Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. I do own the plot, along with some members of the cast.

Chapter Nine: Loyalty

It's a thief in the night
To come and grab you
It can creep up inside you
And consume you
A disease of the mind
It can control you
I feel like a monster (Ooh ooh ooh)

"We have a whole 24 hours to take care of it. I suggest we do a quick test to make sure that we know what we're doing. Come here. We can try it out on me." Kakashi stated. Sasuke froze and looked at him. Did that mean he'd get to see in to the dark heart of Sakura's Overseer?

"N-No way! I don't want to go into your memories! Won't you turn into a ghost?!" Sasuke asked frantically. Kakashi rolled his eyes and took Sasuke's arm tightly in his grasp. He quickly drew a symbol with his blood on Sasuke's arm. It looked like a bunch of squiggles to Sasuke, but it meant "Sharing" in Demonic language. Kakashi moved the collar of his long reaper's cloak and showed Sasuke a golden pendant embedded into his collarbone. "Is that…A Soul Pendant?" He asked slowly, to which Kakashi nodded.

He looked at Sasuke. "Close your eyes and we can begin. This could take some time and we have very little." He stated flatly. Sasuke nodded and did as he was instructed. He felt like he was suddenly being lifted out of his body, soaring like when he went to reap a soul. He waited and as he did he felt more and more like a spirit he could tell he was being surrounded in darkness. When he opened his eyes he and Kakashi were floating together in a pool of black. "This is my memory block. We'll have to travel for a good twenty minutes before I can be certain that this will work out." He stated. So Sasuke would be getting to see in to Kakashi's head.

He followed Kakashi until they were floating above a very peculiar scene. It was Kakashi, at around the age of eight. He was crying under a tree. The memory seemed like it was from the years of the Meiji and the sword bans. He was beaten up pretty badly. There was a house down from the hill where the tree he hid under was. He looked so sad. "My mother hated me. My father died in the war and I looked just like him so…" He trailed off. Sasuke nodded, watching as a little girl with an armful of beautiful flowers walked over. She was about his age, wearing a crisp and clean blue kimono. She looked at him, kneeling down and tilting her head closer to his face. Little Kakashi stumbled back, flinching away from her.

"Why are you crying?" She piped in her cheerful childish tone. Kakashi said nothing, crawling away. As he backed away she moved closer to him. Finally Kakashi stumbled on to his back and looked up at her. A few strands of long ebony hair tumbled over her shoulders. She then dropped a little white rose that had yet to bloom on to his stomach. "It represents friendship." She stated before walking off, humming to herself.

"Her name was Takime Amane. She was the mortician's daughter. She liked to take flowers of the graves to make crowns and such. Her father was always too busy, especially after the war, to deal with her and her mother ran off with another man when she was but a baby." Kakashi explained softly, watching her with a wistful smile. Sasuke blinked, curious, then followed Kakashi. He saw the glimpses of other memories of her, the two working together to pillage flowers from the branches of tree and not yet placed arrangements for graves or walking the city street looking for him during a festive game of hide-and-seek.

The memory Kakashi halted at was one with his mother, a woman with grey hair in a knotted bun and a yellow kimono that basically fell off of her ill form. Her eyes were wide and wild. Amane, a now fully developed and beautiful woman in a dark purple kimono was latched on to Kakashi's arm. Her hair was down like always. Kakashi was in a green haori and matching pants. "Mother, it's time I left here. Amane-Chan and I are planning to marry. Her father has already asked me to honor him by becoming his apprentice and taking over when he passes on. Goodbye, Mother." He stated before they turned to leave.

Kakashi's mother twitched before walking over to the back wall. Kakashi's father's sword resided there on top a small shelf. "You plan to leave me, Kakashi? I, who gave you life, for that whore?!" She screamed and charged at them. Amane turned as she advanced. She threw Kakashi foreword as he turned. Sasuke' stomach churned and he nearly vomited as he watched Kakashi's mother violently bash in the side of the young beauty's face. He watched Kakashi clench and unclench his hands as he watched his own twisted memory. When it was over Kakashi's mother was panting harshly, splattered with the precious crimson liquid of the woman on the ground. "You are mine Kakashi. No other woman will ever love you as I. No other woman deserves you." His mother stated sweetly, as if scolding him for begging her for a toy. Kakashi was on his knees beside the blooded head of his love. Her eyes were wide, amber pools of her final pain and fears.

Kakashi sat there, frozen, as his mother recomposed herself and ordered him to clean it all up. He waited till she left the room. He took the table cloth off and tied it to the ceiling. He stood on a small stool to do it. He wrapped the noose he made around his neck and took a final glance at Amane, lying in a pond of her own blood and brains. He then uttered a small prayer before kicking the stool out from under himself. Sasuke looked away as Kakashi's body instinctively jerked as his air was cut off. Finally, there was nothing more than the soft scrape of Kakashi's drooping sandal scratching slightly at the wooden floors. "I would not live without her. I followed her, but didn't realize what dying would mean." He whispered as the next memory flickered in.

Kakashi was lying on the dirt ground, looking up in to a pair of emerald spheres glinting with her maleficent nature. Sasuke immediately recognized her, though she currently wore a medieval princess gown in midnight black. "You thought that dying could save you? Poor Lad, you were mistaken. Welcome to Hell, where you will serve seven hundred years hard labor followed by eight hundred more of servitude as a Shinagami. You, who is smothered in the sweet perfume of suicide." She purred wickedly. A Pair of shackles were attached to Kakashi's wrists. She held a chain in her hands, dragging him with her.

Kakashi struggled against them, yanking her back. She looked at him with surprise, then scowled. "I don't mean to sound pathetic, Lady Death, but is there another way? I must find my Amane and hard labor doesn't sit well with me." He begged on his knees, like he did as a child when he wanted him mother to stop beating him. A lip rose to those devilish lips of hers.

Sakura knelt down and yanked Kakashi's chin in her left hand and looked him in the eye. "I need an Overseer, a person to make sure I do my job properly and help me pick a mate when that times comes. If you agree to take this position then all your years of servitude shall be in this position. And, if you should agree to do so, some day I'll reunite you with your precious Amane. How does that sound?" She asked, licking her lips wickedly. Kakashi's eyes widened hopefully and he nodded without a second though. Sasuke watched and decided Sakura really was like the devil, manipulating people's emotions to work her way. After that Sasuke opened his eyes in his own body and looked at Kakashi in sheer confusion.

"How could you agree so thoughtlessly?! She was probably trying to trick you! She'll never hold fast to her word!" Sasuke snapped. Kakashi glanced at him and then at the sleeping Sakura. He stood and walked over, looking at her tenderly. He lightly caressed her right cheek.

"I've been beside Sakura-Sama for maybe two centuries. In all this time, I've never asked when I'd get to see Amane again. I just felt that she wouldn't deny me when she felt I'd earned it. So I've clicked at her heels, playing the lap dog, and I've come to feel like Sakura-Sama were almost my own daughter. I believe she might fell similarly to me, and because of this bond, I believe she'll hold true to her words." He stated carefully, thoughtfully, as a small smile quirked his lips upward. He was silent for a few moments before he looked at Sasuke. "Now, get ready Uchiha Sasuke. Sakura-Sama's memories are far more troubling than mine."

TBC

Ha! I bet everyone was expecting a little KakaSaku, right? Sorry, but I don't support that! SASUSAKU 4EVA BITCHES!! So yeah, now you know about Kakashi…But what about Sakura? Her story is more tragic?! Until then!