Kakashi didn't meet her on the main floor of the tower for what felt like an eternity. The early morning rays of the sun were beginning to peek through the trees and splashed across the floor, painting the white stone tiles a golden color that was far more cheerful than Sakura felt at that particular moment in time.
The ANBU guard from before hadn't said one word to her; hadn't even glanced in her direction as she sat on a slatted wooden bench, her feet swaying an inch from the ground as she thought over everything she knew for sure, her eyebrows furrowed and her eyes closed in concentration.
She knew that Kakashi's records, among others that were presumably somehow related to him, had been stolen. She knew that there had been three explosions. There were typically three men to a team, so she felt it safe to assume that the targets had been a former team of Kakashi's. Team Ro, she thought of the name Tenzo had used the night he'd come to collect them for the mission. The logical conclusion, Sakura told herself, was that whatever was going on had something to do with one of their old missions.
But she was missing some pieces. Surely this mission, whatever it had been, had happened quite some time ago. What could he have done that was so awful that it warranted any kind of revenge after so many years had gone by? A flash of the murderous intent she'd seen in his eye a handful of times passed in her mind's eye, but she brushed it off and deepened her concentration.
She was missing whatever connection all of this had to that organization Tenzo had told Shino about in the office. What had he called it? Root, she remembered. And then there was that man whose very name had stiffened Kakashi's spine, Shimura Danzo. Sakura had never heard of him before but she knew her lover surely must have to react so strongly to his involvement in whatever was going on.
Did Kakashi think this Danzo person and his organization had something to do with either the stolen documents or the explosions?
Before she could ponder any further, the sound of casual footsteps echoing down the spiral sloped stairs alerted her to Kakashi's presence before his chakra signature did and she looked up just in time to see him rounding the corner, hands stuffed in his pockets and his face looking a million miles away as he approached her.
"Ready to go?" He asked her quietly. Even his voice sounded distant, and she frowned as they exited the tower. She began heading for the street that would lead towards her mother's tea shop, but Kakashi's hand reached out and wrapped around her wrist. She stopped, watching him nod his head in the direction of the path that would take them below the Great Stone Faces.
They walked silently, though Kakashi didn't let go of her as they made their way. He led her into a park a hundred yards or so from the tower, the tall grass tickling Sakura's exposed shins and leaving its morning dew clinging to her skin. From the entrance to the park to when he stopped was only a five minute walk, but Sakura could only see the top of the tower and a stand of old oak trees with overgrown branches from where they were.
"This is a place not a whole lot of people in the village know about," Kakashi told her, tugging his mask down to reveal a small smile. "Minato-sensei brought my team here once, and I fell in love with the place."
He pushed some vines that covered the stone away to reveal a tight, oddly shaped entrance. Kakashi slid in sideways, grabbing Sakura's hand for her to follow. She did, her feet shuffling over wet stone as they moved. It didn't take long for the path to widen and then to reveal a large cavern.
The sound of water tumbling down an edge somewhere echoed through the granite walls of the cave and Sakura looked around in wonder. It was obvious someone had used this place in the past; there were dim, old-fashioned electric lights strung about here and there, casting heavy shadows where the light didn't touch.
"What is this place?" She found herself asking Kakashi, her fingers threading with his. He smiled as he turned to her, pressing his lips to the top of her forehead.
"It's been a couple of things," he told her. "The most important being a safe haven for civilians during wartime. There's a tunnel that leads about six miles south of the village and opens up in the hills, giving them an escape route in a worst case scenario."
Sakura understood now why he'd told her not many people knew about this place. It wasn't meant to be known about, and her heart swelled as she realized how much he trusted her to share this knowledge with her. He turned her around in his arms so that they were looped around her waist and she was facing him. She accepted his kiss as he leaned down to press his lips against hers.
"Why did you bring me here, Kakashi?" She whispered against his mouth, trailing her fingers down his side, her lips turning up into a small smile as she gripped the bottom of his shirt.
A loud chuckle erupted from his laugh, joining the water in echoing around them as he dropped the bag he'd been carrying onto the ground. "To sleep," he answered her, grabbing the sleeping bag.
"It's daytime," she reminded him. She helped him spread the bag out on the ground, however, and found herself in his lap a moment later when he sat down and patted his thigh invitingly. His arms wrapped around her snugly, her head nestled against his chest.
"And you're exhausted," he countered, leaning back and bringing her with him. She let out a heavy breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding in and closed her eyes in spite of herself.
"Just for a few minutes," she murmured, her fingers curling against his stomach. He chuckled again, one hand gently caressing her lower back while the other threaded through her soft pink tendrils. She was asleep minutes after that, Kakashi not far behind.
She woke both of them up screaming an hour or so later; her face covered in sweat and unshed tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. Kakashi's arms were around her immediately, reminding her she was safe; that he was safe, too. A sob wracked through her body as he held her tightly.
"I'm right here," he reminded her as her hands flung out to feel for him when her body jolted a moment later, her mind reeling with its latest assault on her sanity. His voice was like a lighthouse, calling her to the shore from the maelstrom she was trapped in. Slowly she came back to reality and bit back another sob when she looked up at his face, the nightmare version of it twisting her perception of him for just a moment before she blinked and he was her Kakashi again; her alive Kakashi.
"It was so real," she insisted through a whimper, clinging to him. The older shinobi sat up, bringing her onto his lap. He held her close, letting her cry out the rest of the emotions that kept her spiraling for awhile longer.
"So am I, Sakura. I'm real," he replied in that calming tone of his. He used his hand to guide hers up his stomach and chest, then over his throat before he covered her fingers with his on the side of his face. Her own hand was trembling beneath his heavier one, her other hand reaching up to push the hitae-ate up, ensuring that his Sharingan was still in its place.
"Make it stop, Kakashi-sensei," she pleaded with him, squeezing her eyes shut as the tears began to fall. Her head fell to his shoulder and he felt his heart breaking, wishing more than anything that he could fix whatever kept haunting her sleep.
He didn't know how to reply, because he didn't know how to make it stop. It was a stark realization for him to know that in this, there was nothing he could do. So he held her instead, his free hand holding her hip and his lips finding hers in the softest kiss he could muster. He told her he loved her; that he'd keep her safe but these weren't exactly the right words and she sobbed again, hitting his chest as she glared at him with angry green eyes.
"It's you I keep seeing die," she whimpered before she leaned over, kissing the places her fists had just connected with. "I can't handle it if-"
"There's no if, Sakura," Kakashi cut her off gently. "I'm not dying any time soon."
This time, though, she was acutely aware of his missing promise. More tears spilled and he laid back down with a sigh, bringing her with him once again. He said nothing as he held her, the last of her sobs finally dying down as she drifted back to a fitful sleep. This time, Kakashi stayed awake, determined not to let her wake up like that again.
When she woke up, Kakashi was no longer beneath her and panic set in. Sakura shot up, her head swiveling to find him, a breath of relief falling from her lips when she saw his silhouette leaning up against the cavern wall a few feet away from her. As her eyes readjusted to the dim lighting, she saw the shadow hanging over his face and realized once again that he was a million miles away despite being right there.
"Kakashi?" Her sleepy voice broke the silence and he brought his face up to meet hers, his eye crinkled but the frown on his lips betraying his mood. She slid across the ground over to him and rested her head in his lap, too tired still to sit upright. He reached down and pushed a few stray strands of hair from her face, a heavy sigh falling from his lips. She spoke again, her voice barely audible over the echo of the water. "Where are you?"
He blinked, as though her words had grounded him back in the present, and the hazy look was gone from his features. It didn't reassure her, though, and she snuggled closer, lifting the bottom of his shirt just enough to leave a gentle kiss below his belly button.
"Nowhere," was his answer before he sighed again, reaching up to card his fingers through his hair before he spoke again, his words edged with frustration. "I don't know what to do, Sakura."
Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion and she dropped the shirt, letting her hand rest against his hip. "What do you mean?" She asked softly.
"I mean," he started, gently pulling himself out from underneath her as he stood, offering her a hand to pull her to her feet. She accepted, watching as he paced for a few minutes, clearly working through whatever it was in his mind before he turned to face her, his face stoic and his eye serious with his next words, "I can't keep making promises to you."
Sakura's body froze, and she swallowed hard as the nightmare she'd had earlier came rushing back; the blank look in Kakashi's eyes as he'd lain crumpled on a forest floor, his body soaked in blood and his skin cold to the touch. When she'd woken up and he'd taken her through the ritual of bringing her back to the waking world, she'd been hyper aware that unlike every other time, this time, he hadn't promised her-
"I'm going to die, Sakura," he cut her train of thought off, as if he'd been reading her mind. When he saw the look of horror on her face, he crossed the distance between them and pulled her to his chest, one hand burrowing in her pink hair and the other snaking around her waist as a sob escaped her lips.
"No," she whispered. "You're-"
"A man," he stopped her abruptly again, his words soft as he leaned back to look her in the eye. "I'm just a man, tenshi. I can't keep telling you I'm not going to die when we both know the life we lead inevitably ends in that reality."
Tears sprang forth from her eyes and he reached down from her hair to brush them away, his lips finding hers in a tender kiss meant to assuage her hurt over the stark truth he'd just spoken to her. Sakura reached for his face, cradling his cheeks beneath her palms as a small whimper passed her lips.
"Tell me what's going on," she begged him, her eyes wide and searching his eye for the answers to all of the questions that had been nagging at her for weeks. He frowned, leaning in to her touch as his eye fell shut and he began to speak.
"It's complicated," he started, pulling away from her. He reached for her hand, bringing her over to a flat ledge cut out of the stone wall. As he sat them both down, he began again, his voice quiet. "Seventeen years ago, I was a fourteen-year-old kid captaining an ANBU team."
"Team Ro," Sakura murmured softly. He nodded, his eye glancing down at the ground.
"The team consisted of myself and Tenzo consistently, our third never the same for too long. At that time, that person was Aburame Yoji."
Sakura nodded, but didn't speak. She didn't know Yoji, but if he was anything like the rest of his clan, she had a feeling that there was something off about him. Every time she'd ever encountered one of them, the experience had always left her with a sour taste in her mouth and a pull of distrust coming from within. Kakashi's voice broke the short silence again before she could dwell too long on that.
"We were called into the Hokage's office one night late winter, early spring," he recalled, his voice slow and his tone deep. "The Third had received a request for the extraction of someone out of Iwagakure. He told my team nothing beyond that we were being sent to retrieve a package; a girl."
"Ka-" She started, but was stopped by Kakashi's voice continuing over hers.
"Our orders were to get her back to Konoha safely. We traveled rough for the first few nights, but everything seemed like it was going according to plan. That's when I made the decision to return through the North Pass. It's a brutal place around that time of year, but I was young...so young."
Sakura's hands found his trembling ones, and she lifted his knuckles to her lips, kissing them softly as she said, "You don't-"
But he was speaking again, his tone more gravelly now. "A blizzard hit out of nowhere, and we were forced to shelter in place. Tenzo found a cave and we set up camp at the back of it, not wanting any Iwa trackers to see the glow of the fire through the storm. The girl..." he faltered for a moment, recalling her long, stringy hair that had clung to her face. His eyes glanced at Sakura's before he found his words again. "We made it three days. That third morning, we awoke to find her..." he trailed off, eyes distant again when he finished in a strained voice. "...dead."
Sakura swallowed hard, watching as Kakashi's face contorted into an anguished expression, his next words as cold as that cave must have been. "I went into shock. She...Rin had just...I was a fucking mess," he finally managed to get out a full thought. "Tenzo took me outside to get some air while Yoji checked her body."
"Yoji?" Sakura asked quietly. She knew protocol fairly well when it came to missions such as the one he was describing. As the Team Lead, she knew Kakashi had been the one who was supposed to check the body for signs of what had killed her. The pained look on his face told her that this was one of those many regrets that he carried with the rest of the weight on his shoulders.
"I couldn't even look at her, Sakura," Kakashi admitted, his voice full of shame. "All I could see when I did was Rin."
This, Sakura understood perfectly well. After his long solo mission, he hadn't been able to look at her, either. Had he seen someone's ghost reflected in her face, the way he had then? The woman's eyes softened, and she wrapped her arms around him even as he tensed up at the suddenness of her movements.
After a short pause filled with choked breaths, Kakashi was finally able to continue. "He confirmed that there was some sort of bite mark on her lower back and told us he believed it came from a venomous insect; maybe a centipede? A spider?" His brow furrowed, as though this small detail were vital. With a sigh, he added. "He reminded Tenzo and I that we were still in enemy territory, now in possession of a dead Iwa kunoichi. It was a time when the situation between Konoha and the Land of Earth was very tense. We decided to leave her body in the cave and left the next morning when the blizzard finally broke."
He exhaled, moving to his feet with a hand buried in his hair while he paced. Sakura could almost see him putting a puzzle together in his mind, his eye darting this way and that as he worked the pieces. As he did so, he finished his story with a distant tone. "We stopped in Tako, a small village on our side of the border, about two or three days later and camped in the woods. I..." his eyes narrowed, his pacing becoming more erratic. "Yoji disappeared for awhile. At the time, I was so...I didn't even realize...Where was he?"
His thoughts were jumbled and Sakura sat there, somewhat confused. "He left you guys? For how long?"
"I don't know," Kakashi grumbled, squeezing his eye in concentration. "Maybe a couple of hours on the first day?" He stopped pacing, his eyes meeting hers with his next words. "I need to find Tsunade."
Sakura stood, moving to stand in front of him. "Why?" She asked him, moving to grab his hands in hers. "What did you just figure out?"
"Someone else from Konoha was in Tako on the second day. I didn't see who, but a waitress asked..." he frowned, pulling his hands from hers as he made his way quickly for the narrow path they'd taken to enter the cavern. Sakura followed behind, her bag and the bedroll forgotten as they left.
"Asked what, Kakashi?" She questioned, cursing under her breath when she tripped on a small crack. He didn't turn to face her as his body went sideways, feet scurrying along the damp stone.
"She asked if Yoji had been there earlier that morning, because she could have sworn she'd seen someone that looked like him passing her on the road into town."
Sakura's eyes widened at the implication of his words. "There was another Aburame in the area."
He didn't say anything, just nodded as they slipped out of the cave and back into the park. The sun was low in the sky as he led her out of the park and back towards the Hokage's tower around the corner. She half expected him to tell her to wait downstairs like she had that morning, but he pulled her along behind him.
Tsunade was at her desk when they walked in, a tokkuri of sake in her hand, glass already waiting on her desktop. She scowled upon seeing them, setting the canister down with a loud thud. "This better be good," she snapped at Kakashi.
"I don't think that girl died in the cave."
The Hokage's eyebrow shot up, her lips in a snarl as she said, "You didn't confirm?"
"I-" Kakashi started, the guilt already apparent on his face. Sakura cut him off, moving to stand beside him as she boldly grabbed his hand.
"He was in shock," Sakura answered for him.
Tsunade's lips twitched, her eyes flashing fire for a brief moment before she reigned in her temper, managing to say through clenched teeth, "What makes you believe she didn't die?"
Kakashi's posture straightened, his hand slipping from Sakura's as he told the Hokage about the short stay in Tako; about what the waitress had said, and what Kakashi himself had remembered about Yoji's brief departure from their camp. By the time he finished speaking, Tsunade had poured herself a stiff glass of sake and had already downed half of it. At the conclusion of his debriefing, the room settled into a tense silence that seemed to go on forever before Sakura finally spoke.
"Will someone tell me what this all means?"
Tsunade sighed, dropping the glass to the desk with a clink before she looked at the pink-haired woman with a weary look. "It means," she started. "That Root likely kidnapped the girl Konoha was tasked with bringing here safely."
She paused for a moment and turned to look out the window, bringing the tokkuri to her lips, taking a long swig before she yelled out for Shizune. A moment later, the assistant scampered in and Tsunade turned to face her before saying, "I want you to visit the Third Hokage's wife, Shizune. See if she has any old records pertaining to ANBU that he didn't want on the official record."
"And if she does, Lady Tsunade?"
The Hokage finished the sake left in the container before she launched it across the room. As the now-shattered pottery began to hit the floor, she said through a heavy sigh. "Bring them to me. And Shizune?"
"Yes, my Lady?"
"On your way back, stop by the Intelligence Division and see if Inoichi has any results from Aburame Yoji's interrogation. It's been a full day; he should have something by now."
Kakashi turned to face Sakura, nodding towards the door. She said nothing as they made their exit, but she could tell by the look on his face that he was troubled. So she simply grabbed his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze as she led him towards a cafe down the street. They weren't going to figure anything out on empty stomachs. As they walked, she tried to ignore the pang in her heart as she recalled his earlier words to her.
I'm going to die. I'm just a man.
She knew the words were true; knew that he had been right when he'd reminded her that this was the harsh reality of living life as a shinobi. She glanced up at him, weaving their fingers together tightly as she prayed that his words had been just that; a harsh reminder that someday - not now - he would die.
Someday.
She could handle someday, she told herself. As his fingers gave hers a squeeze and her heart clenched, she knew though, that she couldn't handle now. They had to get through this together; he had to come through it on the other side with her. She couldn't lose him now, or any time soon; not when she had only just gotten him.