Thirteen: Overwhelmed

Yamato had managed to dispatch the first two quickly enough, but it was the next two men that were giving him problems. Unlike their counterparts, these two seemed to posses a brain, which made dodging his attacks quite a bit easier.

The brown-haired shinobi sighed. Was it too much to ask for all his enemies to have Naruto's IQ?

He spared Sakura a quick glance, making sure the pink-haired girl was all right. He didn't want to think about what her boys would do to him if she got hurt…or worse. He especially didn't want to think about what Kakashi would do to him if he didn't protect their precious medic.

Yamato shuddered involuntarily. He may have been facing difficult odds against an enemy that wanted to capture him, but the thought of his sempai's reactions still frightened him more.

He heard someone grunt in pain behind him, and he knew another had fallen victim to one of Sakura's punches. A fist grazed his stomach, and the wood user turned his full attention back to his own fight. If Sakura was going to hold up her end, then he sure as hell wasn't going to let her down on his.

Sakura knew Yamato was dealing with the four men that had gone after him. She could see him every now and then as he danced his way into her peripheral vision—they had both forgone their masks when they realized the enemy knew who they were. She couldn't spare him a full glance of course, but she trusted the captain. He would get the job done.

Only three of the men were attacking her. Takeo had decided to sit back and leave the dirty work to his henchmen. That was fine with Sakura. Three was more than enough for her to handle in her current, fatigued state, and she wasn't going to complain if one of them decided it wasn't worth the effort to attack her.

It was a mistake he would regret later, but that wasn't her problem.

She gasped, almost crying out in pain when she felt something sharp slice into her side. Sakura fell back, clutching her torso. It was a good thing she had her ANBU armor on, or the injury might have been a lot worse. As a medic, she knew exactly how badly that misstep on her part could have gone. Sometimes she regretted knowing all that she did about injuries when she was the one fighting.

Angry at herself for letting her guard down, she quickly dispatched the man who'd sliced into her, grabbing his arm and hurling him into another who was advancing on her. They crumpled down in a heap. One of them, Sakura knew, wouldn't be getting up for a long time. She smiled to herself as she whipped around to face her third opponent.

Suddenly, she felt an intense pain in her shoulder, and Sakura found her arm being twisted painfully behind her back. A cold metal tip of a kunai blade was pressed to her throat, and she knew she was in trouble.

"Stop fighting and surrender, or your partner dies!" Takeo's voice rang out clearly, causing Yamato to drop the hold he had on his opponent as soon as he saw his pink-haired teammate in the clutches of the enemy leader.

Realizing he had no other choice, the ANBU captain slowly raised his hands in the air.

"Get down on your knees. Someone bind his hands with chakra rope," he barked, as Yamato complied with his demands.

His dark eyes met Sakura's green ones, and he sent her what he hoped was a reassuring look. To be honest, he didn't really know what to do—the mission they had gone on was supposed to be a simple retrieval one—but he was the captain and it was his job to keep his teammates safe.

The man he'd knocked out before was just about to tie his hands when something moved out of the shadows and crashed right into Takeo. As soon as Sakura was no longer his hostage, Yamato wasted no time in using a jutsu to smash the nearest opponent with a wooden beam. It was unfortunate that it happened to be the same one who had just woken up.

But Yamato had no sympathy for these Rain ninja. Not after they had threatened his partner.

He glanced over at their mysterious rescuer, and his mouth quirked upward in a smirk. So it had been Kakashi after all. He'd thought there had been a flash of silver in that shadow, but since it was a site he was so used to seeing on ANBU missions, he wasn't sure if he'd imagined it or not.

Kakashi was fighting three men now, and at the rate that he kept knocking them down, Yamato knew his sempai was furious. Somewhere, at the back of his mind, he wondered how the silver-haired man had known they would be in trouble, but he would worry about that after the fight. They were still outnumbered, and from the look of pain he'd seen on her face, Yamato suspected that Takeo had dislocated Sakura's shoulder.

"Not another move, Hatake! I mean it!" They both turned toward the sound of the leader's voice, only to see him holding Sakura by the hair and brandishing one of his men's fallen daggers.

"Don't think I won't kill her right here if you even breathe wrong!" Takeo's voice was starting to sound hysterical as he yanked Sakura's head back even farther until she let out a yelp.

As if to prove a point, Takeo took the dagger and buried it deep into Sakura's right arm. She let out a howl of pain, dropping to her knees and grabbing her upper arm just below the wound. She kicked her leg out, causing her captor to fall back, and creating an opening.

Kakashi charged Takeo, tackling him to the ground before running him through with his Chidori. The Rain leader hadn't known what hit him. Seeing their leader fall, and fearing the wrath of the great Copy Ninja, the rest of his gang turned and fled, and while Yamato wanted to go after them—knowing they could still cause problems down the road if they regained their strength—Sakura was more important right then.

The pink-haired girl gritted her teeth as she yanked the dagger out of her arm, hissing in pain as the blood started to flow again. Yamato had dropped to one knee, one arm on her back to support her.

"What do you need, Sakura?"

"A bandage would be nice. And you don't happen to have any painkillers on you, do you?"

Yamato shook his head. "Sorry. No painkillers. But I'm sure we can find something to use as a bandage."

"Use this," Kakashi said gruffly, handing Yamato a ripped off portion of his headband, which he passed along to Sakura.

"Thanks," Sakura said. "And thanks, you know, for saving us."

Kakashi stared at her for a few seconds, his headband gone but his Sharingan closed, before giving her a jerky nod and going back to searching Takeo's body.

Even though the shoulder was stiff and out of place, Sakura forced herself to bring her left arm up to heal the wound on her right. It didn't take long, but she'd needed to stop the bleeding before she found herself in danger of passing out. She still needed to check and see if either Yamato or Kakashi had any wounds that needed healing.

Yamato tied Kakashi's headband over the wound when she finished, and Sakura let her left arm drop to her side with an exasperated sigh.

"We really should put your shoulder back in place," Yamato said, looking at the unnatural angle it was sticking out at now that her arm was back resting by her side.

Tiredly, Sakura nodded as the brown-haired ninja came to stand behind her.

"On three," he said, and she took a deep breath.

"One, two, three."

There was a loud crack and a few seconds of pain, then all Sakura felt was relief. She rolled the shoulder experimentally, making sure that all of the joins were in place. It felt all right, for the most part, so she didn't question it.

"Are you injured at all?" she asked, allowing her gaze to roam over her teammate.

Yamato shook his head. "I'm fine. You're the one who had to fight the tough one."

Sakura smiled. "Yeah, well next time we fight, when I'm not the newbie, I'll let you have him, deal?"

Yamato laughed, but was cut short by Kakashi suddenly getting up, storming over to him, grabbing him by the shirt collar and shoving him against a tree.

"What were you thinking?" the silver-haired jonin roared, bending down so their two faces were level.

"What?" Yamato asked, at the same time Sakura rose to her feet and said, "Kakashi?"

"ANBU," he said. "What were you thinking, letting her join ANBU? And even training her? I thought you'd be better than this, Tenzo."

Yamato frowned at the use of his old codename. "It was approved by the Hokage herself. What makes you think I'm important enough to have a say in the matter? Besides, if you'd asked me for my opinion I would've said she'd make a great agent. And I've been proven right so far."

"Well apparently not today, because you would both be in enemy hands right now, being subjected to far worse torture than you can possibly imagine if I hadn't happened to hear about this group of Rain ninja when I was in the Land of Silver!"

Yamato thought about all the time he'd spent with Kabuto and Madara during the last war, but decided now wasn't the time to mention that. He was trying to think of what to say when Kakashi's weight was suddenly pulled off him.

"Stop it! What's your problem? I don't need your permission to join ANBU, Kakashi, or your training. I get that you don't think I'm capable of doing this, so I found someone who does," Sakura snapped, but anyone could see the hurt in her eyes, the two men in front of her included.

A funny feeling, almost like a tingling, started in her side. She furrowed her brows before she felt herself tipping forward, her balance suddenly gone. Kakashi's eye widened in surprise, and he reached out to steady her before she could collapse.

Still angry with him, Sakura fixed him with what she hoped was an intense glare and shoved his arms away. Kakashi released her hesitantly, only moving his arms back down to his sides when he was sure she could stand up on her own.

Yamato gasped. "Your side."

Sakura looked down to where he was pointing. "Hm, maybe that knife did get me after all."

Focusing what little chakra she had left, Sakura worked on knitting the torn skin back together. This wound wasn't deep, but it was a pretty big gash, so it had probably caused her to lose quite a bit of blood, which would explain the dizziness.

When she finished healing herself—and expending the last of her chakra—Sakura found she was unable to hold herself up any longer, but this time it was Yamato who caught her as she sagged to the ground.

Carefully picking her up in his arms so as not to reaggravate any of her injuries, Yamato laid her gently up against another tree.

"You should get some rest and recover your chakra," he said.

She barely nodded before her eyes closed and she was unconscious. With Sakura taken care of, Yamato turned to face Kakashi, wondering what the man was so upset about. He could understand his worry—they would have been in serious trouble if he hadn't shown up when he did—but the raw anger was not something that he was used to seeing out of his sempai, and never directed at a friend.

Hesitantly, he walked over to the silver-haired man, who was still leaning up against the tree.

"Kakashi?"

Kakashi looked up, running a hand through his silvery locks.

"What could possibly have possessed you of all people to let Sakura join ANBU?" His voice was low and fierce.

"I don't understand why you're so angry," Yamato said honestly. If Kakashi only knew how much progress she'd made, he was sure that Sakura's former sensei would be proud.

"Because this is too dangerous for her! She's not ready and she's not strong enough!"

Yamato's eyes narrowed. "With all due respect, sempai, you've been gone for months, and you weren't the one to oversee her training, although that's what everyone involved would have liked."

Kakashi's eye widened a bit at his tone, but Yamato wasn't finished yet.

"You know, something's off about you. What is it? The mission? All this peace? Just don't know what to do with yourself lately? It's been bothering me ever since I heard you wanted back on the ANBU roster. You've got an amazing team filled with teammates who care about you, and you want to throw all that away? So they annoy you every now and then, but that's something to appreciate, to treasure, because it means you're loved.

"And here you are, being a jerk to one of those teammates, telling her that she can't be in ANBU, that she's not good enough. Stop. Stop tearing down the confidence it took me months to build up. Sakura's a strong girl, but she has her weaknesses like everyone else. And you know what hers is? It's her insecurities about not being as strong as everyone else on her team. But she pushed through and worked harder than anyone I've ever seen to get to this point.

"Did you know that she finished the entire ANBU training regiment in one month? Just one month, Kakashi. It can take an average recruit a year to go through all that. And in that time, I saw her confidence soar higher than it's ever been. She's not the same girl who needs the reassurance of those around her anymore."

Kakashi opened his mouth to protest, but Yamato didn't let him speak. The brown-haired shinobi didn't anger easily, but when he did it wasn't pretty for the other person involved. Kakashi had never been on the receiving end of Yamato's anger, but he was starting to realize that it wasn't something to be taken lightly.

"But despite that," Yamato continued, "there are only two people in the entire world that could single-handedly destroy all that confidence, and you're one of them Kakashi. You and Sasuke Uchiha are the only people she holds in high enough esteem that you could make her think that she's useless when everyone else tells her otherwise. So I'd appreciate it if you would keep your opinions to yourself with it comes to my partner."

Kakashi stared at Yamato, struck speechless by his sudden outburst. He'd even shouted, something Kakashi had never seen his friend do.

"It's not that I think she's weak," Kakashi hissed, "I just don't think ANBU is right for her. You said it yourself, we're at peace now. She shouldn't have to waste her life in a program like ANBU when there's no need."

He ran a hand through his unruly hair like Yamato knew he only did when he was struggling with words. The wood user was proud of himself. There weren't many people who could say they'd made the Copy Ninja stumble over his words.

"She's nineteen. She's got her whole life ahead of her. She should be out with her friends doing...things," Kakashi said, clearly aggravated.

"Just because you never got out to see your friends when you were in ANBU doesn't mean she won't, sempai," Yamato said, cutting him off. "You still see me around don't you?"

Kakashi frowned, realizing he hadn't really seen that much less of his old friend, even when he had recovered enough from his ordeal in the war to start taking missions again.

Yamato smiled. "Naruto threatened to take me off the duty roster when he became Hokage if I didn't come eat ramen with him every couple of weeks."

Kakashi resisted the urge to sigh, but that was just so Naruto. "It's just, she should be going out, having girls nights or meeting guys, not taking S-class missions where there are plenty of other perfectly capable ninja in the village. Why does she have to do it?"

Yamato smiled. "I think I've got you all figured out, sempai. It's the same problem you've always had. You've got comrades again, so you don't want anything to happen to them. You wouldn't be bothered by this if it were Ino."

Kakashi shrugged. He liked to think he was a pretty selfless man—he'd given up a lot for the village over the years—but when it came to his teammates he would readily admit he was selfish. He would rather die than see harm come to them.

The brunet shinobi laughed, seeing Kakashi slowly start to figure it out.

"You know, I used to say you were my favorite, Tenzo," Kakashi grumbled, crossing his arms.

"Don't pout, sempai. It doesn't suit you." His smirk faded. "But really, think about what I said. I know you mean well, but just think about how it might make Sakura feel without context. And remember, it's her life, not yours."

A/N: Hahaha, Yamato yelling at Kakashi was sooooooo much fun to write.

So I have family in town this weekend, and since I'm determined to write every day of KakaSaku week, I may not have another EoF chapter out until next week. But we'll just have to see!