Author's Note: Long time, no see, hmm? Sorry about that.
This chapter took me forever to get through for some reason. Hopefully I'll be able to update faster in the future.
Please enjoy and thank you, as always, for all the follows and reviews. You guys are beautiful.
Love, Rae.
It's there in an instant, standing the hairs up on the back of his neck and Kakashi's first instinct is to pull out the kunai strapped to the inside of the headboard.
He's on his feet, without a sound, the blade pressed thinly against the throat of the intruder with a half of a second. From his left, Sakura still sleeps soundly. Her breath stirs locks of her pink hair, his jonin shirt bunched up around her waist as she sprawls out on their bed.
If there wasn't an intruder in his home, he would have half a mind to chide her for her lack of vigilance.
But then he supposes that she doesn't need it when he wakes at the slightest creak of the floorboard or the tiniest unnatural disturbance of the wind from his now open window.
Kakashi drops the kunai as he stares into the porcelain face of Cat.
"It is unwise to leave your windows unlocked, Wolf-san," the Anbu muses, uncanny green eyes staring at him through the slits of his mask. "Someone could break in."
The copy ninja glances to the dawn just beginning to break over Konoha. He sets the blade down onto his nightstand and shoves his hands into his pockets, looking at Cat expectantly.
Even though this specific Black Op has often seen his uncovered face, Kakashi feels exposed. Especially since the other man's eyes keep darting back and forth between his captain and the pink haired kunoichi curled up in her sensei's bed.
Kakashi grinds his teeth.
"Eyes here." Cat narrows his gaze back to his commander. "Why are you here?"
The entire demeanor of the ninja changes. He shifts onto his right foot, a habit that Kakashi knows to be a nervous one and suddenly, the jonin's instincts kick in and he stands a little straighter. The sharingan whirls restlessly as he studies his subordinate.
"Cat," Kakashi demands again. "What is it?"
He's never been a man of many words, taking after his code name. This shinobi slinks in the shadows, quiet and sly. He uses his body, arches his shoulders, stiffens his spine to convey his concerns. And right now he's doing all of that, complete with the narrowing of his pupils into what looks like the eyes of a feline.
And they speak of fear.
Before Cat can even answer him, Kakashi moves about the room. Without caring, he strips off his pants and tugs on a clean pair. The copy ninja grabs bandages and tape from his dresser to tie his kunai holder around his leg.
"How long ago?" he asks as he pulls on a jonin shirt, shoving his arms through quickly so that he can pull up the mask over his face. It gives him no comfort as it usually would. Kakashi's insides march like ants, trampling adrenaline into his blood until his ungloved hands begin to tremble, slightly.
"The initial boundary infiltration was thirteen minutes ago."
Kakashi snaps his head to Cat as he zips up his flak jacket.
"Thirteen? It took thirteen whole minutes to report to me that Konoha is on the brink of an invasion?"
Sakura stirs behind him as he raises his voice. He spares her a quick glance before he starts pocketing scrolls into the hidden cavities of his vest.
"They disposed of the dispatch team that was sent to investigate," Cat reports mechanically. But Kakashi can feel him shifting back and forth on the balls of his feet, ready to move. Ready to kill. "Reinforcements arrived within the eight minute gap of radio silence and eliminated the intrusion. But-"
"They were only scouts," Kakashi finishes. A familiar charge runs through his limbs and he feels his body reacting to the call of war as it did when he was a boy. It rattles his spine and Kakashi has to turn away as he straps his father's blade to his back.
"The men sent out to scour the perimeter reported that we're expecting the first wave within the next ten minutes."
"How many?" asks the jonin as he attaches his weapon pouch to the back of his hip.
"About two hundred, sir."
Kakashi turns slowly to face Cat, his right hand clutching his headband a little too tightly. The Anbu averts his eye from the sudden glare of the sharingan.
"Two hundred?" he asks through his teeth. "For a first wave?"
The copy ninja ties his Konoha insignia around his forehead. He doesn't bother covering his left eye. His hands shake with the raw dread curling up into his fingers as he tugs on his gloves.
Cat suddenly goes absolutely still, shoulders raised as felines do as they prepare for a strike. Kakashi closes his eyes and takes a shaky breath. He puts an unsteady hand to his hair and runs it through.
Realization stings like a burn across his brain.
"It's the Rock, isn't it?"
Still, the Anbu says nothing. He watches his commander carefully.
"Answer me!"
Cat doesn't flinch but his breath catches in his throat as he speaks.
"The Rock has joined the Jōmae Alliance. Their reassurances of neutrality and good intentions towards the Land of Fire have been declared void. Lady Tsunade is sending envoys to Lightning and the Mist to ensure that they stay out of it."
Kakashi slams the drawer of his dresser closed.
"Tell the Suna soldiers to wait on standby. The Kazekage needs to be made aware of the change in circumstances." Kakashi turns back to Cat. "He agreed to a war with neighboring villages, not with a neighboring Great Nation." The jonin leans down and straps himself into his sandals. Eight minutes left.
"Your orders, sir?"
Kakashi sits on the edge of his bed, leaning up from getting into his shoes, and turns to see Sakura already watching him. Her eyes are still clouded with sleep but he can tell by the rapid rise and fall of her chest that she understands.
War has come.
"Secure the Hokage. Then mobilize Anko's battalion for the defense of the village. Tell Shikaku and Guy to send out only half of their forces. Keep the rest on standby until my say-so. Put Iruka Umino in charge of evacuation."
Kakashi stands and faces Cat who almost, just barely, shrinks back from the towering jonin. Gone are the droopy eyes of the lazy, disinterested shinobi.
The Commander of Konoha stands in his place. A legacy in his own right.
"Sound the alarm, soldier."
The Anbu nods but doesn't move to leave. His eyes dart to Sakura as she sits up in bed. Her lips remain pressed in a thin, worried line but she captures the Anbu's gaze and holds it.
"Go, Cat," demands Kakashi more sternly. The Black Op snaps out of it and in a single stride over to the window, he drops out of it.
Seven minutes.
Sakura throws the covers back and goes to the dresser, opening the third drawer from the top. Kakashi is there in one bound of his long legs, pulling out her civilian clothes. He turns to lay them on the bed.
"Get dressed, quickly. You have roughly six minutes and thirty seconds to get to the evacuation site before it begins. Keep to the southeastern path, they won't strike from that direction."
Kakashi turns sharply on his heels and pulls open the last drawer of his desk. His gloved hands dig through it quickly, pulling out a cream colored envelope.
His will.
He turns to hand it to her but stops, his one gray eye narrowing as she pulls on her ninja gear.
The red blouse drops down over her slight baby bump and she ties her headband around her hair tightly. Sakura turns to grab the bandages and her kunai holder but Kakashi takes a long step over to her and catches her wrist.
"Don't."
The kunoichi turns her viridian glare to him and wrenches herself from his hold.
"We don't have the time for this."
Five minutes and forty eight seconds.
"You said last night that you were taking the maternity leave."
The pinkette leans down and ties the weapons holder to her right leg. Next comes her pouch. She ignores him and places it on the back of her hip.
Kakashi tightens his jaw.
"As the Commander of the Leaf Shinobi Force, I am hereby forbidding you from battle."
She scoffs and shoves past him to go pick up her medical pack that lays neatly on the floor next to her sandals. Kakashi, unwilling to let it go, strides up to her and takes her face in his hands.
"For once in your life, will you please not be so stubborn?"
The kunoichi pushes his hands off of her so she can strap her medical bag to her back, patting the speciality kunai in it's place.
"I'm a medical ninja, Kakashi. I will not be joining you on the front lines for this fight or any other."
"You have a duty to our-"
"Our home and our people!" Sakura spins on her heels to face him. "We took an oath. And as of right now, I am still a shinobi enlisted in active duty. It is my job to report to the hospital. And if Shizune demands that I go out into the field to aid the wounded, so be it."
"Sakura, please." Kakashi puts out his hands in front of him, pleading. His mismatched eyes search hers desperately for an inkling of hesitation so that he can convince her to take off the ninja gear and evacuate.
But there is none.
She stares steadily back at him, tugging her gloves onto her delicate hands. Kakashi's last will and testament is crumpled in his palm where he holds all of his anger and his fear.
Sakura is ready to go to war.
"Stop trying to be a hero," he exclaims. "She is more important than any desire to be remembered!"
For a moment, it looks like he slapped her. Her head snaps to the side to look at him again and she trembles where she stands. Green eyes narrow in a disbelieving state until they're almost slits.
"Is that what you think of me?" Her voice nearly lowers to a whisper. "That I'm running off to battle with our child inside of me because I have a goddamn hero complex!"
They really don't have the time for this. The minutes and seconds tick down like every fast beat
of Kakashi's heart. But she holds him where he stands with the fury in her voice, and he can't bring himself to move.
"I am the apprentice of the 5th Hokage. And right now, she needs me."
He reaches out a hand and touches it to her cheek where her anger pools in blotchy red spots. But she doesn't jerk away. Sakura tilts her head up to meet his frozen gaze.
"We need you," he says softly. His free palm grips at her hip suddenly and travels over the bump of her abdomen, barely concealed by the loose fit of her ninja gear. Her Will of Fire flickers, just for a moment.
Sakura drops her head into his palm and grips at his shoulders, holding him as if she needs to keep her balance. He pulls her to him, burying his face in her pink hair until he can smell her pomegranate shampoo through his mask. Until he can feel the stir of her breath against his collar.
It feels too much like a goodbye.
Sakura is the first to pull away away.
"I would never forgive myself," she says, backing away from him slowly, "if our friends die because I wasn't there." Her voice cracks. "Because I was hiding away while they ask Shizune, over and over again, 'Where is Sakura?' 'Why won't she come?'"
Two minutes and forty eight seconds. The gap between them grows larger as she continues to march her sandaled feet to the window.
"All because I didn't have the courage to tell them that I love Kakashi Hatake and we're going to have a baby." Sakura's knees hit the edge of the window sill. He watches her as if she moves in slow motion.
His hand clutches the picture of his unborn child in his pocket.
"Are you trying to kill me, Sakura?"
The sorrow in his question cuts her so deep she nearly gives in. Kakashi's ghosts, the ones hiding under his bed, in the picture frames on the dresser, in the eye staring back at her, whisper to Sakura that he's right. And she almost gives up.
But time has run out.
His entire apartment quakes against the impact of a nearby explosion. The bowls from last night's dinner clatter to the kitchen floor, shattering. From the nightstand, the lamp succumbs and shatters after it's fall and Mr. Ukki, the only plant Kakashi has ever owned, goes flying to his death upon the floor.
And then the alarm sounds.
Panic overflows the streets like a tsunami, civilians and their families pouring out of their homes. Another explosion to the west. To the east. Their keen hearing picks up the sound of kunai imbedding into flesh. Voices of shinobi they know begin to echo across the buildings, quick feet stampeding across the rooftops.
Somewhere down below, right beneath his window, a mother howls for her dying son.
"I have to go out there," she says in a gasp.
Naruto's voice rips through Kakashi's street and into the air. Kiba is not far behind, Akamaru growling like a beast.
"You have to go!" she pleads with Kakashi who currently looks lost and unable to move his feet. He stares at her as if it might be the last time he will ever see her.
And it terrifies the both of them.
"I'm coming home," she says to him urgently as she begins to climb through the window. "I promise. I will come home."
Although war rages outside his door, the flaring of hundreds of chakras bombarding him like a hail storm, he still can't find it in himself to spring into action.
The sharingan burns her worried face into his memory.
"I love you!" she says loudly, shouting it over the sound of a wind jutsu whipping past them. Sakura smells the iron of blood on the air. The noise dies down and she whispers it to him, one more time. "I love you."
Pink and red becomes a blur as it drops out of his window and into the street. He focuses on her chakra signature until it completely fades out of range, towards the east where the hospital and Shizune will undoubtedly be waiting.
His fist curls around the edges of the ultrasound picture once more as the apartment trembles again beneath the impact of another explosion. But it's not what spurs Kakashi to move his feet.
It's the sound of Obito's voice, echoing like an old drum beat inside his brain.
That may be true. Those who break the rules are trash. But those who abandon their friends are even worse than trash.
He thinks of Sakura's face as she backs away from him, pulled like a magnet to the sound of Naruto's voice rippling through the occupied Konoha.
And finally, Kakashi understands.
It sends his flying.
Kakashi spirals out of the window and lands in the street. Immediately, he ducks his silver head as a kunai whizzes dangerously past his ear. Slick, discreet fingers slip into his weapon's pouch and he pushes his kunai up against the blade of a Sound ninja, the clang of metal on metal like a war cry.
The enemy's dark eyes go wide with fear as he sees the sharingan spin mercilessly.
"I suggest," Kakashi begins in a low voice. His hand ignites with blue lightning and the other man's knees go weak. "You go back to where you came from."
The commander of the Jōmae army stands shoulder to shoulder with the battalion general of the Rock. They perch atop Lady Tsunade's stone head, watching sections of the Leaf go up in flame and blood. Yoshirou laughs when a young genin of his snaps the neck of a Fire genin. The sound seems to echo off the valley and it makes him giddy inside.
"How many prisoners do you need?" asks the Rock general, his hard yellowing eyes following the progress of his ninja as they cascade down over rooftops and into the streets of Konoha. "My men work better with absolute detail."
The raven haired man waves this question away and stares up at the sunrise. It bleeds orange and red, the omen to war. He grins a welcome to it.
"No prisoners, my friend." He gestures to the battle enraging Konoha. Yoshirou watches with interest as a man with a long blonde ponytail creates a sign for a jutsu that sends some unlucky Sound ninja into a fit, striking each other down until none remain. "This is simply a warning to the Leaf."
To the south end of the village, a summons, an elephant with barbed kunai tied around the edges of his husks, battles with a toad who adorns a sasumata and a sakazuki shield. Yoshirou raises an eyebrow at the yellow and orange blur flitting atop the giant amphibian's head.
Yoshirou laughs out loud, gleefully, as a swing of the elephant's trunk sends entire buildings collapsing into each other. The little blonde speck howls in fury as the rubble comes crashing down on his comrades. The two enemy commanders watch it crush the flecks of forest green amongst the village.
Yoshirou's previous intel lets the Jōmae leader know that the insufferable boy parading around like the obnoxious hero he thinks he is happens to be Naruto Uzumaki.
Time is running out for Jōmae and the Rock to make their statement.
Konoha is no longer an unparalleled power in the shinobi world, even with the apprentices of some of the greatest shinobi who ever lived running amongst the fray.
It is time for them to step down from their arrogance and bow to the alliance that will shape the ninja world into a new order, one great nation after the next.
The reign of the Land of Fire is over.
Yoshirou digs into the pocket of his robes and pulls out a bloodied picture. Naruto Uzumaki stares back at him, along with two other brats, and the happy face of none other than little Yamato himself. The Lock shinobi's hand shakes lightly as he remembers the cocky smirk on the boy's face when he escaped.
Promises about finding and gutting each other like fish were made all those months ago. And Yoshirou likes to believe himself to be a man of his word.
He absently traces the scar along his neck. His head snaps to the Rock's general who raises a single white eyebrow at him.
"Tell your men to kill every last ninja, woman, and child in this village before the hour is up. Take no one alive." Yoshirou flicks the photograph in the direction of the general who catches it easily. He examines it closely. "But if you find him, or any of his petulant brats?"
His cold blue eyes find the Rock shinobi's gaze and he can't help but shiver at the malice lurking beneath the cobalt.
"Bring them to me."
The black haired man smirks and spots the commander of the Leaf amongst the wreckage that Konoha is becoming. His silver hair glints in the early morning light. "Especially the girl."
The general tucks the picture into the pocket of his gear.
"Yamato and I," Yoshirou muses happily, "have some catching up to do."
With that, the Rock shinobi slides down the face of Tsunade and into the fray of battle to relay the message from Yoshirou Tanaka. He crosses his arms and watches happily as his men successfully tear Konoha apart at the seams.
Forty five more minutes to go.
Sakura sprints to the hospital as quickly as she can.
Neither the rooftops nor streets are safer than the other so the kunoichi takes her chances on the roads. Less open space to deal with.
A windmill shuriken flies her way and Sakura snaps back, letting it pass right over her nose as her eyes meet the sky to dodge it. With the approach of a foreign chakra signature, as she rises up, Sakura brings her fist back. It slams into the chest of an unsuspecting Waterfall ninja and she can feel his ribs caving in beneath her knuckles.
He goes flying into a fruit stand and Sakura takes off once again.
She needs to get out of the line of fire. The exertion of too much chakra at once, like in all her attacks, isn't healthy for the baby. The kunoichi suddenly side sweeps an adversary when he comes up behind her, flicking a kunai expertly into his eye once he hits the ground.
His screams rattle her as she commands her feet to move.
Sakura turns a corner and Hinata is letting the gentle fists fly, completely immobilizing the Rock nin before her with graceful strikes. She can barely see the movements of the other kunoichi's hands.
With one last shove of her palm into the man's side, he falls over, unable to move. Hinata stands, her long hair matted to her forehead with sweat and she gives a nod to Sakura as she passes by.
"Rotation!" the Hyuuga heir suddenly calls when a water dragon approaches them from the left. Her sandals whirl in the dirt, arms out, and the chakra sphere forms around her to repel the attack.
With a silent thank you directed to her friend, Sakura leaves this particular battle and treks on to the hospital. She turns another corner, heading deeper into the eastern district, and she has to stop in her tracks to witness the horror that has captured this part of Konoha.
Spots of purple, blue and forest green splatter across the pavement, bodies mangled, burned. The houses and shops are painted with a deep crimson. It smells of iron, sweat, and death.
Eyes stare up blankly at the sky, wide open.
A Leaf shinobi is torn clearly in two, his entrails slipping out of his upper half as he moans terribly that he can't feel his legs. He goes silent a moment later.
Somewhere nearby, a Sound ninja lets out a horrible wail, the waves of his jutsu assaulting her ears until they bleed. She winces and tries to run but her feet are planted firmly to the ground.
A face she knows, a chuunin gate attendant, lays with his eye burned out of their sockets. Blood stains his blonde hair orange.
The sound shinobi inches closer, still howling his horrible technique that rips through her body until she can feel the blood pool to her ears, the drums about to burst and take her hearing with her. But she's frozen to the spot, unable to move.
Unable to run from death lingering in her nose.
"Sakura!"
The pinkette is tackled to the ground, breaking the trance of the strange melodic wailing. At the last possible moment, she twists beneath the body above her so that it's her back that meets the ground and not her belly. Air leaves her lungs in loud huffs and the noise of battle comes back to her in waves. The crashes and shouts, the rubble of buildings cascading down onto the streets.
And the sound of Yamato's breath in her ear.
"It was a paralysis jutsu." He leans up on his hands to look at her. "You can't get caught off guard like that." The taichou, his almond eyes worried and grim, stare down at her and Sakura wants to crush him to her so that she can feel his heart against her chest.
He's still alive. There is still life beating through his body after so much death.
Sakura realizes he's looking at her the same way. Her hand reaches up and habitually heals the open gash spilling droplets of his blood onto her forehead.
"I'll take you to the hospital," he nearly shouts over the sound of an explosion to their left, reading her mind when her eyes dart anxiously in that direction. His arms automatically shield her head even though it's a few houses down and the rubble won't reach them.
Sakura breathes in the sweat and sandalwood of his skin, a paradise smell in the midst of metallic and smoke.
"No," she says as he hauls her quickly to her feet. "They need you out here. I can manage."
Yamato locks a stern gaze onto her face. But his hand doesn't leave hers.
"The eastern path is the most concentrated place of battle. You can't go in there alone."
Both shinobi jump apart when a kunai blade whizzes towards their intertwined hands. The distance is suddenly too wide and they clammer back together.
"I'm gonna have to if I want to get to the hospital," she says with the jut of her chin.
Yamato considers this carefully. The battle is slowly pushing from east to west so they will soon be overrun if they continue to stand around any longer.
But they'll be headed right into the thicket.
"We'll go together. Kakashi's battalion is taking the southern end while Shikaku is manning the east, we won't be completely outnumbered. We'll just have to push our way through."
Sakura wants to tell him. She wants to warn him that she can't do anything too risky.
She can't throw herself in front of him like she usually would.
But the coward in her doesn't say a word. She simply nods.
And the two of them take off towards the hospital. After months of working together, their feet join in a synchronized rhythm against the quaking earth beneath them. A Rock ninja, hot on their trail, sends the ground into a cavern, threatening to swallow them up whole if they get caught.
Too easy.
Yamato grabs onto her arm and swings her to his left where Sakura sticks to the side of the building with chakra intensified feet. The taichou simply runs across the split in the ground, his hands flying in signs as wood begins to sprout from the foundations of the village and form a bridge across the open expanse until the Rock ninja's jutsu is out of range.
The pinkette flips gracefully down beside him and they fall back into a sprinting pace.
Their lungs burn at the same speed as they pump their legs faster.
They skid onto the next block and it's full out war. Purple smoke bombs go off like canons.
Lightning rips through an Sound nin but it's too light to be Kakashi's. Yamato and Sakura skid into a crater in the ground just as a fire jutsu passes over their head, the taichou clutching the kunoichi to him when the flame gets too close.
Konohamaru and his clone, separated from his battalion, throws a rasengan into a Waterfall ninja who flies dozens of feet backwards. Yamato pulls him into the crater by his ankle, busting the boy's chin open on the ground but saves his life as a kunai pierces the air where his neck had been.
The Sarutobi breathes out a shaken thank you.
Yamato pulls him close by the front of his shirt to be heard over the roar of battle.
"The rest of the battalion is in the south. Go there and tell Kakashi that no one, and I mean absolutely no one, can be taken alive." The boy's eyes go wide with the implication. The taichou gives him an urgent shake. "Do you understand me?"
Konohamaru nods gravely and before Sakura can even blink, he takes off back into the fray. Yamato looks at her, his right hand trembling profusely, and she understands.
Genma must be turning over in his grave.
The two of them climb from the crater and continue their perilous trek. They work as a perfect team, moving in a rhythm that no enemy can follow. When Yamato dodges, she strikes. When he slides, she jumps. They are the push and pull of battle, obliterating every shinobi that does not belong on their land until they are naught but flesh and unseeing eyes.
She will think about the blood staining her hands later. But right now, Tsunade needs her.
A yellow and orange blur sprints up beside her and despite the ache and rage of war, Sakura gives him a smile. Yamato does the same as Sai drops in on the opposite end of their entourage.
An entire wall of enemy ninja stand between them and their destination. Naruto barks out a crude laugh, cracking his knuckles.
"Alright," the taichou says as they speed towards the farthest eastern edge of the village, "Formation C."
"Right!" the three younger shinobi respond in unison.
Yamato makes a hand sign with his right hand while the left arm completely turns to wood, sprouting from his shoulder and to the enemy. Sakura runs along the beams shooting from his body, giving a loud battle cry, her chakra intensified fist pulled back and ready to strike.
All eyes turn to her and the sprawl of Yamato's wooden spears racing towards them. What they do not see is Sai swooping in from above, atop an ink drawn eagle, as he drops kunai down onto them like rain. They hit their marks, collapsing one by one until only a few remain.
The Rock nin Sakura was aiming for leans back to avoid her fist, prepared to dodge his way out of another strike from the kunoichi.
But his attention is turned to the jinchuuriki of the Leaf as he splinters his way through Yamato's wood jutsu, the rasengan spiraling furiously through the broken shards and pieces of tree roots before landing in the chest of the last remaining enemy ninja.
From somewhere to his left, Sakura snaps the neck of a girl, not much older than herself.
Dead blue eyes stare back at her, paused as if she had been watching her life flash before them.
It rattles the kunoichi until Yamato's warm hand guides her back to herself, pulling her along beside him with the sweaty grip of his fingers.
Sakura doesn't let go.
They continue running and he points to the end of the block. The defense barrier around the hospital in order to protect the Hokage inside shimmers in the morning light. Shinobi pour the wounded into the doors and it nearly overflows.
Sakura's breath catches in her throat for only a moment.
She turns to Yamato and curls her fist into the sleeve of his shirt.
"I don't want to see you here again." Her fingers tighten around his arm. Yamato stares at her stricken face and he nods, understanding. "Go," she says quietly. "All of you." Her eyes flicker to Naruto and Sai as well.
The blonde looks back towards the battle and without another word, he runs right into it. Sai follows close behind but the taichou stays.
He lingers before her, her fingers still holding onto him as if she refuses to let him go back into the fray without her. Yamato, with a sudden bout of courage as another explosion sky rockets shinobi and rubble into the air, leans in and presses his lips to her forehead.
He closes his almond eyes as he lingers there, a pained expression on his face as he pries her hand away from his sleeve.
The absence of her touch is too profound.
"Stay alive," he whispers into her ear. Sakura shivers at his breath against her hair but before she can turn to look at him, Yamato is gone. He sprints back into battle and Sakura can only watch helplessly as she calculates all of his blind spots that she could cover if she had gone with him.
But the moans and cries from the hospital draw her attention. Her foot move automatically and Sakura bursts into the protective barrier before she can even blink again.
It is chaos. Nurses and medical ninja run about like their own lives depend on it, supplies dangling from their outstretched arms. Shinobi lay mutilated, torn and unable to stand on the lobby floor as they struggle to stay breathing. Civilians moan and sob.
A father holds his limp son to his chest and curses everything and anyone who crosses his path.
From somewhere to her right, Tsunade gives a loud cry and brings her powerful fist onto a female ninja's chest. It restarts her heart and the Hokage barks for the attendings to wheel her to the next available operating room.
Her hazel eyes meet Sakura's and she marches over her to apprentice like the wrath of Kami herself.
"Where have you been?" she demands. Blood splatter Lady Hokage's cheek but it is not her own. "We've been flooded with the injured and you were nowhere to be found!"
Sakura's pink head instantly drops to a bow.
"Forgive me! I got caught on the front lines while making my way over here with Yamato- taichou!"
The Hokage's infuriated expression fades into something like that looks like relief. Her hand comes down on the pinkette's shoulder and she gives it a squeeze. Sakura catches it and holds it there, taking comfort in the touch of her master.
"Categorize the wounded. Make all the ones who can wait stay in the lobby. Send critical to the left wing and those who-" her hazel eyes flicker. With anger? With grief? "Those who won't make it, see that they're comfortable. Treat as many as you can." The Hokage turns from her apprentice to go back to work.
Sakura nods, agreeing with her shishou, as she ties her pink hair up into a ponytail. She gets to work, sending the worse off ninja in Tsunade's direction, the ones who can be easily saved to Shizune, and treating the manageable ones on her own.
The kunoichi snaps the bone of a ninja's leg back into his skin. She's about to heal the tissue and marrow with a medicinal green hand when the doors of the hospital burst open and he's there, shouting for her.
Shikamaru doesn't raise his voice unless he absolutely has to.
"Cherry!" he bellows over the collective howl and moan of the hospital lobby. "Sakura!" He gets louder and it takes every ounce of will in her not to get up and run to him. The shinobi beneath her wriggles in pain and she has to heal his injury with just as much focus and attention as she would give to a friend.
But the anxiety claws it's way up her chest as she puts the finishing touches to reconstructing his bone back together.
Who is it?
Who might never show up to Friday Fun Day again?
Whose funeral will they have to attend in the morning?
These questions plague her as she rises to her feet and tries to find him through the crowd. His spiky hair is there, swiveling back and forth as he looks for her amongst the masses.
Blonde is the first thing she sees spilling over the edge of his arm.
"Oh my god," she says to herself, shoving past a nameless chuunin to get to Shikamaru. Sakura immediately starts testing Ino's vitals.
"No she's alive, she's not injured!" he explains, mouth moving faster than the rest of his body. "It's her-"
At that moment Ino's pale blue eyes shoot open and she screams like a banshee, blood curling and shrill as if she faces the devil himself.
"Naruto Uzumaki is the nine tails jinchuuriki of the Leaf! His parents are Minato Namikaze, the Fourth Hokage, and Kushina Uzumaki!"
"Ino!" Sakura hisses, trying to make her friend look at her. "That's classified, stop!"
"The Anbu are the only one who have access to the Hokage's personal living quarters," Ino continues as she thrashes in pain. She lets out another shrieking howl and her fingernails claw into Shikamaru's cheek. Three bloody lines curve down towards his jaw but he only tightens his hold on Ino. "It's hidden beneath Hokage Tower. The access code to get in is-"
Sakura slaps her hand over Ino's mouth but it keeps moving, even beneath Sakura's palm. Her green eyes snap to Shikamaru and his grim face stares back at her.
Sakura watches him stammer, tripping over his words.
Gone are Shikaku and Asuma from his young face. Gone is the young man who let vengeance burn it's way through his heart until he took the life of the man who killed his sensei.
She watches the boy who stares at clouds start to crumble beneath the weight of Ino's screams.
"She was hit with some k-kind of mind jutsu-or something-by a Lock ninja. I thought she could handle it but it's, it wasn't-the Yamanaka clan has never seen it before-there was no way she could've known! Ino started blurting out Village secrets to the attacker and when I shadow possessed her to keep her from talking-"
Sakura's best friend suddenly stops breathing. Her face turns red as she struggles to take another lungful of air, clawing at her throat as if something is lodged inside.
"We have to get Tsunade," the kunoichi declares when Ino's lips begin to turn blue. Sakura marks Ino's forehead with a red x and immediately, a team of medical ninja come to her side with a stretcher. They wrestle Ino onto it, prying her from Shikamaru's arms who is determined to pummel anyone else who touches her.
The blonde's eyes bulge out of her pretty face as she still struggles for breath.
But still, she reaches a delicate hand out to Shikamaru and grabs the front of his shirt.
"It's gonna be alright, Ino," he says, voice shaking. The Nara boy jogs beside her stretcher as they wheel her to the critical wing where Tsunade is just finishing up with a man whose legs have been amputated.
Shizune wheels him away and when the Hokage's eyes settle on the Yamanaka girl, Sakura swears she sees Tsunade forget to blink.
But it's over as soon as it arrives.
Shikamaru smooths Ino's bangs back to see both of her pale eyes when she is finally able to suck in a breath, choking it down like a woman dying of thirst before the screaming starts again.
She wails and Tsunade has the medical team strap her down.
"Asuma Sarutobi is succeeded by one nephew and one son! Konohamaru Sarutobi is the unofficial student of Naruto Uzumaki!" Ino's bark arches and her eyes roll back into her head as Tsunade hovers her medicinal green hand over her head to observe her mind. And yet, her hoarse voice keeps screeching out to anyone who will listen, "His primary attacks are the Shadow Clone Technique and the Rasengan of the Fourth Hokage. He lives on Otaka road with his mother-"
Tsunade shouts over Ino's rambling to Sakura who stands at the ready, hands out and itching to help. She tries not to look at Ino's face.
"It's not her mind," Tsunade declares. "It's her mouth." The Hokage grabs a hold of the girl's cheeks and opens her jaw wide. Sakura peers in and sees the sigils of a jutsu curved along the Yamanaka's tongue.
"How do we get rid of it?" Sakura demands. No answer. Tsunade stares as Ino stops breathing again when she refuses to give out any more information. The blonde turns an ugly shade of purple.
Shikamaru stands so silently next to Sakura that she forgets he's there.
Tsunade nods to her apprentice, having the same thought, and the two of them start to wheel Ino out to the next available chamber. The Nara boy tries to block their path but with a quick shove with her shoulder, Tsunade sends him to the side.
"Go back to the front lines, Shikamaru." Her light eyes search his dark ones. His hand absently reaches for Ino's which stretches out for him again, despite the restraints, but the Hokage slaps her fingers around his wrist.
Tightly. Reassuringly.
"You are of no use to her now." Her face softens when he flinches back. "You did all you can."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" he barks back, mouth stretched into a hard line. "Is that what you're going to tell me when you can't fix her? 'I did all I could'?"
Sakura is the one who flinches now and doesn't miss the pointed stare that he gives her. Tsunade moves past him, giving his shoulder a pat, and wheels the thrashing Ino down into chamber 3.
She lets her apprentice linger.
Yet Sakura has no words. Ino's condition is new, uncharted territory. They will try the simplest of remedies first; jutsu reversals, curse mark sealings. Most likely, someone from the Intelligence department will come and fumble around in her brain. It's obviously an interrogation technique, most likely thrown out to Ino in a last desperate attempt from the enemy to fight back in the face of the Ino-Shika-Cho formation.
And by some lucky chance, it worked.
But both shinobi know that Ino is not dying. She stops breathing only as long as she is unable to give information. As long as Tsunade lets Ino keep talking, she won't be in any immediate danger.
It kills Sakura. Literally curls her insides into ash that she's categorizing her own best friend as just another patient.
Ino can wait. Others cannot.
"Go back to the front lines, Shika," she says softly. His dark eyes turn to her and he almost pleads for her to stop talking. But something in her face tells him to listen. "The village has been infiltrated. Konoha has plunged into war and right now, as you stand here talking to me, our men are without one of our best soldiers and Choji is without a partner."
"I can't just leave her-"
"Yes you can!" she suddenly snaps. He takes a step back and from somewhere down the hall, he can still hear Ino's muffled screams. "We all have somebody who might not make it home tonight."
A deafening silence stretches between them as they count the faces of their friends, their family. There are too many. Too many smiles and bright eyes. Lives that could be gone faster than either of them can blink.
Ino's screams start to sound farther and farther away.
Sakura suddenly reaches for him and crushes Shikamaru to her. He doesn't hug back, simply stands there, arms limp, and drops his head down onto her shoulder. His lungs take a shaky breath, gathering back his courage as she whispers against his ear.
"Do not waste his Will of Fire."
She doesn't say his name. She never has to. But those were the right words to say because suddenly, Shikamaru stiffens, straightening his spine and snaps his eyes to meet hers as if he's seeing her clearly for the first time.
She sees him pushing Ino back into a place where he can't reach so easily. She watches as he makes his limbs move and keeps his heart pumping even though all he wants to do is stop and wait for Ino to come home.
Sakura did the same for Kakashi this morning. And for Yamato out in the field.
He would make the same sacrifice.
"Stay alive," she says to him with a smile, echoing the taichou's words. Shikamaru gives her head the slightest of pats, the merest touch of his palm against her hair, and is sprinting back towards the lobby and out the door before she can say, "See you later."
Sakura gathers her courage as well and follows his steps, facing the second wave of injured as war continues to rage on Konoha's doorstep.
Yamato, as he has a thousand times before, ducks as soon as he feels Kakashi's chakra tingling at the back of his neck. The chidori goes right over the top of his head and into the chest of the general of the Rock. His yellowing eyes roll back into his head, blood dripping down from the hole where his heart should be until he is no more.
The man's body hits the dirt with a hard thud. Yamato spins on his left heel and the two men, Commander and Lieutenant, stand back to back. They pant in unison, sweat cascading down their dirt stained cheeks as Konoha finally begins to turn the tide.
It's been thirty two minutes into the invasion and the Leaf has finally rebounded from the element of surprise that Jōmae had so sneakily gained. But the battle for the village is not over just yet.
A sound ninja comes hurtling towards Yamato's blind spot. Instinctually, Kakashi grabs onto his forearm and with a forceful tug, he swings his companion around in a half circle. The taichou's feet automatically go out, kicking the enemy in the face once, then cracking his neck in two with the other foot. He lands back down to the ground and they dodge roll into opposite directions to avoid Kiba and Akamaru's vicious Fang over Fang as a Lock ninja sprints right past them, reeking of urine.
Fire singes the back of Yamato's hair and he hisses, forming a hand sign before anyone can even blink. His shell of wood encases him, shrouding him in shade and protection, until the flame passes over him. He uses this chance to catch a breath or two.
'Stay alive', he whispers against Sakura's forehead, his lips mumbling his words against her skin as if he can make them stain.
The taichou opens his eyes and unfurls the jutsu, squinting back out into the bright morning sun. Kakashi's hounds whip past him, sinking their teeth into a Waterfall ninja who had grabbed Konohamaru by the back of his scarf. The boy takes his chance and creates a clone, fixating the Rasengan into it's spherical form where he jams it, rather viciously, into the shinobi's face.
His screams whip across the battlefield and settle into Kakashi's bones as he watches blood permeate the young Sarutobi's dark eyes.
He backs up against Yamato again. The enemies are beginning to approach in smaller numbers, almost unnoticeable to the untrained eye.
"A retreat?" Tenzou asks in a pant. He can feel Kakashi shake his silver head.
"It feels wrong," he replies. The jonin clenches his jaw beneath his mask. "They're planning something."
Their thoughts are suddenly snapped to a screaming Moegi who is currently being dragged by her unusual hair by a Lock ninja. Her eyes bore into Konohamaru's who can only spare her a glance, unable to move as he remains locked in a lightning speed battle of taijutsu. One wrong move and he's dead.
The young genin kicks and screams and Kakashi realizes by the flopping of her arms that they've both been broken.
She can't make a hand sign.
The copy ninja takes a step towards her but he's intercepted by an earth jutsu, making the ground beneath him turn to mud and suck him down like something carnivorous. Kakashi occupies himself with devising an escape plan involving a substitution, a clone, and a fire jutsu.
He won't be able to get to her in time.
"Moegi!" Konohamaru screeches over the roar of battle. A fist goes flying into the boy's jaw and he's sent several feet away. He rolls painfully against the hard ground, several ribs now broken and takes a gasping breath. "Moegi!" he cries again, trying to haul himself up to his feet. A sandaled foot goes into his temple and it flips Konohamaru onto his back, staring up at the sky. Stars explode behind his eyelids.
He can't get to her. Not now.
Yamato finishes off a Sound ninja with a kunai to the chest when he hears the genin scream. The corner of his almond eye catches a glint of silver in her hand and he snaps his head in her direction, his feet already moving towards her.
Moegi sniffs, tears streaming down her eternally blushed cheeks, and Yamato stiffens. She holds her kunai, supported by her broken arm, to her own throat. It trembles profusely and it almost falls from her fingertips.
His words echo back to him painfully.
'Go to Kakashi in the south, Konohamaru, and tell him that no one, and I mean absolutely no one, can be taken alive." The boy looks unsteadily back at him. Yamato grabs him by the front of his shirt and gives him a shake. "Do you understand me?"
It seemed so plausible then. To warn Kakashi who would in turn warn the entire Shinobi Force that a prisoner of Jōmae is a worse fate than death. That the entire survival of Konoha depends on whether or not they take a captive.
And yet, as Yamato watches Moegi start to drive the kunai into her throat, unknown words falling from her trembling lips, the taichou regrets his order.
He hears Konohamaru scream for her to stop but it sounds a thousand years away. Yamato's feet can't move fast enough.
She looks so small, one arm uselessly dragging beside her, the other painfully about to end her life. All for Konoha.
All for the Will of Fire.
"Whoa there, sweetheart." A gloved hand snatches at Moegi's wrist and holds the blade back just as it pricks her skin. A line of red streaks down like tears along her throat and she takes what looks like a breath of relief.
And maybe shame.
"Let's not not do anything stupid, shall we?" calls the cheerful voice, tugging the kunai from Moegi's too tight fingers. He steps on her broken wrist and she howls, releasing the weapon.
Yamato narrows his eyes at Yoshirou, lips turning up into an inhuman growl.
The ghost of his captivity runs a finger up the taichou's spine as he stares at his previous captor in his too serene face. His hard blue eyes devour Yamato hungrily, expectantly.
"Hello, boy," he says. The Lock ninja gives the young Leaf genin at his feet a good casual kick in the ribs and Tenzou can hear the crack beneath his sandal. She wails again but when she tries to get up and flee, he drags her back by her hair. "I believe I have something of yours."
Yamato watches an old flicker of malice in the man's eyes and he can't help but shrink back. He swears the screams on the battlefield have suddenly turned into the last cries of Akira and he wants to flee. Every bone in his body tells him to run, to avoid this ninja and all the evil he leaves in his wake but the taichou is no coward.
At least not today.
"I'll kill you," he says in a low growl. War wages around them and yet, there is only him and Yoshirou. The young genin's life hangs in the balance between them and Yamato finds himself shoulder to shoulder with Kakashi once again. His right hand is splattered with the blood of an enemy, the smell of lightning still lingering on his silver hair
Yoshirou's grin only widens.
"What an honor it is to meet the Commander! Kakashi, isn't it? Copy Ninja of the Leaf, how very lucky I am to face you on the first day of battle."
He says nothing back, his sharingan locking onto Moegi. She stills beneath his fixating gaze, watching it turn slowly into the Mangekyo. Yoshirou nearly bounces on his heels with excitement.
"You really are a sight to behold, Wolf-san!" Kakashi bristles at the use of his Anbu name. "The last sharingan of the Leaf. How impressive." The Lock commander snaps Moegi's head back by her hair and she whimpers beneath his hold. Yamato can see her knees trembling against the ground.
"I suggest you return my soldier to me," Kakashi calls out. He gives an eye crinkling smile, danger still lurking in the slow twirl of his one red eye. "Or you will pay the price."
Yoshirou tilts his head back and laughs. He gives Moegi an affectionate pat on the head and she shrinks away.
"I'm afraid you, Yamato and I are going to play a game." He tugs the genin closer to him until her cheek leans against his thigh. Yoshirou holds her there forcefully. His hand strokes her hair like a pet and it makes Yamato uneasy.
His stomach churns.
"Let's call it the 'Who would you choose game'."
Both jonin stop breathing. Yesterday's battalion training comes back to them in a rush and it knocks the wind from Kakashi but he keeps a straight face. From beside him, Yamato stiffens. He furls and unfurls his right hand, tremoring next to Kakashi's and they communicate without words.
There's a spy in Konoha.
"I believe you're very fond of this game, yes?" The man raises a black eyebrow, his cold steel blue eyes boring into the both of them. "The first choice is obviously little-oh dear-" He looks down at Moegi. "What's your name, child?"
The genin gives him no answer. In a sudden fit of bravery, tears still running down her blushed cheeks, she spits up into his face.
Yamato cracks a smile.
"My name is Moegi!"
Yoshirou wipes the spittle off his nose with his free hand and gives a chuckle.
"Kakashi, Yamato? Little Moegi here is your first choice. I have her cornered, unable to move, unable to flee." He gives a wink to the taichou. "And as your lieutenant knows, captivity is not suitable for something so small and delicate but…" He stomps on the girl's already broken hand and she wails. "Those cards seem to be the winning hand so far."
And there it is. Kakashi can feel the dread growing in his gut. It sneaks up his spine and into his mouth where his throat runs dry and he suddenly can't think straight.
The ultrasound picture in his pocket attempts to burn holes through skin.
"And the second choice is..." Yoshirou's hard eyes cascade over the still unfurling battle. "Whoever shall I pick?" He spots Naruto's bright jacket, the glow of the Rasengan illuminating the marks of the sage across his eyes. "Your beloved future Hokage and your student, Kakashi. He is your legacy after all." Yoshirou smiles and then turns his gaze to Kurenai, locked in a genjutsu with a Sound ninja who sways heavily on his feet, driving a kunai mercilessly into his own gut.
"The only remaining parent of Asuma Sarutobi's child?" The Lock ninja grins when he sees Kakashi's hand curl into a fist at the mention of his name.
"You've always been the first to run your mouth," Yamato calls from across the field. "Your bluff holds no weight when you only have one captive."
Yoshirou feints a confused, defeated slap to his forehead.
"Oh goodness, I'm forgetting to mention that my men have successfully eliminated the Anbu holding up the barrier around the Hokage's current location." He grins an awful smile. "Some of you Leaf ninja are so weak in the mind. One little basic jutsu from Jōmae has Konoha soldiers singing like canaries."
"You lie," Tenzou spits. Yoshirou turns his attention to Kakashi who has suddenly grown far too still.
"Call them on your communicator, Commander. See if you can reach your team."
Kakashi's hand reaches up, as if automatically, and presses a finger to the piece in his ear.
"Bear, status report." Nothing but static. Kakashi presses it again. "Crane, what is your location?" He tries every code name on the roster but only the eerie silence of static greets him.
From across the field, Yoshirou chuckles. He sniggers and it builds into a roaring laughter that quiets the battlefield into silence. The sound is unsettling amongst the blood and shouts of war that no one moves.
No one breathes.
Fear grips Kakashi by the throat and he slams his finger down onto the ear piece once again.
This can't be happening. That Anbu team was his own, one of the most elite in the entire Black Ops division and they were defeated.
The Hokage is in danger.
And so is his child.
"All units in the eastern district report to the hospital! Every single shinobi within a mile radius, go immediately!"
Yoshirou continues to laugh. Already, Leaf soldiers scattered across the battlefield that used to be sprint off into that direction. The enemy follows, pursuing. But Yamato, Kakashi, the Lock commander and little Moegi, stay.
"I have the hospital surrounded, Kakashi." He smiles at the taichou. "Little Yamato. No one, not your Hokage, not your medical nin, and especially not your wounded, will be able to escape."
Everything in their bodies screams for them to run, to sprint as fast as they can to protect the Hokage. To protect their people and their peers but the fear in Moegi's eyes keep them planted to the ground.
"Leave me!" she cries out. "Go protect the Hokage!"
Yoshirou smiles down at the girl and gives her another affectionate pat, one hand still tangled painfully in her hair. He grinds the heel of his sandal down onto her shattered wrist.
Kakashi can see the chakra networks beneath her skin starting to rip apart. If he doesn't act quickly, she'll lose the ability to yield jutsu. Her life as a ninja will be over.
But the lives of the hundreds at the hospital in the light of comparison with one genin?
The Hokage. The countless shinobi and civilians.
His lover and their child.
Kakashi stares at little Moegi and he sees Rin staring back at him. Captured, incapacitated.
Guilty.
The copy nin snaps his gaze to Yoshirou. And the lightning blade ignites in his right hand.
The Lock commander raises an amused eyebrow and laughs.
"Looks like you've made your choice, Kakashi. Small, helpless Moegi over your Hokage, over your people." He grins with all his teeth. "Over the woman you both love."
Yamato stiffens. His heart stutters profoundly in his chest and he remembers the hard light of war in her green eyes. The hard grip of her hand on his sleeve. His sandals shift restlessly against the ground, every bone in his body telling him to run. To go before it's too late.
Moegi watches both men bristle at Yoshirou's words and she knows, they see it dawning on her face, that they won't pick her.
Yamato feels disgusted with himself. He feels like a traitor to his land and to his brothers in arms but there is a call much greater driving his feet now.
He does not have the strength that Kakashi has. He never did.
The taichou turns on his heels and leaves Moegi to the mercy of Yoshirou while Kakashi stays.
The Lock commander gives a low whistle of surprise.
"Now this is interesting. As I understand it, you stole her from him, didn't you?" Yoshirou cocks his head to the side, wondering. Calculating. "Yet he goes and you stay. Don't you love your little Sakura, Kakashi? Don't you want to go home to her pretty face tonight?" His shoulders shake with a chuckle. "Yet you just signed her death certificate!"
"I don't abandon my comrades." Kakashi narrows his sharingan at Moegi. "And I will not abandon my men."
The Mangekyo forms against his red eye once again and the air between him and Yoshirou starts to ripple as reality begins to bend and rip in a straight directional line to the genin. He strains his eye until it feels like it will explode in it's socket, desperate to reach her so he can get out of there.
So he can run to his King.
"I'm sorry, Wolf-san." A glint of silver catches the gaze of his one gray orb. "But I make the rules."
There is no time. There are not enough seconds for him to close the distance between himself and Moegi.
He's too late.
Yoshirou grips the kunai dangling from his sleeve by the handle. And before Moegi can even blink, he slams the tip into her throat.
Kakashi calls out her name and reality snaps back into place and pain shoots up into his brain from the sharingan. But it still whirls and clicks her slacked jaw and horrified eyes into his memory.
The earth spins too uneasily beneath his feet.
He will see the blood gushing down her neck, staining her pink shirt until there is no more left to spare, in his dreams tonight and every other night as long as he lives.
"K-" Moegi sputters red until her teeth shine with it. "Konohama-" But she can't finish. The genin gurgles and her eyes go still. Cold and unseeing and she slumps against Yoshirou's leg.
He looks down at her like an insect and kicks her body away.
Bored of this game, he presses a finger to his own ear piece. And he gives Kakashi a sly grin.
"Kill them all."
The ground shakes beneath Kakashi's feet and he looks to the east. He can see the roof of the hospital begin to cave into itself, rumbling down to it's shingles and tiles, leaving nothing but a cloud of smoke and debris where it once stood.
His heart does the same and Kakashi leaves Moegi to her fate.
Her lifeless eyes burn hotly in the back of his head.
Too late, too slow. Shameful, weak.
Guilty.
He leaves her with a howl trapped inside his mask and he sprints, faster than he has ever sprinted before, to the east where every Leaf shinobi is heading as well.
Kakashi pushes through the crowd, pumping his legs until they burn with the effort. Without him noticing, the enemy begins to retreat. They slip back into the shadows and alleys of Konoha, crawling like spiders back to their leader.
But none of that matters. He is not the Commander right now. He is not Kakashi Hatake, the Copy Ninja of the Leaf who will soon lead Konoha to a vengeful victory against Jōmae.
He is a father. And he is late.
Shinobi crawl into the wreckage like ants, trying to pull as many as they can from the rubble and the pipes and the bricks of the broken hospital. Unmoving eyes stare up at him as he treks through the shambles, looking for a sign, just a glimmer of her pink hair.
He starts digging with his bare hands, the world silencing behind him as ninja wail and grunt with the effort of clearing the way to wrestle survivors out of the pile of ash that the hospital now is.
"Kakashi!" Guy calls from somewhere to his right. But the copy ninja keeps digging, the sharingan restlessly implanting every face he could've saved into his memroy as he continues to search for Sakura.
The ultrasound picture pulses like a fading heartbeat in his pocket. He panics.
"Kakashi!" Guy calls again. The jonin whips around, dust and soot covering his hands and his hair, and he narrows his eyes at the jonin.
The green beast points to the north.
And he sees it. The undeniable roots of Yamato's wood jutsu unfurling from it's dome and then digging through the wreckage until they reach the sunlight.
Blonde pigtails emerge first. Her chakra presence, angered and grieving, engulfs them all like a heavy blanket in the summer. The heat of her fury is blinding.
Shizune is next, her small hand hovering over her trembling lips as she watches Izumo and Kotetsu haul a civilian out from under a pipe that flattens her legs.
Too many seconds pass. Kakashi's chest tightens painfully and he's about to call out her name but then he sees it. The pink of Sakura's hair against the blue sky and the flash of her green eyes as she takes in the sight of what has become of the hospital, climbing out from the wreckage.
Her eyes glance in his direction and he searches her body with his gaze, looking for anything that might cause alarm. Anything that needs attention.
But the girl clambers down the rubble towards him and Kakashi can breathe again.
He can feel his lungs gratefully sucking down air as he watches her make her way to him.
However, it isn't him that she's is racing to.
Sakura passes right by him, their shoulders brushing against one another's, and Kakashi turns to follow her with his mismatched eyes.
Shikamaru, standing on the edge of the catastrophe, looks at Sakura like she's missing a limb. A look passes between them and he starts talking incoherently, gesturing at her wildly and raising his voice.
"You told me to leave her! You told me to go back and now look at this! LOOK AT IT."
The boy's face pinches together and he holds it all in, letting it rack his shoulders as Sakura pulls him to her by the front of his flak jacket. He resists, trying to pry his way away from her, stammering and hollering something about how he can't breathe.
Shikamaru buries his face into her shoulder and he fists his hands into the red of her shirt. He grasps at the Haruno symbol on her back and he shuts his eyes so tightly, Kakashi thinks he never wants to open them again.
Which is understandable.
All around him, people sob. They hover over the bodies of their loved ones and they howl. Others cry of happiness but Shikamaru takes in breath like he doesn't remember how to.
And when his eyes finally open and he looks back to where Sakura and the Hokage had sprung up from, Kakashi realizes as he follows the boy's stare.
Both Shikamaru and Sakura sink to the ground as the genius spills down onto his knees. He sobs into Sakura's neck as if she can save him.
Yamato watches her own shoulders begin to shake as her shakily climbs his way out of the rubble. Blonde hair spills over the edge of his arm and Kakashi's left knee nearly gives out.
Ino's pale blue eyes stare up at the matching sky, cold.
And unmoving.
Kakashi suddenly understands and he grieves.
Lady Tsunade comes to stand beside him. Her chakra is suffocating, covering him like scalding hot water but he lets it.
He deserves it.
The Hokage stares at her people still clawing their way through the remnants of her hospital. Too many broken, too many crushed and bleeding.
Too many stained with the call of war. The Hokage balls her bloodied hands into fists.
"They will pay for this, Kakashi." She makes a step towards a civilian with a shard of metal sticking out of his chest to their right. "And you will see it done."
The Commander nods his head and watches the Hokage go but he does not have it in him to speak.
Shikaku, prying his son away from Sakura, turns his head up to look at Kakashi. The kunoichi's eyes follow the patriarch's stare and they settle on Kakashi.
She spares him a glance but not a second more.
Instead he watches Yamato carry Ino's body down to her father who collapses beneath his weight. The taichou passes her into the first pair of arms that ever held her and he bows his head in grief.
Inoichi wails. Terribly. Horribly. His turquoise eyes leak profusely and he shudders, fading into the shell of a man that Kakashi doesn't recognize right before his eyes.
"Ino!" he sobs. He cradles her pretty head to his chest as if his own heartbeat will make her jolt back to life. "INO!"
But it is not Kakashi that Sakura wraps her arms around to grieve over the death of her best friend as she watches Inoichi turn his Yamanaka eyes to the sky, his mouth rippling with a grief so great, everyone averts their eyes.
It is not Kakashi she runs to.
Yamato opens his arms to her and Sakura fists her hands into his hair but she does not cry. She stares over her captain's shoulder at Inoichi who tries to shake life back into his daughter, saying her name over and over again as if he can call her back.
With one hand curled at the small of her back and the other tangled in her pink hair, Yamato looks up at Kakashi and the two men share a thought that both ties them together and rips them apart.
It could've been her.
Kakashi watches Shikamaru struggle against the hold of his father, tears streaming down the boy's dirtied face until he can't see clearly.
Tenzou tightens his arms around Sakura who lets out a whimper as Ino's mother pushes through the crowd. She skids down next to her husband and immediately, she covers her face with her hands.
Kakashi looks away. He can't bear it any longer. And he grips the picture in his pocket with a hand so tight, it hurts.
It could've been her.