Rewritten as of 4/5/23
- Marketplace -
Sakura walks through the morning market stalls, touching everything with her eyes. The air is already hot despite the midmorning hour, but the sun will only be stronger in Suna. The last time she'd had reason to visit the far west, she'd come back with a nasty sunburn that blistered the bridge of her nose.
She makes a mental note to pick up sunscreen before she leaves tomorrow. She was not going through that again.
All around her, the market is brimming with people. It feels strange, not being at the hospital this time of day. She would be gone for over a week, so Tsunade had insisted she take the day off to settle her affairs. Since she couldn't pack until the laundry had finished drying, she'd decided to pick up last minutes traveling supplies and check in on Kakashi.
After their talk at the memorial stone, her Sensei had behaved for a record breaking twelve hours before Chizue finally caved and discharged him in contempt. Tsunade, fed up with his blatant disregard for her care orders, upgraded the man from bed rest to house arrest.
"If he's going to be insufferable, he can do it at home." Her Shisho said, fuming. Kakashi was now free to disregard medical orders and incite chaos within the confines of his apartment. This seemed to be Kakashi's plan all along, because he hadn't set a toe out of line since.
Still, Sakura knew he was probably neglecting his bandages. On her way out the door this morning, she had packed replacement supplies to treat his chakra burns. Her plan was to swing by the international market near his house before paying her Sensei and in-home visit. Because what could possibly go wrong there?
"Can I see that one?" Sakura asks the weapons vendor, pointing to a star tipped kunai from Iron country. She studies the hefty weapon in detail, taking in its weight and strange shape. She scans the kunai, from its oiled metal down to the texture of it's grained leather handle.
Fire country kunai had two sharp beveled sides meant for cutting and slicing, but this Kunai's tip looked more like a star fruit. She closes her eyes, sensing the weight. She's trying to memorize the weapon by touch.
Kunai wounds were rarely fatal unless you punctured the skin, twisting the blade to keep the wound from resealing. The purpose of this star tipped kunai was to remove the need to do that. Land a blow with this heavy knife and your opponent would likely bleed out in seconds. This was not the kind of kunai you threw, it's the kind you wield in close quarters combat.
Not that she would need such a weapon where she was going. But Sakura wasn't interested in actually using the thing.
Purchasing the foreign blade from the vendor, she circulates through the rest of the stalls, tucking additional purchases into her market bag. At the end of the block, she slips down a narrow alleyway and settles herself onto the back stoop of Kakashi's building.
The medical summit would require her to be gone for over a week. During that time, she wouldn't be able to summon Yume-Kakashi unless it was an absolute emergency. Even though she was getting more efficient with her castings, manifesting her Kakashi drained too much chakra. The energy tax alone was too much of a liability, and it wasn't smart to be in foreign lands at anything less than your 100%.
But that travel time also presented an opportunity she couldn't overlook. It was time where she wouldn't be on shift at the hospital, training with her friends or fatigued from surgeries. It was the perfect opportunity to practice smaller sensory drills that wouldn't tax her quite so much. Yume-kakashi had called it vacation homework, and then called her a study nerd.
She smiles at the memory.
After her success summoning him on the hospital rooftop, she'd tried calling on him in various other places with little to no success. Maybe it was her fear of being caught, or maybe the stimulation of the world around her was just too distracting. What ever the reason, something was still holding her back. That's when Yume-Kakashi had suggested they take a walk.
Starting at her apartment, she'd summoned him up in the privacy of her room that morning. It was beyond challenging to hold his image in her mind while walking down the stairs of her apartment building, but her jutsu was thankfully still intact when she reached the street below.
Over the next hour, they took the long way around the village, slowly walking towards Kakashi's apartment. She'd stretched out the normally twenty minute walk with excruciatingly slow steps, pausing any time the jutsu threatened to break.
Occasionally, a civilian would stop her for some small talk, or she'd recognize a coworker and accidentally drop the illusion. But Yume-Kakashi was unendingly patient, always smiling enthusiastically when she'd slip behind a tree to re-summoning him before continuing on their journey. She was getting better and better at summoning him outside.
To make the Jutsu simpler for her to sustain, they walked in companionable silence. He remained a few steps behind her so she didn't have to see him, holding the back hem of her shirt between his fingers. He said the physical touch acted like a lifeline, keeping him tethered to her world. She wondered if this was just his excuse to touch her, but she humored him because…well, science.
It seemed he was content just to be in her presence, as she was content to be in his. Despite knowing he was just an illusion, Sakura wished with all her soul that she could really hold his hand. Really hold Kakashi's hand. It amused her sometimes how she and Yume-Kakashi had been physically intimate on several occasions, and yet it was the small touched that seemed to burn her the most.
'What a sap I am.' She'd thought.
Despite this hard won growth in her jutsu ability, she hadn't been able to maintain his image when she'd entered the market place. She'd done the rest of her shopping alone. But here, tucked safely away in the confines of the back alley, she calls his name into her mind, willing him to return to her.
Closing her eyes, she begins to meditate. She pulls familiar chakra up from her belly, slowing her breath and counts to ten. She feels his presence before she even gets to eight. They were definitely getting better at this.
"You spent too much on that kunai." He chides lightly, smiling down at where she sits. His eyes are always soft when he beholds her. Her love for him bubbles over in her chest.
"I know, but I wanted to be able to reference it after."
She pulls out the star tipped Kunai, preparing to go through the new drill they'd devised. Tucking it behind her body, she recalls from memory her new weapon in as much detail as possible. Once satisfied with the accuracy of her vision, she pushes the memory to her Kakashi through their bond.
Kakashi shifts his weight from foot to foot, head canted to the side like he's hearing something off in the distance. At her nod, he reaches into the hip pouch at his side, pulling out a yume-copy of her star tipped Kunai. He examines it, turning it over in his hands, then holds it out for her to inspect.
Visual Manifestation: Complete.
With his help, she'd discovered it was easier for Yume-kakashi to present her with an item than it was for her to manifest it herself. Since this required her to summon Kakashi first, it wasn't an ideal work-around, but it would do for now while she was still learning.
She leans forward, examining carefully the weapon in his hands. Did the shape seem a little off? Maybe the real one wasn't quite that big?
"When you're ready, move on to the next step." He prompts, offering the Kunai out to her.
She take the kunai from his outstretched palm, rubbing the leather wrapped handle between her fingers. Logically, she knew the real kunai was still behind her. The one she was holding wasn't actually there…but she could really feel it in her hands. The metal was smooth against her fingerprints. She'd gotten that detail right at least.
Bouncing the blade in her hands, she measures it's weight.
"I think I made it a bit too heavy." She says, her voice laced with disappointment. She brings the butt end of the handle up to her nose. It takes a few tries before she can smell the rosemary oil used to treat the porous metal. There it was, the faintest scent.
Sight, touch, smell. Three senses out of five…not bad.
"Let's check it against the other one." Kakashi says, gesturing to the kunai behind her body. Not for the first time, she notices how he always uses the word other instead of the word real. She wonders if real has a bad connotation to him, but she doesn't know how to ask him about it.
She brings the other kunai out into view. Once the two are side-by-side, their differences stand out in stark contrast. The yume-knife is a little too long, the iron not the right shade of black. The leather handle is the only part she's managed to replicate perfectly, matching the leather stitching to a T. She brings the real knife up to her nose.
The scent of rosemary oil is substantially stronger, but it's also chased by the metallic tang of iron about to rust. The yume-knife is indeed heavier than the real one, but in terms of manifesting an unfamiliar object, she'd done better than she'd expected.
"Not perfect, but not bad." She says, handing the yume-knife back to Kakshi.
But instead of taking the knife from her hands, he brushes his fingers up the inside of her wrist, trailing a line down her forearm to her elbow. Heat blooms across her face at the intimate touch, and he smiles at the goosebumps that appear on her arms.
"You're doing better than you think you are." He says, finally taking the yume-knife back. He rolls the object around in his hands, pressing the sharp point into his index finger. She wonders what would happen if he cut himself. Would he feel it if he did? Would he bleed?
A headache starts to form between her eyes. She's never maintained her jutsu for this long before, and it's starting to eat into her chakra reserves. Kakashi notices her discomfort and puts the yume-kunai back into his hip pouch. Its absence helps relieve her headache almost immediately, but she's still beginning to tire.
"We can try again next time with something more familiar to you." He says. "Maybe your gloves, or one of your surgical tools?"
"That last one's not a bad idea." She says, tucking the real kunai back into her bag. "I'll be fine once I get something to eat. I'll stop and get lunch after I take care of Sensei. Can we do more drills once I get home?"
His eyes afix to hers, intense and penetrating. He studies her for a long time before the muscles of his face soften. "You really do care about him, don't you."
The urge to lean into him is almost overpowering, but she knows she needs to resist giving in. She's still in public, and very exposed. She looks down at her hands, breaking the spell.
"Yes." She quietly admits into her lap. "He's a lot of things to me. It can make how I feel about him confusing at times, but I know I care about him. Very much."
She doesn't want to talk about this. She stands up, preparing to say her goodbyes.
"And what about me?" He suddenly asks, stepping into her space. When had he gotten so very close?
Her shoulders hit the stairwell door when he backs her up against the wall. Her heart races when he corners her with the planes of his hard body. His gaze is possessive and achingly sincere. He takes her hands in each of his, interlacing their fingers at her sides. Earlier she'd wanted to hold his hand, but this wasn't how she'd expected it happening.
She looks down into the ever narrowing space between them. He's left her no room to escape. He presses both his thumbs into the meat of her palms, and she knows right then that she's going to kiss him if he doesn't pull away first.
Line in the sand. Line in the sand.
"And what about me, Sakura?" He repeats.
When she speaks, it's around the rock of desire in her throat. "I think…what I feel for you doesn't make any sense."
"Love is so rarely rational." He concedes. Despite knowing someone could enter the alleyway at any moment, she wants to pull down his mask and fall into his voice. He stares down at her mouth like it's his salvation.
A bubble of unexpected insecurity surrounds her. "Why do you do that?" She asks, trying to reign in her racing heart.
"Do what?"
She doesn't know if she wants this answer, but she finds the courage to ask anyway. "You look at me like I'm the most amazing thing you've ever seen. I don't get it… I'm the one obsessed with you. You're suppose to be my fantasy, not the other way around."
She says the words in a quiet voice, vulnerability and unresolved fear.
But what ever she expects him to say, she's unprepared for what happens next.
Her words are a light switch to a side she never knew he had. The tenderness in his face turns at once to irritation, and when he kisses her it's a savage attack on all her senses. His mask is gone, and his tongue is down her throat like her moans are oxygen and he's drowning. He kisses her with a brutal ferocity, gasps and moans and hunger and teeth. She's embarrassed by the noise she makes when he bites her lower lip. He kisses her again and again, burning his desire into her mouth.
Her head spins with the need of him. He smells like rosemary oil, chakra and summer salt. One of his hands slips under her shirt, bruising her ribs with his demanding fingers.
And then, all at once, the dream is over. He's the one pulling back, pressing her down when she tries to follow for more. She is not a woman, she is a pathetic puddle balanced on two very wobbly knees. At some point, her fingers have ended up in his hair, and one of his hands holds the bend of her neck.
He smiles wickedly to himself, and Sakura knows she is truly doomed.
"Don't tell me how to feel." He says, voice possessive and hungry. It shoots an ache between her legs. She's in agony when he stops touching her. She knows through their bond she'll need to feed his hunger tonight, or he'll never let her leave tomorrow.
The door against Sakura's back suddenly jolts, slamming hard enough to shove her forward. Someone is on the other side, trying to get out and she's in the way-
The very real world around her tilts back into focus. She remembers again where she is. Sakura leaps from the door stoop, face on fire with heated shame.
An elderly woman shoots Sakura a dirty glare as she exits the interior stairway, grumbling about kids blocking the fire exits. She ignores Sakura's profuse apologies, making her way to the market stalls.
Sakura's knees buckle beneath her, and she needs to sit down and regain her sanity. In the brief commotion, Yume-kakashi has gone, but the results of his good works are still pumping through her body. Her brain high on adrenaline and there's still a heat curling between her legs.
It takes her longer than she likes to get back to her feet. She blames her weak knees on chakra depletion. She blames her dizzy thoughts on skipping breakfast. She blames everything she'd feeling on everything except the truth.
Her fantasy had become a dangerous monster. She could deny it all she liked, but her line in the sand had been obliterated. It's time to accept that she is well and truly doomed.