~A/N: Okay, so a bit of a plot twist at the end of the last one, but keep with me! We've still got a bit of a ways to go with this story, and not everything is always as it seems… Also, apologies for the lateness of this chapter. It's been a crazy week with getting ready to move back in to college mixed with some internet problems, but I didn't want to leave you guys without a chapter entirely.

Forty-Three: Shattered

"I'm afraid the Hokage is unavailable right now, but I will be glad to hear your request," Jiraiya said methodically as yet another messenger from a wealthy lord came in with a mission offer.

"Oh, I hope she isn't ill? There's been a nasty bug going around the Five Great Nations I hear. Although I suppose with her medical ninjutsu skills, the Hokage probably doesn't have to worry about things like a simple illness."

"No," Jiraiya sighed, "she isn't ill. She just has something else she's dealing with at the moment."

"Lady Hokage!"

Tsunade jerked her head up, hearing Shizune's frantic cries. Something wasn't right.

"Shizune? What happened?"

Her assistant said nothing, but Tsunade knew from the look on her face and the red rims of her eyes that something had gone terribly wrong.

"It's…" the dark-haired kunoichi tried to say, but her words broke into sobs before they could form.

Tsunade stood, walking out from behind her desk. Whatever had shaken Shizune so badly, she needed to know about.

"What ha—"

She stopped short, seeing the four members of Team Seven. Their faces ranged from blank to downright broken. But what was worse was that two of them were missing.

"Sakura?" she stammered, concern for her pink-haired apprentice rising rapidly.

None of them would meet her eyes.

"No," she whispered, looking back at Shizune for the confirmation she didn't want to receive.

"I'm sorry, Tsunade," Shizune whimpered. "I checked her myself."

"Sakura Haruno died in the line of duty, fighting against the rebels after they spotted her and Kakashi Hatake spying and trying to escape," Yamato said.

The blonde Hokage snapped her eyes tightly shut, fists clenching against her side as she leaned against the wall for support. Willing the tears not to leak from her eyes, she turned back to the group, dreading the next question, but knowing it was one she needed to ask.

"And Kakashi?"

"Alive. He left us as soon as we entered the village," Yamato said. "He was there when it happened. He said she protected him."

Tsunade couldn't help the tear that escaped then. She had always tried to be strong—it didn't do for the leader of one of the strongest shinobi village to show signs of weakness—but there were some things even she couldn't hold in. There were some people she cared too much about.

"Tsunade? What's going on? Izumo said I should hurry straight—"

Jiraiya stopped short, taking in the sorrowful expressions of the six people standing in front of him. "Tsunade? Naruto, what happened? What's wrong?"

"Pervy Sage," Naruto whimpered, looking up at him with tear-filled eyes. "It's Sakura. She's gone."

Jiraiya remembered looking at Tsunade and seeing the confirmation in her eyes. Everything after that was mostly a blur. Tsunade had insisted on seeing Sakura and verifying it with her own eyes, but, he realized later, that was probably the worst thing for all of them at that moment. Having Tsunade in the same room as the already-unstable Shizune and the members of Team Seven proved too much for her, and she collapsed into his arms seconds before the tears started to fall.

It had been by unspoken consent that he'd taken over as acting Hokage. He'd known Sakura fairly well, and had always liked the pink-haired kunoichi who reminded him so much of Tsunade with her medical ninjutsu and short-fused temper. But he hadn't been nearly as close with her as Tsunade had been, and he could only imagine how bad of a wreck he would be if something ever happened to Naruto.

He sighed, turning back to the messenger that stood before him.

"So what is your request?"

Kakashi sighed, wondering if he'd been too harsh with the boys. Naruto, Sasuke, and Sai had come by, wanting to know if he would go get something to drink with them.

"In honor of Sakura," Naruto's expression seemed to say, but Kakashi couldn't bring himself to face them—not yet. Maybe someday, when he managed to numb himself to the pain he felt at having caused yet another death of someone he cared about, but right now the pain was too fresh.

He hadn't spoken with any of his teammates since they'd returned from that fateful mission. He'd seen them at the funereal, but they hadn't spoken there either. Of course, there wasn't much for them to say. There hadn't been much for anyone to say. Between the Hokage loosing her usually solid composure during the middle of the eulogy, to Sakura's civilian parents breaking down at her graveside, no one really felt the need to say anything further.

It wasn't that they were angry at him, but he still blamed himself too much, and the atmosphere on the team wasn't particularly conductive to healing. It was just best if they weren't around each other at the moment.

"I'm worried about Kaka-sensei," Naruto said, after an extremely tired-looking Yamato had been awoken to the sound of a jinchuriki banging on his front door.

"What do you mean?"

"He won't talk to me, or Sai, or even Sasuke. And he never comes to eat with us when we ask him. I think he blames himself."

Yamato sighed, all too familiar with his senpai's coping habits. "He does blame himself, Naruto. It's just how he is. He thinks he can save everyone, but I learned early on that you just can't. Not even if you're the great Kakashi Hatake."

"But—"

"You just have to give him time, and a little space. That's all we can do for now."

Naruto sighed, defeated, but he knew the wood-style user was probably right.

"Yeah, I guess. Thanks, Captain Yamato."

Yamato nodded, and let the blonde out, shutting the door quietly behind him so as not to disturb the neighbors too much at whatever ungodly hour it was. He didn't have it in his heart to tell Naruto that he'd already been to see Kakashi—many times—since Sakura's death, and he didn't know if this was something that his senpai would ever recover from.

"Knock, knock!" an annoyingly familiar voice rang out as Kakashi's front door slammed open. "I brought you some food."

The Copy Ninja sighed, but he got up and slid into his kitchen, where Genma Shiranui was already setting the food out on the table.

"Alright. Eat up."

The bandana-wearing shinobi shoved a plate full of food in his face, and handed him a pair of chopsticks.

"And before you ask, no, there's no chance of me getting out of your hair until all that food is gone."

Kakashi didn't acknowledge the brunette, but he did start picking away at the meal that was laid out in front of him.

"How's the food taste?"

All Kakashi could manage was a noncommittal grunt.

"You need to hand in your report, you know," Genma said, setting his chopsticks down and leaning back to get a good look at his friend. He knew if he hadn't been bringing Kakashi food every day, the man wouldn't have had anything to eat. And he knew if he didn't sit there and eat with him, he wouldn't have eaten it at all.

"Hm."

"You're the only one who knows the full story of what happened. Lady Tsunade needs to know what happened—and not just for closure, although she's got a right to that too! But they need to know what's going on out there so the next team that's sent out can be prepared."

"Last I heard she was still taking a break too, so why can't I?" Kakashi said, unusually childish and hostile for him.

"Well then Master Jiraiya needs to know! Dammit Kakashi!" Genma was getting really tired of his self-loathing act. "Look, we've been through a lot together, you and me. No one else understood what we were feeling when the Fourth Hokage died, but we were there for each other, and that's what I'm trying to do here, but you've got to help me out man, just a little!"

Kakashi's eye widened. In the week since he'd been back, every time he'd interacted with another person—which wasn't that much—they'd treated him carefully or gently, as if they were afraid their very presence would upset him, but that wasn't the case with Genma. Genma was loud, and Genma was yelling at him.

"I'm sorry," Kakashi said, lowering his eye. "You've been going out of your way to help me, and I haven't been very appreciative."

The senbon-chewing ninja rolled his eyes. "That's not the reason I'm doing this, idiot. I don't need to be thanked."

"It's been a long time," Kakashi murmured, looking at the familiar sight of the Memorial Stone. He ran his hand along the cold marble, tracing a new name with his fingertips. "I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get here."

Kakashi had taken Genma's words to heart, and he'd finished his report, recounting every detail—no matter how painful it was for him. He put in as much as he could about the things that still remained a mystery to him—like the chakra barrier that Sakura had taken care of, her strange behavior right before they were spotted, and the hooded figure he hadn't seen before. He speculated that this might be the mind-jutsu user that Sakura had spoken of, but he didn't know for sure.

"Sakura," he whispered, and while the pain in his chest didn't go away—it probably never would—it had lessened slightly.

"Kaka-sensei?" Naruto asked, shocked to see the silver-haired man amble into the bar where the rest of the team was waiting.

"Naruto," he nodded. "I'm sorry I've been avoiding you all. It's taken me too long."

Yamato smiled, and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "It's alright, Kakashi. You're with us now."

Kakashi smiled, and while it wasn't a full grin—the signature eye crinkle was still missing—it was the closest to happy that any of his teammates had seen him in the two weeks since they'd returned from that awful mission to the Land of Silver.

"Yeah. I am."

Naruto smiled, grabbing him by the arm and leading him to a booth where he tugged the Copy Ninja into the seat next to him. Kakashi noticed Naruto glancing warily at him every so often, so he reached out to pat his former student on the head.

"It's okay, Naruto. Really."

"I just wanted to make sure that you didn't, you know, blame yourself…because of what I said."

The blonde looked guilty, but Kakashi erased that guilt with a small eye smile.

"We're good Naruto."

Naruto grinned, happy to know that his mistake hadn't cost him one of his closest friendships.

"Sakura," Naruto sobbed, once Yamato was finally able to pry Kakashi away from her lifeless body.

"She's so cold," Sai said, gently reaching out to touch her hand as the pale shinobi sat down beside her.

"What happened?" Sasuke said, his voice rough and strangled with emotion. "How did she…?"

"It was me."

Four heads turned to stare disbelievingly at Kakashi.

"She saved me. Pushed me out of the way while she took the full blast from the enemy's attacks. She was already injured…" He was struggling to keep his composure. "She'd saved me then too."

"This is all your fault!" Naruto wailed. "You and your stupid 'wanting-to-die' complex!"

Yamato turned on him with a harsh glare, while Sasuke and Sai just looked at their friend and teammate with disbelief. They expected something like this out of someone like Sasuke; never did they think it would come from someone as good-natured as Naruto.

Kakashi's eye widened for a fraction of a second before his face was back to its same blank look of despair.

Naruto, on the other hand, looked horrified at the words that had just come out of his mouth.

"I didn't mean it," he said, the tears starting to stream from his eyes again. "I'm sorry, Kaka-sensei. I didn't mean it. Please forgive me."

Naruto had been hanging on him since that incident, and no matter how many times Kakashi told him he understood that it had been the shock and the grief talking, the blonde boy still seemed to think that he had to come by his former sensei's place every day to make sure he knew how sorry he was.

The rest of Team Seven seemed to be in the same boat. None of them blamed him for Sakura's death, but that didn't matter. He blamed himself enough for all of them—for the whole of Konoha.

Yamato, knowing his old friend best and remembering the slump he'd been in after the Fourth had died, had tried his hardest to get Kakashi to come out during those first few days, but the silver-haired jonin had refused all his efforts. Up until the funereal, it had gotten to the point where he downright ignored his brunette friend.

Even Gai pounding relentlessly on his apartment door wasn't enough to make Kakashi open up—figuratively or literally. He hadn't bothered reporting in to the Hokage after they'd returned—unable to look her in the eye and tell her that her precious apprentice had died on his watch—and left all the details and the explaining to Yamato, who had taken over as leader of the mission as soon as he realized Kakashi had lost the capability to do so.

"We need to move," Yamato said, as soon as Naruto's wails had started dying down to broken sobs.

To anyone else, he would have sounded calm and composed, but his teammates knew the wood-style user was just as shattered as they were—he just realized that one of them was going to have to pull themselves together and be strong enough to get the rest of them home alive.

"The enemy could come back with reinforcements, and we're in no shape to fight," he said wearily, standing and surveying the area. "Sai, can you create one of your birds? We should make sure her…We should make sure Sakura gets back home."

That set Naruto off again, only this time he had moved on from holding onto Kakashi to Sasuke. The dark-haired Uchiha sat, glaring upward at the heavens, but even he made no move to shake off the blonde's grasp, instead letting him cling onto his trousers.

Now Kakashi realized that they were hurting just as badly as he was, and that the best way to get through this would be together. Besides, it was what she would have wanted, which seemed like a cliché thing to say, but it was true. Sakura had always been the glue that held their team together. Without her there, they would all have to become stronger.