Sakura fell out of sleep with a sudden lurch.
She gasped, blinking furiously as she adjusted to the sudden onslaught of sensory input. Naruto's eyes were opened wide, wet cerulean in the grey morning light. The tight grip of his hands shaking her shoulders snapped her neck in a painful staccato against her pack. It took a couple of seconds before she realized that he was speaking.
"-just fell down and started twitching all freaky-like, I was a'scared to touch him cause he was-"
"Naruto!" Sakura squeezed his wrists tightly to stop him shaking her.
"-making noises like he's hurt but I can't see what's wrong, and I didn't know what to do and I didn't know what to-"
"NARUTO!"
He flinched and made a small squeaking noise when she slapped him across the face. "Slow down," Sakura pushed herself up into a sitting position as Naruto panted and fisted his hands in her blanket, "What happened? Tell me again, but-"
Naruto, unable to waste time listening to her talk, simply yanked her up by her wrist, snatched up her pack, and dragged her outside. Sakura stumbled after him through the wet leaves as she tried to keep up with his frantic pace. The rest of their team's questioning voices were muffled by the thick foliage as they sped towards some unknown destination. The air was shockingly cold on her skin, the tall grasses-
Kakashi.
That shuddering body, limbs folded in rigid, unforgiving positions of acute agony, could not be her sensei. Sakura staggered forwards through two closely set tree trunks, her hands clenching into tight fists against the rugged bark, but was unable to move her feet any closer. Naruto was kneeling by his side, yelling at her to hurry up and do something, but all she could hear was Kakashi.
His soft wail of suffering was tremulous. It was like the frightened whining of an animal in pain. A feeble cry of hurt that she never could have imagined coming from the famed Copy-ninja. The sound of it pressed upon her ears until it was the only thing she could hear.
It was hard to breathe around that noise...
"Sakura!" Naruto snarled, forcing her to catch her pack as he sent it flying towards her, "Do something!" Sakura's hands fumbled clumsily as she caught it by reflex and hugged it tightly to her chest. The familiar movement grounded her and she was able to take a couple of deep breaths and step forwards shakily. This can't be happening, I'm just dreaming, this isn't--Kakashi cried out sharply when Naruto, in his state of frantic distress, forcefully pinned one of his thrashing shoulders into the grass.
Sakura snapped into medic-mode.
"Stop! Naruto, don't hold him down!" She ran over and crashed to her knees beside him, knocking his hands away, "I know," she turned her apologetic green eyes to his tearful blue ones and saw the hurt and confusion there, "I know that you just want to help him, but that will only make it worse." She reached out to cover his hand with hers, but he was looking at Kakashi again and started burying his fingers in the dewy grass.
"There's nothing we can do until it passes..." Sakura muttered tersely before turning her own gaze back to the man writhing on the forest floor. Her eyes softened and her throat grew tighter at the sight of him. Kakashi-sensei...
His breath was coming out in short hisses, like he was exhaling through gritted teeth. His hitae-ate had been pushed out of place and was now only partially covering his sharingan. She bit her lip at the glistening wetness on the visible part of his scarred cheekbone. He let out a strangled moan and Naruto's head fell forwards despairingly.
"Try," Sakura's voice cracked, "Try and get his headband off." She forced her voice to be calm, knowing that the boy beside her desperately needed all the reassurance he could get, "That's it, gently, gently. Okay, that's good." She reflexively smoothed down Kakashi's hair, the pale feathery spikes mussed from Naruto's helping hand, "Now try talking to him." Without realizing what she was doing, her fingers began to thread gently through her sensei's fine snowy strands in a soothing, repetitive motion. He gasped between hurried breaths and, eyes squeezed shut, tilted his head back into her caress as if desperate for comfort. Sakura sobbed drily as she remembered the last time she had stroked his hair, the present circumstances tainting the happy memory.
"Shh, sensei, it's okay." Naruto stumbled awkwardly through his reassurances, "We'll make it okay." Kakashi whimpered.
It was only when another pair of legs knelt down on the opposite side of their teacher that Sakura realized they weren't alone. Yamato, with a dark, somber look that was almost too calm, gently laid his hand on Kakashi's shuddering shoulder.
"The rest of the team has packed up camp and mapped out the shortest route to the nearest hospital." He looked up with shadowed eyes, his voice a whisper, "We'll be ready to leave at a moment's notice."
Sakura felt a rush of gratitude and admiration for the wood-user wash over her, nearly crippling her with a bizarre urge to cry. She looked away from him and continued stroking Kakashi's hair, distracting herself with the soft warmth of the thin milky strands. The three of them waited and watched in silence as the Copy-ninja's convulsions slowly faded back into occasional tremors at what felt like a torturously slow pace. Good, medic-Sakura evaluated reflexively, nodding slightly and sniffing, If his seizure had lasted another minute...
"Sensei?" Sakura swallowed, a small kernel of hope and relief budding within her chest. Her shaking hands brushed lightly over his sweated brow, his shaking hand, or tense shoulder in an unconscious attempt at reassuring herself. He's fine, he's going to be okay. She turned to smile shakily at Naruto, her eyes filling with relieved tears against her will. He returned a watery smile, but it was a smile nonetheless. Her fingers stilled their anxious petting and curled limply in the Copy-ninja's disheveled hair, reluctant to let him go.
She hadn't known how much Kakashi meant to her, to Team Seven until now.
As a genin, all of her attentions had been fixed on stealing the heart of her broody Uchiha teammate. Once in a while she was yanked out of her fantasy world and forced to see the other boy on her team, to acknowledge his fiery determination and unconquerable spirit. But never, never had she spared more than a passing thought for their teacher. He was always in the background, a slouched, neutral figure that one could always turn to for support or guidance, immediately forgotten once the desired aid was provided.
But now, as she watched Naruto laugh with tears running down his face and hold their teacher's pale hand, she knew that they would never take him for granted again. It was dumb really, that it took her teacher having a seizure for her to appreciate him. She promised herself that she would thank him the next time he--
Kakashi gasped loudly, both eyes snapping open to stare unseeingly up at Sakura's face.
One dark eye was almost completely dilated, the dark expanse of the pupil expanded so that there was only a thin circle of grey iris. But it was the other, flickering nauseatingly between dark animal black and a blood red pool flecked with spiraling tomoes, that pierced her through.
"Not mine," Kakashi's voice was a gravelly whisper, "'S not mine..."
"Shh, sensei," Sakura started to get up, unconsciously trying to back away from those nightmarish orbs and their piercing stare, "Don't talk right--"
"No!" Kakashi's eyes flinched closed and he tossed his head back and forth violently, "It isn't mine!"
"Sensei?" Her eyes widened in fear, and Naruto sat frozen beside her. For some reason he was scaring her more than when she had seen him wracked with a convulsions. A cold feeling of thick dread pooled into her stomach and sat there like lead. "K-Kakashi?" she asked in a small, frightened voice. Naruto gasped as the previously weak and trembling hand in his grasp crushed his fingers in a powerful death-grip.
And then he was hyperventilating, the harsh wet sound of air being pulled into a heaving chest only to be pushed back out before touching lungs. A choked sob spilled out and he shook his head wildly, silver hair flopping into his face. Sakura could only stumble backwards in shock when he rolled onto his side and started clawing at his face frantically, crying out as if he were burning.
But, before Naruto or herself could do anything, Yamato lunged forwards. He captured the Copy-ninja's wrists and flattened the man's thinner frame to the ground with his own body weight. Kakashi cried out loudly, the sharp sound piercing through the soft, grey morning air and reverberating through her bones. He thrashed about in an uncontrolled panic, the sound of fallen leaves rasping against slick grass making the struggle even louder.
"...sensei..." The tears were falling now and Sakura would forever have this image in her mind.
"Sakura!" Yamato grunted as Kakashi elbowed him in the ribs, "Go tell the others that we're leaving, Naruto and I've got this." When she failed to do anything but stare, open-mouthed and unmoving he growled, "Sakura! Now!"
She nodded numbly twice before her feet jerked her up and sprinted her away into the trees. She crashed blindly through the underbrush, sharp twigs and wet leaves slapping her face, as the scene she had just witnessed replayed itself over and over again in her head.
It was only when she stumbled over a tree root and into Chouji's surprised arms that she realized she was crying.
Naruto stared ahead at the endless expanse of trees before him and pushed off hard against the branches with his sandaled feet, cradling the weakly struggling body of his sensei tightly to his chest.
Shikamaru said they were about a three hour's travel away from Fire Country's border, and about another forty minutes away from the nearest town. Kakashi, wild eyed and earnest through his labored breathing, fisted his hand in the neck of Naruto's jumpsuit. "Puh-please... don't le-" His head lolled back suddenly and his rapid-fire breathing hitched as a powerful shudder wracked his body.
There was one thing Naruto was sure of.
"Don't... don't," the visible part of Kakashi's pale face crumpled into a heart-wrenching expression of agony, his words a frail whisper, "L-Luh... leave..."
He would make it to the nearest hospital within the next two hours.
They had to drop back to the forest floor and lay Kakashi on the floor as another seizure attacked his body, the third one in the last thirty-four minutes.
Or, at least, he sure as hell was gonna try.
Okay, so that was definitely the hardest chapter yet.
Sorry it took so long guys, for some reason I had to rewrite this about nine times before I could upload it. I'm anxious to hear what you all think--so please review! I really love hearing from you guys.
Poor Kakashi... I felt really bad writing this.
~Flintyminty25