Continuation of the cliffhanger. Naruto is property of Masashi Kishimoto.
Read, Enjoy, Review. I forget to post this many times in stories but the italics are thoughts or flashbacks.
Sakura's jade green eyes bore into him. Seconds had passed and he had said nothing, lucky for him the mask covered the faint pink that now colored his cheeks as well. He tried to think of a proper way to answer her.
"What was it you said?" she prodded him with her comment. She had to know what he meant by that. It would bug her all night otherwise. He could see the bags under her eyes, she had little sleep and the smell of coffee that stayed in her hair told him she would be very tired soon.
"Go home and sleep Sakura," he said finally. "I have somewhere to be. Tsunade summoned me so I should get going." He covered his one eye and vanished before her very own eyes.
Sakura left the container of muffins and she let herself out. She headed home until something crossed her mind. She turned around and found her way to the Uchiha estate. She hesitated before reaching up to knock. Suddenly it opened and Itachi stood before her before she had even knocked.
"I could feel a presence at the door," he said. "What do you want?"
"I, uh, came to ask you something," she tried to calm the shaky feeling she had. It had to to do with the sleepiness she felt.
He left her at the door and waited as she kicked off her shoes and entered the house with the slippers on. Sakura was led to a sitting room where he offered her tea, she happily took it to ward off sleep for awhile longer. "I assume your question is about Sasuke, is it not?"
"Yes," she answered. She blew on the hot tea to cool it faster.
"You are not satisfied with what you've heard?" his eyes rested on hers.
"I... I don't believe it," she steadied her voice, he was intimidating but she knew what she believed. "When Lee said what he did, the look on your face, it wasn't right. Like it didn't belong there. What happened? It's all I want to know."
"Sasuke had been training more than usual," he began to explain. "He wanted to be an ANBU member, and Tsunade asked three people. She asked me and two other teachers he had before. I was the only one to ask her that he wait awhile longer."
"Why?" Sakura interrupted. She pulled out a bag of muffins that she still had leftover and she sat one down on a napkin in front of Itachi. He stared at it while he talked.
"Sasuke is different with others than he is with me," he closed his eyes to corrected himself. "Was. Was with me. He couldn't control his emotions as well around me. Tsunade made him a member despite what I said. His other teachers had said that he could overcome that in battle."
His black eyes changed when he continued, "Our mission was to destroy a beast that had been killing the children of a nearby village. They hired us and told us important details about the creature. They said their medical ninja couldn't heal the wounds that the beast would inflict. To be hit was to insure death."
Sakura nibbled on a muffin, she was getting full from how many she had eaten but she needed to busy her mouth to keep from asking questions.
"Sasuke was getting upset because his jutsu would be dispersed into nothing when he attack," he never met her eyes. "My attacks were shuriken and weapons, when his chakra shuriken were stopped dead in their tracks he got very upset, he always hated it when I could up show him. Being able to land attacks on it made him mad. He charged it without thinking and it had clawed him. He had three huge gashes on his chest. It's attack on him was just the chance I needed to kill the beast. I rushed him home to Tsunade and she couldn't heal him. Her chakra wouldn't be absorbed, it was simply dispersed like his attacks had been. Something was his his blood, something that contained it's powers still. The creature's body had turned to black ash after I slayed it."
"Leaving no trace for her to research what it was that disperses chakra," Sakura thought out loud. Her muffin was gone. His story had been long enough to giver her time to finish it, one nibbling bite at a time. "the gashes, if deep enough would have killed him. Surgery would be useless for he'd die in seconds. This must be how Tsunade-sama felt."
Sakura was imagining her sensei doing everything possible, pouring every bit of her chakra to save him, and with no results she would think of the next option. By then it was to late for the youngest of the Uchihas.
"So when you were silent when Lee said it was your fault," Sakura looked up at him. "It was a form of self punishment? You let them pin you as the bad big brother because you believe you could have tried harder to keep him from joining the ANBU?"
"He was fine on solo missions," Itachi answered. "Around me though he was more reckless. I asked for her not to send him on a mission with me. He wouldn't have it though. I pushed him away to protect him but he would never have seen it anyway."
Sakura nodded. "That sounds right, thank you Itachi-san." Sakura rose and bowed out of respect. She left him the bag of muffins. It seemed like something she was doing a lot of today.
When she opened the door to her apartment she didn't expect to see him again.
"Kakashi?" she looked confused.
"Tsunade's orders had been to continue making sure your okay," he answered. "She's very worried about you, ya know?"
"I know," Sakura looked at him, his mask was just the way he left it, covering one eyes, and in his fingerless gloved hands was the orange pervy book he loved so much. Sakura sat down on the couch, it seemed sleep had finally caught up with her. She leaned back into the corner and she drifted into a deep slumber. Kakashi had taken a blanket and covered her up. He moved her so that she was laying, and he fluffed a pillow to put beneath her soft pink hair.
He went onto her small balcony and ate a few of her delicious muffins while he read his pervy orange book.
Sakura was standing in a clearing. Something standing before her. It was some kind of beast, it had to be the creature Itachi had told her about. Her hair was ruffled by the wind,it's eyes were closed, and it was sleeping. It didn't change the fact that it was huge.
The breeze carried a few cherry blossom petals around her, and then along with her sent, the petals flew past the creature's nose. It's huge white eyes opened and stared right at her. It stood up and stepped toward her.
She stumbled backwards and landed on her butt. She was practically paralyzed by fear. From it's fangs dripped blood and saliva, a fragment of the Uchiha symbol stuck between it's sharp teeth. Sakura watched as it swooped in for a bite of her, or more likely to swallow her whole.
"Sakura!" she heard Kakashi's voice. He zipped in front of her and the last thing she heard was herself scream his name.
Kakashi was shaking Sakura, at first she had been crying in her sleep and shaking. Then he had shouted her name to wake her up. She wasn't quite awake yet, but she woke up after she had yelled in name in a voice that was clearly frantic and scared. Her jade green eyes were shaky and she was pale.
Kakashi's strong hands had her shoulders in his hands. His visible eye was wide with concern.
"What?" she looked around the room disorientated.
"What kind of a dream were you having?" he asked her. He could feel her heart pounding just from where his hands were placed on her shoulders. "Sakura, it's okay, it was only a dream."
"Why would you do that?" Sakura was shaking under his hands. "Your so stupid Kakashi, why would you be stupid enough to stand in front of me like that?"
"What?" he asked her. "Stand in front of you like this?"
His voice was hurt and she shook her head, "I was about to die and you stepped in front of me before I would be killed. Why would you do that?"
He laughed, Kakashi actually laughed at Sakura. "That's what your worried about? Your dream? I would do that for anyone Sakura. You, and Naruto, Sai, any of the rookie nine that you grew up with. I would do that for you."
"You would save me from certain death," Sakura whispered. "but you can't show me your face?"
His face grew serious, she was bringing this up again.
"Fine," he sighed. "You really want to see what I look like?"
He didn't wait for her to say anything, he would change his mind if she did. Her eyes watched as he took down the mask. He had a shaky hand that pulled it down and he did it so slowly, either that or time seemed to slow for this mystery being revealed.
The mask had come completely off and Kakashi felt like he was completely naked without it, it didn't help that she was staring either. Sakura was trying to memorize each feature. The scar she always saw was longer than she thought, and she absentmindedly traced it. His face felt heated under her touch. She was staring because he was beyond beautiful, why does he keep it hidden?
"Kakashi," Sakura had only breathed his name and he was about to pull up the mask, the embarrassment clear as a sunny day on his face. "Wait!" she put her hands on his to stop him.
"Why do you cover it?" she asked. "Here team seven had always imagine you were hiding something horrible, but..."
His face grew more red, "But what Sakura?"
Seeing his lips move and not be under a mask was an amazing thing to her, "You look..." Sakura couldn't finish, it was almost like the comment he made to her earlier.
"Sakura," he said softly, trying not to break her already frayed nerves. "Admitting something like that is something a child would have trouble doing. This is the most grown up I've seen you."
She chuckled and wiped away some stray tears, "You can honestly say that when I look like a mess?"
"A beautiful mess," he said without thinking. He stopped talking and she had caught what he said.
"A what?" Sakura's eyes met Kakashi's and she searched for an answer to his words.
"You don't need to hide your face Kakashi," she finally said. "You look way better without it. Trust me."
He wanted to, to trust her. He was at his most vulnerable right now with her hands on his, his mask still off, and he wondered how she could be so like him. How can she be so comforting when I'm at my most vulnerable?
Kakashi smiled a bit and spoke, "See Sakura your more like a-"
"A beautiful mess?" she repeated what he had said earlier. She was determined to talk to him face to mask less face to determine why he had said it. He reached for the mask but she stopped him.
"Kakashi?" she asked. "Did you mean it?"
"Sakura please," he tugged at the mask, her strength was at the moment a little irritating to him.
"Kakashi! That isn't fair!" she held her hands on the mask with more strength. "Why is it that you get to see my reaction to anything but you can hide your face whenever you want?"
"Sakura!" he was struggling with her now. He leaned back and she lean forward to keep her grip in the mask. They were falling off the couch and Kakashi's head would have hit and possibly broke her coffee table so she twisted a bit and they landed to the side of the coffee table, she was still holding onto the mask and he was trying to pull it up. He could think clearly if his face was covered.
"Sakura let go!" he ordered.
"No!" she was being stubborn, she hadn't realized how she was positioned and he didn't notice either. She was sitting on him, but both were to concerned with the mask itself to worry about how she was sitting. With some burst of strength Kakashi ended up bolting up and she fell over, her fists were clenched onto the fabric of his mask. If she couldn't keep it off him at least it would be too stretched out for him to wear.
"Sakura!" he went down with her because he was trying to keep his mask intact. He was loosing this fight. He tried to pry her white knuckled fingers from his mask. "Please." he practically begged.
"Why Kakashi?" she was going for the counter attack. "You look handsome without it on!"
Sakura's hair was sticking to her face and neck, this little episode was making her sweat, he was really trying to take it back. Kakashi pulled harder and she had to sit up to keep her grip on it, she was sent into a sitting position faster than expected when he gave a good tug on the mask. Her hands finally slipped on their hold of the mask. She was still moving before he had the chance to process that he had gotten it free from her grasp.
Her face hit Kakashi's but more fatefully her lips had smashed into his before either could realize it.
Guess I left another cliffhanger. Bwhahaha! *cough, cough* uh, yeah.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to leave a review on the way out!
