Title: Seeking Rin
Chapter: 4 - Capriccio
Author: Killaurey
Rating: T
Word Count: 4474
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 4 of ? Unbeta'd.

I've had a few questions as to if I'm alternating POVs in this story. The answer is yes. :)


He reappears near the stone that's been his anchor for years. Some of his most important people are inscribed on it, along with countless others. Kakashi breathes in the night air and tries to find his emotional equilibrium.

Sleepily, birds chirp their opinion of his abrupt appearance and a breeze tugs at his hair. It should be soothing. It usually is.

It's not. He can't remember the last time he's been this off-kilter, or rather, he can, but he doesn't want to because the last time he's felt anything like this was back when it had been first Obito, then Minato-sensei, then Rin all taken from him, one after another.

Kakashi squeezes his eye shut and forces himself to breathe in the steady, carefully regulated pattern that's the first step to meditation.

This is nothing like losing them, he tells himself savagely. Sakura is still alive, after all. To compare this to their deaths is an insult to their memory.

He knows that, logically. The pain in his chest doesn't seem as aware. Perhaps he's lost the ability to differentiate between pains after so long having set himself apart out of fear of connecting again.

And look where making connections has gotten him, Kakashi thinks dryly, still breathing deep. He feels like he's run a marathon. He needs to know who broke his confidence to tell Sakura about Rin.

But first, he needs to calm down.

There's a fire rolling in his blood and he can feel it lurking underneath his thoughts. He's angry right now. So angry he's nearly trembling.

He's hurt, too, but that's a secondary consideration that drives the anger. He wants to go and talk to Sakura but he doesn't dare. Not right now. Kakashi doesn't know what he'd say and in that case-it's better to say nothing.

Time passes as he stares at the names on the stone, listening to the thump of his heart and forcing himself to breathe steadily. One blink on his eye and it's dark out, the dead of night. Another blink and nothing has changed. A third blink and the sky is slowly beginning to lighten.

A fourth blink and the sun is cresting the horizon and he's spent all night staring at the stone and finding no answers. Maybe it's his exhaustion, both emotional and physical, that sends his thoughts down a path of whimsy for he finds himself wondering if it's Rin who has wanted Sakura to know.

That's ridiculous though and he shelves the thought, burying it under the indignation that his friends believe that they have the right to meddle in his life. He can't think of why, not even now, when he's calmed down, and that torments him.

A noise, like the snap of a twig, sends him spinning away from the stone as he tries to locate the disruption. He can't see anything and the motion makes him dizzy: he's been up too long without eating, without resting, and now he's paying for it.

The ice-cold touch of a gentle hand turns him back towards the stone.

Rin drops her hand, tucking both of them behind her in a gesture that he's almost forgotten she did. She smiles at him. "Hello Kakashi," she says quietly, her voice an echoing whisper that somehow seems very loud.

He freezes. This is an impossibility, Kakashi's thoughts babble under the shock. He wants to move back because this can't be real. He wants to move forward because he wants this to be real. Caught between two urges, he does nothing. Just stares.

That doesn't seem to bother her. But then, nothing much ever had. (Or is it 'nothing much ever has'?) She just smiles at him again and he wonders if she's not allowed to say anything more. If she's just going to disappear again.

No. He can't let her do that. Kakashi wrenches himself out of the frozen stasis and takes a step towards her. She's sitting on the stone, which would be something he'd take anyone else to task for because it's beyondinappropriate, but he can see through her legs as they swing back and forth. And he can see through her body to the trees behind her.

He doesn't believe in ghosts, so this can't be real. He wants to believe in ghosts, so that this canbe real.

"Rin," he says, taking a step towards her. "What are you doing here?"

Kakashi is glad, desperately glad, that there's no one else around. Just him and-and someone who he is hoping isn't his imagination but believes might be.

She studies him, still looking the age she'd been when she'd died, and Kakashi wonders what she thinks of him, all grown up now in reality and not just the way he'd thought he'd been back then. (They'd all thought themselves older than they'd been, once upon a time.)

"Don't be silly," she says, her laugh spinning down his spine like an ice cube.

He shivers. "I'm not," he says, "you-you're dead."

It's taken him years to wrap his mind around that. But he's had years and years and Sakura's entire lifetime and he's gotten used to that ugly, horrible truth though it still hurts. Now he finds that, maybe, he has no idea what the truth is.

She just shrugs at him. It's endearing, that non-answer, where had she been alive it would have been infuriating. While Kakashi is quite good at dodging around a question himself he likes it rather less when other people do the same. But Rin is... different.

Because she's dead, he reminds himself.

"You're upset," she says, leaning forward a little. "Would you like to tell me about it?"

The world spins dizzily around him and he lurches forward, feeling like the ground is collapsing out from under him. He looks down; the ground isn't moving. It still feels like it is. Kakashi breathes deeply and then looks back at the stone.

Rin's gone.

Without thinking, without considering what that could mean, Kakashi lunges forward, hoping it's a lie, looking for her. His foot twists under him and flings him forward as he spots her, standing just beyond the stone, looking up at the sky. He reaches for her, unheeding of his next step, which slips off the monument and he trips, for the first time in years.

He doesn't remember hitting his head, only that there's pain and darkness wells up to swallow him. He's not worried though. He can hear her worried voice, chiding him for being so clumsy. Rin, he thinks fuzzily, will look after him.

She always has.


Kakashi blinks up at the ceiling and tries to remember whose ceiling this is. It's like every other ceiling, however, and that gives him very few clues. That's a little distressing but he's used to making the best of things. His head aches like someone has stomped on it and, when he tries to remember how that happened he finds nothing, not a single memory that can explain it. He remembers seeing Rin and then… nothing after that.

He doesn't like that. He really doesn't like that.

Kakashi turns his head and spots a clock. Levering himself up just high enough to see it he frowns as he discovers that it's just after nine in the morning. It's then that he realizes that while he's still wearing his hitae-ate and mask, his Jounin vest has been removed along with his sandals.

He considers that carefully-how many people know him well enough to do that without him waking up immediately?-and relaxes just a little. There's a very small number and while he can't tell anything from this room-it's plain, done in beiges and blues, and very obviously a guest room-he knows just from his current state that he's with someone he can trust.

Staring up at the ceiling a bit longer, Kakashi is surprised to find himself drifting off again. He doesn't fight it though. Not when being awake means he's got to figure out what happened to Rin.

Had he really seen her?

He falls asleep before managing to come up with any answer to that.

The next time he wakes, the first thing he sees is too-bright teeth, and knows his question about who'd taken him in is answered. "Oh no," he murmurs, "not you."

It lacks heat. It even lacks sarcasm. Kakashi is too heart-weary for either.

"It's one in the afternoon," Gai says, ignoring the comment. "It's about time you've woken up."

That's not quite something that Gai would say, which niggles at Kakashi as he forces himself to sit up. "One?" Kakashi says dubiously. He hasn't slept that much since he's been a child. It couldn't have been later than five or six in the morning when he'd-

What had happened to him? He remembers being at the monument and then... Rin and… nothing. His head throbs. "I... hit my head?" he guesses, carefully feeling for the bump. It stings a bit under his touch.

"I found you," Gai says, "sprawled out at the foot of the stone."

There's no judgment in Gai's voice and Kakashi finds that comforting. Gai has done odder.

He's left, however, feeling awkward at the realization that he really should thank Gai and the discovery that he's got no idea what to say. 'Thank you' isn't something he and Gai say to each other.

"You should rest," Gai says, his loud voice tempered with what Kakashi is surprised to realize is concern. "Over-straining yourself doesn't help anything."

"You'd know that, wouldn't you?" Kakashi comments, a bit snarkily.

"Of course," Gai replies, ignoring the slight, and grinning a little. Kakashi supposed that he'd walked right into that one. Gai was likely the best in the village at pushing his boundaries of what his body could do without knocking himself into a coma or collapsing.

"What day is it?" Kakashi asks quickly, not wanting to have to deal with anything about power or youth right now. He's surprised that Gai hasn't said anything about it so far.

Gai tells him and then tells him to get cleaned up or go back to sleep. Kakashi is almost tempted but he remembers what Tsunade-sama had said about, well, about everything, and knows that there's not going to be any sleep. He's only got another two days.

He can't just waste them sleeping.

Not when he needs to talk to Sakura and to his friends and also needs to get a look out for something out of the ordinary. Something to do with people being ill.

How about my life? Kakashi thinks dryly. It's a little humiliating to be rescued by his so-called eternal rival. Nonetheless, Kakashi picks himself up out of the bed and makes his way towards the shower.

Once that's done and he's dressed in his clothing (which is dirty, but it's better than borrowing one of Gai's skintight outfits) Kakashi has to admit that he feels more like himself again.

A hungry self, but that's alright. He leans in the doorway where Gai is reading through a scroll. His rival looks intent upon his work and Kakashi wonders what he's reading before remembering it's probably some taijutsu scroll that only Gai would be able to use. He doesn't fool himself into thinking that Gai hasn't noticed he's there: it's Gai's house, of course Gai would know where Kakashi is every second of his visit.

Kakashi is only surprised that Gai has been as tolerable as he as been.

"I'm leaving," he says, before he can feel too awkward about everything.

Gai looks up at him, bushy brows beetled with concern. "Are you certain?" he asks, getting up from the desk. "You should eat first."

"No," Kakashi says, "I'm..."

Gai brushes past him and before Kakashi quite realizes what's going on, he finds himself seated at the kitchen table with a bowl of leftovers that look like someone has taken the remains of several different meals and combined them together. To his surprise it smells good.

While he considers if he ought to eat-it probably would be good for him, Kakashi admits-Gai takes the plates that the leftovers had been on and begins filling the sink.

He spares a moment to stare at Gai's back, but the other man is paying no attention to him. Then, because now that he's in front of food, he really is hungry, he eats quickly.

It's good, he thinks, for leftovers. More appreciated is the fact that it's warm and filling and that Gai makes no fuss about Kakashi's dislike of being watched while he eats. That's something he's still got problems with-with Sakura, he thinks, as his heart twists in his chest. Maybe he doesn't have that problem any more. Funny thing, he thinks, to miss that.

Once the dishes are done and Kakashi has finished his bowl, he's even less sure that he ought to just disappear. He wants to, this enforced hospitality is making his skin crawl, but at the same time... he feels a little better. That must be the sleep and the food, he tells himself, it definitely can't be the company. Though Gai is being quieter than normal. Maybe that's it.

"Gai," he says, "do you know who has been speaking about Rin lately?"

He knows that it wasn't Gai. Gai seldom keeps his opinion to himself and he's been nothing but ecstatic about Kakashi and Sakura. At the time, before everything had been turned upside down, Kakashi had found Gai's enthusing about a second springtime of love annoying.

Now he's counting on it.

If there's any one of his friends that has accepted Sakura with everything that their relationship came with, then it's Gai.

Gai frowns a little, which looks a lot more imposing due to his features. Kakashi waits and tries not to drown in impatience. "I can't think of anyone in specific," Gai says, after a moment. "Though there's been an upswing of talk in general about medical ninja these days."

"Oh?" Kakashi is pleased that that comes out sounding like it should: detached and mildly curious.

Of course, Gai isn't fooled, but that's alright. Kakashi's still out of whack and the practice on an old friend isn't going to hurt him at all. "Insidious things," the other man murmurs. "About illnesses that people can't heal and medical ninja going dark."

"That's ridiculous," Kakashi says, frowning. "Hokage-sama's a medical nin herself. She'd crack down on anything she thought unethical in a heartbeat."

Gai shrugs. "I didn't say I believe it," he points out. "Just that's what I've heard. It's only talk right now as far as I know."

Kakashi frowns harder, thinking about his conversation with Tsunade-sama. There's one thing, he thinks, that she hasn't figured out how to heal yet. Which is quite unusual for her, but all the same... she only mentioned four people being afflicted. That's far too few for anyone to get up in arms about.

"Any idea on who is driving the rumours?" he asks, not really expecting an answer. Gai isn't much of one for gossip, preferring to spend his time in training and training and more training.

"No," Gai says. "Though I heard it from Kurenai-san. She does not believe it either but thought it curious enough to pass on."

Kakashi winces a bit. Kurenai, unlike Gai, does like gossip. He hopes that she's been passing it on with the clear implication that she doesn't believe it. "Right," he says, "I'll have to ask her about it."

Besides, he thinks, he needs to ask her about Rin anyway and if she's been talking to Sakura. "If you hear anything," Kakashi says, "would you pass it on?"

"Do you think it's a problem?" Gai asks, crossing his arms and leaning against the counter. "I'd assumed it was just another trend."

"Maybe it is," Kakashi admits. "But I don't like it. What's not being healed and who is saying there's something that's being ignored? That's not something that's idle gossip when the hospitals haven't reported any epidemic or new illness."

Which was true enough, he thinks. The hospitals are good at keeping the populace up-to-date on the new things they've got to watch out for. Sometimes he finds they're too obsessive that way. It doesn't sit well at all to think that there's something being ignored.

"I will," Gai says, though he doesn't sound pleased. "Are you in town for the next-"

"Two days," Kakashi says, "and then I'm being sent out again. It was three but..."

Well, he's wasted most of today for all that he'd needed the rest. His head still hurts and while he's done missions while feeling worse, he's glad he doesn't have to do a mission right this second.

"Alright," Gai says. "If I find anything I'll let you know."

Kakashi nods and then disappears in a swirl of leaves. That's goodbye enough for them. He lands up on the next roof and wonders if he's made a mistake.

Gai is about as subtle as a bull in a china shop, after all. Kakashi consider that and then shrugs a little. Perhaps having someone like Gai looking around for the perpetrators of the rumours will scare them underground. As well, he thinks, having Gai be the obvious person who is searching means that they're not likely to think that Hokage-sama is taking it seriously.

Having convinced himself of the intelligence of sending Gai after rumour mongers (he pities them, he does, for all that Gai was very… muted… today, probably out of deference to Kakashi's head injury) Kakashi heads home. He doesn't want to, he admits, but he can tell that he needs more rest despite the way he feels like he can't afford to take the time.

All too soon he finds himself at his place and lets himself in, mildly bemused as he notes that despite the unlocked door no one has entered since he left. He wrinkles his nose at the smell of food-the supper he'd bought last night and then abandoned to go seek Sakura-gone bad and tosses that in the trash. His apartment seems smaller and colder today, for some reason, and Kakashi tells himself to stop being ridiculous.

He wonders where the spatula has gone. He can't remember when he dropped it. At the stone, most likely, and of course Gai wouldn't know to pick it up. He'll have to get it later.

He enters his bedroom and without bothering to turn the lights on strips out of his dirty clothing. A quick shower later, as going to bed while having been wearing dirty clothes doesn't appeal to him, Kakashi, wearing nothing but a light pair of drawstring pants re-enters his room, flicking on the light as he does so.

Rin is sitting on his bed.

That's it, Kakashi thinks, I've gone mad.

She stares at him, the little girl to his grown man, and Kakashi can't find words to say to her. The worst part is that there's a part of him that wants her to be real. It wouldn't be-be anything like he'd hoped for back then, but she'd be real.

But she can't be real because she's dead.

Kakashi jerks his head in an abrupt nod to her and then, without saying anything, steps backwards and shuts the door to his bedroom. He'll sleep on the couch, he supposes. Because there's no way he's going back into his room today.

Maybe not even tomorrow.

He shakes out the blanket that Sakura likes to curl up in while they're watching movies and retrieves a few of the pillows from the chairs. Setting them up, he considers the fact that, really, he's slept in worse and slept just fine.

It's just weird to have banished himself from his own room. Kakashi makes himself comfortable on the couch and closes his eyes and hopes sleep comes quickly.

He doesn't know if it does or not, but the next thing he knows, there's a banging at his door. Waking fully, he blinks at the door and then sighs when he realizes whose chakra signature is outside. Getting up takes a few seconds, another one is taken to make sure that that his mask and hitae-ate are straight, and then he's standing.

Kakashi glances at the clock and scowls. It's only half past three in the afternoon. A visitor is perfectly in their rights to come by at this time.

The banging starts up again-apparently, he thinks with some dark amusement, he's not moving fast enough-and Kakashi times the banging and opens the door precisely when it would throw his visitor off balance the most.

As predicted, there's stumble and then a thud and then a moan.

"Hello Naruto," Kakashi says, fighting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose.

Naruto, all orange and black (he thanks Jiraiya-sama for getting Naruto out of an entirely orange suit: Kakashi had never even tried, giving it up as a futile task from the start) and yellow gets up off the ground. "Sorry, Kakashi-sensei," he says, sounding even like he means it which amuses Kakashi on some level.

Hasn't Naruto learnt that Kakashi does stuff like that deliberately?

"What do you want?" Kakashi asks, leaning against the wall.

"Were you sleeping?" Naruto asks, brushing past Kakashi and heading down the hall. Kakashi follows, placing bets with himself. "In the middle of the afternoon? You're getting soft in your old age, Kakashi-sen-"

Naruto stops abruptly.

"Why are you sleeping on your couch?" he asks, entirely baffled.

Kakashi mentally awards himself the requisite points for predicting basically what Naruto said. "I felt like it," Kakashi says nonchalantly, because he's not going to go into the fact that he's seeing dead people with, well, anyone. Much less Naruto. "What are you here for?" Maybe if he changes the wording slightly, he'll get an answer quicker.

And then he can…

Well. Go back to his brooding. Kakashi feels he's entitled after being dumped and then hallucinating the night away and then waking up in Gai's care. He's nowhere near the right headspace to go and talk to Sakura and even if he was, he suspects that he'd have to deal with Ino and that's not a thought that thrills him. Anger pinches him at the very idea.

Naruto stares at the couch a moment longer and Kakashi is almost morbidly curious about what he's thinking. He doesn't ask, because that would imply he cares. Which he doesn't. Much.

"Sakura-chan says she broke up with you," Naruto says finally. He turns and gives Kakashi a glance that is a little too grumpy to be friendly.

Kakashi wishes that he was wearing more, suddenly. He doesn't think Naruto is going to fly into a rage, if only because Naruto probably wouldn't have greeted him so normally if that was the case, but all the same… he resigns himself to the lack of protection and hopes he won't have to defend himself against his one-time student. Who is, after all, more powerful than he is, though Kakashi still has Naruto beat in skill and experience.

"You'll have to ask her about that," Kakashi says, his voice neutral and blessedly blank. "She'd know more than I would about it."

Since his first indication that something was wrong had been a note, yesterday, on his kitchen table, Naruto can't possibly think that Kakashi has answers. He wonders if Sakura told Naruto that.

"What I don't understand," Naruto says, like he hasn't heard a word Kakashi said, "is why you wouldn't have said anything to her before."

Kakashi blinks. "Naruto," he says, "she broke up with me. Not the other way around." He feels that this is a distinction that he's got to make so that people don't get the wrong idea-only, he thinks darkly, people havethe wrong idea already. He's tempted to just give up on the human race right now.

"I know that!" Naruto snaps. "What I don't understand, Kakashi-sensei, is why she never heard about Rin from you."

Kakashi gives in to the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose and does. It doesn't make him feel better. Nor does the fact that, behind Naruto, he can see Rin-Rin's ghost-peering into the living room from the hall that leads to the bathroom and his bedroom. Madness. He's going mad. "Why should she have?" Kakashi demands. "Rin's been dead Sakura's entire lifetime."

"You love her," Naruto says simply.

I love both of them, Kakashi thinks grumpily. "Which changes nothing," he says, icy anger rattling through him though his voice is merely cool. "I'm not explaining this to you. This isn't your business."

Rin has stepped into the room now and even as Kakashi speaks, she wraps her arms around Naruto's waist. Naruto doesn't seem to notice which just supports Kakashi's theory that he's completely lost his mind in the last day or so.

Naruto's face is set mulishly. "Kakashi-sensei-" he begins.

"Get out." Kakashi's voice is low and angry. He barely recognizes it himself. All of a sudden he's angry again.

Naruto stops, looking concerned for him for the first time rather than on Sakura's behalf. "Kakashi-sensei," he says, "are you okay?"

"Get. Out." Kakashi repeats. It's in a dark and deep voice that he doesn't know as his. That worries him, under the anger that's sprouted up.

Naruto stumbles back as Rin lets go of him.

Then, because Naruto is irrepressible and impossible and absolutely bloody-minded with determination, he stops and sets his chin. "No," Naruto says, "I think you should go talk to Sakura-chan."

Kakashi wants to tell him that right now is possibly the worst time to do such a thing—he wants to, god does he want to, but he's talking in a voice he doesn't recognize and it's a voice that's disturbed Naruto, which is hard to do, and Rin is standing behind and to the side of Naruto shaking her head side-to-side in a silent no.

No, he shouldn't go see her.

Kakashi is pretty sure that he understands absolutely nothing of what's going on.

"I can't," he says, and maybe it's the desperation in his voice that makes Naruto shut up. "Not now."

Rin smiles at him.

For a moment, Kakashi lets himself think Naruto will let him off the hook. Naruto isn't cruel after all: surely he can see that something is wrong.

"That is such crap," Naruto says, sounding disgusted and crushing Kakashi's hopes. Naruto grabs Kakashi by the arm and, before Kakashi can pull away, they disappear in a cloud of leaves.

Kakashi's last glimpse of his living room includes Rin, with her lips pursed and her eyebrows drawn together.


What did you think of this chapter? Mwa ha ha... I mean, uh. Yes. Please review!