Sakura stands at a grave.
Behind her, the Hidden Leaf Village perishes in fire and ash.
The ninja looks down at her hands and they are soaked with blood. She tries to wipe it off but it's stuck to her skin, a crimson paint that just won't wash away.
"Sakura! Get out of here! Leave!"
The kunoichi looks up to see Naruto, in all his greatness, older and war torn, fighting from the head of a Great Toad. His blue eyes seek hers out from the sky. He's trying to say goodbye.
"Get out while you can, Sakura! Please, just leave!"
The Hokage creates his mighty Rasengan and sends it flying into the wreckage that used to be her home. All around her, shinobi fight and shinobi die.
"I can help, Naruto! Let me help!"
Her friend, her king, turns to tell her something. But he's run through with a sword of ice.
"No!" she wails. "Naruto, no!"
Sakura runs towards him. The Great Toad disappears in a cloud of smoke and the Hokage, nothing but a blur of yellow and white, plummets to the ground.
She has to catch him. She has to save him.
The kunoichi trips over the bodies of her comrades. And her friends.
Shikamaru's lifeless eyes stare up at her, his hand clutching Asuma's lighter, even in death.
Sakura cannot stop for him. Or for Ino, whose blonde hair is splattered with blood as she takes the shinobi she is fighting down with her. A still young and vibrant Konohamaru takes a kunai to the hand and is locked in a power struggle with the enemy. His right eye has been lost.
Akamaru howls up into the sky for the death of his master, Kiba's body mangled and torn in ways that makes Sakura's stomach lurch.
It doesn't matter. She will mourn for them when the time comes. But right now, she has to get to Naruto.
She's almost there, pushing her way through the battlefield. A shuriken flies near her and Sakura leans back, avoiding it. Not being fast enough, it digs into her cheek and leaves an open gash. But she keeps running.
Iruka sensei lays amongst the death, his cold fingers reaching out for his headband which has been knocked from his forehead. He wishes to die with the colors of the Land of Fire.
Almost there. Naruto is nearly to the ground and Sakura skids to a stop right beneath him. The Hokage crashes into her but Sakura holds on for dear life as they roll and tumble back onto the battlefield.
"Please don't be dead, please don't die on me!" she screams, tears running down her war stricken face. The ninja turns the body over and she freezes, a chill as cold as death slipping down her spine and filling her with dread.
Instead of Naruto, Yamato's almond shaped eyes stare back at her. His lungs are filling up with blood and with trembling hands, Sakura tries to perform medical ninjutsu to salvage what she can of his body. But she can't stop shaking. Her chakra control spins out of her ability and she can't hold the jutsu long enough to heal him.
His hand, his red stained hand has curled up into her hair, leaving blood streaks along her pink locks. She clutches at the front of his shirt.
"No, don't leave me!" she cries as his eyes start to flutter closed. "Don't you dare leave me!"
His hand falls from her hair and leaves a trail of blood across her cheek. Sakura holds his body to her, trying to find the scent of sandalwood on his skin, trying to sear that memory into her brain. But all she can smell is iron and dirt and lost time.
She looks up, trying to see if anyone is around to help her, and she catches the eye of a silver haired ninja.
No. Not you. Anyone but you.
He watches her from the across the battlefield, his sharingan eye trained on her, completely fixated. He is enraged, he is trapped in grief.
His one gray orb looks at her sadly. He turns around, his right hand lighting up with the crackling blue electricity of his chidori, and he sprints into the battlefield.
Sakura gets up and runs. She runs harder than she has ever run before.
She has to stop him.
The faces of her beloved Leaf Village stare up at her with their cold, dead eyes and Sakura wants to cower. She wants to kick and cry and scream. But she also wants to annihilate every last enemy ninja that has invaded her home. And although she is not dead, they took her life.
And she wants it back.
"Kakashi!" she screams out. Sakura ducks as a ninja blade comes slashing towards her face. She dances around a fireball jutsu, barely making in time as the ends of her hair become charred. "Kakashi come back! You'll die out there!"
The smoke after an Earth style attack clears. He shoves the enemy off of his right hand, the chidori dying down to nothing but sparks. The copy ninja turns to face her, reaching out his hand for her to join him.
Dawn is breaking behind him. There are the last two Leaf shinobi standing on the corpses of their friends. He shakes his hand, desperate for her to make her choice.
But Sakura is too late.
She stares in horror as Kakashi is engulfed by flames.
Sakura watches Kakashi burn, his sharingan eye still fixed on her as he cries out in agony.
She can smell the scent of his charring flesh.
"KAKASHI!"
Sakura bolts upright in bed and instead of staring at a burning silver haired ninja on the battlefield, she stares at her Team 7 picture on the dresser.
Dawn has broken. She pants, her tshirt sticking to her back with sweat.
"Only a dream." She falls backwards onto the twisted sheets and wipes the wetness from her cheeks. She had cried for him. "It was only a dream."
"Sakura?" calls Mebuki from the foot of the stairs. She heard her daughter scream and was concerned. "Is everything alright?"
"Yeah," rasps Sakura. She clears her throat and tries again, still smearing the last few stray tears from her eyes. "Yeah! I'm fine, Mom."
The kunoichi watches her ceiling fan spin. She still feels the gnawing dread of her nightmare eating away at her insides. Sakura swears she can still smell the fire and ash that had consumed the Village.
And when she closes her eyes, she can hear Kakashi's screams.
The thought makes her ache. She turns over onto her side and clutches her pillow between her legs, wrapping her arms around it. His sharingan stares back at her as she watches the sun rise over Konoha.
She had left the window open last night so she can hear the villagers start coming to life. Her keen hearing picks up the yawning voice of Shikamaru. He was probably just summoned by Tsunade. The boy hates early mornings.
But the dream keeps coming back to her.
Shikamaru's cold, emotionless eyes stare up at her as she steps over him. All the intelligence and fire gone from his body. His fingers clutch at Asuma's lighter, probably praying that he will see his sensei again in death.
Sakura shivers violently and gets up. Mornings are better off not spent dwelling on nightmares. And yet, as the pink haired ninja gets dressed in her gear, she can't help but think that the dream will follow her around for the rest of the day.
Death has always been a haunting creature.
"I need clamps!"
There's blood everywhere. I can't stop it.
"Godammit, I need clamps NOW!"
The operating room is a mess. There is three different patients on three different tables. Sakura has her hands deep in the chest cavity of a young genin. His life is beginning to fade right from underneath Sakura's hands. She can feel it slipping from her fingertips.
"No," she says through her teeth, one hand performing medical ninjutsu while the other tries to sew the damage in his organs back up, "Don't you die on me, kid. Come on, pull through!"
Sakura can hear Shizune struggling to keep her shinobi alive as well. Lady Tsunade handles the third completely on her own. It's turned into a race against time.
This kid has barely sprinted from the starting line of his life as a shinobi. And already, death looms over him.
"What happened?!" demands Tsunade, her hands aglow with her powerful ninjutsu. A shinobi nurse whose job is to hand Sakura and Shizune operating tools speaks up.
"It was a simple C ranked escort mission. But then their team captain," the jonin under Shizune's care, "was ambushed by high ranking rogue ninja from the Bingo book. Vengeance was apparently the motive. His poor genin never stood a chance."
"Shut up!" Sakura shouts, getting distracted by the harsh reality of the nurses' words. These things happen far too often. It happened to her very own team against Zabuza, the Demon of the Mist, and his apprentice Haku. It could happen to anybody.
But not everybody has Kakashi of the Sharingan as their team leader.
Tsunade clears her patient to be wheeled from surgery to intensive care. Shizune and Sakura still work diligently. The Hokage leaves to get the full report on the attack, putting her faith in Sakura to be able to pull this off on her own.
The kunoichi tries her hardest. His insides are torn to shreds, his heart held together by mere tissue matter.
If I can just-wait. What the hell is that?
The kid's entire arm begins to turn black. Sakura hovers her medical hand over the skin there and she curses.
"Get Tsunade back in here now! This kid has poison in his blood!"
She can't do two things at a time. She can't hold his body together and extract the poison. Something is bound to kill him first. Either his body will fall apart at the seams or his heart will stop beating. Sakura has to remind herself not to panic.
Shizune clears her patient, the jonin. He's on his way to recovery. She comes over to Sakura to try and lend a hand but one look at the boy and Shizune's eyes sadden.
Sakura's hands are covered in his blood, sweat dripping down the side of her face. The boy's heart is starting to slow.
"I can do this, Shizune," she says, looking up into the other woman's eyes. "I can do this."
"Sakura," Shizune says slowly, watching as the black of the poison starts to eat away at the boy's entire right side. His heart is eroding like acid and Sakura can't do anything about it. "Let him go. There's nothing else you can do for him."
"No, I can do this, Shizune!" Tears fill Sakura's eyes but she blinks them away and keeps trying. The poison has eaten through the walls of the kid's heart, leaving nothing but a mess of tissue and cells that pumps blood every few seconds.
Shizune grabs Sakura's hands and lifts them from the body of the boy whose heart monitor has just flatlined. The kunoichi and Shizune stare each other down, just breathing, the smell of iron and burnt flesh invading Sakura's nose even beneath her mask. She closes her eyes and swallows her tears.
"Time of death," she says to the nurse as she begins pulling off her gloves, "6:14 pm."
Sakura pries her hands away from Shizune's and she leaves the operating room. She can't breathe. The ninja takes down her mask and immediately goes to scrub out. She stands there at the sink and nearly scrubs her hands raw, trying to get the stench of the boy's blood off her hands.
"Miss Haruno?"
Sakura turns and sees a male medical ninja watching her from the door. She simply sighs and nods.
"I know. I will be right there."
Sakura finishes up and strips off her bloody scrubs, tossing them in the trash before she exits. She wipes the sweat from her brow and enters into the waiting room.
Ninja do not cry. Ninja do not show their emotions. They only get in the way of the task at hand.
An older couple rises to their feet and comes to meet Sakura when they see her leaving the operating wing. She bows to them, deeply, and already the woman begins to cry.
Ninja do not cry. Ninja do not show their emotions.
"Mr. and Mrs. Hashimoto, I am...deeply deeply sorry. But your son did not make it through surgery."
Sakura can't do this. She can't stand her and tell that boy's parents that they will have to bury their son. She blinks away the tears and clears her throat.
Ninja do not cry. Ninja do not show their emotions.
"He sustained an incredible amount of damage while out in the field. There was nothing more that I could do."
The mother buries her face in her hands, sobbing, and collapses to her knees in the middle of the waiting room. All eyes are on them and Sakura now and it takes all her strength just to keep a straight face. The husband can only stand there and stare at the floor, his lower lip trembling as he tries to deny what is being said to him.
"He died a shinobi. Your son died an honorable death. I am truly sorry. The Hokage would like to see you both as soon as you are able to discuss funeral arrangements. Please excuse me."
Sakura gives one last deep bow and walks away from the mourning parents. The father had sank down to his knees next to his wife and wrapped his arms around her. They stayed there and cried together.
The kunoichi goes to her desk at the front of the hospital and gathers her things. She can't stand another minute in this place.
"Tell Lady Tsunade," Sakura mumbles to the receptionist, "that I've gone home from the night. The report will be on her desk first thing tomorrow morning."
Without another word, Sakura turns and leaves. Once a safe enough distance from the hospital, she ducks into an alleyway and kicks over a trash can. It clatters to the ground, scaring some stray cats into running away while Sakura leans against the wall and buries her face in her hands.
She will not cry. She will not show weakness.
He was just a boy. Just a child trying to play hero.
The thought stings her eyes and she wipes them with the collar of her shirt and takes a deep breath, tilting her head back and looking up at the sky as it burns with sunset.
She wishes Kakashi was around.
Another sharp twinge in her gut. Sakura shouldn't wish for impossible things. He was out on a mission, he has been for the past five days.
I just miss Yamato, she reminds herself. Which she does. He's been gone for two weeks exactly. Kakashi provided an easy distraction from thinking about him. If she dwelled on his whereabouts, she would drown in worry. And Sakura is too busy for something such as that.
But even so.
Sakura thinks back to the dream she had this morning. She sees Kakashi's lone figure on a grim battlefield, engulfed in flames as he reaches his hand out to her.
Sakura, he called. Sakura come with me.
The kunoichi pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs.
Maybe getting close to Kakashi wasn't the best idea after all.
"Hey," calls a lazy voice at the mouth of the alley, "you look like you could use a drink."
Sakura opens her left eye to see none other than Shikamaru standing there, hands in his pocket, a half-assed smirk planted on his face.
"You buying?"
He considers this for a moment, giving Sakura's disheveled state a once over before sighing, his shoulders hunching. "Oh alright. But only because I feel generous today. Let's go."
He jerks his head towards the direction of his favorite restaurant and Sakura follows, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand.
They walk in silence for a few moments, Shikamaru's hands still tucked lazily in his pockets while Sakura watches the ground.
"Yeah," he says knowingly with a sigh, "Me too, Sakura. Me too."
Sakura downs a cup of sake in one gulp. Across from her, Shikamaru does the same. He squints his eyes as the alcohol burns down his throat. He was never a good drinker.
"That kid that you lost on the table today, what was his name?"
Sakura was staring into her newly poured drink when she looks up at Shikamaru. He leans back against the booth, one arm casually thrown over the top of it, and rubs the back of his head. She can't stop looking at him.
"You died in my dream last night."
Shikamaru's eyes go wide for a second. He scoffs and takes another drink.
"Thank you for the vote of confidence, Sakura."
The kunoichi laughs nervously and shakes her head. She knocks back another round of sake.
"I'm sorry, I don't know why I said that. I just can't...get the image out of my head."
The other chunin sighs as he stares into his own cup.
"We're shinobi," he says slowly. "Death is an old friend."
"His name was Ryou. Ryou Hashimoto. And he died with my hands inside him."
Sakura holds her hands up a little, staring down at her palms. She remembers the stain of blood on them from the dream. She remembers the scent of iron and blackened flesh from this morning. It's almost enough to make her sick.
"Hey." Shikamaru reaches over and grabs Sakura's wrist, almost as if he's reading her mind. He makes her look at him. "It happens to all of us. We all lose people. Some sooner than others. But we," he gives one of his lazy smirks, "we're still alive. No dream can change that. The boy died for his Village. And we will honor that sacrifice."
He lets go of her wrist and Sakura returns her hands to her lap, liberating them from the guilt. She smiles softly at Shikamaru. He leans back in his seat, a little smug at his uplifting speech.
Sakura throws a dumpling skewer at him. He dodges it and laughs.
"You sound like a fortune cookie."
"Well that's the last time I'm helping you," he says with a scoff, crossing his arms over his chest. But his mouth tells a different story, the corners of it turned up in a smile.
"Shikamaru!" shouts a voice from the entrance. Ino is there, waving excitedly over at them.
"Hey," he calls back, raising his hand in a half-hearted wave. The other kunoichi comes over and slides in next to her teammate.
Sakura is about to say hello when she sees Shikamaru drape an arm around Ino's shoulders. The blonde reaches up and wipes a smudge from his cheek, to his annoyance. The pink haired ninja laughs.
"Something funny, billboard brow?" Ino asks with a smirk. Sakura chooses to ignore this.
"When did this happen?" she asks, raising an eyebrow at their proximity to each other and Shikamaru's very unusual display of affection. The ninja raises an eyebrow at the two of them while Ino starts to jabber on about how it happened, a very long and exaggerated story. Shikamaru, lazy and casual as ever, simply shrugs.
"She kind of pressured me into it."
This earns him a punch in the arm. Sakura laughs and pours Ino a drink.
And before they know it, their table starts to get crowded. Choji had been tipped off by his blonde teammate about where they would be just as Naruto had passed by and seen them. Angered that he didn't get an invite, he slides into the booth next to Sakura and gives her the silent treatment until she orders another round of sake. The Akimichi boy pulls up a chair and orders an enormous round of food. He just got back from a rather successful mission and felt like treating everyone.
Sure enough, Kiba's nose picked up all their congregating scents. Akamaru curled up under the table, Sakura feeding him scraps every now and again, while Kiba and Naruto shoved each other when he tried to squeeze in next to him and Sakura.
Eventually, after Rock Lee dragged another table over, the entire Konoha 11 was seating in this one restaurant, being loud and obnoxious as usual. Except for Neji of course who drank his sake quietly, slipping in the occasional snarky comment towards Naruto every now and again.
Even Shino was there and Sakura couldn't help but smiling across the table at Shikamaru as everyone shouted at the waitress for another round of sake.
We're still alive. No dream can change that.
"It's your turn, Kotetsu."
The pair of best friends sit at the station of the main gate. It's nearly 11 pm and they're playing a few games of Tic-Tac-Toe. Izumo waits for his partner to make his move.
Nearly a minute passes by.
"Oh come on!" he says exasperatedly, "There's only two places where you can move!"
Kotetsu makes his move, making the game a draw, and Izumo angrily crumbles it up and tosses it into the road, after not winning for about the 10th time.
"You cheat," he mumbles.
Kotetsu laughs and scratches at the bandage on his nose. "How do you cheat at Tic-Tac-Toe?"
"I don't know, you could be using a jutsu to anticipate my moves or rearranging the markings on the page or-"
"Shut up, Izumo."
"No you shut up, cheater, I'm going to get to the bottom of thi-"
"No, seriously," Kotetsu clamps his hand over his best friend's mouth and says through his teeth. "Shut. Up."
They can feel it in the air. The charge and stir of an ominous chakra nearby. Izumo looks at Kotetsu and they quietly arm themselves, ready to leap over the station counter if a there's a threat. The gleam of their kunais wink at them from beneath the table.
Izumo's heart rate speeds up as the presence gets closer.
Tonight was supposed to be a dead night after Kakashi and his team returned. No other ninja were on the list for a home coming.
Kotetsu narrows his eyes at the entrance of the main gate. Izumo sweats beneath his shinobi cap.
There's the unmistakable poof of a transportation jutsu.
"Now!"
They both jump out from behind the counter, expecting to come to face with face with an enemy when the smoke clears.
The two men suddenly drop their kunai.
"Oh my god."
"Izumo, go get Lady Tsunade. Quickly!"
The ninja takes off sprinting. Kotetsu drops to his knees and picks up the shinobi's head, placing it in his lap. He coughs up blood, his eyes already starting to dim. The soldier clutches his Leaf symbol in his broken hand.
"No. Genma, stay with me. Come on, buddy, keep your eyes open."
Kotetsu tries to stop the blood that's pooling from Genma's chest cavity. There's too much of it. With no background in medical ninjutsu, even Kotetsu can tell that Genma doesn't have very long. His body is not repairable.
Genma groans and with the last bit of strength that he has left, he holds up a slip of paper, half written in ink, half smudged in his blood.
"Give this…" he wheezes to Kotetsu, "give this to the Hokage."
Genma coughs violently and it causes him a great deal of pain. Kotetsu holds him down to keep him from thrashing about. The ninja's eyes water.
Ninja do not cry. Ninja do not show emotion.
"Stop talking, save your energy, Genma!"
The dying shinobi smiles. He reaches up and weakly tucks the note into the front pocket of Kotetsu's shirt before his arm falls limp back to his side.
Genma makes Kotetsu look at him.
"Tell...the Hokage...that I-" he coughs once again, his lungs filling up with his own blood. " Tell her that I tried my best."
His eyes grow cold. Lifeless.
Lady Tsunade arrives too late.
The group of shinobi tailing her stop dead in their tracks as they watch Kotetsu say a prayer over Genma's body. His shoulders shake gently as he swallows his pain down, forcing it back into his chest where it will stay.
"Dammit, Genma," the Hokage says, hanging her head. Somewhere behind her, Shizune muffles a cry with her hand.
"Ma'am," Kotetsu says, turning his head to look at their leader. Genma's note is crushed in his fist. "We have a hostage situation."
"You're an idiot!"
"No you're an idiot!"
"Well you smell like a dog!"
"You don't smell very nice either, pal! When's the last time you took a shower?"
Naruto and Kiba quarrel once again. Sai stands in the middle of them, trying to calm them down. Everyone is fairly drunk and the night is still young. Sakura watches the two of them banter back and forth. Rock Lee is passed out somewhere nearby, underneath a table perhaps where Neji put him to save himself the embarrassment of his teammate's actions.
Shikamaru yawns, Ino crashed out against his shoulder.
"K-Kurenai sensei!" says Hinata. "What're you doing here?"
Everyone, including the ones who had previously been asleep, pick up their heads. Shikamaru nudges Ino awake. He can feel it in the air. Something is wrong.
The shinobi looks at them all sadly. Her strange eyes meet Shikamaru's and he immediately stands up. Sakura watches him curiously.
"Who is it?" he asks.
The question, the all too familiar question, makes everyone's heart stop. Naruto hangs his head.
Sakura tries to think of every ninja she cares about that is not accounted for right in front of her.
She pleads silently for Kurenai to not say the names of two specific men who the last time she checked, were away from home.
Death has show up on the doorstep of Village.
"Genma Shiranui is dead."
Naruto sweeps the bottle and cups off the table with his arm, sending them crashing to the floor. Ino's hand immediately seeks out Shikamaru's and he takes it tightly, still staring, although absently, at Kurenai.
A heavy cloud hangs over them all, their drunken stupor ebbing away with the severity of her words.
Ninja do not cry. Ninja do not show emotion. He died an honorable death.
"The funeral is first thing in the morning. I suggest you all get some sleep."
Everyone gets up and clears out, paying their bills solemnly. Tenten wraps her arm around Lee's shoulder as he rubs the beginnings of tears from his eyes. Sai pats Naruto on the shoulder who just gripped Sakura's hand as he passed by. A fleeting, desperate kind of grip. She squeezes the hand of her best friend and watches him go. Shikamaru, an arm wrapped around the silently sobbing Ino, nods at Kurenai as he passes, eyes distant and grieving.
"Sakura," says the older woman.
The pink haired ninja who was about to exit the restaurant stops. She looks at Kurenai over her shoulder.
"Kakashi is home. The news about Genma has already been broken to him." Her strange crimson eyes watch Sakura as her posture suddenly changes at the mention of his name. "Go to him."
Sakura doesn't have to be told twice. Before Kurenai can blink, she takes off, leaving a trail of tears behind her as she sprints.
Lady Tsunade watches as medical ninja cover Genma's body in the morgue. He died a horrible, painful death.
The thought makes the Hokage grit her teeth.
"Shizune," she calls softly.
Her assistant comes stepping out of the shadows and bows her head at the sight of his lifeless body. She can't help but fight back the grief. There is still work to be done.
"M'lady?"
The Hokage moves to leave the morgue, ready to sit in her office and brood over what is to be done about this situation. Yamato, Akira, and Raido are still out there, in the hands of the enemy. Shizune was right. She should've acted earlier.
"Keep the identity of the hostages quiet. Assemble a team of shinobi to send after them first thing in the morning."
"Yes ma'am."
Tsunade pushes open the door. But she pauses, thinking for a moment before she turns to look at Shizune over her shoulder.
"Do not let Sakura know that Yamato is missing."
She had been standing at his door for nearly five minutes. Every once in awhile, she would knock. Not a sound or a movement. But Sakura could feel his chakra inside.
And more than that, she just...knew.
"Come on," she mumbles to herself, getting worried. The kunoichi reaches out and to her surprise, the door is unlocked.
Sakura slips off her shoes, leaving them politely by the entrance as she closes his front door behind her. The entire house is shrouded in darkness. Not a single light is on. But she knows he's here.
Her jade eyes adjust to the dark and Sakura puts a hand over her mouth when she turns into the kitchen, knowing the floor plan of his house by heart now.
The kitchen has been all but destroyed.
His backpack and weapons have been unceremoniously discarded on the table. Plates and teacups lay smashed on the ground. A chair is splintered and broken against the wall. The mirror in the hallway is broken. Sakura stares back at her multiplied reflection.
She crosses the threshold into his living room. Papers, torn and scattered, litter the floor. Scrolls lay open and smudged with spilled ink. His coffee table has been flipped over, a lamp mangled and smashed in the corner. Sakura sighs sadly. She accidentally kicks an empty sake bottle and it rolls under the couch. It isn't the only one.
Oh Kakashi.
"Stop."
Sakura freezes mid-step and looks to where the voice is coming from. Kakashi's bedroom opens up into the living room by two double doors. She didn't notice him standing there, leaning against the frame as he watched her move about his house in the dark.
She can see the glow of his one gray eye, a slit of moonlight crossing his line of vision from a break in the window blinds.
"There's glass right below your foot. Be careful," he warns softly, crossing his arms over his chest.
Sakura looks down and removes her foot from immediate danger. The kunoichi slips down to the floor and brushes the glass away from a shattered picture frame. She flips it over in her hands and stares at the line of young faces looking up at her. Children's faces stare back.
Kakashi stands in the middle, his face mask forever hiding him, with his spiky hair and bad attitude. But he looks almost happy as his friends surround him. Kurenai and Asuma occupy the right hand corner. His eyes watch her even though Kurenai looks at the camera. Ebisu and Guy, silly as ever, occupy the left hand corner. Genma, Raido, and Sakura assumes, Obito and Rin, all squash themselves around Kakashi. There are a few faces she doesn't recognize.
"My graduating class at the academy," he tells her. Sakura stands up and places the picture back where it belongs, in the empty space between their original Team 7 picture and Team Minato. "Only 6 of us remain."
"I'm sorry about Genma, Kakashi." She turns around to see him with another bottle of sake in his hands.
He offers it to her.
"So am I."
They sit on the couch together while Sakura drinks. Kakashi has already had enough. He stares silently at the broken glass in the middle of his living room while Sakura watches him from the corner of her eye. The sake bottle, half empty when she got it, is set down on the floor somewhere so they don't trip over it.
Only the faint moonlight streaming in from his windows illuminates Kakashi's apartment.
"I dreamt about you last night," she says softly.
He doesn't move to look at her.
"Was it a good dream?"
"No. You were dying."
He gives an odd half-hearted chuckle. Sakura expects him to answer her the way Shikamaru did. But Kakashi has never been quite so predictable.
"Were you sad when I died?"
"Of course I was. I watched you burn to death."
He leans back against the couch and stares up at the ceiling. Sakura can't help but stare at his arms, exposed to her for the first time. She wants to wrap herself up in them and-
"I was supposed to die a long time ago. And I survived. At the price of my teammate's life. Now," he says with a sigh, running a shaky hand through his silver hair, "I am forced to repay that debt by watching all my friends bite the dust while all I watch."
Sakura looks at him sadly. Her hand reaches over and rests on his shoulder. She tries to peer up into his face but he looks away from her.
Shame. Guilt. Grief. It's written as plain as day across his body as he carries the weight of things that Sakura cannot see or know.
"Don't say things like that. You survived because you're not finished-"
"Finished with what? Being a shinobi?" He gives another strange chuckle and rubs his face tiredly. "Some days I wish I could finish being a soldier."
Sakura's hand floats down over his back and shoulder blades, not sure what to say anymore. There are days, on the worst days like this one, that she wishes the same thing. But Kakashi has seen more. He lived through the Third Great Ninja War and knows a kind of death that Sakura does not know just yet.
She rubs his back reassuringly and Kakashi, like two attracting magnets, leans into her touch. His sad gray eye opens and looks over at her as he leans his elbows on his knees.
"You lost Genma today. And others before." She smiles at him softly, her luminous green eyes looking back at him. "But you still have Naruto. And Shikamaru. Sai. Yamato. Kurenai. Guy." Her eyes flicker strangely. "And me. You survived because you weren't finished making friends that care about you."
He looks at his pink haired ninja for a long time, their eyes locked in an exchange almost too powerful for words. Kakashi stares into her jade green gaze like he's doing it for the first time.
The word 'friend' and Sakura together in the same thought just taste wrong in his mouth.
"I have seen so much death, Sakura."
His hand comes up and touches the kunoichi's cheek. She closes her eyes and leans her face into his touch although she fights the urge to hold it there against her skin with her own. Kakashi's cold thumb strokes the plane of her delicate jawline.
"You were holding your hand out to me. In my dream. Your hand reached out for me on the battlefield and you asked me to come with you. And then…" Sakura swallows the lump in her throat as she remembers the heat of the fire that would kill him. "Then I watched you burn. I woke up screaming your name."
"I'm sorry. That must've been terr-"
"So don't you dare say that you should've died years ago. Because you were meant to find me. And Naruto and Sasuke. It would kill us if you died, Kakashi. So don't say things like that when I know you don't mean them." Her eyes are watering and Kakashi is alarmed. She's crying and he's not sure why.
Sakura just can't hold it in. All day she has been wanting to stop being a shinobi for one goddamn minute and just let it out. Yamato's absence. Ryou Hashimoto dying with her hands buried inside his chest. Genma's sudden death.
And her absolutely confusing and tormenting feelings for Kakashi that she can't seem to reign in any longer.
"Please don't. I don't want to see you cry," he says softly.
He grabs her face with both his hands gently and wipes the wetness from her cheeks. Sakura tries to hold in her sobs but she can't. They appear like tidal waves and she keeps thinking about Kakashi dying right in front of her in that stupid dream. And she can't take another minute of being in the same room with Kakashi and not kissing him.
The girl reaches over and does the unthinkable.
She pulls down his mask.
But the funny part? She doesn't care that she can see his face.
Her lips crash against his as she throws herself into Kakashi's arms. She's not sure if he's going to kiss her back or hold her against him but she doesn't have an ounce of self control left anymore. Maybe it's the sake.
Maybe she just doesn't care.
But Kakashi does. Immediately, as Sakura's split second of courage frees him from his own personal restraints, he traps her to him and kisses her back. The ninja's hands curl into her lovely pink hair and she holds his face to hers, tears still streaming down from her eyes.
They kiss each other like the world is about to end.
Her small fingers tug at his silver hair, her arms wrapping around his neck as his powerful arms lift her up. Kakashi carries her to the bedroom and gently lays her down, sinking down onto the bed with her. He's not willing to surrender her lips, not even for a moment as he hovers over her.
They're both drunk and it's late. But the gnawing feeling inside Kakashi's chest only disappears when Sakura is kissing him. God, he hoped and prayed for so long that one day he would be able to taste her lips and now he is.
His head swims, Sakura acting as her own kind of drug that Kakashi is willing to overdose on.
"You're so beautiful," she suddenly whispers.
He opens his eyes to see her staring at him, her fingers tracing the foreign contours and lines of his pale face. The aristocratic nose, his high cheekbones and strong jaw. Sakura takes it all in, searing it into her memory as she realizes that he is even more handsome than she ever imagined.
Her index finger touches his lips. She stares and stares, deciding that they are to die for.
Kakashi smiles softly, smoothing back her now tousled pink hair from her face. He kisses her forehead and they catch their breath. The ninja feels like the world, just for a moment, has been set right as he stares down at Sakura laying in his bed.
The kunoichi, always fiery and passionate in everything that she does, grabs him by his silver hair and brings his lips crashing back down onto hers. Her tongue dances its way inside his mouth and he accepts it gratefully. Sakura's hand slips under his shirt and touches her palm to the cut planes of his abdomen. He shudders violently, his skin hot against the cool touch of her fingers.
Kakashi looks down into her eyes. He doesn't want to scare her away or push her too far.
He has Sakura. And now he wants to keep her.
She nods, giving him permission to his silent request. And their first midnight dance together begins.
Clothes are stripped off. Hands explore places that they thought they would never get to touch.
Kakashi's mouth latches onto her neck and Sakura moans quietly, her hand tangled in his silver hair. The shinobi swears that it's the most beautiful sound he has ever heard.
He lays his bare body ontop of hers and with the softest kiss of her lips, he relishes in the feel of her skin on his and Sakura never wants to stop this dance. It seems it like it will go on forever.
Her fingernails scratch at his shoulder blades as Kakashi closes his eyes, tilting his head back as Sakura moans out, close to her breaking point. His body is coated in a thin layer of sweat and he looks down at her, hands tangled in her pink hair.
"Look at me," he whispers.
Sakura opens her eyes and falls off the edge, staring at his one gray eye and sharingan. Her back arches and her toes curl as she shudders, riding out the tidal wave of her ecstasy. Kakashi finishes right after, the faintest of sounds falling from his lips. He collapses ontop of her, his hair matted to the back of his neck with sweat.
They lay in the dark and breathe. Beneath him, Sakura's legs shake and she whimpers into his neck.
Kakashi holds her tight, burying his face in her hair.
"Can I stay the night?" she asks, still trying to catch her breath. Kakashi rolls off of her and lays beside her, snatching her up close. He curls around her small body and kisses her neck, his eyes heavy with sleep.
"Sakura, you can stay as long as you like."