A/N: I've been working on this story for a while and since I have almost 50k written for it, I thought I might post the first chapter. I haven't posted in a while, but writing these stories gives me the creative outlet I need…hence the 50k words. I feel as if I'm about halfway (maybe ¾) through this story, but I might be miscalculating. Anyway, I obviously don't post on a regular basis and I can't say when this story will be finished, but I do try to work on it regularly. As of now, I'm not sure how consistent my posting will be—just a warning. Also, another warning: this story is a little darker than my other ones. There's episodes of torture and trauma, just fyi.
As for the story itself, I've always liked the Danzo overthrow trope, so here's my version of it . Kakasaku, of course.
Finally, I think I'm going to start posting and migrating my stories onto ao3, too. My name over there is BossX (might take me a while tho).
To Those Who Remain
…
Chapter 1
Impossibly enough, it seemed that everything had culminated to that unknowingly monumental act.
Of course, that act had not been the beginning or end to everything, but from that day on, that conscious act of events had been a hinge, an indelible mark, in her twenty-one year old life on which every other event before had paled in comparison.
She was not quite sure if she regretted the act—suspended somewhere in between awe and heartache because so much good came from it—but also so much suffering. When she was still within the enemies grasp, she cursed everything and anything that came before her: she regretted the act down to her core, her very being because her suffering did not affect only her. If it had only been her she could have endured or let go without any hint of remorse or regrets...but then she found out she had someone to live for, someone to protect. She couldn't die.
Later when they both escaped and she spent four wonderful relatively safe years with her, she was ashamed that she ever thought of giving up—of letting go of the one thing that gave her the strength to get out of that hell. The one thing she had to stay alive for because her life was no longer her own—her life was tied to the life of another. She no longer lived only for herself.
When she looks into her daughter's bright charcoal eyes—eyes like her father's—so full of life, and looking at her mother like she is the most wonderful thing she will ever see in the world, she can't seem to find even an inkling of regret.
…
The day Danzō led a military coup into The Village Hidden In the Leaves, and murdered Tsunade and her Anbu detail, was a quiet day.
He had slipped in in the middle of the night, swift, abrupt, and slick like a knife smoothly slipped in between ribs. The attack had been quick and brutal; he and his group of Root members had not left one soul alive in the Hokage quarters. Sakura later heard that the scene Shizune and the head clerk had walked into the next day was, even to Shizune, with her many years of treating all manner of wounds, a scene that had made her gag with its absolute viciousness and gruesomeness.
Everyone loyal to Tsunade knew who was behind the deed—hell, everyone knew, but no one had the prowess or military might to oppose him directly. Danzō's hunger for power—to be Hokage—was no secret. Root had festered and spread under Konoha uninterrupted, until they broke ground like a teeming anthill; after Tsunade's murder, they seemed to be in every corner of Konoha.
Two days later, with the support of the council, Danzō had ever so conveniently and cunningly declared himself interim Hokage until the next one could be appointed, lamenting the unfortunate demise of Tsunade and declared Konoha under martial law in order to apprehend those who killed their former Hokage. There was no "interim" intended from that declaration. Those who verbally opposed were quickly silenced, she knew, with swift threats and punishments to the opposers family.
Shizune had been arrested two months later, accused by Danzō of being the main perpetrator behind the crime.
The head clerk had spoken out against Danzō one day, implying Danzō's hand behind Tsunade's assasination
The next day, he—who had been with Shizune on the day they had discovered Tsunade's body—was accused and tried in court by a bribed judge, pronounced guilty, and sentenced to death. They had hanged him in the main square which would in the future serve many executions. Sakura had watched as his body twitch and jerked as he choked, no small mercy given to him in the form of his neck snapping and ending his life swiftly on the initial fall. Some absurd part of her made her feel as if she should watch because she had failed Tsunade and this man so grievously and watching was her self-inflicted, mandatory punishment.
Fear was an extremely powerful motivator. Fear tactics even more so.
No one dared talk against Danzō after he made it clear what awaited such blatant disagreement.
Of course the aforementioned events were truths only a select group of the Konoha nin knew.
The day came when they knew that resistance from within the village would not be possible. They tried and tried, but eventually there had been no hope for it. For now, living to fight another day was the goal. They had already persisted in that state of fear and anxiousness for eight months. No more.
When Danzō's hostility of those who had been in Tsunade's inner circle was clear, people started disappearing from the village.
Sakura knew that there was no malicious intent behind the disappearances, because her and the group of Konoha Shinobi intent on overthrowing the usurper Danzō, kept in regular contact. They slipped inconspicuous notes between themselves while passing on the street, right in front of those Root watchdogs. Naruto implemented a system in sage mode to alert everyone when they intended to have a secret meeting of a selected few shinobi. Kakashi used his ninken, usually small and stealthy Pakkun, to pass messages to each other. And Sakura invented a chakra surge pattern that mimicked Morse code, serving as effective communication to those in her general vicinity.
Naruto was the first to leave. He was watched so heavily by Root members that it had taken a monumental effort by several people to get him out. He was, after all, the village's greatest hope. Sakura hadn't known where he was going—the information had been too dangerous for anyone to know.
Ibiki had been caught during the escape and was hanged in the town square without a trail. Danzō hung his bloated dead body by the Konoha front gates for the crows to pick at as a warning to others.
Others had found escaping easier.
Yamato disappeared four days later, then Ino with her father Inoichi, Shikamaru, Tenten, Hinata and her father and sister, Neji, Lee, Shino, Kurenai, Gai, Genma…
Until only Sakura and Kakashi remained.
Kakashi had stayed for her sake, she knew. There was already an enormous target on his back because initially, a few people had voiced their approval for him stepping up as the next Hokage. He was now almost as heavily watched as Naruto had been. But he had stayed. For her.
…
"Sakura, we have to go," Kakashi says, looking deeply into her eyes, imploring. "Today. You have to come with me." He's dropped in through her window, one hour before dawn, to find her wide awake in her bed.
Kakashi has been trying to convince her to leave with him ever since.
Sakura shakes her head, obstinate as the day Naruto had told her to leave with him, too. "I can't leave her, Kakashi. I won't."
"You know what she told you two days before she was taken in: 'if they come for me, leave. Don't hesitate. Don't wait for me. Leave.' There is nothing you can do for her, Sakura. Listen to me. We tried, okay? Now it's time to go." He reaches out to grab her hand, but Sakura flinches back involuntarily. He lowers his hand down slowly.
Oh, she didn't mean to…
Everything is just too fresh in her mind, though. She is even in her bed where it had happened a month ago to the day, for goodness sake!
"I'm not leaving, Kakashi," she says curtly, trying to hide her embarrassment from her involuntarily flinch with anger. "I'm not leaving Shizune behind to be murdered by him too. Not like Tsunade." A sudden sharp pain lances through her head when she thinks of her shishou. She brings up a hand to her forehead and squeezes her temples. "You know that they're probably even torturing her as we speak."
They don't talk about her reaction to him. Really, she had even enjoyed it once she had gotten past all of the intensity behind the action. She doesn't even know why she acted that way to his touch.
He can't even look her in the eyes for more than a couple of seconds.
His gaze hardens and the corner of his mouth pulls down in a frown. He doesn't have his mask on and Sakura shies away from the familiarity behind the action. "I will be back in exactly three days, Sakura. I am giving you plenty of notice. Gather whatever provisions you need to take with you and be ready. If you are not ready,"—his tone of voice is harsh, unforgiving and commanding, the voice of a seasoned shinobi—, "I will drag you out of here myself." He stands, making to leave.
No, she can't let him leave yet. She has to tell him the suspicion that has slowly been encroaching like stubborn roots throughout her mind for the past week (it's still early, too early to be sure). She's gotten to the point where the anxiety of not knowing has been keeping her from sleeping at all. Not that she slept much now anyways.
Before he can step out of her bedroom door, she snaps her hand out and grabs his, clutching his warm fingers tightly. He looks at her and even though he is maskless, his face holds no expression. "Kakashi, I-I mean I don't—" don't regret it. Don't regret it at all, okay?
At least she thinks she doesn't regret it, but she loves him, she always has, but now she's not sure how she loves him. She grips his hand tighter. "We need to talk."
Kakashi sighs as if he is about to say something that he has been struggling to find the words for for days. He looks down at their entwined hands. "Sakura, we don't have to talk about it."
"No, I have—" Sakura tries again, but he only keeps on talking, ignoring her interjections.
"We should just forget that it ever happened, Sakura. I regret that it did happen. It was a mistake. I wouldn't want the relationship between us to change just because we made a mistake when we were both feeling vulnerable."
Sakura sucks in a sharp, angry breath at his callous words.
Well, now she knows that he regrets everything. He regrets the actions of that night a month ago and if her suspicion is correct, he will certainly regret the unintended product of that night. The bastard does not even want to hear what she has to say about the subject. She doesn't have much time to contemplate what to do next and so she decides in a split-second that she will keep her thoughts to herself until she decides how to go about her situation.
Her breath shudders a bit when it leaves her, "Just-just be careful, okay? Promise?" Just say it back and everything will be okay.
He looks at her, a beat too long than what is socially or normally acceptable between two friends. "Three days," is all he says curtly. He gently tugs his hand out of her firm grasp and is gone without leaving a promise with her.
If only she had known that that would be the last time she would see him for four years, she might not have been so angry and actually told him what she was thinking.
…
Root comes for her that very day. Danzō sends Sai among a group of twenty to retrieve her as some sort of sick joke. Sai has no choice but to obey. She sees the momentary plead in his eyes. Please, Sakura, I have no choice. I'm so sorry, he communicates before giving the order to detain her. Forgive me.
She doesn't blame him. She knows he has no choice due to that crudely drawn tattoo under his tongue, bending his will to Danzō's.
She should have known this was coming—that her inevitable detainment was only a matter of time. Danzō wants her dead, probably even more than Shizune, and she's not entirely sure why. He has finally, it seemed, found a good enough excuse to bring her in.
She does not go quietly or easily. Sakura manages to take down more than half of that group—and the building she had been standing next to on the street when they found her—before she finally succumbs to the sheer number of opposing bodies.
Sakura is dragged away from the savage scene of carnage. Blood, pieces of bone, and brain matter is smeared and splattered on every surface within a hundred feet of herself. She doesn't mind and in fact is elated by her bloody mosaic—hopefully she has smashed her fist through the skulls and brains of those who had helped kill Tsunade.
No, she does not go easily.
…
Kakashi is tense. So tense that someone could probably pick him up by his foot and his muscles would remain locked in the exact seating position he was currently in.
Six days had passed since that particular night and since he had told Sakura he would be back for her in three days.
His mission to provide intelligence reports about Danzō's potential allies had gone past the pre-planned date.
He is currently in a hidden location close to Suna with Naruto, Gaara, Sasuke, Yamato, Temari, and Shikamaru. Ino, Sakura's friend and Inoichi are there as well: they have just finished interrogating the military lieutenant of Amekagure's military force for information on the dealings between the Kage and Danzō. They see this as a sign of Danzō's tenuous grip on power: Danzō knows that the group that escaped Konoha is a formidable group that would sooner see his head on a spike than see him retain his seat as Hokage. Danzō needs allies.
Gaara is there as well, having traveled the short one day distance from Suna. Their inclination to not affiliate with Suna as of yet was strategic—Suna was not in a position where they could declare full out war, which would have been the case if Gaara had publicly sided with them, the Konoha Rouge. In all but declaration, though, Gaara and the might of Suna was their biggest ally.
Inoichi has just finished relaying all the information they had learned during the interrogation.
"So the deal isn't set?" Sasuke adds. His words were more statement than a question. He had been invaluable to their efforts once he had joined them now that they had a common enemy. During the eight month period that they had suffered under Danzō's new regime, Sasuke had made the initial contact with Naruto after years of disconnect. He claimed that they now had a common cause, but Kakashi knew better: he had missed home and familiar companionship.
Sasuke continues. "There's still time to intercede and show Ame why siding with Danzō would not be beneficial." He means for them to be a big enough thorn in Ame's proverbial side, enough so that they would think it too much of a hassle to side with Danzō against them and Suna. While Suna has not yet come out as their official ally against Danzō, news gets out and so do supposed secrets. It was only a matter of time now until Gaara made clear his take on Danzō's Konoha.
Kakashi knows that the mission that he had gone over in days was an important one, perhaps vital, to their cause, but his body is practically tearing in two because he is still sitting in this hidden office in a remote building in a small town, but all he wants—needs—to do is go back to Konoha and get Sakura out of there before it is too late. She might hate him for a while (hell, she might even hate him regardless, because of what had happened over a month ago now), but he would make good on his promise in dragging her out of there if she resisted.
He stands.
"Naruto, I don't think I'm needed here anymore. I'm going." Kakashi hasn't slept more than four hours in the past six days, and he isn't about to now. He's going to book it back to Konoha, sneak in, and carry Sakura out of there like a sack of potatoes if she resists.
Naruto, who's been deep in thought, is shaken out of his stupor. "Right, Kakashi-sensei, go get Sakura-chan. You have all of our permissions to knock her unconscious if she resists."
"Right." Kakashi stands and turns on his heel to leave, but before he reaches the double doors leading out of the office, they burst open from the outside.
Kankuro rushes in, face pale, so pale.
Kakashi's breath stops short.
No.
The tension and anxiousness to reach one particularly stubborn pink-headed woman that had been nagging him for days, actually ever since he had left her, culminates and drops to the pit of his stomach.
"Turn on the television," Kankuro manages to choke out.
Garra reaches across a mahogany desk for a black remote and does so. There's a waiting, a presence, for a collective reaction from the group in the room.
Of course Danzō would televise the event. The last bastion of Konoha's strongest and loyal kunoichi would fall on live television.
Ino breaks the silence first, the sound striking, like a fist through fine china, once they process what the screen is showing.
"No!" she wails, clapping a horrified hand over her mouth.
The others are staring with similar horrified expressions.
Kakashi can't seem to move, can't seem to even twitch one muscle.
The screen shows two women being led out onto the dais—that are now a permanent fixture of the gallows in Konoha's main square—serving as a makeshift platform. They both wear bloodied, and dirty clothes. One woman has black hair and the other terribly familiar pink hair. They are harshly shoved down onto their knees while Danzō makes his entrance, limping into view. It isn't until the woman with black hair raises her head that they realize the mottled, bruised face they are looking at is Shizune's.
And...and the other.
Kakashi selfishly wishes that another pink-haired girl besides the one he is so fond of is there, on her knees.
The pink-haired woman raises her somewhat less brutalized face and his heart stutters.
Sakura.
There is a sharp crack behind him, but he doesn't take his eyes off the screen to see the cause of the noise. No one in the room can tear their eyes away from the horrifying scene unfolding before them.
His mind is racing through tactics, scenarios in which he can get to her and stop this tragedy, but he is two—one and a half if he exhausts himself and he planned to—days away. What can he do?
What can he do?
Maybe, maybe this wasn't what they thought it was. Maybe Danzō was only going to execute a public punishment, a lashing. Something that wasn't so final as what he dreaded.
"People of Konoha—," Danzō starts speaking. Kakashi always found his voice oddly deep—he has a voice that reverberates through your bones in an unsettling way, "—I have uncovered traitors within our midst. Traitors, who upon further investigation have aided rebels in the harming of this prosperous village. I, as your dutiful and merciful Hokage, have brought them before you so you can too witness their undeservedly quick end, and the end to the people who will do this village harm."
Not one sound, one applause, comes from the gathered crowd. All of them grim-faced, no doubt having encountered either a sweet Sakura or friendly Shizune from a previous trip to the hospital. Or they just knew the relation to their formerly beloved Hokage.
Break free, Kakashi pleads in his mind. Do something.
But Danzō would have surely seen to the impossibility of their escape.
They are about to watch the execution of Sakura and Shizune and there's nothing they can do to stop it.
He watches as Sakura turns to a barely upright Shizune, and whispers to her.
Courage. Courage for our friends.
Shizune nods, gaze resolute.
He watches as Danzō signals to one of his Root agents and that Root agent steps toward Shizune, yanks her head back by harshly grasping her hair with a fist, and slices her throat open from ear-to-ear. The wound, like a gruesome smile, pours red blood in a deluge. The Root agent then dumps Shizune to the ground where a pool of blood slowly gathers around her prone form.
He watches as Sakura bows her head, eyes shut tight, and teeth clenched in grief for Shizune.
He watches as Danzō approaches Sakura and bends down to say something in her ear. He doesn't catch what he says by reading his lips, because Danzō is turned away from the camera. He does see, though, when Sakura raises her gaze in absolute, trembling, and unyielding fury and spits right in Danzō's face.
He watches...he watches as Danzō signals again and the same Root member grasps Sakura's hair just like Shizune, jerks her head back—the signal Danzō gave must have been different somehow—and brutally rams the end of the kunai under Sakura's chin. Blood spews from her mouth. She gurgles as blood bubbles from her mouth.
He can't look away from her less than swift death, not even when her executioner has unceremoniously thrown her body on the wood of the dais and her body has finally stopped moving. Her green eyes remain wide open.
Five minutes had not even passed.
Gaara shuts off the television. The static click of the contraption shutting off is as loud as a bomb in the eerily silent room.
No one speaks. They are all shell-shocked.
Until Ino starts crying. She cries in little short breaths bordering on hyperventilating. Inoichi tucks her in the circle of his arms.
"No," Naruto whispers in an unbelieving voice. He turns his gaze towards Kakashi who has not moved even an inch.
"You should have dragged her out of there with you!" Naruto half-sobs, half-shouts at him. Tears are running down his face and a red aura is faintly surrounding his form. Kakashi still doesn't move, but his senses absurdly catch on small details: the corner of Gaara's broken desk that Naruto tore free with his bare hands, which explained the loud crack earlier. The way the sun reflects off of the metal pens on the grooved desk. The grainy crunch of ever-present sand under his feet. The rough texture of his flak jacket against his neck.
He counts his breaths.
He faintly hears a less-than-composed Sasuke trying to calm Naruto down. Trying to stop him from rushing out of that room and running to the only place and person where their anger and suffering can see any ease.
Yamato approaches him cautiously. "Senpai—," he starts hesitatingly.
Kakashi abruptly turns around and heads for the double-doors. He is out in the hallway before Yamato catches up with him and tugs him harshly by his arm to make him stop.
"Kakashi, where are you going?" He demands, searching Kakashi's face with his brown gaze. His eyes widen in realization as he looks.
Kakashi jerks his arm out of his grasp, but Yamato only detains his arm again with a stronger grip. "There is nothing you can do for her now, Kakashi," Yamato stresses. "Don't bring about your own end too by acting on this foolish plan!"
Kakashi tears his body away from Yamato again and stumbles. He places a hand against the wall to steady his dizziness.
The days of not sleeping have finally caught up with an exhausted body and a bumbling mind.
He falls to his knees.
…
Grief is a familiar companion.
Grief he knows.
Although, this grief beyond tears is new.
Time passes slowly.
Grief finds a home in a small corner of his mind—somewhere that is constant, but allows for life to follow.
The group from Konoha mourns and moves on, still intent on reconquering their home. Naruto does so with a harder push than the others, but manages nonetheless.
Kakashi mourns the only way he knows how: he throws himself into his missions with unrestrained intention and zero sense of self-preservation.
Four years pass, until one day, an achingly familiar face reappears in their lives.
…
A/N: Thoughts (nice ones, preferably)?