Catching Up – Chapter 7

Kurai-Hisaki

I want to thank you for everyone who's been supporting me as a writer. As a new writer, your encouragements are really motivational, and I sincerely thank you for it.

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

Kakashi went to grab dinner with Naruto. While the blonde talked, Kakashi couldn't help but to zone out and get caught up in his own thoughts. When they had parted, Kakashi realized that he didn't hear a single word that Naruto had said to him tonight. He walked down the dusty path, exhaling a worried sigh with every step that he took. He wandered aimlessly around town until his legs eventually brought him to the memorial.

How've you been Obito and Rin? I'm sure you know all about what has happened. I'm not sure why I'm so troubled but I am. I feel like something's going to go wrong, and I can't help but wonder what.

Kakashi's lone eye stared at the names. Slowly, his eye drifted to the names of Haruno. He didn't know what was wrong, but he felt that it had something to do with the girl that he had just spent days with. Perhaps he was just thinking too much. There was nothing that he could do anyways, Sasuke had pretty much kicked him out and took over his duty to look after her. His eye darted back to the stone.

Please look after Sakura…

With that silent prayer, he made his way back to his apartment.

Everything after that seemed to have started moving in high speed.

As soon as he got home, he stepped in the shower and got ready for bed. Not paying attention to anything around him, time seemed to have just flown by. Days started passing him and he had no idea where or what he spent all of his time on. Mornings came as fast as the night and he found himself walking to nowhere most of the time. After being 'away' from Konoha for years, suddenly returning for obligations and unexpectedly being stripped of his duties left him restless. All of a sudden, he felt as if he had nothing to do.

The past couple of days, he had been waking up late – sleeping in. After he got out of bed, he'd make his way to the bathroom to freshen up, hop out the window to get breakfast and spend the rest of the afternoon up in one of the training ground trees doing his favourite thing – reading. The days seemed to repeat it self, and to be honest, it was boring. He hated bumming around doing nothing. It made him feel useless.

All this extra time also left him alone to his thoughts quite often. His thoughts suddenly didn't make sense to him. They jumped from recent missions to his everyday activities to the person who had somehow managed to squeeze herself into his life. The latter seemed to occupy more time than the others. He didn't know what was happening. Surely the Hokage knew that he was spending time with Sakura. Did she have anything to say to him about this? Was that why Sasuke took over? Yet, she seemed fine when he took time off to look after her. Was that for his benefit? How did Sakura feel when he left her there with Sasuke? Did she enjoy her time with him? Had he been able to help her out at all? How would she be able to deal with him knowing about her loss and suddenly disappearing? He had all these questions that he had no answers to. As each day passed, the questions would pile up and by the end of each day, all of his thinking didn't bring him to any conclusions.

I need something to do; I need to get out of here.

His prayers were answered as a knock could be heard on his door and a scroll was delivered to him. The mission required him to leave tomorrow morning, and to Kakashi, nothing better could have happened. He immediately started to study the scroll and prepared to leave for the next day.

Waking up at the break of dawn, he got ready for his mission. This was the first time in a while that the copy-ninja felt relieved to be leaving for another mission. He strolled down the street and grabbed breakfast on the way to the gates.

It was one of those summer days when the days were hot and the nights were cool. The air was heavy and the moisture was making it hard to breathe through. Even though the sun should be rising, the thick clouds hid it. It seemed like a huge storm was going to come soon.

The weather must be mocking me.

This was definitely not the best day to be going out on a mission. Even for an elite ninja, with such murky weather, it's hard to travel far without getting tired.

Dashing out of the village, he started to make his way to the town that needed his help. It was a small job that he could take care of by himself. The town was being threatened by multiple groups of bandits and being the only Jounin who was not occupied, he had been called to go. He knew that something like this could be easily handled by two Chuunins, but he couldn't have been gladder to go.

He couldn't decide whether he wanted to finish this job fast or not. The town needed him by tonight and he could make it there in a couple of hours since he woke up so early this morning. Hopping through the trees and avoiding multiple branches, he decided that he'll finish this fast so he can find something more advance to do. After all, he couldn't help but to think back on what has happened between him and Sakura. The mission wasn't distracting him enough and the pink haired ninja kept on popping up in his mind.

Looking up to the sky, he let out a huge sigh and decided to take a break by the stream.

What the hell…

He looked at his reflection and he had to admit that he looked tired. Maybe taking a break from looking after her was a good idea. He needed to clear his mind anyways.

Picking up his stuff he continued his journey to the town that was miles away. The sun was now starting to set and the sky lit up in a hazy orange glow.

Reaching the town, he found that the situation had been more serious than he thought. The bandits had apparently decided to attack early today and half the town was already up in flames. Things were chaotic. Casting a simple water spell, he put the fire out and searched for the bandits. Many people had been slaughtered and screams filled the air. He immediately regretted being relieved to go on this mission.

Children were running around trying to find their parents while lovers were trying to find each other. Kakashi instantly felt regret for letting Sasuke take over his job with looking after Sakura. Sakura just lost her parents and even though he, himself was not the best person to be comforting someone like Sakura; he was sure that he would be much more suitable than Sasuke. At least he had years of experience with dealing with the lost of loved ones. Putting two people who had family problems together was just asking for trouble, even if one didn't know that the other one had such problems. He should be there for her.

Chaos continued to happen as Kakashi ran around trying to do his best to help out. Kakashi's head snapped around as he heard a piercing scream. His mismatched eyes met a flash of emerald.

His heart stopped.

The emerald quickly faded to pitch black and disappeared as the small child closed her eyes. Life escaped her as the bandit moved away. Quickly, the Sharingan user dashed towards the bandit and killed him with one movement. Without hesitation, he continued to assassinate most of the bandits that had been causing terror. Chasing down each bandit that he saw, he quickly ended their life with a quick slit from his kunai.

Looking around, he saw many people trying to comfort each other. Silent sobs filled the air and he suddenly felt out of place. Turning around, he found an elder by himself so he helped him up. Taking him back to his house, he found that the elder had no children and that his wife had passed away a couple years ago. Kakashi bandaged his wounds as well as he could and the silver haired ninja was offered a place to stay for the night. He was about to decline when thunder rolled in and rain started to pour. With a sigh, he decided to take up the offer. The rain continued to pour throughout dinner time and when he headed to bed, the wind was stronger than before.

I suppose it was a good idea that I stayed.

Lying in bed, flashbacks of today's events filled his mind. He was an assassin and he had no problems carrying out his job. He wasn't sure why he was so bothered, it wasn't like he hasn't seen this before. Flashes of crying children and frantic lovers seemed to be highlighted more than most of the other events. He had been through most of the things that had occurred, yet - why was the crying and the screaming disturbing him more and more with each thought?

It was those eyes.

The emerald eyes got him. His heart pounded harder against his chest each time he thought of those emerald eyes. That girl had the brightest emerald eyes and in a split second, colour was spilt and the colour escaped her.

Her screams haunted him and he could remember her face turning pale white while the warmth and colour of her lips escaped her faster with each passing second. The bright emerald eyes turned dark and her red hair wrapped around her face in a tangled mess as she fell motionless on the floor.

Then it hit him.

He was afraid. Afraid that he would never see his favourite pair of emerald eyes again. He had never been so afraid before. For the first time today, his thoughts made sense.

The house shook silently as he turned and tossed. With each thunder roll and sheet of rain that slapped against his window, the more on edge he got.

I'm heading back to Konoha – first thing in the morning.

For some reason, I'm having major writer's block for this story. It seems so much easier to write Daybreak, maybe it's because it's in first person and very applicable to my life. I just wrote the BEST CHAPTER (in my opinion) for it, it had a nice atmosphere (it's not up yet though.)

I still love KakaSaku, and I need to start daydreaming more about them. Sorry for the long wait, this took me forever to write, even though I seriously feel like this chapter sucked. I really had no idea where I was heading with this for the first two sections, but I hoped that I was able to turn it around at the end.

Anyways, that's my little blog. I didn't get a chance to edit that much, so I'm sorry if there are any stupid mistakes that I've made. If there are any, please tell me!

Any feedback on this chapter would be greatly appreciated!