Disclaimer: Refer to chapter 1. You know what? I kind of feel attached t it for whatever reason.
Kakashi did not want to enter his apartment. It was far from the first time the Jonin had wanted to go nearly anywhere else but his residence but he couldn't. His student, his only true student, was within and they needed to talk.
Now.
All he had to do was turn the doorknob.
Just turn the doorknob.
Reach out. Grab. Turn.
He just needed to go inside and talk with a girl who felt she was worthless thanks to her teammates. He needed to tell her she was strong, she was stronger than them. All he needed to do was talk to her and the words would come out.
"Don't be a coward." A life as a Shinobi made sure his voice was as quiet as the wind. "She's hardly even a teenager. What is there to worry about?"
His mind was running a thousand miles a minute with those words. He couldn't begin to understand any of it.
However unlikely it was, Naruto's Legion could have broken into his apartment, Sakura could had left hours ago, she could had been attacked by the psychotic Genin from Sunagakure, and more. His apartment could had been rigged by an invading force, the traps could have triggered and killed her. He could be walking into an ambush and they would use her as a bargaining chip. The Hokage could had even instructed the ANBU Black Ops to take her out.
The girl was intelligent, smart enough to know exactly how loyal the Orange Legion were and how devoted they were to her. She could command a force equal to Naruto's own.
'And one of his Cohorts cleared a way through the Forest of Death.' The infamous hazards of Training Ground Forty-Four were well-known to all Konoha Shinobi but Team 7 had passed through the entire exams unscathed. Naruto had unleashed a part of his army, the banners identified them as the Fifth Cohort if his shouting hadn't already keyed everyone in, and the three had moved forward with the clones surrounding them and moving ahead.
It had taken Naruto less than an hour to get the two scrolls he needed. His and his teammates walk to the tower took three days.
"No." His voice was loud to his ears in the empty hallway, forcing himself to shake away the paranoia of living as a Shinobi by turning his head from side to side, bringing a single hand up to rub at his temple. "I can't get distracted like that."
'I need to help her.'
With those words in mind, Kakashi opened the door to his apartment. His foot hit a piece of Sakura's armor and sent it clattering across the floor.
"Sakura." His voice was low but still carried across the apartment, empty of much besides the necessities. "Sakura, we need to talk." His single visible eye took note of the other pieces of armor that laid on the floor, he crouched down to pick up one of her bracers and examined it in his hands.
A deep scratch was carved vertically down the armor.
'Kunai.' His eyes knew the mark of a kunai too well. 'What are you doing Sakura?'
He discovered another piece, one of the greaves she had worn, and more scratches ruined the surface of the metal and the design on it, the same design that carried over the armor of her Blossom Guard. A glance past it saw more pieces of her armor, torn off it looked like from the straps of leather dotting the ground. Most of the breastplate seemed to have been torn off, thrown near a doorway to a room he didn't use.
It was supposed to be for guests.
"Sakura!" His voice was louder as he approached the closed door. "Sakura, are you in there?" Panic wasn't in his voice. It was too controlled for that. He couldn't let panic take over. He couldn't let his mind visualize whatever horrors it could create. He couldn't imagine a corpse.
He focused on the door. He heard no words, no reply. He strained his ears, listened for any sounds that would show if someone was inside, and, faintly, he at last heard a sound.
Soft crying.
"Sakura." Kakashi rapped his knuckles on the door, knowing better than to intrude on the girl inside. "Sakura, please, I want to talk to you."
He heard no answer. The crying was stifled, Kakashi sighing from where he stood outside the door once he heard it. He shouldn't be relieved but he was. She was just upset. He could help her. He just needed to open the door.
He took hold of the doorknob.
His mind at last won.
Blood was on the floor. The still form of a man he should have respected, loved, was almost wrapped by it. The only warmth he could gain was through the spilling of his own blood. It was his fault. He had done this. He was the one who held the blade darkened to crimson.
His fault.
His fault.
His fault.
Hi-
'No.' He tossed away those memories. He was a man now. He wasn't a child. He didn't come home to see his father dead on the floor. This was nothing like that. Nothing like that at all.
He opened the door.
He found her sitting on the floor, the armor she wore, for the most part, torn away and all the pieces he had yet to find outside the room were strewn across it. She must had thrown them at the walls from where they were placed in front of her. His eye took in the open dresser and was glad that this wouldn't be made anymore awkward with his student naked.
'One crisis averted.' He had to look on the bright side for once. He stepped into the room and closed the door, walking over to the pink haired Genin and dropping onto the floor next to him. She didn't move her head from where she rested her forehead against her knees. 'Now, let's see if I can solve this one.'
He wanted to wrap an arm around her shoulders but instead it limply hung in the air. Eventually it returned to his side.
"Things…things didn't turn out like I hoped today." Kakashi's voice filled the silence of the room. Sakura did not look at him but he hoped she at least listened. "Things haven't gone the way I've wanted them to since I was stuck with three Academy students."
"One of them was…I thought I was going to be dealing with the class idiot but I was wrong. The one I thought would be the easiest to fail turned out to not only learn a Kinjutsu but create an entirely new one that puts the one he learned to shame, something I never thought would happen. I thought he would be easy to beat, just put him in the ground and go find the other two, but then he pulled an army out. Ever since then, ever since I've met that kid, I've wanted to get rid of him. Not kill him, just get him out of my hair before he causes a war."
"The next one was one I thought would be easy to teach. A prodigy, a genius, and top of his class, I figured it would be easy to deal with him. Then he joined the other one. He started to cause nearly as many problems as the other one because he's commanding the same army. I never thought I would see the class idiot get a genius like him to listen to his every word but I guess I was wrong. Now he's some loyal bodyguard or commander, I don't know which and just want him gone too."
"And, lastly, there's the only sane one in this little group. The only girl too. She's not declaring herself leader of some army or acting as if she's the greatest woman to ever live, she's normal. She has doubt in herself, she wants to improve herself, and she wants to show that she's not what everyone thinks she is. She wants to be a strong Kunoichi and is the only tolerable one of the bunch. Of course I wanted to fail her too. She reminds me of a girl I knew too much, a girl I let die…I couldn't stand to let that happen again."
He didn't know if she was paying attention to him or not, he was hardly listening to the words he spoke anymore.
"I wanted to fail all three of those kids but somehow they passed. Now I'm stuck with two I can't stand and one that has amazing potential. She just doesn't believe she does, she thinks because of how strong the other two are that she's weak. She doesn't understand that they're already close to their peak when she's nowhere near hers. She has more intelligence than the genius, more passion for what she's doing than the kid with the army, and she's going to become great no matter what she thinks about herself."
He looked down at the floor, his single eye not seeing anything any longer.
"She'll definitely become better than her failure of a sensei."
He didn't know why he was still talking, why he had even talked at all. How was someone like him supposed to help her? How was someone who was hailed as a genius, as a prodigy, as a Shinobi deserving of the title Hokage, supposed to help a girl who thought she was weak, a girl who thought that she wasn't meant to be a Shinobi, a girl who thought that she should give up such a life? How was someone who possessed talent so naturally supposed to help a girl who had no idea of her own potential?
"…I don't think you're a failure." His head snapped towards Sakura, catching a flicker of green eyes before they were gone, directed towards the floor like his own once were. "You're stronger than me…smarter than me…people are always talking about how you could be Hokage if you wanted to. But me?" A bitter smile crossed her face. "I'm…Naruto made it clear what I am…"
"Don't believe a word he said, he's nothing but an egotistic brat."
"Even if he is…he told me about his match…" Sakura's eyes watered. "All the time you've spent with me, all the training, it was all worthless when I'm compared to those two. The two from Otogakure, Kin and Zaku, didn't stand a chance of beating them. Sasuke knows the type of Ninjutsu than I can never hope to learn, Naruto is probably the strongest Genin in the exams, and…I'm sorry that I couldn't make the time you wasted with me matter. I thought I could pass the exams but…"
She couldn't finish. Defeat came with every word she spoke but it would be nothing compared to what she would feel if she spoke those words.
She couldn't admit that Naruto was telling the truth about her. If she did, it would break her entirely. Shatter her into a million pieces that could never come back together again.
"I won't blame you for what happened, I would never dream of doing something like that." Kakashi thought back on the short battle Sakura managed to have with Ino before Naruto's interruption ruined what should had been her crowning moment. The moment she should had realized she was stronger than she thought was turned into nothing but another poisonous thought on how weak she was thanks to the Uzumaki. The Jonin could almost hate him for it. "Your fight with Ino, no matter how short it was before he got involved, was incredible. The heiress of Konoha's Yamanaka Clan was about to use her Clan's infamous technique and I knew you had a way of countering it."
"I didn't come up with anything impressive…" Kakashi had actually been lying then, hoping to impart some confidence onto his student. His single visible eye widening at the revelation went unseen by Sakura. "The Yamanaka in general never thought to fix the speed of the technique or aiming so I was going to use the Clone Technique and move with it, once I sensed that Ino left her body I would dodge out of the way and grab her before she could make it back and force her to give up."
'Good plan.' His only concern for her would have to be her speed. Ino was a novice with the technique obviously but the technique was rather fast even for someone at her level. 'There's ways to improve it obviously but a good base to build on.'
"I know it was nothing impressive but I didn't have time to do anything else…Ino would had caught on if I let her hit me with it."
'Let her?' Kakashi didn't verbalize his question but he did eye Sakura a bit more closely now. '…I wonder just how you compare to that Nara boy, Sakura.'
"You're just proving my point." He laid a hand on her back, drawing himself closer to her. "We'll train some more starting tomorrow morning. Until then, come with me and let's both get some rest."
"Alright, Kakashi-sensei."
Her voice didn't have the confidence he wanted her to have but he would deal with giving her the necessary boost she needed later. For tonight, he would be fine with how things were.
He stood up, picking her up with him to no complaints, and carried her out of the dusty guestroom.
She could get a better night's sleep in his bed and he could sleep somewhere else. The couch maybe? He wasn't certain if he even owned a couch but he would manage.
Close by to the apartment, an ANBU agent listened to the entire conversation. Once she was sure it was over with, she stopped channeling Chakra to her ear and withheld a wince at the familiar lance of pain the end of the technique caused.
"You're spying on people again, aren't you Yugao?" An arm wrapped around her waist in bed and she turned to Hayate with a smile.
"Don't worry yourself about any of that, Hayate-kun." Her eyes were the blank pits all ANBU Black Ops possessed. The Tokubetsu Jonin had long since grown used to seeing nothing in his lover's eyes. No matter the circumstance, her eyes revealed nothing to anyone. "Besides, you've had a long day so just relax."
One hand reached up, running through his short brown hair before a hand took hold of hers.
"It wasn't long enough for me to ignore what you've been doing." The Kenjutsu master looked to the wall her focus had been on. "I know about that long standing mission of yours and I know about your new one. Don't bother hiding things like that from me when you make them so obvious."
The purple haired ANBU had the decency to blush as, in retrospect, she was being quite obvious about what she was doing. She could've handled her newest mission far better than she already had.
She still tried to smile, to show disregard for Hayate's comments.
"You're too paranoid sometimes." She turned away.
"Just…forget it." He turned away from her and fell silent.
Silence was not uncommon for Yugao Uzuki but this one was stifling. She wanted to turn around, embrace her lower, but she did not. She remained facing the wall.
The two slept together but separate.
AN: Ah, Kakashi is somewhat enjoyable to write. Any opinions on Kakashi and Sakura's relationship?