Title: Seeking Rin
Chapter: 2 - Fermata
Author: Killaurey
Rating: T
Word Count: 4269
Summary: When Sakura, newly in a relationship with Kakashi, finds out about Rin, she makes a choice that's hard on them both. Even worse, there's a mysterious illness cropping up in Konoha that even Tsunade can't heal. And what does Ino have to do with it? Kakashi x Rin, KakaSaku.
Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me. It's Kishimoto's and I just play with it. Part 2 of ? Unbeta'd.


Sunlight pours through the windows of the sterile hospital room. The curtains shiver in the soft breeze and Kakashi thinks that, well, he's been in the hospital for worse over the years. Optimism at its finest, he mocks himself, and refocuses on Tsunade.

He doesn't know what he's in the hospital for. Kakashi mulls over that as Tsunade prods his shoulder with cool, competent and utterly business-like fingers. Kakashi is fairly certain that he's never been in the hospital before without knowing why, but... a poor shinobi is one who cannot adapt, he tells himself, and waits stoically.

"Alright," Tsunade says, in the tones of relief, as she re-bandages the minor scrape he sustained out in the field. "Good, you're clean."

Kakashi pulls down his sleeve, a little put out at the indignity of it all, and considers the frown lines on his Hokage's face. "Has there been a problem?" he asks. "A new bio-weapon?" It's the only thing he can think of to explain how, upon reaching Konoha and dropping off his report, he, along with the rest of his team, were ordered to attend upon their Hokage at the hospital.

She studies him and he wonders if she sees the boy she knew once upon a time, or if she sees who he is now. He's never been able to tell with her. "We don't know," she says finally, opting, he notes, for a bit of honesty. "It could be nothing, but..."

He nods. "Are all teams-?"

"Just the ones sent south-west," she replies. "For now. We've got four shinobi pulled from duty due to inexplicable irregularities in routine post-mission examinations." Her brown eyes are fierce. "You're not to repeat that, Hatake. Is that understood?"

"Understood," he says and means it. He might (and does) enjoy gossip as much as the next shinobi, but when the Hokage tells you to shut up, you shut up. "Is there anything I should keep an eye on out in the field?"

Unspoken is the assumption that she'll be sending him out that way. Kakashi can't see why she wouldn't when he's got experience, years, and skill to back him up. Why wouldn't she send him out? That's justifiable arrogance, though he won't say that.

A flicker of a smile touches Tsunade's lips. "Don't get hurt," she says, "and watch out for anything that feels like a bug bite or a mosquito- it might not appear to be an attack at all. Half the cases we've discovered so far encountered no enemy resistance out in the field."

He leans against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. "What level were the teams?"

Kakashi knows better than to ask for names as he leans against the hospital bed. She wouldn't give them to him and he doesn't expect her to. Knowing that four of their shinobi are off active duty temporarily means nothing: there's always more than that off-duty due to various injuries and vacation time and he's got no doubt they've been cautioned on what to say as well.

Tsunade's lips twist grimly. "Two Jounin teams, one Chuunin, and one Genin team. The Genin team saw combat, as did one of the Jounin teams."

His brow furrows. "No consistent patterns as of yet?"

She shakes her head. "None. Not even in how far they were from Konoha." The flash of her eyes says that she doesn't like this.

Kakashi can't blame her: it doesn't sound good to him either and he's not the one who has to look after every shinobi in the village. He doesn't want her job. "If it's an enemy," he says, "then there's got to be some sort of pattern. What's the possibility that it's a naturally occurring mutation of a virus? Or something that really is being spread by the wildlife?"

"It could be," Tsunade allows, though he can tell that she doesn't like that idea. He wonders what details she's not sharing with him. If added together they paint a grimmer picture than the one she's given him. (Which is grim enough, he thinks.) "Just keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary and report your findings directly to me."

"Not to Sakura?" he questions, as all things considered, talking to Sakura is less of a hassle. And even if the news is bad, she tends to be happy to see him. He can't say the same for his Hokage.

"No," she says, a funny look in her eyes. "To me." She steps back, dusts her hands off, and nods as she surveys him. He wonders what she's thinking about.

"Go home," Tsunade says. "Eat. Sleep. Your energy levels need to be replenished. Report to me in three days and I'll have your next mission for you."

Three days isn't much time but while he'd like more time to spend with Sakura, he understands. The village comes first as a whole over its individuals and with four of their number already out of commission, this is something that needs to be looked into.

Kakashi nods his head in acceptance.

He goes.


If asked, Kakashi would say that he doesn't believe in superstitions and that they're for small-minded shinobi and children alone.

This does not stop him from frowning thoughtfully, though not enough for it to show through his mask, as he steps out of the hospital, hands stuffed into his pockets, shoulders falling into their usual slouch. It's just that, with what Tsunade told him, he can't help but feel there's something he ought to remember. It niggles at the back of his mind, like a whisper heard once and then forgotten.

Which doesn't make sense. There is no reason, he tells himself, to feel like a ghost has trailed icy fingers down his spine in a cryptic reminder. Not at the hospital: there's no one there who'd haunt him, even if they existed. There's nothing that happened at the hospital to stalk him like a shadow of a ghost.

He shakes his head in an attempt to shake it off and tells himself to quit being ridiculous. There's plenty to worry about without giving heed to ghosts (which he doesn't believe in) and things he doesn't remember (but which nags at him anyway).

He stops by the mission center to ascertain they don't need him for anything else-Tsunade having carted him and his team off without so much as a by your leave-and inquires after Sakura, ignoring the way the some of the Chuunin titter with amusement. He knows all the gossip; the famous Copy-Nin, fallen to love at last.

For the most part, the Chuunin here are too young to know that this love is the second love he's fallen to. He is disinclined to tell them. The Chuunin tells him that she's working at the hospital (he wonders how they missed each other there) and won't be off until late, but that she's got the day off tomorrow. This is followed by an impudent wink that he ignores. It's not worth encouraging them.

Tomorrow, he thinks, will be soon enough. He saunters out of the building, hands in his pockets, one of them fingering a familiar orange book, though he doesn't pull it out, and idly makes his way through the village. Food, he thinks. Sleep. Just what his Hokage ordered.

And then he'll see Sakura-he knows she's safe-after, later. In his current state, if he sees her, she'll only fuss and bother and while he (secretly) doesn't mind that, there's really no need for it this time and he doesn't like the idea of being fussed over in public.

He has to keep some reputation after all. Even if love is determined to make a fool of himself.

All is well, except for the inexplicable unease that has settled in his gut and the unsettling news weighing on his mind and so Kakashi ignores both the feeling and the news and makes a quick stop at a takeaway place before continuing on his way home.

The walk unnerves him more than the lingering sensation (reminder?) of something being wrong, and he finds himself palming a kunai as he makes his way up his stairs. Is he getting paranoid in his old age? He can't decide if he hopes that's true or not. Paranoia keeps old and young ninja alike alive. That's nothing to be scoffed at.

Getting his apartment unlocked is the matter of seconds and he registers with a smile that Sakura had been in his place at least once. She always sets the locks just slightly differently than he does.

Kakashi knows he could tell her how to set them exactly the way they're meant to be set, but he doesn't want to. He likes being able to know- not out of a sense of paranoia, though he's got plenty of that, but because it's a warm thing, to know that she's comfortable enough with him to enter his apartment alone, when he's not around.

Feeling slightly more at ease, he pushes the door open and stops.

He is the first to admit that his nose is not as sharp as an Inuzuka's or any of his dogs. It does not have to be, to be able to scent the distress in the air. Sakura's distress: days old but still strong.

If he were superstitious he would attribute his unease to this. Because he likes to think he's not, Kakashi dismisses that idea. There's no way he could have known something was wrong at his apartment from the moment he'd left the Hokage's presence. That's ridiculous. The fact that some few of his thoughts think it isn't… well, he ignores that.

Kakashi steps inside his apartment trying to determine what the cause of her distress had been. Of course, not even Inuzuka have noses that can scent that, unless it's an injury. Being able to smell how people are feeling does not give the power to know why people feel what they do.

He'd learnt that in a series of rather painful lessons, back when he'd still been a child, in at least one sense of the word.

The living room is the same as it always is. A forest green blanket lies folded over the couch that they like to watch TV together on. Sakura likes the comfort of the blanket and Kakashi, back when she'd first suggested a blanket, had been willing to oblige her in just about anything. He still is, but thinking that way makes him sound soppy, so he stops. The green does make the room a little friendlier, he admits, running one hand across the blanket before moving on. It's clear that she did not linger in this room.

His bedroom has been untouched in his absence. Her distress has not permeated his room and he cracks open the window to rid the room of the slightly dusty scent that always accumulates when he's away on a long mission.

Her upset is strongest in the kitchen. While he spots the note and the spatula (pale green, he notes, and despite his worry that makes him want to smile-Sakura likes green and him together) he doesn't hurry over to it despite the powerful urge to do exactly that. If there's anything else in the kitchen, he'll miss it if he checks the most obvious evidence first. There's nothing out of place in the kitchen however, except for her despair, and he can tell that she'd been here for fair bit of time and upset, but that it had been around a week ago.

Perhaps, he thinks, it hadn't been anything too important. Without more to go on, he tells himself that it could have been anything from a fight with a co-worker to a bad day where nothing went right to a loss against Ino in some intricate kunoichi thing he has long since ceased trying to understand.

He'll ask her later, he decides. For all he knows the distress was strong for the day, but fleeting, and she's perfectly fine. He likes that scenario the best and steps over to the windows to open them. For a few moments, he leans in one of the windows, feeling the breeze and letting it calm him before stepping away.

Having talked himself into sense and feeling better as the distress that has lingered in the room is washed out by the open windows, which brings clean air and better spirits, Kakashi picks up the spatula Sakura has bought him and reaches for the note.

It's not a very long note, he sees. That's alright. Sakura isn't the sort to write a novel over a spatula, of all things, and he leans against the kitchen table to read it.

It's not a very long note, but he finds that it's true that the littlest things can turn your life upside down.

Kakashi feels like he's been encased in ice, only it burns, and his chest still moves up and down, in the simple rhythm of life, and his eyes move, taking in the words that he's sure must be- something he's mistaken about.

They don't make sense, his mind babbles, even he begins to read it again, hoping a second pass through will make this seem less out of the blue. More understandable. Anything.

He takes his time during the second reading, feeling the words hit him like bricks, or perhaps like kunai, as he struggles to put together what he's reading with his neat, mostly pleasant life in the village, and the fact that when he'd left, Sakura had been happy with him.

Now he's come back and she's written a note, saying that she can't be.

She mentions Rin and that makes his blood run cold, then hot, all over again, like he's got a fever in his blood.

Some part of him that isn't drowning in shock remembers the look in his Hokage's eye when he'd clarified if he should talk to her and not to Sakura. Now he understands that look-she'd known about this.

He's grateful that she'd let him find it out on his own. It's less humiliating than being told by your leader that you've been-

Dumped.

Afterwards, he's never able to say how long he spent staring at the note that was determined to rip his life apart. He blinks and all of a sudden, it's dark outside, it's late, and if he remembers right (and of course, he does; he remembers everything about Sakura) then she's off work and has to be home by now.

Thoughts circle in his mind, futile and ceaseless in equal measures. How had she found out about Rin? Who has told her about Rin? Why?

White-hot anger surges through him, temporarily blinding him. This is why he hadn't told her about Rin. She would take it the wrong way and she has and now she's pulling away from him without ever having given him a chance to explain.

The note crumples in his hand. She can't do this.

She has, points out the cold part of him that's still glad his Hokage let him keep his dignity. He shakes his head in denial. No.

Kakashi leaves his gone-cold supper on the table, doesn't bother with cleaning up or resetting the jutsu alarms or shutting the windows, and he's gone, making his way as fast as he can, to the place she lives, when she's not with him.

He can't lose this again.


He makes himself knock on the familiar door to her place.

Kakashi knows where her keys are and even if he didn't, he'd have been able to get in. This is an apartment in a new building, not the ancient structure he lives in, and while it's more spacious and cleaner, his place is safer. There's holes entire squads could get through in these locks.

That would anger her, if he did it now, though he's done it before to prove he can. But now, when she's broken it off because she's not Rin (he knows that, he tells himself) he thinks that her reaction would be only rage at his intrusion and Kakashi doesn't want her angry, he just wants her back.

The door opens after what feels like an age and he finds himself face-to-face with Ino. She's looking at him like he's a bit of dirt, perhaps or something that she's been trying to get off her shoe. She's in pyjamas and her hair is up in a loose ponytail and really, the most impressive thing about her is how he's almost entirely certain the balmy night has turned sub-zero from the force of her glare alone.

His anger—confusion—over Sakura rages at the sight of Ino, who isn't the one he wants to talk to, and Kakashi struggles to control it. He needs to control this. Has to. He's not some pathetic teenager with a crush. This is—

More important to him. He needs to talk to Sakura.

Ino leans in the doorway, arms crossed over her stomach, like this is a casual conversation even though it's clearly not, and arches one eyebrow at him.

He abruptly realizes that he's still clenching the spatula in one hand and feels like an idiot. It's not fair, he thinks, that she can do that with just a look. She's younger than him. Like Sakura, he reminds himself ruthlessly, and now, she's Sakura's defender. Of course she's trying to make him feel like an idiot.

Kakashi wonders, with a pang, how upset Sakura has been. He remembers that Ino has never liked him and his heart sinks. This cannot go well and Sakura has picked her defender well. Kakashi's temper pulses under his skin, in time to the beat of his heart. He wants Ino to get out of the doorway. Now.

"Where's Sakura?" His voice is steady, low, dangerous. Underneath the upset, this pleases him: he doesn't feel any of those things right now. It's nice to know he can still lie. "I need to speak to her."

Ino has the gall to check her fingernails, inspecting them for invisible imperfections before answering. "She's busy," Ino says, with a thin smile. Her eyes are like chips of ice. "You're no one she needs to be bothered with."

"It's ten at night," he says, having checked the clock before coming over just to make sure he had the time right when it had slipped through his fingers like sand all afternoon. "She's been at work all day. Sakura can't be busy. Don't lie to me."

Ino covers her mouth with one hand, like she's hiding a giggle for a second. He resists the urge to snarl. Then her hand pulls away. There's no smile there, not even the thin one from before. "She is busy," Ino tells him. "And she doesn't need to be bothered with you. As for lies… perhaps you should look at yourself before accusing me. Do you even know anything?"

Abruptly, he remembers that she's a Yamanaka and that means minds are her playground. That she's good at it. That there's no way for him to know what she's picking up from him right now.

Anger trembles the back of his mind. If she can pick that up, then there's no way she can deny that he cares for Sakura deeply. That the idea of losing her to this infuriates-no, panics-him. It would be different if it wasn't this, wasn't about Rin. There's so many years between them that if she called it off for someone her own age... he likes to pretend he'd be okay with that. After all, she deserves more than an old man.

But Rin... Rin is no one's business but his own these days. How dare this be made about her?

He considers shoving past Ino. Is he just wasting his time trying to reason with someone who can't stand the sight of him? Which, Kakashi reminds himself ruthlessly, is ridiculous. If he tries to get past Ino, who is waiting with an expression he doesn't care to define on her face, he will have to fight. It's evident in her stance.

He's tired, she's fresh. He's got years of experience, she can read his mind. And none of that matters, Kakashi realizes abruptly, because if he hurts Ino, Sakura will be angry, and he'll have even less of a chance to explain.

Ino is only defending her friend. Possibly, likely, at Sakura's request. There's no way he can escalate this without being the one in the wrong.

That means he can't escalate it and he forces himself to breathe deeply and resist the urge to vent his rage at the kunoichi who watches him, watches him think and likely knows every nuance of his thoughts.

"I want to see her," he says, when he can say it without growling. Willpower is the only thing that keeps him from shoving Ino aside and storming into the apartment. He can't tell if Sakura is there or not- her scent is all over the place, it's her place, and if there's anywhere she can hide without him knowing, it's in her own apartment, hidden by her own presence. "I need to explain that-"

"That she's not a replacement for Rin?" Ino asks, like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. "Hmmm. Could be a hard sell when you seem to be the only one that believes that."

She can't mean, couldn't mean- "Who told her about Rin?" Kakashi demands, feeling like he's been tripped into some alternate universe. One where the few people who know about her would actually talk about her, years after the fact.

Ino just looks at him, blue eyes wide and unreadable. "Who hasn't?"

He can't complain that this isn't fair-he's a Jounin of Konoha and nothing is ever, has ever, been fair in his life. He feels sick at the thought that it hadn't come from Ino, with her disrespect for the privacy of other peoples' minds. That Ino wasn't the one who'd said anything first.

"How could I?" Ino asks, not even bothering to pretend she wasn't following along with his every thought. "I'm Sakura's age. No one I hang out with knows about Rin. Don't blame this on me, Hatake."

His breath hisses out, like she's punched him in the gut, for all that she hasn't moved. Despite himself, he knows she speaks good sense. But it's easy to place the blame on her. He wants to blame her. He's always held it against her, in a weird and peculiar way, that she does not like him and has given no indication as to why. He wouldn't care, except that she's Sakura's best friend and so he has.

Now the truth stares him in the face and he can't, doesn't know, if it's unjustified.

The small part of him that's honest to a fault thinks maybe she's justified. He doesn't think he's been replacing Rin, for all that the fact that Rin and Sakura share a number of things in common that appeal to him-he thinks Rin would have liked Sakura and what's the harm in that?

Other people, Kakashi thinks, need to learn how to keep their noses out of his business.

What right had any of them to mention Rin?

"The right of friendship," Ino says. She flicks a bit of hair back over her shoulder and regards him stonily and doesn't explain that.

He feels like he's lost this battle and he's not sure how. What does friendship have to do with spilling his secrets? He's sure that there's sense, at least in Ino's mind, in what she said.

But he can't see it. Not right now.

His eye curves into a dangerous smile that matches the one he's got under his mask. Ino looks unimpressed and not even her scent gives away unease.

She's furious, not scared. That impresses him as much as it annoys him: this would be easier if she was a shrinking violet. But then, he thinks, she wouldn't be Sakura's best friend.

"What do you know?" he murmurs, invading her personal space. He stops moving only when the sharp prick of a kunai is pressed up under his chin. Her eyes are flinty and now there's a vague scent of unease on the air. He barely smells it, his anger is so strong he can practically taste it.

He doesn't stop talking. He can't. He needs to say this. "If they did it for friendship, they wouldn't have told her that which would have her break up with me."

He's been happy, lately.

He can't think why his friends would want to stop that. Kakashi thinks that, if Ino really was Sakura's friend, that she'd understand that.

"Sometimes, Hatake," Ino murmurs, cold death in her eyes, "you're an idiot. Why don't you go and ask them before trying to intimidate me?"

Then, before he can react, she retracts the kunai, steps back, and slams the door in his face. A moment, a second, later, the hum of security jutsu go up, crackling with Ino's temper, and he steps away from the door unwillingly.

He could probably still force his way in. But that would hurt Ino and Sakura would be angry with him.

This is doing no one, not even him, any good.

Kakashi disappears in a swirl of leaves. There's something else he needs to look into:

Who told Sakura? And why?

His unfamiliar rage curls around his thoughts and purrs.


Yes, I know I haven't updated in a while, but that's because this story threw a plot-curve at me and I had to rewrite this chapter three times. Thanks for being patient! Please review!