Warning: Cusses, twists, no Orochimaru. That pretty much covered all :)
Author's Note: Aah, here it is, the second chapter! Pardon me for updating a day earlier, can't help it :3 Oh yeah, sorry if the spacing and the paragraph separators were weird, they all were removed (I tried every kind, from asterisks and lines and they're all gone! I almost freaked out) so I have to put them on-line. Thanks to my first reviewers, you know who you are ;) Those kind words had made my whole week, sunny day, blue sky and all... Love you guys who read, reviewed, and favored my story. I really, really appreciate them.
One more: Sorry if you got double update alert since it was just me adding this note. Do you think it's better if I break down the chapters into smaller parts? Because, considering the generosity of FFnet for removing some of the formatting, it is hard for me to reread them on-line as well as edit it. If you also think that by breaking down the chapters Cat will be easier to read, do tell me... Now, on to the show :)
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CATASTROPHE
By Silbi
Chapter Two
She froze at once.
Ice seeped into her bones and into her brain, scaring her in more ways than one, taking turns with the confusion that scared the senses and coherence out of her mind. Outside, the sky rumbled as if wanting to add the fear that almost took over the tiniest sliver of control left in her - the light outside died bit by bit until the room was dark, only helped by a neon lamp over them and another in the kitchen.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Hmm, those lips are beautiful." The corners of his eyes crinkled, stating that under that dark mask Kakashi was grinning mischievously.
What is WRONG? It wasn't like this when THEY did it...
Sakura's mind replayed a view, a rather catatonic one that still gave her chills: a guy, hands bound behind him and the chair, head bowed deeply and hair messy, his breath labored. He struggled against the binding that kept him unmoving once, weakly, and surrendered at that umpteenth try. Circling him were ANBUs, rigid and elegant behind their masks, and one then advanced the helplessly bound guy. She remembered who it was - it was easy to make out by the tattoo on his upper arm she had once seen, and that particular mask she had been dreaming of having.
It was Kakashi, her teacher.
"Tell me who sent you, or your fingers will have to substitute for your silence."
She held her breath in shock. She had never seen him on a mission, especially one involved with extracting information from a foolishly obstinate prisoner, and hearing her silent teacher demanding with such a cold tone she wondered how much effort the poor guy should muster not to flinch and spill the beans at once. If it was uttered amongst Team Seven, the kunoichi and the others would just suspect that it was only an empty threat thrown at them for goofing around endlessly all day and missing practices - but this one promised that he would indeed break the other's fingers one by one for every question avoided.
Only labored breath filled the silence following, and coming at a conclusion that the prisoner hadn't intended to ever answer the inquiry, the copy-nin took a step forward in a challenging manner, flexing his arms and cracking his fingers. "If that suits you - "
Sweat drenching the petrified kunoichi's palms, her hands pressed onto the wall almost desperately for support.
Is he really going to do it?
Her guts twisted and turned unpleasantly she almost gagged.
"No."
Kakashi stopped dead in track to his prisoner's utter relief, as everyone could see from his relaxed face, raised his head and met his fellow ANBU's eyes behind their masks, head cocked aside as if asking for the obvious. Why, pray tell, shouldn't I?
Sakura watched them battled in silence, and after a few seconds, Kakashi retreated. He huffed disparagingly and uttered a word at his ordinate, "Potion."
She saw his partner stiffened, yet he hastily moved to do his task and made his way out - wait! That meant passing by her and catching her, an underage kunoichi, red-handed eavesdropping on a supposedly classified conversation and seeing what she shouldn't have that not even all jounins have...
Eyeing an open door next to the room, and knowing that she wouldn't be seen behind the door, the blind corner she was situated on until the guy was fully outside and by the time she would be safely hidden, Sakura frantically made her escape and as she reached the end of the wall, launched herself into the darkness of the room and disappeared from sight. Letting out her breath, yet choked on it when she heard nearing footsteps, she pressed her eyes close and didn't move a muscle until the footfalls passed her location and proceeded across the corridor to fetch the said material.
What material, actually, that can make even an ANBU discouraged for a split second? They are an elite team, and it surely takes much to do so.
In indecision her lips trembled - it was a leakage she was about to discover, and if that was let out and heard by Tsunade none of them will survive - the team for letting it slip, and her for collecting the forbidden information instead of playing it safe and go home like any other good ninjas. Nevertheless, her mind kept chanting a mantra that almost no human being had ever escaped, All or nothing, now or never...
Sakura was soon hot on the ANBU-on-duty's heels, doing her utmost to learn at the same time how he moved across the corridor with so much confidence and memorize the places she had passed by in case of emergency. The ANBU went into a room that smelled a lot like traditional herbs with hints of chemical substance and a subtle smell of alcohol, and she watched him deftly collecting the items from the cupboard, preparing the potion in efficient moves, soon finished and bringing the small bottle containing the potion. He strode hastily back to the door, potion safely in hand.
Sakura was still watching, soon realizing her mistake as soon as her position set all of her mind alarms on wildly.
Shit.
Quickly dashing back to her previous hideaway, hoping for her rotten luck to improve, she cursed the fifth Hokage all the way for sending her in such a simple task of taking reports that brought her this much problem.
However, her youthful naivety had not improved - at the time, rather than cute and attractive, it stated that she was sloppy - given that giving in to her curiosity, she went back to her corner and finally got the chance to watch how the potion worked. Sakura saw Kakashi being handed the small bottle, saw him uncapped it, left hand grasped the bound man's jaw and forced his mouth to open, another hand tipped the bottle down a little and the substance sliding into the retching guy's throat, the gurgle dying in his mouth as he swallowed...
The guy's head slipped off Kakashi's grasp like a dead meat, hung low and unmoving, like everyone in the room.
"I demand you to answer my question this time, Ninja."
Obviously a shock for Sakura, the guy answered banally, almost like a machine, or worse - a zombie. "Yes, Master."
"Who sent you to this village on a mission of assassination?"
She was even more flabbergasted as the guy who had been so loyal, so unwilling to answer the deadly question that would bring his death and his tribe's, no matter who they were, simply forgotten all of it and gave them all the information he got like he was talking about the weather - who was his boss, who was he, and a constellation of answers for Kakashi's every purposeful word...
Much later in the present, back at Sakura's dark kitchen in the near-evening, the pink-haired kunoichi eyed her drugged teacher in confusion and curiosity, and when he winked at her, she declared that curiosity did kill a cat. Lots of cats.
What did he do that for? A WINK? Come on! He's obviously on crack!
With burning anger, she demanded hotly while fighting the blood that quickly rose to her cheeks and warmed them, "Who are you? Where is Kakashi-sensei?"
Hatake Kakashi - no, she hadn't known yet about that - in front of her rested his chin on his interlaced fingers and huffed. "Hatake Kakashi, Kakashi-sensei, an ANBU as well as a jounin... yes, I'm him, whatever you may call your dearest sensei."
A thunder blared, the light illuminated the darkened room for a split second from behind Kakashi, made him look like a serial killer for a second with that shadowed eye and masked feature, an attentive eye never straying from her. The odd part was she didn't feel apprehension clawing on her guts, just like it had always been when she or her friends encountered danger. The feeling was like a premonition to her, so in her case at the moment, it could be a good sign or a veeeeeeeery bad sign.
Sakura seethed. Whoever this is, he's playing his part too damn well - though he didn't sound a bit like Kakashi-sensei. His voice is too... lilting.
"I see," she said between gritted teeth, trying to be conversational, "So, where's Pakkun?"
"Ah, interrogating one with one's closest friend, clever. He's at home, safe and sound, munching through his dinner and licking at his paws."
He does know. That does prove much. But then again, why does he - his personality - change completely?
Seeing her inner turmoil, amusement began to dance in the Kakashi-alike's eyes.
Yet, with bruised pride and swelling curiosity, she tried to move on with her former plan. Ask and look for the answers to the unanswered.
...what were they again?
The unpredictable result that was Kakashi's sudden change had brainwashed her, and her mind was totally blank at the moment she only stood there, looming over his figure, mind racing for a start. Sweat started to dampen her ivory skin above her eyebrows and her back.
"What is it that you want to know about me?" the voice came up and once again startled her to the core, the deep tone softly spoken scaring here like nothing else. A less than articulate Kakashi was typical, she was after all used to face two icicles a day - but a more articulate one with a pleasant timbre and persuading tone was intimidating alright.
"Don't be so reluctant, Sakura-chan," he said encouragingly, before pouring himself more tea and sipped it calmly.
"Eh... do you smoke?" she finally blurted.
Sakura wanted to die of embarrassment that very moment. What kind of stupid question is that? Yes, that was clever - I'm going to be his munching toy, the inner her wailed, and yes, Sakura thought that it was a rather suitable idiom for her current state. A thoroughly munched toy. After all of this I'm going to do myself in, she swore piously. All I need is a rope, a knife, and a goodbye letter. She needed to plan for her coffin and where it would be buried six feet under...
Her stomach did a flip-flop when he chuckled at her less-than-rational question. Gah, stop that already, Whoever-You-Are-Oh-Soft-Spoken-Copy-Of-Kakashi, Sakura thought, it's giving me creeps.
"Sometimes I do."
The pink-haired girl was snapped out of her thoughts. "You do?" She said in disbelief. Gee, a miracle you hadn't burnt a hole on your mask. Hard to keep it on while smoking a cig, huh?
She wrestled with her inner self, and after a grueling battle, avid hair-pulling and censored cussing, the devious half was finally locked in a cupboard and put to silence.
"Yes, I do. Though, as I said before, only on rare occasions do I revert to that habit."
Sakura started to get cramps from looming over him for too long in a tense form, so she lowered herself and took a seat cautiously across him. It felt better, though she was still on guard and her muscles were strung taut, ready to deliver an alarming blow if deemed necessary.
She thought of one possibility - that the one before her might be someone in disguise and was in an unknown mission, perhaps one from another village. She knew that Konoha must have a few rivals, those who wouldn't think twice to risk sending in a spy. But - here's the most puzzling part, and no matter how hard she think it over in the limited time she was allowed she hadn't gotten a clue yet - who was strong enough to pass her and his guard? Hers he might have passed, she was a bit distracted earlier by the potion and the tea she was preparing, but passing Kakashi's - it almost made no sense to her. Her teacher was a certified jounin and an ANBU, after all, and was often sent in several high-ranked missions, not to mention the lists of missions succeeded.
If it was truly someone else in disguise, and that someone had truly passed their guards, both their lives and the village were in unimaginable jeopardy.
All because of her and that stupid potion.
"You do look stressed, Sakura-chan. What is it that bothers you?"
Nah, it can't be - it just can't. That tone and that way of speaking is absurd, she laughed inwardly. Though I haven't ever imagined how Kakashi can pull it off so well. I'll get used to it in no time.
Sakura paused. She didn't know why she thought of it that way.
Maybe - just maybe - a part of her knew that she'd have a pretty long while to become acquainted with him in the future. Another part hardly gave a damn and went on chatting with the mysterious guy, every seconds passing getting more and more unnoticed by the oblivious pair.
Or maybe, she just wasn't ready for the real Kakashi. This was what she wanted, right? Well, a bit deviated, she wanted him to open up and rip that doomed mask off and talk to her about anything that resulted in him wearing such guard all the time, but if she could still get the truth-revealed part and cut off the mask-dismantling part, she could bear with that. The truth was never likeable, and facing it she had even make up such a weird and ill-conceived assumption that it was someone trying to infiltrate the circles of Konoha ninjas... Sakura wanted to laugh at herself.
You just need a guy, Sakura, she heard Ino said in her head. Don't waste your beauty in such a young age!
Or... maybe it was because you have already found someone?
Ino was her best friend and she would always will be, but sometimes, she was just way too optimistic. Life can't be such a humorist to matchmake me with...
She paused, seeing Kakashi on the other side of the table, elbows on tabletop, staring at her intently. Warm blush tinted her cheeks as she uttered a defiant "What?"
"Your eyes... they were just mesmerizing, if I may be so bold."
Sakura's eyes widened marginally.
It was well past nighttime when she felt her eyes getting droopy and throat sore of all the talking and laughing, forgetting all of her hunches about her teacher and soon realized that she did get along well with the other him, although she wasn't conscious enough to remember all that jazz.
The other one, the tall jounin, stood after watching her sleep contentedly and smiled - then, in a blink of an eye, a shadow (or something dark enough, slick enough to be called that) removed itself from the teacher's body, slipped down to the floor and disappeared into the night through the shaded window behind him, leaving the copy-nin's body to slump over to the table and lay unmoving, making a scene of two bodies sprawled opposite each other artfully, both dead to the world - that, until one of them woke up first hours later and felt his blood froze at the sight he woke up to, despite the fact that the sun shone brightly enough through the shades and beat at his skin.
XXX
What made Haruno Sakura realize that she was in the old, real world was the unfamiliar cold wood her cheek was pressed onto and the cramps she was getting all over for sleeping in a wrong, twisted position all night long.
"Unn..." She grimaced as she pulled herself off the table, blood rushing to her numb cheek and her sleep-hazed brain unpleasantly, hurting in all the right places. Those facts were forgotten when her eyes had adjusted to the blinding sun (God, how she would like both her eyes behind her head protector and get some more sleep uncaring about how crazy must she look with lion mane-like pink hair, rumpled clothes and a trendy Konoha eye protector to complete her fashion) and saw Kakashi, sitting coolly and loosely as you please with arms crossed, though he did look a bit tense. Warmth and geniality she had become acquainted with last night had gone from his visible eye.
Sure, the inner self of her piped up without sounding a wee bit sleepy on the contrary to her state of near rigor mortis right now, who wouldn't in a case of waking up to an underage student of the opposite sex in her house and not remembering the tiniest bit detail of last night's activities, and one had an effing hangover?
"...Kakashi-sensei?"
Yup, she was not feeling verbal right now. All that the pink-haired girl needed was a glass of water and a toothbrush, for morning breath was a total killer and she couldn't speak to him with cyanide-smelling breath and throat producing voice much like a desperate frog in near end of mating season.
Seeing her squinting and threatening to slouch forward again, the copy-nin started, "We need to talk - "
"Later."
...and was cut off. He followed her figure dragging her steps to his bathroom - yes, it brought a little relief to him when he found she actually knew where it was in that messed-up state - and let her be, letting his pupil find a way of completing the morning ritual of hers. They would talk a lot later, and he wanted her to be fully prepared and alert enough for that.
In the bathroom -
Sakura repeatedly bumped her forehead without sound to the oval mirror before her over the sink, every connection with the lightly abused mirror she muttered "stupid" endlessly like there was no tomorrow, but then, fully acknowledging that she had a, perhaps, highly pissed off teacher waiting for her patiently outside and wanting to discuss the matter at hand with her, she ceased the pattern and quickly grabbed a toothbrush at random and brushed her teeth furiously.
In her mind, neon red, blinking words of "Mission Totally Blown-Up" mocked her and made her want to weep. The girl brushed her teeth harder and it helped to erase the neon red words from her brain for a short while, but the pain and the shame in her didn't slip away. She spat out the toothpaste foam distastefully into the sink and rinsed the acrid taste in her mouth. Splashing a handful of cold water to her face and sputtered and coughed as she accidentally swallowed some, Sakura tried to overcome the fear that was creeping up to her guts, the fear that Kakashi, her best and closest teacher ever, was deeply mad at her and couldn't wait to turn her in to Tsunade for breaking the law by stealing materials from ANBU headquarters to create a restricted potion and use it on a jounin who was none other than her own mentor. Hatake Kakashi himself, that is.
She didn't have nine lives, so she would sure as hell end miserably there.
The agitated girl wiped most of the water off her face with her palms and stared at her reflection on the mirror. God, she winced as she inspected her tired face, I looked like I'm ten years older with all those dark circles under my eyes.
Tearing her gaze off the mirror she swung her legs to the bathroom door, opening it all the while unconsciously lowering her gaze to the floor as she walked back to the kitchen, where it all started. The girl walked past the table and chairs, and stopped. Sakura saw feet with sandals, crossed at the ankles casually - actually that's the only things she dared to see, she didn't dare bringing up her gaze to meet his and got bombarded by unspoken questions she knew he must be conveying through that one eye visible.
An uncomfortable silence filled the two-meter space between them, her eyes fixed to stare at Kakashi's feet and all the suddenly fascinating floor around them and his fixed at his flabbergasted student, both waiting for the next move from the other, which happened to be five minutes later when Sakura opened her mouth wanting to break the silence and halted by Kakashi who quickly strode past her.
It stung.
She gasped at his brashness, and yet knowing he was not the one to be blamed she shut her lips and held back the tears welling in her eyes, only to have them suddenly useless as the trembling kunoichi heard him say this from the other room:
"Be back soon, morning breath's a killer."
Her balled fists fell open and Sakura breathed deep, feeling her burden lightened somehow. A small smile even dared to slip onto her face. Hearing this, she also noticed that his humoring tint and his concision came back all of the sudden after a whole night of lilting tone and gentleman-like string of words, which had sounded ancient compared to the usual Kakashi Sakura had known for a long time. Totally different, not saying much unless required and had a, sometimes, dry sense of humor was what she knew of his real side... his current side. Now the other one - she recalled hearing such way of talking from an old hag living in a small house next to a herb shop, hers selling a traditional one, and she looked like she was over a century old with all that wrinkles and bones protruding from her small, withering figure.
At the moment, Sakura was not one to make a hypothesis with so little information, so she shut down all the processes in her brain and waited patiently for Kakashi to come back to the kitchen.
XXX
"Neither of us is going to win, dobe, so you better step off that bridge. It's unnerving seeing you getting all jittery up there."
"But he's always an hour late - "
"You're betting on an hour late and I was betting on half an hour late, but judging from the sun above our heads I'd say we both should go home since he's not coming."
"Maybe he'll show up in five minutes!"
"I lost count on how many have you said that today, dobe. Now save us all the trouble and let's go home."
"But - "
"That's it, I'm leaving."
"Hey, come back, Uchiha!"
"Dobe."
XXX
"So..."
The girl's lips twitched. It hurt badly only wanting to shut up!
"I don't understand a bit of this, Sakura. What happened yesterday?"
A dark shadow underneath the table crept up her knees unnoticed, and lunged forward as it merged into her lithe body, starting from her toes and up to her back. Her emerald eyes sparkled and she quickly answered, getting all whispery and profound as she said this:
"Not all that unpleasant, Kakashi-sensei, we just spent some quality time."
Sakura felt a dizzying wave strike through her and for an instance, she felt a sensation of being separated from her body, yet she was still inside her skin and staring through her eyes, only blurred and it was as if looking through a gray shade - nothing like her clear view she had always had. What was more, she got totally terrified when she opened her mouth and spoke breathily at her teacher.
She herself shivered at those words, memorizing clearly how cunning, how different her voice sounded - how aged it sounded - despite the knowledge that it had come from the same throat past the same lips, hers. Time ticked by painstakingly as she took in the fact that her senses were sent to her in halves, she almost thought she had misheard the words but she believed her ears all too deeply since it was the only thing she could rely onto at the moment. The petrified girl willed herself to say a word to meet nothing but a resistance, and in a rush, an epiphany launched itself into her mind and boggled it.
Her body was controlled by another force.
And she didn't know what - or who - was doing so.
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Ah, TBC.
Author's Note: Many thanks for you guys for bearing with me and reading this second chapter... You know, the most difficult part in this story is making the first and the second. Hopefully the journey will last, ne:) Oh yeah, here's enlightenment for you: I'm done with the third and the initiation of the fourth. Don't forget to review, dears, and have a good day! ;)