Chapter 9

Author's Note: For everyone that's kept up on the story, following it and waiting so patiently, thank you from the bottom of my heart. When I started writing this story, I was in a completely different headspace and so much time has passed that my original intentions are lost, even to me. And so I feel like this story needs an end and some closure, before I end up half-assing a few more chapters and completely hating it.

Perhaps in the future, I'll revisit this story, and write you all a different ending, an ending it deserves, but for now, this will have to serve as a placeholder.


"-kashi?"

It had been rather unexpected, the soft utterage that slipped from her lips. An action which surprised even the speaker herself, but she nonetheless unfolded herself from the couch and walked, with all the grace and stealth of the kunoichi she once was, till she found herself within arms reach of her former partner, current something else.

"Kashi?" Again, her whispered voice sounded foreign to her own ears, like she had opened her mouth and a stranger was speaking through her lips. Gods, why was it so painfully raw? A hesitant hand reached out, falling short of fully placing her palm on the back of his bicep and instead, her icy digits grazed over his skin. Immediately, she could see the results of her action; the slight tensing of his body, the goosebumps creeping from the nape of his necks to his wrists and a barely detectable tremor running up his spine.

Sakura's heart hammered within the confines of her ribcage. Kakashi was her precious person, the person who had seen her at her worst, groveling at the feet of an emotionless Uchiha, and her best, achieving her status as an ANBU operative. He'd seen her orchestrate an entire operating room like a fine string quartet, giving life with such ease, and he'd seen her, fist plunged forearm deep into an anonymous enemy's sternum, taking life with an admirable detachment. This attachment was probably self-destructive, rooted in some psychopathy of co-dependence and pure need to not be alone, detached from the world, but to that end, why deny current needs for future problems?

She watched as his unruly silver locks danced about atop his head, as if shaking himself from a dream and then his much larger frame slowly began to turn in her direction.

"I-" His voice faltered, and for a moment, Sakura was sure he would beat a hasty retreat, slinking back into his status quo detached and aloof persona but instead the man cleared his throat to start again. "I missed hearing your voice." His calloused hand beat a hasty retreat from the doorknob to rustle through his mussed silver hair, his eyes crinkling into that strange little crescent shape.

A soft smile bloomed over Sakura's lips, her scarred face looking more serene than had ever adorned the pinkette's features in a long, long while.. Perhaps it was maturity, or perspective. Or maybe, Kakashi didn't even dare to hope, him?


Kakashi trailed a half-step behind the little kunoichi, his hands jammed into his pockets as they walked nearly side-by-side down the market streets. It was nearing mid-day, and the streets of the marketplace were nearly empty. Civilians were at their jobs, or simply avoiding the unrelenting afternoon sun, so the pair walked with little rhyme or reason. When she asked, in broken ninja sign language, to accompany her to the market, despite his painful hangover, he would not refuse the woman this simple thing. Not when her raspy words were the potential reward. And definitely not when her lips turned up into a small little smile that made his chest both tighten and relax at the same time. For those moments, he would sacrifice the world.

His travel companion turned her head slightly in his direction before nodding off in a new direction in a silent command. It was a path he was innately familiar with, one he could travel in his sleep.

The memorial stone loomed ahead of the duo. His mouth watered slightly at the bitterness the sight left in his mouth. He'd spent so many of his nights at this hulking rock, borderline suicidal, mind fracturing into tiny splinters, just a hair's breadth away from completely unraveling.. His reluctance must have shown in his eyes because her impossibly cold fingers snaked between his and her small frame, with no real strength behind it, pulled him forward.

They came to a halt a few feet away and she neatly folded her stick-like legs beneath her. Still holding his hand, she tugged him down to take an awkward seat at her side. It'd been a while since Kakashi had been here, no longer mourning the loss of Sakura, but he had felt the gnawing guilt from neglecting his deceased friends. Sakura was always intuitive like that though. She knew him better than he knew himself.

At some point, Kakashi began idly talking, to whom it didn't matter, but he filled the silence with random bits of pointless information, stories both true and fictitious. Sakura sat, content to listen, occasionally offering a small smile until the words stopped flowing and time stood still.

Normally, Kakashi would have a sake bottle as he talked to ghosts and he'd eventually meander on to some other destination, but today he was sober, albeit a little hungover, and instead of feeling like the world was bubbling over into an endless pit of emptiness and pain, he felt an odd sense of calm like he'd never truly known. He'd compare it to the calm before a storm, but there was no heaviness in the air, by blood or by weather, nor was the political climate of this very moment considerably fragile. A shinobi's paranoia dictates this moment was a trap, a lure meant to guide him in, but hope spoke differently.

His gaze drifted to the side, immediately ensnared in Sakura's own gaze directed at him. If this was the end, he would gladly accept it, surrounded by his friends and this woman whom he loved. He would give up his life, his world, his everything for one second of her happiness.