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: No Orochimaru, lots of twists... I'm running out of words to say these things x)
Author's Note: Ah, the awaited 6th chapter! -ducks from the rotten apples' attack- Guys, so sorry for the delay! I'm such a villain this time! -cries- Read on, then! More ANs at the end. Enjoy :D
XXXXX
CATASTROPHE
By Silbi
Chapter Six
Everything was actually going well for Haruno Sakura, in a rainy afternoon like this.
Her lips quivered a bit and she stifled a moan of pain, for the fever had gotten to her faster than she had predicted - but she'd risk anything not to lose the position she was in right then. The girl was leaning comfortably to a tree on her left side, while Kakashi leaning on his right, their backs touching; and no one could steal that precious moment from her.
Sakura had been enjoying every second of it, the rise and fall of their backs together, their breathing pattern in sync; but when the quiver grew more violent she barely could suppress the shaking, she finally gave in to the urge to tell her partner - she shook Kakashi's shoulder to wake him from his light slumber.
A fact she found interesting over the couple of hours resting with Kakashi was he was a light sleeper - the smallest sound of crushed grass could spring him up and alert. That warmed her heart considerably, she couldn't wait to unveil the bunch of mysteries in the solid form of her teacher; though it then brought a surge of bitterness to her, seeing how his obligations to be alert anytime as a ninja really affect his life even in the smallest details.
Can he sleep at night?
"How can you sleep at night?"
"...I dreamt of sleeping..."
That, the thought, put her to a halt - but then she assumed, perhaps it was because of the fever ailing her, it was making her feeling queasy and meddled with her brain - and she shook the disturbing thought away.
"Can we go now, Kakashi? Maybe in the next town I can find ingredients to make a potion - " she swallowed at the mention of that particular word, it still brought uneasiness to her, and continued in hope Kakashi did miss the halt, "to cure my fever."
Sakura couldn't see him smile, but the crinkle at the end of her teacher's eye line told her that he actually did.
He knew.
Her inner self began laughing madly.
He knew, didn't he?
No he didn't! He was being affectionate.
...I didn't recall him doing anything that far...
Well okay, but that was vague, right? Then again how could you suspect something foolish enough like this, for God's sake?
That was reasonable.
The guy brought himself up carefully not to slip, and he offered her his hand. "Let's go, Hime."
The pink-haired girl felt herself blush at the suddenly given pet name, flattered, eventually raising her hand to accept the beckon - and her hand stopped dead in track.
Her eyes widening in horror, she looked at the silver-haired jounin standing in front of her, raindrops welling in the valley of his palm as he waited for her.
"You..." she found it hard to speak as she scooted backwards, helping herself getting away with her hands slipping in the wet mud, her mildly stinging back digging into the tree bark, she needed escape God she had to run -
"It's time for us to go," Kakashi said softly, simultaneously with the line Sakura's brain brought back to account, her scrambling wildly in the thick, slippery wetness.
Finding props from the big tree she had slept onto, she brought herself to her feet, her limbs shaking from both her illness and her disbelief. The silver-haired jounin didn't move a muscle, or didn't move in terms of aiding her; Sakura wondered if he was actually there for he was unbelievably inert as she stammered her words.
"You've... been having the same dream from the start..."
Sakura almost screamed in horror when a shadow removed itself from a tree bark behind her teacher, and carefully it straightened until it stood in full height, standing in an almost human form - she finally did with all of her might when it moved soundlessly behind Kakashi, merging into him in a blink.
In that fateful blink, it all suddenly made sense.
Kakashi wasn't himself these times, because something was inside him all that time, taking control.
Watching.
Almost in the outskirt of the forest -
Still sprinting to their next meeting point, limbs and muscles being pushed like pistons, Naruto and Sasuke were focusing on different things in mind, and nobody had said anything since their taking off from the place where they discovered Kakashi and Sakura sharing an embrace under the rain that hadn't stop falling. They were so determined to arrive to the place early, no one stopped when another slipped their feet and fell to a puddle of mud; they knew that unfortunate one would catch up with the other without losing his pace, and they had to get that next town hundreds of kilometers away no matter what. That reassuring idea kept them focused, though at one point, Naruto was startled out of his thoughts - it didn't affect his running, but it was brought to Sasuke's attention still.
"What?"
"I think I heard Sakura scream..."
The raven-haired boy mildly shook his head and looked back to the path before them, deftly avoiding pools of dirt and water for possible quicksand.
"Yeah, think I'm imagining that again? When will you believe my intuition?"
"What can I say after you said that for the third time in this hour?"
"Well, the first one turned out to be a trampled bat, and the second was my imagination - "
"Don't say 'why don't we give this a try?' because I won't, logically, after what we found the first two to be."
The blonde jumped over a tree log, landing with a big splash and a final agreement. "Maybe I'm imagining after all..."
About time you say it, dobe.
The unidentified clearing, somewhere in the forest -
"Ironic, right?" Kakashi said, eyeing her - those eyes weren't his anymore - with an emotion she found was making her ill at ease.
She spat cynically, "What is?"
The corner of his eye crinkled again. "The team split. Just the two of us are here."
To think that I once adored that crinkle very much, and I still do, I require myself a bash in the head.
The hot pain hit her nerves again, and she touched the spot where it throbbed only to have it doubled, on which it felt blazing hot between the icy raindrops. The kunoichi dropped to her knees, watching Kakashi watching her in pain - you like what you see? - and when the waves of nausea crashed her brain, the familiar darkness drowned her once more as her senses dulled and forgotten in due course, the black waves crashing and clawing at her toes, up, up and over her head.
XXX
Tanemura Chiyo was a forty-year old maid, an inn-keeper, holding the task of running a big inn all by herself after her husband's demise four years ago. She undoubtedly did a terrific job at that, having permanent guests as the result of keeping her place tidy and as homey as possible, also as the result of maintaining a good landlord-and-guest relationship with anyone who stayed. Having said that, we could also say that she had met every kind of guests one could possibly have, for her inn offered not only a place to stay but also a diner and a bar to stop by at - the widow herself believed in that fully, but the confidence didn't even come to cross her mind when on a rainy evening the oddest couple that she had ever seen showed up on her doorstep.
The guy, the lady noticed, was mysterious in any ways possible - lower half of the face unseen and dark clothes, she almost concluded that he was some kind of an assassin if not for the sloppy headband bearing a Konoha mark that covered one of his eyes. Chiyo had heard tidbits about Konoha ninjas once in a while as she accompanied her guests having their drinks or meals at the diner, and that fact reassured her that at least they were harmless to the innocent.
As soon as she looked at his face down to the chest, she saw a pink head residing on the crook of his neck, belonging to a gorgeous young lady curling into a ball and shivering miserably like a drowned cat - she didn't think twice to let the dripping wet couple into her inn and gave them the coziest and warmest room she could manage at the moment.
The mysterious guy only smiled with his eyes when they reached their room, and as the door closed before her, Chiyo pondered if she had done the wisest thing by letting them stay.
Reminded of the shivering girl in his arms, she concluded that she had - No one, with that kind of protectiveness over a young lady, would ever do no harm.
Well, not without a cause, anyway.
In the room -
Kakashi studied the room silently, the double bed in the middle of one side, flanked with a tall lamp and a low drawer; a door on the corner, he guessed, led into the bathroom. The walls were cream white, the typical color of inns and motels, with fading dark green shades. He staggered forward, the girl plus the water weighed him down, and deposited her in the middle of the bed carefully.
He traced the quivering lips with his right thumb, and looked at her sweat and rain-drenched face with benign interest. Feeling the burning forehead, he examined her features for any signs of injuries or infections, and pulled back as he found none.
"You'll be fine, Hime." He whispered softly, as if hoping that she heard. Her face twitched a bit, and that's the only reaction he got during his momentary pause.
He reached to her wet clothes and fingered the soggy one-piece on the hem near her knee, mulling over something; before then he slipped his hand between the dampened sheets and the unconscious girl's back and started unzipping.
XXX
Knock knock.
"Unn, wha - "
The sound of a door being opened woke Naruto up instantly; in the blinding morning rays he tried to discern the multiplying figures that slowly formed two people standing in the doorway, talking, but to his waking ears the sound was more like a bee's low buzzing.
"...thank you for the information, Chiyo-san. Good morning." the blond heard the other said, barely getting what he was talking about since it was the very end of his speech that he get to hear.
Naruto asked when the door was safely closed and the landlady had departed, gone back to her daily job of running the inn, "What information does she have?"
Sasuke pulled his dark shirt over his head and down, plopped down on the bed, reaching down to fetch his shoes and put them on as he replied, "That Kakashi-sensei and Sakura were here."
That lit up Naruto completely and he practically leaped like a firecracker from the bed he had been sleeping onto messily - he hadn't enough power to care when they, the night before, had finally made it to the place Kakashi enquired them to go to, and they checked in to the nearest inn and finally claimed the sleep they'd postponed for two days and a night. To know that their other companions had been here too pleased the blonde, for he couldn't wait to see them anymore and start collecting information regarding to the activities they're about to thwart.
"Great! Now we can go on with our job and find them as soon as we've gathered enough info," said Naruto, falling back to the pillows and grinning.
Done donning his attire, Sasuke stood. "Actually, the landlady said the girl - must be Sakura, who else wears red one-piece for mission? - is still in the room. She said she dared to give us this news because she had seen this," the Uchiha heir pointed to his forehead, to the Konoha mark carved into the headband, "was worn by the guy who left early this morning to God-knows-where, the same as ours. She said yes when I asked if the guy was tall, drunk-looking, with very mysterious attire and a mask; and she was sorry she couldn't describe him better, the young lady had been ill, she didn't want to halt them so she gave them a room quickly."
Still in the morning haze, he discerned the long sentence Sasuke gave him slowly. His eyes went as wide as saucers as he recounted, "Sakura was sharing a room with Kakashi-sensei?"
Sasuke collected the articles he removed before sleep and put them back on. "She implied so... Room 17."
The Uchiha heir didn't have to say anything else for Naruto to wake up fully and dress to confront the girl in person.
XXX
A young kunoichi woke up after her longest, deepest slumber to a strangest, yet the most pleasant feeling in the whole universe - naked and warm.
She shifted in her bed, enjoying the warmth created by the friction between her skin and the cotton sheets, real sheets, she hadn't slept on such a soft, moldy comforter like this during the merciless walk -
"AIEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Sakura clutched the comforter closer to her body, gasping for air, an aftershock of finding herself without any stitches of clothes on (save for the comforter), a blush gracing her on the face if not all over her skin, that is, if what was hidden by the white blanket counts.
W-what the hell? Why am I not wearing ANYTHING?
Okay, okay, calm down! Rethink!
Uh...
The memories slipped into her brain like cropped films, all fuzzy and short.
...groping for dear life in the dark, running and running...
...red, swirling red, and more darkness, a hand that she wanted to reach immaterialized...
...Never act like that again...
...the ground ascended to greet her face.
Oh my God!
She buried her face deeply into the thickness of her blanket as the hotness increased ten-fold and assaulted her face again. When the aggression had died down a bit, she raised her eyes and scanned her surroundings - she looked around and studied the room carefully, she dared not to move (though she really wanted to peek under the bed, she stayed where she was sitting, pulling her knees close and wrapping the comforter tightly around her like an Eskimo) and was utterly grateful that there wasn't Kakashi around to find her in such a mortifying position -
Hey, hold up - I didn't remember undressing earlier... So that means...
"Kakashi, what the hell were you THINKING?"
Outside the room, on the corridor two stories below -
"Did you hear that?"
Naruto looked at Sasuke funnily. "Don't make fun of me on a situation like this, asshole."
Sasuke swallowed his anger quickly, saving the energy to bop the airhead and allow an answer instead. "No, dobe, I think I heard something."
"Yeah, like I'm gonna believe that. Anyway, I'm beginning to question my sanity for actually panicking over Sakura like that, she's with a responsible jounin after all, though a perv one... Can we have breakfast first?" A huge yawn escaped the blonde's mouth as he rubbed his empty stomach.
"You do need ramen - did you hear what you said? You let him have a night with her!"
"You made it sound obscene!"
"Augh, that's what you, or we were worrying over!"
"Morning, Uchiha-san, Uzumaki-san, do you both care for a warm breakfast?" a woman called from the diner they were passing, just before the staircase.
They paused, and looked at each other.
Needless to say, they postponed their intention to pay Sakura a visit.
Room No. 17 -
"What was I thinking?"
Her hair stood on its end when an unknown voice wondered in response to her exclamation.
"ACK! Don't 'poof' in out of nowhere like that, Kakashi!" Sakura quieted. Kakashi? She was suddenly remembered of the cause why she woke up to the fact that she had been undressed in a state of unconsciousness - "How dare you did that to an underage! You will surely be sent to jail for... for what you did last night!" She yelled at him angrily, all the while clutching the white blankie, almost a lifeline, closer to her unprotected form.
The silver-haired jounin put down a tray he had actually been holding - he had his back facing her earlier, and was now preparing something on the table which, from the delicious aroma wafting to her nostrils, was a full-course breakfast. "You didn't let me explain."
Her stomach rumbled. No birds chirped after or before that, just silence.
That was SO embarrassing! Inner Sakura exclaimed, My appetite disappeared only at the thought of it!
Do you even have appetite? She shot back. You're my consciousness for God's sake! Tightening her grip to her fluffy shield, she avoided his totally bamboozled if not highly amused gaze.
"Would you like to have breakfast first?" he suggested rather merrily, as if trying to lighten her crushed morning, and failed miserably. Still avoiding his gaze, though now there were pink circles on her half-hidden face, she replied. "Stick to 'explaining' me the case, okay?"
Kakashi sighed at her stubbornness - he pulled a chair facing the bed backwards and straddled it, leaning on the back of the chair casually after he reached back and brought back with him a plate of steaming pancake with melting butter on the top, drenched with maple syrup and surrounded by strawberry slices.
Her mouth watered instantly at the sight of it. Suppressing the rising growl of her stomach, she repeated inwardly, Pancake is a distraction. Distraction. Eat later, focus now. The kunoichi closed her eyes as she mentally chanted the words - and instantly opened them when a piece of warm food with sticky syrup grazed her lips. Sakura was face to face with an offered piece of pancake on a fork, held by Kakashi amiably.
Her eyes flew to his eye. Back to the pancake, she did pause ten seconds or so, but they went back to the jounin.
Eat, it was as if she heard him say that.
Sakura eyed the pancake and a slice of strawberry resting innocently atop it, the glistening syrup sent sweet, warm aroma to her hungry senses.
They can't be evil, the other her wailed.
Eat! Eat! Eat!
Reluctantly, after a few pushes on the back, her lips parted as she opened her mouth and accepted the proffered breakfast, the half-warm fork slid past her closed lips slowly, almost tantalizingly to the other ninja. Her eyes fluttered close as she enjoyed her first bite of food, real food after quite a long time, the syrup, strawberry, butter and pancake melt soon as they made contact with her tongue -
"Seems that they're good enough... You won't mind if I have some, will you?"
And Kakashi helped himself cutting the five-layer pancake, eating them with the fork he earlier used to feed Sakura.
That was almost... obscene... her consciousness whispered dreamily.
An indirect kiss!
The kunoichi changed interesting shades of color, from ivory to pink, to vermilion, and to beet red, which didn't go unnoticed by her teacher.
"Pink looks good on you," he said casually, cutting a new piece of food and forked it along with the strawberry and smeared some syrup and butter, before offering her the new bite. She didn't hesitate as much when she ate that other slice - she couldn't think. The kunoichi just mechanically opened her mouth and ate the pancake; the waffiness had wiped her brain clean, it was so sweet her teeth ached.
Since this couldn't be happening, why not dive in and enjoy a while?
She imagined Kakashi smiling at her, and found out that he actually was, behind that mysterious mask. The eye shone eerily, there was something there that didn't read him -
The shadow! Inner Sakura warned her.
Sakura bit down the fresh piece of pancake and forgot.
Who am I facing?
That was when her other teammates walked, or rather burst into the room, and their greetings and smiles were wiped off soon as the signals were sent to their brain - there was a naked brunet, staring back at them with emerald eyes opened wide, being fed breakfast intimately by their teacher.
"Kakashi, you're such a perverted old man - "
Before Naruto had the chance to finish, Sasuke held up his hand, signaling him to stop. "Hey, wait a second... wasn't she - ?"
They both squinted, losing this color and adding that color, that shade of eye color can't be wrong, how could they not notice?
"Sakura-chan?"
There was their only female teammate on the bed, being fed breakfast intimately by their teacher.
And her hair was jet black.
"Kakashi-sensei... You..."
Naruto was faster than words - "You even deliberately dyed her pink hair black?" - for he had already leaped forward, aiming to pounce on Kakashi who quickly dodged (after depositing the half-eaten pancakes safely back to the table, that is), resulting in Naruto having a collision with the forgotten chair and rolled forward along with it into a wall in an angry heap.
Kakashi, Sasuke and Sakura watched, speechless.
Can he actually be that stupid at his age?
Sakura, hearing what Naruto had blurted out before he leaped, took the time to examine her new hair color and suddenly looked crestfallen as she felt a huge loss; it was as if her chest was going to burst open. She missed the pink strands she used to consider outrageous already... Her fists clenched on her side, keeping her eye focused on the others in the room, unwanting to accept the fact that had just been shoved into her grasp, unwanting to see what could be reflected by the mirrors on the walls that could defy her belief.
The blonde quickly stood up and dusted himself, kicking the chair away, and the others nearly breathed a sigh of relief audibly when he lunged forward in outrage - Sakura shrieked at the sudden movement - with hands outstretched. "How dare you - "
In a blink, Kakashi had already seized Naruto's hands behind on the small of his back and pinning him down with a knee, who at the first minutes grunted and tried to wiggle out of the teacher's iron grip to no avail and eventually surrendered, breathing harshly, his cheek due to his bent position was pressed on the cold floor. "Let-go-of-my-hands." said the blonde, punctuating every word with pure anger. When there was no sign that the vice-like grip loosened, he repeated clearly, "Let go!"
"Not until you hear my side of the story."
Naruto tried hard to move his head, craned it up to look at his teacher's face. "How could you, Kakashi-sensei? To Sakura-chan of all people?"
The blonde suddenly found his hands were freed - rubbing the wrists he stood up carefully, unnecessary adrenaline still pumping in his veins.
"That is what I'm trying to explain to all of you," the jounin started. "Last night there was a storm that did tone down in the morning, but didn't improve Sakura's bad condition; she had a fever that night, and I took her to this inn. As soon as we got a room, I had to remove the wet clothes to avoid further complications."
"So... Nothing happened between you two?"
The teacher shook his head. "Not that I remember."
Naruto and Sasuke glared.
"Um, guys..."
The three men turned to the only female in the room, who was giving them a smile, yet she was exuding a heavy air of irritation. If Naruto hadn't felt ashamed, which he was feeling right then, he would've taken some time to study that red horns protruding from the top of Sakura's head.
"Do you mind leaving this room at once?" she nodded at the direction of the half-opened door, a hand extended from behind the comforter holding a handful of shurikens ready to fly to their directions if anyone dared to say they do, the weapons glinting under the morning sunlight as the kunoichi played with them reassuringly. "Hop hop." she said sweetly, nodded once again to the door, and bearing gigantic sweatdrops on their heads all men marched outside; the last politely closed the door, trying hard not to add fuel to the fire.
Sakura dropped herself into the mass of pillows behind, sighing, still clutching the white layers dearly.
Now what?
XXX
As soon as the group had their breakfast and recharged their batteries, they split into their former pairs, though Naruto was seemingly more reluctant than ever, begging to change partners with Kakashi, reasoning that he couldn't bear to spare another time with a certain brunet that didn't know anything about evading booby traps; on the other hand, the brunet brought a stronger view that he 'wanted to experience a different team-up he had yet to have', all of which were brushed aside by Kakashi like they were some kind of quacking ducks.
Sakura and Kakashi went past shops that had just opened, bakeries, and butchers - just then, as they were passing by a glass shop window, Sakura glanced at her reflection, her new black hair.
What color did it use to be?
Rosy pink, bubblegum pink... she tried to remember the color, forcing her brain to, and the downturn of her mood earlier came back. She caught the dark shade of her eyebrows on her reflection and found that they had been covered with black dye as well.
He's nothing but thorough, isn't he?
"Pink is an easily distinguishable color, while black is more common." Her superior said, as if reading her mind - she quit studying her reflection on the clean glass panel, but she still stood unmoving in front of the shop. The kunoichi looked past her reflection into the products displayed behind the glass panel, and saw small chocolates, pralines, and truffles arranged perfectly in small silver plates on dark red, velvety backdrop.
"Quite rare, a chocolate shop in a small village like this..." said Kakashi, leaning to take a better look at the displayed confectionery. "Okay, we can start here." At that, he entered the shop confidently, pushing open the door and it closed behind him.
Sakura looked at him in horror - she quickly followed him, yet she didn't come right in, she stood behind the glass door and watching her teacher greeting the chocolate seller amiably. The seller quickly smiled at her as soon as she noticed the young lady looming in front of the door; bearing a defeated look Sakura pushed the door open and stepped inside.
"Come in, young lady! Want a taste of our special praline?" She held out a small plate of rose-shaped chocolate with swirls of milky white, still smiling warmly. Tempted, Sakura reached for a tiny rose and took a bite.
"Well done, you have just tasted our Love Spell!"
The kunoichi nearly choked on her praline.
Why does everyone keep on reminding me of that botched plan?
"She loves chocolate," the man next to her nodded at the middle-aged woman, who gave him a knowing smile - Sakura just didn't feel good about the whole happening in the sweet-smelling shop.
What do you know about what I like? She asked mentally to the silver-haired jounin, enjoying the creamy chocolate on her tongue as she did so. But I do love this one.
Sakura helped herself to walk around the small shop, examining things. They all were related to chocolate, even the marbles were the darkest shade of chocolate. She turned to study the rosy shopkeeper's attire. Funny, her clothes, too. The woman was wearing a wide, dark chocolate skirt with a creamy white apron over it, and it seemed that the stain on it was coming from the same substance.
Kakashi sat himself down on a stool in front of the bar-styled counter, playing with one of the tiny boxes tied with colorful ribbons, supposedly containing chocolate as well; and asked, "Do you happen to know something about the upcoming fest?"
The woman beamed and said energetically, "Well of course! That's why I'm making special chocolates to be sold, I'm sure there will be lots of people around... The night festival is well-known outside this village too. You're both visitors, right?"
Kakashi smiled in agreement. "Yes we are... We happen to hear about the news and decided to pay this beautiful village a visit."
Sakura gave a sheepish smile as her elders exchanged words in front of her, and she felt like she was just a baby in the adult's world.
Toughen up, Sakura! You're seventeen!
Right. And they're like, what, thirty-something?
Give yourself some credit! That woman, being twice your age, didn't know half the thing you knew about producing chakras effectively -
Just as I didn't half the thing she knew about chocolate...
"Congratulations, young lady." The woman looked at Sakura sharply, who was secretly cleaning her fingers from the chocolate leftovers during the heated dialogue in her brain; and being talked to while doing so was like being caught red-handed doing something really nasty, in her case, sucking the creamy sweetness off her fingers. Again feeling like an eight-year old the kunoichi pulled her fingers away, now fully paying attention. "Um... Pardon?"
"You've got such a charming husband! I hope you both will enjoy your honeymoon here, sweetie," she winked at Sakura from behind the counter.
That got faster to her system than the realization that she had just dropped her chocolate, which earned a gasp from the other woman.
"Oh - " Sakura quickly kneeled and took the half-bitten praline off the floor, feeling totally flustered and clumsy, and apologized right away. "I'm terribly sorry..."
She was. The kunoichi in disguise felt so bad her heart ached. No one but us saw that accident -
Her, the shopkeeper, and - ?
Turning to Kakashi, her mentor, she found that he had been watching from the stool he's sitting at, not missing a thing.
Did he see the wink, the newlyweds prank?
Fear tickled her back as the eye, she realized, wasn't portraying any emotion - just dead, blank, endless.
Blink.
The eye went red.
Blink.
It was deep brown.
The raven-haired girl watched in shock, caught off-guard, and felt the air was pressuring her and squeezing her insides slowly but surely to suffocation.
Her 'husband' didn't say anything in response to her fault.
Shadows... Inside Kakashi...
The kunoichi figured out the loophole.
"Sakura?"
The chocolate almost leaped off her fingers again. The heat from them starting to melt the creamy dessert off in her hand.
"Y-yes?"
"Why don't you stay here and wait for me while I look around?"
Huh, what? Hell no!
"Um... okay."
Her lips seemed to have another opinion.
He turned to the shopkeeper. "Ma'am, can you do me a favor?"
"Sure, how may I help you?"
"Please show her around while I'm gone, I feel bad leaving her already - hopefully it doesn't bother your day." The jounin added, smiling from behind the mask.
"Oh, of course not! In fact I was thinking of closing the chocolate shop early as I want to take a walk around before the carnival starts, so nothing has actually changed in my plan. Off you go, young man, you don't want to keep her waiting!" The chubby lady shooed Kakashi away, and the doorbell dinged as the jounin pushed it open and stepped out.
Seeing his retreating back, the brunet had a dark premonition culminating in her chest - she rarely believed in her feelings; yet when the lady gave her a cup of hot chocolate as a 'wedding compliment', she couldn't help but remembering, as the cocoa swirled in the cup, the anomaly reflected from Kakashi's eye.
It had happened twice, and she could still conjure the happening vividly in her mind - one was before their departure on the field, and another had just taken place. Could she really believe in those two events, as the only one who had ever seen it? The kunoichi knew very well she lacked of evidences to confront the man in person, and she knew better than telling her other teammates about her hunch; thus, so far she only kept it to herself.
But - how long can I stand this for?
The burning issue was taking up a good ninety-percent chunk of her brain, and that wasn't good enough if she wanted to survive in this mission - she could get killed, die foolishly as she pondered what was actually going on, she wouldn't have that - yet every time she found herself wondering and questioning it over and over again and couldn't bring her mind off of it.
Sakura was sure she had seen it coming, the shadow, and disappeared into Kakashi's body; from thereafter, he was different.
Was it really my imagination?
It could have been, but -
The mental war was cut off rather hurriedly and awkwardly when the woman took a seat on the stool next to her, and asked her with bubbling interest, "So tell me, young lady - how does he look behind that mask?"
XXXXX
TBC
Author's Note: It seemed that the homework has taken its toll on me this time (and I got past the bi-weekly schedule as well! How much worse can it be?) But then again it gave me time to work on the loopholes of the plot, hopefully they all made sense now that we know Kakashi's possessed x) haha, don't think he's gonna be that OOC, feeding Sakura strawberries (but still I'm highly hoping that he would -wink-) Um, this chapter is rather transitional past the beginnings, but I hope you'd bear with me and give me comments, critics, or advices... It'll be nice if you also tell me which part do you like, but my first and foremost hope is that you enjoy the story :) Nuff for now and see you on the seventh chapter!
Sneak Peek: Sakura finally got the chance she'd been looking for and unveiled another mystery, while a certain brunet was getting anxious.
9.4.06 This has just been revised at the same time with the update. Not much, I've just repaired some stupid things so you didn't miss anything.