Tongue Tied

Prologue

The wind blew through her long pink locks as the cherry blossoms started to bloom from the spring weather. Sakura walked down the main path of the village clutching a medical book. She stopped at Ino's flower shop for a visit.

"Ino-pig!" Sakura called out with a smirk plastered across her face. The blonde in the ponytail narrowed her eyes at her best friend and scoffed. "Forehead." She greeted her and then began to scan her head to toe. "What's up?" Ino asked with curiosity while trimming the stems of some roses. "Did you wanna come over tonight?" Ino shook her head. "Training with Shikamaru and Choji after I'm done here, sorry." Sakura almost pouted.

She made her way to the training grounds to find Kakashi under a tree covered by the shade with a book resting on his face and arms tucked behind his head sleeping peacefully in the grass. Sakura quietly laid down with her lunch trying not to disturb him. She took in her surroundings to notice the blue skies and birds flapping their wings in the warm breeze.

After a few minutes of silence, the silver haired ninja peeked an eye open. "Something bothering you Sakura?" She jumped at the sound of his voice and almost dropped her sandwich. "Sensei you scared the life out of me!" She paused for a moment, looking down at her knees that were sitting in the grass and continued. "No, just feeling restless."

Kakashi huffed softly, "So you decided to disturb my rest then?" He teased, not moving from his place. Sakura smiled softly at that. "Sorry Sen-"Before she could finish her former teacher interrupted her. "Kakashi. Sakura. Remember?" She had recalled him telling her to call him Kakashi, but it never felt right before.

She wasn't even sure why he wanted her to call him by his name. It's true she hadn't been his student in 4 years, and they have developed a bond outside of that relationship. Sakura would even consider Kakashi one of her close friends by now.

Her life outside of the hospital and training consisted of eating out with Sasuke and Naruto while listening to them bicker, and the occasional visits from Ino. And then there was her former Sensei who filled the void every now and again with his casual presence.

"Ka – ka – shi." She had said his name in almost slow motion slightly above a whisper. The copy ninja widened his eyes a bit hearing that. After the initial daze he smiled and shut his eyes. "Did you want to come over for dinner tonight?" Sakura nodded her head, "Sure, but I can't stay too late. Lady Tsunade will murder me if I'm late to my shift tomorrow morning." He chuckled at that and shut his book while sitting upright. "I can't have you picking up my bad habits can I?" He teased again.

"SAKURA! KAKASHI SENSEI!" They heard a familiar voice call out. Sakura inwardly sighed and turned around to face the voice. It was Naruto with a hand on his headband with Sasuke dragging his feet behind him. "Are you guys here to train too? I was just about to beat the snot out of Sasuke finally!" Hearing that the young Uchiha scoffed. "In your dreams loser." His black eyes darted back and forth from Kakashi and Sakura sitting on the ground. "You guys don't look like you're training." Sasuke commented. Before Kakashi could speak Sakura cut him off. "I was actually just about to take my leave." She sat up carefully in attempts not to show anything under her jean skirt and dusted herself off seeing the grass stains embedded into her knees. "Good luck you guys. See you Kakashi!" She called out from a distance. Naruto and Sasuke looked at each other with confusion written on their face and then back to their former sensei. "Kakashi?" They both asked in unison. Kakashi just met them with a nervous chuckle in response.

Hearing the crickets chirp, the sun had finally set, and the moon hung high in the night sky. Sakura passed the time by studying her medical journals in the meantime while waiting for dinnertime. Before she knew it with every page she flipped the sky grew darker. She looked at the time and noted it was 7:30. 'About time I head to Sen- Kakashi's apartment.' She thought to herself, closing the book and heading out her front door. His apartment was right around the corner from her own.

Kakashi heard a knock on the door and smiled under his mask, smelling his Tonkatsu that had finally finished. He opened the door and the aroma hit Sakura's senses. Her eyes closed as she entered his apartment and he shut the door behind him. She inhaled deeply, "Smells so good!" she exclaimed almost giddy.

Sakura had discovered Kakashi was a great cook about a year ago since the first time he had invited her over for dinner. It was something they did from time to time to just chat. It honestly surprised her, because aside from his smut obsession as a genin, she knew nothing about him. Over the course of this year, she had learned a lot about her former sensei. But she also sensed in the same breath that she still knew nothing at all about him. It was all kept as 'surface' level of conversations she liked to put it. She had vented to him occasionally but that was usually one sided.

"Keeping up with your training? The hospital treating you well?" Kakashi was making conversation right before slowly putting a spoonful of food into his mouth from across the small square kitchen table from her. Sakura was finishing chewing her bite while nodding and swallowed. "Of course. A new virus hit the village and I managed to conjure up a medicine to counteract it so that was a success." After they both continued to eat a comfortable moment of silence followed. "You've grown so much." Kakashi said with a straight face looking directly into her eyes.

A pink brow raised, "Hm?" She questioned, not sure what he meant. He coughed lightly and continued, "Your strength, just you in general. You've come so far. And I'm sure you'll accomplish a lot more in time." He finished. She smiled in confirmation. "I hope so."

It started to grow later, it was 10:00 and Sakura prepared to head out for the night. Dinner passed peacefully as they struck up small conversation. Kakashi held the front door open and kept his eyes lingering on her with his eye lids half open. "Are you sure you don't need me to walk you home?" he asked, seeing it was so late already. Sakura chucked at that and noticed the close proximity they were in. He leaned above her with his fist pressed against the door she was right outside of. She could almost feel his breath on her cheek as he asked. "Goodnight Kakashi. Thanks for the dinner again" She decided to part with that.

Kakashi knew she was stubborn and wouldn't let him walk her home or act as if she needed protection. Because honestly, she really didn't. With that thought, he watched her walk away into the distance. He admired her strength and independence greatly. She was different than the young women her age. Most of them had boyfriends or was already boy crazy lacking true responsibility. She had been that girl once before when she was younger. For a brief moment, she had crushed on Sasuke Uchiha he noticed. But things changed when she started to fall behind. Her focus shifted to training and studies and ever since then she had never shown any interest in the matter. He wondered from time to time if she harbored any of the same feelings for Sasuke and brushed it off to being none of his business.

While Sakura walked home, she was unaware she had a pair of eyes on her watching her leave Kakashi's apartment from afar.

The next few days flew by with ease, Sakura had been working in the hospital for the most part and the other half every so often she would spar with Naruto and Sasuke. The three of them were at the training grounds like any other normal day when an explosion erupted from the village. It shook the ground and fear set into Sakura's eyes as she looked at her teammates. "What was that?" She asked them to be met with nothing but silence. After the second one, Sasuke spoke, "Let's go check it out."

Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke ran to where the explosions came from to see men in black cloaks lined up on top of Hokage mountain. Sakura's mouth dropped and her feet froze. She could feel the dark aura and chakra that radiated from them. The raw power. Sasuke and Naruto did the same as her with their eyes locked on them.

"All we want is the Jinchūriki. If we do, we will leave in peace." A deep voice announced from the line of cloaks. The one that spoke had orange hair, piercings, and purple swirls in his eyes. "What vision prowess is that, Sasuke?" Naruto whispered. Sasuke was silent. He didn't know. Sakura looked to Naruto, "You need to hide. There's too many of them and if you get caught, we can't get you back. We don't even know what they want with you." Naruto gulped and nodded in understanding. "Let's go." Sasuke told them.

Meanwhile, Tsuande appeared, being the Hokage of the Hidden Leaf. "You absolutely will not get anything from us. Just who are you all?" She barked with a line of Uchiha and Anbu beside her ready to fight. A purple hair girl then began to speak, "We are called the Akatsuki." Tsunade narrowed her eyes. "And what do you want with the tailed beasts?" With a hand on her hip. "That's classified."

Gaining further distance from the black cloaks, the group ran into their former sensei. "Kakashi!" Sakura whispered almost desperately. His eyes matched her concern. His gloved hand reached for the back of her head, and he said, "Find somewhere to hide Naruto. I'll find you guys when this is all over. Protect him at all costs." And Sakura knew what that meant. She nodded in response, and he was gone.

Sasuke and Naruto gave her a questionable look. "I saw you come out of his apartment last night." Sasuke mentioned. Naruto's eyes widened, "WHAT?!" He shouted a little too loud. "You guys really think right now is the appropriate time to discuss this?! LET'S GO!" Sakura seethed.

While on the move, Sasuke scowled the whole way. He wasn't letting it go. "Isn't he a little old for you? He is our former sensei after all." He mocked her. Sakura stopped in her tacks and jabbed him in the jest with her finger tightening her other fist in anger. "I told you earlier now is not the time Sasuke! Nothing is going on between Kakashi and I and even if there was it's none of your business. Why do you even care?!" The medic countered back at the boy. That taken him back. Because thinking on what she had just said, why did he care?

Sasuke had recalled her crush on him in their younger years and suddenly didn't give it any thought when it disappeared. One day he noticed she grew slightly less irritating. So maybe that's when. He had grown a new form of respect for her over time due to her dedication and strength. It wasn't until recently that he had noticed her beauty as well as her power. He always tried to push those thoughts aside. Then when she came out of Kakashi's apartment, all those feelings he bottled up came flooding out of him. Maybe he was just being paranoid, he concluded.

Back at Hokage mountain, "Final offer. Enough talking. Hand us the nine tails or we will destroy your village." The man with purple swirls in his eyes said. There were 10 men in cloaks with red clouds on them in front of Tsunade and her Anbu. She smirked, "Over my dead body." A huff from the leader, "That will be arranged."

A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed. I didn't do much proof reading or grammar checks. This was just for fun to write my own version of Kakasaku / Itasaku. I'm not looking for any critiques as I'm sure there are or will be mistakes in my writing. To be honest I'm not even 100% sure where I'm taking this story. You guys will find out along the way with me as I write. In this universe, the Uchiha's are alive, Naruto's parents are still dead, and they hit about 17 before experiencing all of this.

Thanks for reading! xoxo