~A/N: I'm back! And with fight scenes! There's some blood/gore in some of these upcoming chapters, just a heads up if you get queasy around stuff like that, but I don't think it's anything too bad. Still, this is only rated T so I thought I should probably mention something. I really don't think it's M-rated violence, but I've thought about upping the rating. Eh, we'll see. But you can blame SNK for the fight scenes. I was really in the mood haha.

Also, this is sort of in response to the guest review about the Kakashi/Sakura pairing. (Please don't think I'm singling you out or upset about the review, because I'm not at all, and you were very polite about it, but since it was a guest review I couldn't reply via PM) I also thought I should address it in case there was anyone else out there reading this that doesn't know. This is definitely a KakaSaku story. There will be romantic interaction between them. Just because I've spent time developing their interactions and the plot and it may have been a little slow doesn't mean it's not going to happen. However, I can see where someone might think that this story could be purely platonic, so I thought I'd give those people a heads up to jump ship now before the real KakaSaku stuff starts. I won't be offended. I know not everyone likes the romantic pairing, but that's what this story is going to be, so just a head's up. I don't mean to sound snarky or anything, I just wanted to make sure everyone is on the same page :D

Another side note- I will be out of town next weekend into the first few days of the week, so next week's chapter might be a little delayed. I'll probably be posting on a Wednesday instead.

SPOILER FOR ANYONE WHO HASN'T READ THE LATEST MANGA CHAPTERS! SKIP THIS NEXT SENTENCE IF YOU HAVEN'T AND DON'T WANT IT SPOILED!
Kakashi's back! And he's going to go to the battlefield soon and see his Team 7 babies fighting together, and see Sasuke (AND MAYBE FINALLY HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH HIM BECAUSE THAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN) and see Minato for the first time since he came back and UGH I CAN'T CONTROL MY FEELS.

Okay, spoilery fangirling over. Enjoy!

Thirty-Two: Running Away

To be fair, Sakura would probably need Kakashi's help eventually. It would be all well and fine if she only had to fight Kaoru, but he was sure to call backup, and a hundred against one was never fair, even if she was a ninja. Still, she didn't want to risk calling more attention to her situation yet, so for the time being, she would hold out on contacting Kakashi.

Kaoru had given away the fact that he knew who she was, so Sakura didn't waste any time in attacking him. If he knew who Sakura Haruno was, then he'd know that she was the better fighter, and therefore would try to stall her until backup could arrive.

The blonde captain jumped back, seemingly well aware of the fact that one punch from her would hurt far worse than one from an ordinary soldier. He moved quickly, proving more agile than Sakura had thought, and soon the desk separated the two of them. Unfortunately, in her haste to catch him off-guard, the captain had been able to position himself between her and her exit. Sakura was torn between making a break for it and waiting him out. Kaoru seemed a little too calm for the odds he was facing, and she didn't want to escape only to find out he'd set up an ambush.

"You really had everyone here fooled, didn't you?" Kaoru asked, making eye contact with her before hastily looking down at the papers strewn about the desk.

He's trying to see if I've taken anything. I need to make my move.

"Or maybe you didn't. You Konoha shinobi have turned out to be more trouble than I thought you'd be. Maybe I should check out your little gang to see if they're imposters just like you."

"They had nothing to do with this," Sakura said, quickly and fiercely. She knew she shouldn't care, but she didn't want her friends to get in trouble because of her.

"Okay, maybe not. Maybe you did deceive everyone. Even your little friends, especially that poor Mitsuo kid. He really had his eye on you. Well, his eyes. If it were just one I'd be suspicious and think that Hatake was with you."

"I already told you, I can handle you without Kakashi's help," she snapped.

"Oh, I'm not stupid. I don't doubt you could," Kaoru said. "That's why I don't plan on fighting you alone."

As if on cue, a squad of ten men, led by Hideki, Kaoru's right-hand man, burst into the tent. Sakura spun, easily taking the first man out with a solid kick to the head. His neck bent back with a crack, and he dropped to the ground. The medic grimaced. She didn't particularly like killing opponents who were weaker than her, but if she had to choose between their lives and hers, she would choose hers every time.

"Damn it! She has the plans! Stop her at all costs!" Kaoru said, looking up from the bottom drawer. "Take her alive if you can, but do not under any circumstances let her get away with that information. Am I understood?"

"Yes sir!" his men chorused, and Sakura figured it was probably time to escape. She would send a signal out to Kakashi too, as soon as she was out in the open. He needed to be ready to fight when she reached him.

Lacing both her fists with an adequate, but not wasteful, amount of chakra, Sakura rushed toward the four men in the rear blocking her exit. She figured that Kaoru was probably the strongest of the bunch, so she might as well try not to fight him needlessly. Now she just needed an opening.

There. One of the men flanking Hideki shifted slightly—probably nerves—but it gave Sakura the perfect chance to knock him off-balance and out of the way. She kicked her right leg out behind her, easily launching the two others to the other edge of the tent. Which just left Hideki.

The dark-haired soldier's arm shot out, and Sakura bent backwards just in time to avoid taking a knife to the face. The small blade slid along the edge of her cheek, drawing blood, but not causing her much pain. The medic used her momentum to flip gracefully back. She took a second to reorient herself, then charged Hideki.

The man had some skill with the weapon, but it was clear that he would be no match for Sakura. The kunoichi easily dodged his thrusts, catching the arm holding the blade and easily breaking by just squeezing her inhumanly strong fingers. A chakra-enhanced fist to the gut sent him sprawling out the tent flap, Sakura quickly following.

Blood squirted from Hideki's mouth as her punch clearly did some damage to his internal organs, but Sakura didn't so much as flinch as some of the droplets landed on her face. She simply brushed them aside and kept moving forward.

She chanced a look back—to see if she was being followed as well as the result of her fight—and saw the remaining six men hurrying out of the tent after her. Four kept on her tail while Kaoru and one other—a man Sakura knew had a bit of medical training—stopped briefly at Hideki's side. Sakura knew what they would find, and apparently Kaoru did too after one look at his former second-in-command. The blonde fixed her with a glare, and she knew killing his friend probably wasn't the best way to get him to stop chasing her.

Turning back around and picking up the speed, Sakura darted toward the edge of camp—and toward the trees that would give her better cover. She knew if she could get to adverse conditions she would have the advantage, despite their superior numbers.

A kunai whizzed by her, not close enough to cause her worry, but not far enough away to let her relax either. She shifted slightly to the right, zigzagging back and forth to make herself a harder target to hit. None of the men were ninja, so she wasn't too worried, but it never hurt to be careful.

And speaking of careful…

Sakura pulled a scroll out of her back pocket, making the quick hand signs to release the jutsu. It was a message scroll Sai had developed, and he'd given each of the members of Team 7 one that would respond to their own chakra signatures. It only worked amongst themselves so far, but that was still better than nothing.

She put the blank scroll back in her pocket, the message she'd written Kakashi ahead of time already on its way to his matching one, and ran. The sooner she lost her pursuers the better.

Kakashi sighed, looking down at his Icha Icha book before finding his mind drifting again. He'd been on the same page for the past hour, but he had just been scanning the words, not really reading them.

He knew he shouldn't have gone ahead and packed up his camp the day before, but he'd been feeling restless then too, and he wanted to be prepared in case something happened and their plans changed. It was an old habit of his, one he'd learned from his previous days in ANBU. A small smirk came to his face as he remembered the day he'd come up with his "be prepared a day early" rule.

He'd been on a mission with Yamato—Tenzo at the time—somewhere in the Land of Earth. He couldn't remember exactly where they were, or what they were doing, but he remembered Tenzo leaving to survey their target area once more before they were scheduled to return to Konoha the next day.

Being the laid back man that he was, Kakashi had been lounging in a tree, casually reading IchaIcha when he heard sounds coming from the forest. He'd nearly fallen flat on his face when he saw Tenzo running toward him, eyes even wider than usual, yelling something incomprehensible. Kakashi strained to hear him, and he thought the brown-haired man was saying something about grabbing their things and running, but he couldn't be too sure.

"What?" he asked, casually dropping out of the tree.

"Run, you idiot! They're after us!" Tenzo yelled, grabbing his already-made pack and swinging it over his shoulder.

"But—" Kakashi protested, looking around at his gear strewn all around their camp. It was nothing incriminating that could hurt Konoha, but it was still his stuff and he didn't want to leave it.

"Never mind that, we've got to go now," Tenzo urged, grabbing the older man by the arm and dragging him out of the way just as the first barrage of shuriken hit.

"Aren't I supposed to be the captain on this mission?" Kakashi grumbled as the two men fled deeper into Earth territory. The silver-haired shinobi was grumpy because he'd had to leave his favorite blue scarf behind.

Tenzo rolled his eyes, but when the two stopped in the next town to rest and get supplies, he went over to a street vendor and bought Kakashi a new scarf.

"Here," he said, tossing the red scarf over to his mission partner. "They didn't have blue."

Kakashi smiled, wrapping the new red scarf around his neck. "Thanks Tenzo."

"Yeah, just don't think I'm going to make a habit of buying you things."

Kakashi grinned, thinking he'd have to pull that scarf back out now that he was taking ANBU missions again. Maybe he'd tease Yamato about how he was still getting him to pay for his things, but he didn't want to risk the brunette stopping. Kakashi quite liked it when his meals were always taken care of.

He leaned back, wondering how the rest of his teammates were doing on their mission. They were probably bored. He hadn't heard of anything happening while he and Sakura had been away. The silver-haired jonin knew Sasuke, at least, would be getting restless. The boy got antsy when he was away from Konoha too long—probably a side effect from his years as a rouge ninja. Also, without Sakura, they were probably starting to drive each other a little crazy. Kakashi grinned. He'd lucked out, getting to have her on the long mission.

Briefly, his mind wandered back to their parting the day before. He knew she still worried about what he thought of her skills, so he'd tried to assure her that he didn't think she was weak. He just worried a lot.

But then there was the hug. Kakashi tried to reason with himself, to say that it was the same reaction any teammate would have, but for some reason he could tell he was just lying to himself. He wouldn't have given Sasuke a hug, or Sai. Maybe Naruto, but that boy was touchy to begin with.

He was just closer with Sakura, now that they'd been partners in ANBU and essentially lived together. That was all. And he'd only hugged her because she was a girl, and girls liked hugging.

That was what the Copy Ninja managed to convince himself of when he felt something stir in his pocket.

"Hm?" he said, reaching down and pulling out his scroll. It was the one Sai had given him. It must be a message from Sakura.

Got the plans. Being pursued. Will head to your location, be ready to move. –S

Kakashi quickly folded the scroll up and stuck it back in his pocket. Next he grabbed both his pack and Sakura's, slung both over his shoulder and headed off in the direction he knew she'd be coming from.

A little backup never hurt.

It wasn't long before Kaoru was the only one able to keep up with Sakura's pace, and to be honest, she was surprised even he had made it that far. He would've made a heck of a shinobi if he'd been able to have any training.

She glanced behind her, dismayed to find that while he looked like the pace was difficult for him, he wasn't going to be collapsing from exhaustion anytime soon. The captain pulled a shuriken out of a side pouch and launched the weapon at her. Sakura dodged to the right, and the shuriken passed right by where she had been standing. If she hadn't moved, Kaoru would have been spot-on with his aim.

"Troublesome," she muttered, channeling her inner Shikamaru and trying to think up an easy way to lose him. The trees were thick, so she couldn't run any faster or she'd risk losing her way or embarrassingly running into one and injuring herself.

She sensed another object behind her and flipped out of the way as a kunai whizzed by her.

"Damn it," she hissed, cursing Kaoru's apparent skill with projectile weaponry.

Unfortunately, she lost control over her movements as she flipped, and she wasn't able to bring her body down and out of the way fast enough to avoid the shuriken she saw hurtling toward her. Rugged blades ripped into her side, slicing skin and sending a spray of red down to the ground.

Sakura fell, unable to catch the next branch. She hit the ground and rolled, yanking the shuriken from her side as she did. The medic gritted her teeth as the weapon ripped through more skin when she removed it. It was one of those double-edged blades that caused more damage upon removal, she realized.

Kaoru landed a few feet away from her, but made no move to get nearer. He knew his limitations, and even wounded, the kunoichi in front of him would still be able to defeat him. Still, he had wounded her, and as long as he could stall her long enough for backup to arrive, he would have the advantage.

"Shit," Sakura said under her breath. She gripped the shuriken—her only weapon—in one hand, while allowing the other to rest over her wound. It wasn't life-threatening, but left unhealed it would hamper her movement significantly. Kaoru was a sharp one. He knew how to stall her without having to fight one-on-one.

"Sakura!"

The medic looked up, startled at the voice coming from the trees.

"Kakashi?"

"Are you alright?" he asked, instantly moving to stand in front of her, giving her cover so she could heal herself.

"Yeah. It's not that bad," she said, focusing her attention on stitching her skin back together. There was a bit of internal damage she would need to heal later, but it wasn't severe and could wait until they were safe. It wasn't worth wasting chakra on at the moment.

"We meet again, Hatake," Kaoru said, narrowing his eyes at the silver-haired ninja's appearance. That was something he hadn't been expecting.

"Kaoru," Kakashi acknowledged, narrowing his eyes as well. "Still around I see?"

The blonde laughed. "Oh of course. As I'm sure you can imagine, there was a great promotion waiting for the main who almost captured the great Copy Ninja."

"I'm glad to know I helped you up the career ladder," Kakashi said, glancing back at Sakura to see if she was finished healing herself yet. Seeing that she wasn't, he turned back to the blonde. "Hideki still tagging along with you?"

"He was, until your kunoichi over there killed him."

Sakura grimaced, remembering the snap of the man's neck and the look in his lifeless eyes as she fled the tent.

"Ah," Kakashi said emotionlessly. "And I suppose you plan to defeat us?"

"Of course."

"I'm not sure how you plan to do that. We outnumber and outrank you. You'd be wise to just stand down, Kaoru. Live another day."

"Ah, I see, worried about me after all, eh Hatake?"

Kakashi shrugged. "It was just a suggestion. I'll kill you if I have to, but I don't enjoy destroying those weaker than me. Especially when we outnumber them."

Kaoru smirked. "Well, then let your fears be appeased."

Kakashi swore, turning to Sakura as somewhere around ten men came crashing through the trees.

"Move!" he yelled, grabbing her and shoving her out of the way of a barrage of kunai.

One grazed her injured side, but Kakashi took the majority of the hits. He grunted in pain, dropping down to all fours next to Sakura.

"Shit," he said, reaching behind him to pull the weapons out of his back.

"You idiot!" Sakura said, but she let it go. There would be time to yell at him later. Now she had to concentrate on making sure they were safe.

Five men ran at them, and just as Sakura prepared to attack, they were swept into a small black hole.

"Kakashi!" she hissed, recognizing the black hole as Kamui. "What are you doing?"

"I'll…be fine," he panted, giving her a smile before closing his eyes and collapsing to the floor. His head hit the ground, and Sakura knew he had used too much chakra.

"Idiot," she grumbled again, moving to stand in front of him as the remaining men—including Kaoru—charged.