If someone asked Ino to describe nothingness, she would likely draw them a map of Sakura's mind. She wished she could mean that as a clever insult, but the pure evaporation of everything that met her when she opened her eyes was nothing short of breathtaking. The absence of even one sense would often be more than enough to throw off any shinobi, but toss in a practical vacuum of sensory deprivation whilst remaining entirely aware of your body in a void of space – it was simply surreal.

Light didn't exist, sound enfolded back in on itself, there was nothing to smell and no need to taste but still, to feel where you existed against nothingness… One didn't adjust to that sort of thing without losing a few sanity points. She would know. Few as her trips have been into Sakura's psyche, no one could ever come close to comparing to her best friend when it came mind melds. Sakura, it seemed, would always have an edge over the rest of the population in that regard. And Ino had always been both proud and mildly distressed by this fact.

"You okay?"

Ino didn't even realise she was lying flat on her back until a pink head was peering over the top of her with a terribly guilty wince. She blinked around the abrupt introduction of colour and form, and then groaned.

"Ugh. This part never gets easier with you." Massaging her temples, Ino slowly sat up. And wasn't that just daunting that though there was a surface beneath her, there was nothing to perceive.

A hand entered her vision, extended as the peace offering it was. "Sorry, force of habit I suppose."

Ino withheld the roll of her eyes and used Sakura to lever herself upwards, immediately taking stock of the void that remained firmly uninviting and wholly unnerving.

"I do not envy the Yamanaka who had to debrief you when you got back." She glanced at Sakura only now noticing that she wasn't dressed in a hospital gown but her typical shinobi attire; a small yet significant change. "I'm assuming you were polite and let him have a nice leisurely stroll through your memories without kickboxing him into a coma?"

The pinkette was entirely earnest when she replied, "I cooperated. He found nothing. Nothing important anyway."

Ino studied her under narrowed blue eyes, "Well obviously you disagree with his findings if I'm here. So what, you let him find nothing?"

Nothing was apparently what anyone would see upon entering Sakura's mind, but Ino had it on good authority that she was the only Yamanaka – hell, probably the only person in the whole world – that knew what truly lay within her best friend's pretty head.

Sakura had always been strong of will and mind, though it seemed only she was privy to the chilling extent. Ino swiftly put away the thought that Sakura was both capable and aware enough to fundamentally alter her psyche based off the visitor, even if they were on the same side.

"I don't know, Ino." Sakura was frowning at the incorporeal floor, a deep mar between her pink brows as she absently rested a hand against her abdomen. "Maybe he didn't look hard enough or maybe he only saw what I wanted him to see."

It was a damning corroboration as any, and still Ino could only groan. "Gods, I should be so much more concerned over the fact that you are somehow literally impervious to my clan's entire technique. If I wasn't Clan Head I'd seriously have to consider reporting you."

At that, Sakura's petulant side reared its head and it was a brief relief to see her lose some of that creeping self-consciousness. "It's not like I'm doing it on purpose, Pig."

Ino raised a pointed brow. "You know, that somehow almost makes it worse. I swear your brain is a bloody Kekkei Genkai, Forehead." She waved a hand, and took a half step to inspect the stretch of obsidian; her eyes losing focus when there was nothing to see.

"So, I know it's been a while since we talked about her, but your 'inner' character, isn't she supposed to be here already?" Ino turned to face Sakura fully and rested her hands on the swell of her hips. "Where exactly is your split personality hiding and should I be worried I'm about to get sucker punched in the face?"

A petit nose upturned as Sakura scoffed and folded her arms across her chest. "Ugh, you know Pig sometimes I really regret ever telling you about her."

"No you don't." She dismissed easily with a smirk. "So? If she's waiting around to ambush me again I swear to Kami, Forehead – "

"She's not here." Sakura interrupted. "Not anymore."

Well that was a big old nope if ever she heard one. Ino narrowed her eyes, and drew her fingertip in a lazy figure-eight towards Sakura. "Okay. Not loving this cryptic shade on you. Spit it out already, or I will be forced to bitch slap you."

Sakura huffed, puffing up like an angry cat as she threw her arms to the sides in exasperation. "Look, we merged okay. I don't really remember when or how but one day she was there, telling me I ought to knee someone's nose into their cranium, and the next, she was gone." She lost some her heat with a weary side. "I don't know how to explain it. I've never known how to explain her."

Ino nodded slowly, it made perfect sense really, in an incomprehensible sort of way.

"So… around the time you actually started maiming people then?" She ascertained, rolling her blue eyes at Sakura's slack jaw and cutting her off before the protests could start. "Oh, don't look at me like that. Obviously your 'inner' was able to manifest herself properly when you actually started living up to your freakish potential. A self-defence mechanism doesn't have much to do when you're the one kicking regular butt on the offense."

At Sakura's continued dubious stare, Ino marched forward to take the girl by her shoulders and lightly shake her. "That's a good thing, Forehead. It's like your boobs finally grew into your bra." She made to poke Sakura's chest and her hands were slapped away a moment later.

"Hey!" Sakura was glaring at her, arms wrapped firmly around her chest and Ino held up her hands in surrender though she couldn't quite contain her smug smile.

"I'm just saying. It looks like you're all grown up. Full titty-potential realised." She grinned at Sakura's attempt to remain angry, but neither could deny the tug of laughter pulling at the pinkette's lips.

"I can't believe you just compared me to breasts." Sakura's accusation was a little weak coming through twitching lips.

"There are worse comparisons. Although, while we're still on the subject of your inner-boob – "

"Please don't make that a thing."

" – I don't know what it means that even without her here your mind is still this strange limbo." Ino gave into a deep sigh. "Honestly, whoever the hell debriefed you needs to have their license revoked."

It was a little frustrating to think one of her own clan, someone who was actively working in T no less, had so severely missed Sakura's obvious resistance to mind-melds. Sure, even if every seemed fine and dandy, surely, he should've felt something was slightly off.

"It's not his fault." Sakura murmured, eyes cast somewhere beyond. "He never got the chance to see what you're seeing. But my mind recognises you. It knows you're safe, so I can be myself with you."

And despite her souring mood, Ino simply couldn't help her adoring coo. "Aww, Forehead!" She sang and squished Sakura's cheeks between her palms. "You big sap. I knew you loved me!"

It wasn't like she made a habit of jumping into her best friend's mind but still, it felt good to know that even with their shaky history of mind-melds, Sakura always had and always would feel comfortable with her presence. To the point of casual conversations in an unsettling infinite void of nothingness, but still, the sentiment remained sweet.

Sakura was just beginning to resemble a puffy-cheeked squirrel when Ino's hands were forcibly removed and returned to her with a grunt. "Focus Pig, we're here for a reason. We need to find Him."

Ino pursed her lips but kept her tone light, "Right, and by 'him' I assume you mean that 'imprint ghost' you were telling me about?"

She had her own educated suspicions, but Ino wasn't too ashamed to say she had always operated at an 'act first, ask questions later' capacity when it came to Sakura. Although right now the Kunoichi in her did object to process, if only a little.

"Atsuhiko." Sakura agreed softly.

And those ignored Kunoichi protests were proven vindicated a moment later when the figurative ground beneath their feet began to rumble and shake. Ino had had her fair share of unprecedented experiences within another's mind, however there was something to be said about the terror of an invisible earthquake whilst literally existing in a formless abyss.

Sakura grabbed hold of her hand as they braced, and Ino couldn't decide if it was for her sake or not. Either way, her grip was near bone-crushing. The tremors extended for another long moment before smoothing out into silence and stillness.

"Okay. Hated that." Ino whispered. Straightening to her full height, she rounded on Sakura. "What the hell? Do you usually create mental earthquakes for dramatic effect or what?"

She only felt Sakura's faint trembling because their hands were still linked. "No… I – I don't know what's happening to me, Ino."

Well, if she hadn't been determined before, she was downright obstinate now. Ino was getting to the bottom of this if it was the last thing she did.

"Damn. What a morning for me to skip my coffee." With feigned a deep sigh, she flicked her long ponytail behind her shoulder. "Alright then, Forehead, lets hunt down your illegal ghost tenant and see if you're actually batshit crazy or just your normal amount."

Her jab proved to be the right remedy, for Sakura's trembling was immediately replaced with her usual temperament – mildly hostile with a touch of sarcasm, at least when it came to her. Sakura dropped their hands to curl her right fist menacingly.

"Gee, I'm so glad I'm not emotionally fragile or anything right now, cause otherwise that might've greatly damaged my psyche, which we are literally standing in."

Ino had to hide her smirk as she turned from Sakura to inspect her nails. She had chosen to do a dandelion yellow French tip. Although under the strange pitch-black of Sakura's void, it looked a little mustardy. Ino wrinkled her nose. She'd have to change it when they got out, there was no way she was going to walk around with her fingers looking like she'd clawed through a condiment, no matter the lighting.

"Oh please, if you couldn't handle me I'd be drooling on the floor right now in a half catatonic state." With a small tut she rounded back to Sakura with a shooing motion. "Now mush that tush, I'm going to get a cramp standing here all day. You don't pay me enough for this level of counselling."

"I'm not paying you at all, let alone for counselling – "

"And that is your abundant loss, Forehead."

And if Sakura grumbled something a little audacious about Ino's character under her breath with the dismissal, well Ino could forgive it just this once.

"Come on, Pig."

Together they took a single step forward, and Ino couldn't contain her gasp when the landscape sharply changed – like the carpet had been pulled out from under them and they were falling head first into a technicoloured reality.

A lush environment raced to meet them with a muted whoosh; form abruptly taking shape before settling into the grooves of its details. Vertigo wrapped its spiralled clutches around her as Ino bent to brace her hands over her knees, focusing on not throwing up on the grass that was lifting to life beneath her sandaled feet. Proud and green the blades stood to attention tickling her nose with its fresh fragrance.

Ino couldn't tell if it was her previous deprivation of senses or just the majesty of Sakura's brilliant mind, but it all looked and felt entirely too real. Goosebumps raised the flesh along her arms as the gentle call of birds caressed her ears. Then there was the mild breeze which ruffled and danced her blonde hair across her vision. If she allowed herself to, she would certainly taste the sweetness of the air which beheld the clean landscape around her.

There was no doubt about it, she was whiplashed.

Psyches were rarely this vivid and hardly ever this detailed and dimensional. Usually people would exist in abstract tokens of memories; a patchwork setting of time and place tied together by the core of a person's neutral state. It would often be akin to walking among the disjointed pieces of a half completed puzzle yet to find its home.

It was never clear, scarcely cohesive and most of the time people had no control over the basis of their being. It's in part why a Yamanaka has to be so skilled in leading and facilitating. If they weren't careful, they could be thrown into a memory and never find the surface again. Or be forced to wonder aimlessly along with their patient – scouring the psyche for a sense of logic or a solid foothold. They had to be the puzzle master, stitching together and walking through each memory and evaluating every setting.

It was a fine line between guiding and disturbing. But each Yamanaka knew to expect the unexpected upon entering another's mind. No matter what, they had to be the one in control, the one with clarity and perspective. The sole anchor.

But this?

With another slow inhale and the guaranteed control of her stomach, Ino lifted her gaze. Colour had streaked itself into the sky in a crisp pastel blue, blotched out in spaces with perfect white clouds partially hiding the gentle sun as it warmed her skin. The expanse was vast, and Ino let her eyes adjust around the solid shape of a fully formed psyche.

Freakish potential, alright. Fuck if I've ever been more right on the money. Ino flexed her shaking fingers and moored herself to the solidness of her own body in the space. I don't think even Dad's mind was ever this… controlled.

Forget puzzle pieces, this was an entire artwork – expertly crafted and preserved.

Ino turned her head and stalled at the vaguely familiar sight of a small two-storey home in the near distance. The stretch of a path began at their feet, long and straight but perfectly kept leading to a quaint little house – Sakura's house, by the looks of it. Or at least an amalgamation of her childhood home and the apartment where she now resided.

Glancing at Sakura out of the corner of her eye she saw her best friend staring intently at the path ahead, looking equal parts peaceful and prepared. Ino followed Sakura's gaze back down along the stone and gravel trail, absently taking note of the flowerbeds which hedged the path in, careful not to let her surprise show.

It was perhaps a subconscious creation on Sakura's part, yet even then Ino couldn't help but think it was entirely intentional that the flowerbeds were made up with carefully arranged symbols of meaning. Red Geraniums and yellow Roses made up the majority in a garish clash of colour that Ino decided to forgive.

Red geraniums for determination. She observed. Yellow roses for courage and inner strength, huh? Bit on the nose, Forehead.

Frills of Erika flowers lined the edges with its symbol of solitude, and Ino quickly looked past it's heavy meaning to spy the strong pink Peonies standing tall as if in manifestation of its language of bravery. She cracked a smile, noting with fondness that of course the pink would perfectly match Sakura's hair.

There were Cosmos and Baby's Breath intertwined in balance, harmony and sincerity. Nasturtium's with their 'victory in struggle' and pockets of Lavender symbolising healing and strength. Although, there was one flower which made Ino pause beyond all else.

The dark petalled Rice-Lily which seemed to twist and sprout itself sporadically between the rest. Its more commonly used meaning represented love. Although, a cautious sense of foreboding whispered its second meaning up her spine with the cool lips of dread.

Curse.

"Ino? You coming?"

The soft voice snapped her out of her intense standoff with the innocent flower gently swaying against the warm breeze of Sakura's mind, and Ino carefully filed away her sidling horror to be addressed at another time.

"Yeah."

The cobbled path was as real underfoot as anything else as they tread up to the textbook cream door. And there they waited with Sakura's hand stalled over the handle and Ino's breath caught hesitantly in her throat.

"I've never really…"

"Had guests over?" Ino finished with a curious quirk of her lips.

Sakura huffed a laugh, shaking her head. "That's one way of putting it, I suppose."

It was once again moving to know that even this corner of Sakura's mind was an untouched sanctuary and yet here Ino was, privy and welcome to these most private parts of her best friend.

"So, you're a houseguest-virgin." She said because she was always good at getting Sakura out of her head, even if they had no such hope of it in this case. "I promise I won't judge. Even if you have terrible decor and it smells like an old person's home."

Sakura snorted and that was that. "You're such a bitch sometimes." She said, soft and fond.

Ino grinned. "Well, duh." With that the door was pushed open and Ino fell into her third surprise of the morning, though she was beginning to learn that Sakura would never cease on that front.

It was a perfectly kept, beautiful house. Like the outside, it appeared to be a mixture of Sakura's childhood home and current one, and despite the obvious difference in architecture and tone, everything made sense and had its place. Keeping in pace with Sakura, Ino slipped off her boots at the entrance and donned the adorable lilac slippers that Sakura had apparently manifested just for her.

"Cute touch." She complimented, earning herself a half eye roll and a small smile from the woman in question as she led them forward through the house in her matching matcha-green slippers.

Ino quietly marvelled with each step. She recognised the well-scuffed floorboards that she once used to race around as a child whenever they'd had sleepovers at Sakura's place. The framed photos of a family that sat seamlessly against blue and white pinstriped wallpaper. The window sill Sakura's mother always said was the best place for reading in the winter.

All of it so distantly familiar at a glance, and yet immediately meaningful. And then there were the newer parts.

The kitchen. Sakura's kitchen with the turmeric stains on the white countertop and the burn mark from the small fire Sakura caused when she first tried making tempura by herself. The fridge which always had Naruto's grubby fingerprints on it from his countless raids for food. The silly tea towel which Sakura's dad had gifted his daughter when she first moved out, with its lame pun 'I love you very Mochi'.

And then the dining table, surrounded by mismatched chairs from too many people attempting to crowd around it's edges. The coasters which were rarely used for their actual purpose, and the vase of flowers Ino herself had taken the liberty of procuring. The rusty pinks, browns and whites of the flowers she had painstakingly dried out and arranged for her eternally-busy best friend, because 'even workaholics deserve flowers.'

Ino smiled at it all. The perfect replica, pristinely preserved in its average state of well-loved chaos. It held prime of place in Sakura's mind and Ino didn't have to wonder very far on the why's of it all when it was so clear that this was what made up the core of her settled psyche.

So you're a closet homebody, huh Sakura?

Based off the hours her best friend often kept and the relentlessness she approached work and avoided the dating scene, Ino likely never would've guessed Sakura had such a tender heart for home. Inexplicably, it made her terribly melancholy.

Just how long have you been waiting to share this with someone…?

Ino shook herself from her thoughts. "You know, I'm actually pleasantly impressed by the homeliness of your mind. I half expected your psyche to be one gigantic filing cabinet, what with all the compartmentalising you do."

It was an understatement to call herself impressed. But it seemed almost dangerous to point out just how unbelievable it was for such a place to exist like this in the first place. How incredibly strong and adaptable of mind Sakura had to be to have created such a flawless, walkable representation of her being.

Sakura – bless her and her inability to look beyond insults to see the awe – pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. "I'll take that as a very backhanded compliment, Pig. And you wonder why you're not typically welcome here." She muttered, leading the way towards a staircase.

"Hey, just an observation." Ino defended with a secret smile as they began to climb the stairs. "For someone who hardly has company over you've kept things quite welcoming, all things considered."

"Ignoring you now."

Ino smirked and ran her fingertips lightly along the wooden panels of the walls, sharply pulling back when she felt a ripple of response – a murmuring live wire of atoms in a constant state of flux. Recording, storing, forming, being.

"Things just get more and more complex with you." She whispered to the wall, watching in fascination as she lay her palm flat and let her mind spark against the buzzing memory within its abode.

It reacted with a peaceful pulse, sending back abstract information. It was almost like flicking a taut metal string of an instrument and receiving the reverberation. Only she never expected to be met with another's tune as well.

Ino quickly withdrew her hand and travelled the last few steps up to Sakura. "Hey. Has anyone else been in here recently, aside from that Yamanaka?"

Green eyes peered back over her shoulder. "What makes you ask?"

Ino looked back the way they came. Darkness met her and she almost lost her footing. But it made sense. No use wasting resources in holding up a space they no longer occupied. Just another example of Sakura's pragmatism, efficient to a fault. Still, it was unnerving. Ino turned forward and tried to adjust to the strange feeling of having half a house formed around their joined consciousness.

"It's just… I felt a residual." At Sakura's widening eyes, she quickly continued. "Nothing hostile, but almost familiar. It's like… there are an extra pair of guest slippers at the front door. Someone came to visit, only they never quite made it inside. Does that make sense?"

Sakura's face drew from soft confusion into reverie. "…I don't think he really had the time for guest slippers." She joked weakly to herself before flicking green eyes upwards.

"When I was still under His control, Sasuke he – our minds clashed, I guess you could say. It was first time I didn't succumb to his genjutsu, and he let me meet him halfway. He helped me find my way back to the surface… I guess my mind still hasn't figured out how he was supposed to fit, for the brief time he was here."

Ino tried not to read into the way the warm light of the hallway dimmed a fraction as though a proverbial raincloud had covered their sun. The mind was a powerful tool as any, and she knew that her every action and word needed to be carefully measured and contained so as not to leave any lasting damage.

But Sakura was talking again, soft and deprecating and searching for answers with thin humour. "I guess that's fitting for us though isn't it? For Sasuke, I've always had a pair of unused guest slippers just waiting at my front door… Kinda pathetic I guess." She laughed and it was hollow. "Is it stupid that after everything, my mind still hasn't figured out how to let him completely go, that I'm supposed to let him go?"

Ino bit the inside of her cheek and considered the question. "It's not stupid." She said. "You're not supposed to do anything, except heal maybe. Sasuke will always be a part of your life one way or another. He will always hold a space in you, because he means somethings to you. Just like Naruto and Kakashi-sama. Just like Sai and Yamato-san. Just like Tsunade-sama. Just like me… And you're not pathetic by the way. I'll slap anyone who says otherwise."

Ino settled with honesty, watching carefully as Sakura's shoulders lost some tension with her breathy laugh. Then the back of Sakura's hand was brushing against hers, so faint Ino almost could've imagined it. When she glanced up, a gentle smile met her.

"Thanks, Ino." The pinkette said, before pushing forward with renewed determination. "Come on, we're almost there."

With another handful of steps, Ino blinked as the corridor widened to reveal an array of doors lining its walls. Each door was different, but some even looked a little familiar to Ino's continued bewilderment.

There was the sliding door to their old academy classroom. The unmistakable double doors of the Hokage's office. A grey door which could only lead to Sakura's office at the hospital, though her name plate looked a little worn at its edges. Ino spared a fond smile at the sight of the colourful door to her own flower shop taking up space in Sakura's mind.

You big sap, Sakura.

It was somehow a welcome predictability at this point that of course Sakura would divide her relationships and arcs of her life into well-defined doors and rooms. Her best friend was always organised, manicured in hard logic, labels and sharp intelligence. And yet, all of that was perfectly offset by the tender detail so evident in the vivid contour and collection of these precious doors.

Then there were the doors Ino didn't recognise.

An old timber door which looked like it had been used as a punching bag in another life; with its splintered frame, angry gashes of wood and abstract burn marks. Sakura quickly walked past that one, and Ino silenced her intense curiosity over whatever it was Sakura had barricaded behind there.

A small voice told her she already knew the answer, and her heart could only fall a little further in her chest. You always were terrible at asking for help. You big dummy.

They continued walking.

There were doors with broken hinges and others with strained-glass patterns. Some were plain to the point of boredom, while others were obvious in their standing. Ino did a double-take at what was obviously the handiwork of one of Yamato-san's Mokuton craftmanship.

Damn, Forehead. While the rest of us were stuck roughing it with tents in the elements, you had a whole-ass handy-man making you houses in the middle of missions!

Ino opened her mouth to voice her complaints but stalled when she saw the door Sakura had stopped in front of. It looked heavy and ornate with its thick mahogany carvings and large brass handle. It could've been ripped straight out of a castle for all that it stood imposing and out of place in Sakura's mind.

"Where does that door lead?"

"I don't know… It's not mine."

Unconsciously, Ino drifted a step closer to Sakura, goosebumps raising along her flesh. "And I guess I'm not alone in that intense ominous feeling radiating from it?"

"It's Him." Sakura whispered, wide-eyed and disturbed. "He really is here."

Ino moved quickly, pulling Sakura back from the door the placing her hands over her friend's shoulders. "Okay, pause." She said forcing Sakura to meet her eyes. "You mentioned before that he felt like an imprint, right? Here and now is that still true? Or is he something more?"

Being Head of the Yamanaka clan and Ibiki's prized apprenticed had counted for something in Ino's pursuit of answers when her best friend and boyfriend had turned up on death's door two weeks ago. 'Classified' wasn't so much a roadblock as a tab for easy perusal. But here and now, Ino felt there were still several layers of mystery that she was yet to be privy.

Sakura was shaking her head, eyes straying back and forth from the door. "I don't know. He was sealed, he's supposed to be gone. He has to be and this is just the remnants of his presence in me. Right?"

Ino drew back but didn't drop her hands. "The mind is a powerful thing, Sakura. Yours more than most I've met. Even if he is just a remnant, the fact that he somehow still exists in your mind… I don't think we should underestimate that."

Large emerald eyes beheld her. "What do we do?"

And what could Ino do but draw her courage and give her best friend the strength she had asked for. With a small squeeze, Ino dropped her hands and flicked her hair behind her shoulder with a smirk. "Well, I don't know about you, but I came here with the sole purpose of evicting his ass. So I suppose the better question is, are you ready?"

Kami knew what they were dealing with – but Ino was never one to retreat when the answers lay just within reach. It was something she and Sakura had always had in common, and predictably, between one blink and the next, the hard veneer of focus and resolve made its well-loved home upon Sakura's open face.

Ino's heart squeezed at the bravery of the woman who had lost all that had once made her strong but would never give up the fight. With a firm nod and a curled fist, Sakura stood her ground.

"I'm ready."

Ino let her pride settle at her back and stepped with Sakura up to the dark door. "I've got you."

Sakura's grateful smile was fleeting as she placed her hand upon the brass handle and took a sharp breath. The moment she pushed, the door swung upon with no hesitation and there they stood, absorbing the shadowy space.

Ino glanced at Sakura and the way she stood there as though made from stone. Then she took the first step in. Ino squinted around the low light and catalogued navy silk sheets upon a large bed, and the grandeur of stretching stone walls. A lone grey window shed partial light upon a tall imposing bookcase that matched the hardwood of the bedhead. All it was missing was the dust and she would've deemed it entirely abandoned and lost to time.

"Geez, gaudy much?" She turned back towards Sakura, "Do you recognise this place?"

But Sakura remained frozen at the threshold of the door, barely breathing. "It's His room."

Urgency flared to life under her skin as Ino studied the look of pure trauma indented across her best friend's face. But she couldn't let her fear surface. She was here to do a job and she wasn't going to let ghosts and their hideous rooms stop her. Regardless, filing away the chilling thought that this strange intruder 'imprint' had managed to create his own space in Sakura's mind, Ino pushed forward.

"An empty bookshelf and a mirror facing the bed. Honestly, yikes." She tried for humour hoping to diffuse Sakura's tension, but when she glanced back she saw only pure fear in the whites of her eyes.

"He's here."

No sooner had Sakura said those words did a dark laugh bubble from the expanse of shadows painting the far wall. The sound was deep and rich and did nothing to stave off the rush of adrenaline Ino felt as she leapt back from the sound. Sakura immediately pushed forward, planting herself between Ino and the stranger, and that's when she saw him, partially emerged from darkness.

"So you've finally come, Woman."

Silver hair caught the low light like fine strands of a spider's web; tricky and mesmerising. It flowed long down the side of his shoulder from its loose binding, contrasting the deep obsidian kimono he wore, split open to his navel and held loosely together by a crimson sash.

He was broad in frame but defined of build, without blemish or scar across his chest and abdomen; a body worthy of an artist's musings. But what caught Ino most of all were his eyes. Twin amethyst gems shone beautifully against his fair skin, and they were trained perfectly upon the woman in front of her. On Sakura.

And Ino felt mildly ill when she saw what he did.

Sakura's clothes had changed. No longer was she dressed in the reds and whites of her shinobi attire, but draped in pure white silks and a lilac sash that hung off her as effortlessly as the apparition before them. They looked like Gods, sculpted in magnificence and blended in lazy beauty. And that's when she knew they were no longer in Sakura's psyche, but His domain.

"Kami." The gasp left her without permission, and Ino could only dart her pale eyes between the two as they stood, completely locked upon one another.

The man smiled then, indulgent and amused, though his jewel eyes never strayed from Sakura. "Not quite."

"Atsuhiko." Sakura's voice hissed like venom and Ino could only watch as the man's delight grew greater.

"Ah. I've missed your voice, Sakura." His voice oozed like honey as he tilted his head and silver hair went sliding. "Tell me, have you missed me?"

Ino, with nothing left but horror and a mild sense of doom gave in to her lack of foresight. "Well, shit."

This wasn't just an imprint, not even a remnant, this was a piece of a God's soul. And it had made itself a home in her best friend.


Sakura didn't allow her attention to stray from the man before her. She was right – loathed and terrified as she was to be – he hadn't just been haunting her, he'd be tormenting her from his very real place in her head.

That knowing smile she had once so intimately known stretched at her continued silence. "You don't seem nearly as surprised to see me, Sakura."

She fought off the shiver that her name on his lips evoked in her and glared him down. "Are you wanting me to stroke your ego in saying that it's been hard to forget someone like you?"

"It wouldn't hurt." He posed smugly, with a teasing smile just for her.

"Go to hell." Sakura spat in turn, flexing her fists and hating the feel of soft silk against her skin. He was mocking her to have her exist here in these clothes, with him. And the mere power he had over that fact put her teeth on edge.

"Already there, my dear." Atsuhiko hummed. "You're the one who's been holding on."

The statement made her stall and that was enough time for Ino to voice the questions that she should be asking.

"So you are gone?" Ino demanded, attempting to step up to meet her shoulder to shoulder, but Sakura refused to let her. She wasn't safe with him. No one was. And that need to keep Ino protected from his purview hardened into pure resolve when Atsuhiko lazily turned his attention to her.

"Oh? You brought a pet with you, I see. How vile." His disdain dripped like blood from an open wound, and Sakura couldn't help the way her hackles raised and snapped like a live metal wire.

"Don't you look at her!"

Her command worked well enough, for Atsuhiko honed his cool gaze back upon her with a satisfaction she hated. "Territorial hmm? Not that I mind being the sole holder of your attention and affection." He was entirely pleased and Sakura was growing entirely pissed off.

"Why aren't you dead?" She demanded for herself, taking another half step in front of Ino and hoping she'd get the damn message.

"I'm sealed, not dead. There is a difference." He chided simply, lifting a hand to run through the hair escaping its tie and framing his high cheek bones and smooth lips. "Why aren't you?"

Sakura jutted her chin, answering snidely. "I'm stubborn."

His laugh trickled like hot water over coffee, warm and enticing and Sakura swore she was beginning to go crazy with the sound when gave her his honest smile. "That you are, my precious mortal. For that is how you've remained without me - mortal." The curve of his smile turned in an instant. "Mostly."

Sakura's heart fell through her stomach. She barely heard Ino's cry over the blood abruptly rushing in her ears.

"What does that mean? What the hell have you done to her, you freak?!"

Instincts screamed to life in Sakura when she felt the familiar weight of displeasure spike the air, and it was all she could do to grab Ino's wrist and stop her from moving an inch under Atsuhiko's intent stare.

"Careful." He said, simple and controlled. "Attempt to address me again, Rat and I might not be so lenient as to your continued presence."

Hatred and anger mixed in a furious concoction and suddenly Sakura found herself striding several steps forward, the heat of her rage quelled only by cold logic. "You can't touch her here. This is my mind and you're gone."

But Atsuhiko had never fallen for her wrath and he responded with a playful shake of his head.

"And yet you don't believe any of that. How curious." He folded one hand into the lose material of his kimono at his waist, resting it inside his open shirt. There he lingered with lazy challenge. "Would you care to test the extent of my powerlessness, Sakura?"

Maybe it was practice or maybe she was just too used-up, but Sakura didn't rise to his lure this time. "How are you here?" She asked with forced calm. "Our chakra link was severed. I no longer serve as your tether. You were sealed. You can't exist here like this."

Shouldn't was probably the more accurate term. Sakura would always be the first to acknowledge the possibilities of the impossible, but here and now where proof and disproof were irrelevant, she settled for blind confidence.

"Hmm. Odd isn't it." Atsuhiko nodded to her with his first show of genuine acknowledgement. "Though I do have my theories."

He left it there like bait on a hook and it was both frustrating and predictable that he watched her with those amused, eager eyes waiting for her hopeless struggle against him and all the things he had to offer. Sakura buried her burning agitation and resisted the urge to threaten him with empty promises. His was a game of manipulation and she'd only be wasting energy on trying to win it with violence and resistance.

"Yes?" She prompted blankly after another long moment.

Atsuhiko's grin grew and Sakura reconsidered her stance on physically wiping his face of it. Oh how she wanted to rip him to pieces and scatter him far, far away from her.

"Whatever shall you offer me in return?"

Predictable.

A drawn-out groan occupied the space of their tense standoff. "Geez you sure know how to pick 'em, Sakura. A regular creep with an ego."

Sakura threw a warning glare behind her the same time Atsuhiko hissed his admonishment.

"Silence, Rat."

Sakura narrowed her eyes at Ino guiltless shrug and turned back to the issue at hand. "We both know I have nothing to give you, none that I am willing or able to offer."

Atsuhiko seemed to consider this, though whether he had already calculated her response was a point she had no drive to dissect. In the end, he was as transparent as his request. "My name, then. Say it again. That is all I ask."

"Sakura." This time the warning came from Ino, though it remained ignored.

"Atsuhiko." She wielded his name like a commandment for all that it was. "Tell me." Sakura filed away his shudder of satisfaction and the way it seemed to bolden his appearance in colour and sharpness, as though her voice alone had a hand in his conception.

"How you please me, Woman." Atsuhiko thanked her with a smile so fond she almost felt sick.

"Our bargain."

His smile dimmed at little at her cold prompt and Sakura took her own satisfaction in his wilting. "Yes, yes, my dear. Very well." He sighed. "Enlighten me, why is it do you think that you didn't succumb to your wounds so fatally dealt?"

Sakura folded her arms across her chest, her long white sleeves dragging with the movement. "I told you. I'm stubborn."

"Granted you have proved that in spades, my love." He chuckled as he lounged against the wall at his back, lifting a finger and swirling it aimlessly in the air. "However, that is not all, is it? I know you've wondered about it yourself. In the deepest moments of your loneliness, when no one is around to see, you question how it is you're alive. Why it came to pass so unobstructed."

"I'd hardly call flatlining twice unobstructed." Ino muttered darkly behind her.

"What do you know, Atsuhiko?" She used his name again, a test.

His eyes grew wide with joy and he answered her freely. "My dear Sakura, don't tell me you've already forgotten? Why, I could never hope to forget the day you had my heart in the palm of your hand."

He shifted forward a step until his body was entirely emerged from shadow, standing to his full looming height in the dim room. "It was a rather pivotal point in our relationship. After all, you held my immortality betwixt your fingers and crushed it." He sneered, a lick of anger seeping past his tightly coiled façade.

"And you didn't die." Sakura countered him firmly, not moving an inch as he slowly swayed forward with keen predatory eyes. "It changed nothing. It was destroyed and yet you lived on until I severed our chakra connection and you were sealed."

Atsuhiko paused just before her, and glanced aside. "Yes, I thought the same at the time. It was a peculiar happenstance of seeming fortune on my behalf that the Pomegranate had but no effect on me when it was destroyed." A faint melancholy enveloped him. "Was it all just a lie?

"Did my Sister place it before me as her final twisted act of torment? A meaningless goal to spend my eternal days chasing. An unattainable prize that would surely make no difference should I win it. Why, the pain of disillusionment almost hurt more than the pain of losing it." He looked to her, eyes darting between her own as if searching for something. "But more than all that, what truly ruined me most in the moment was your betrayal."

Sakura inhaled sharply, shifting back from his imminent presence as he stood above her. "You can't betray forced allegiance."

Atsuhiko ignored her, following her slow retreat as he kept her eyes captive. Slowly, he reached for her, but Sakura had already pulled away when he caught the silk of her long sleeve between his fingers, halting her.

The air almost evaporated from her lungs at his nearness. She could almost feel the heat from his fingers from where he caged her sleeve. Lilac eyes dared her to move as Atsuhiko carefully turned his gaze to inspect her captured right hand.

"And yet," he whispered, "this hand, which betrayed me in violence, also saved us. These fingers, coated in my grace," a small smirk tugged at his lips with her disgusted grimace, "they held power over us still."

Understanding bloomed like bruise across her skin. "That's not possible." She refuted with certainty she simply did not possess. "I felt its death, we both did. You can't – I wouldn't have – "

"Sakura, what's he saying?" Ino's rising panic barely registered against her surreal deliberation. "What's going on?"

A sharp tug on her sleeve urged her another inch closer to him, and Sakura held her breath as they stood just shy of breaching the careful distance of touch. It was overwhelming, heady. His presence was consuming her, again. (Had she ever really been free?).

"The juice of the Pomegranate," Atsuhiko murmured sinfully, "the last of my immortality. It must've entered your bloodstream directly when you touched your open wound with this hand. Why, even a small infinitesimal cut on your palm would do the trick. As a medic, I'm sure you'd be familiar with just how quickly your bloodstream can become infiltrated. Though, you have your own personal experience to attest as well."

His wicked smile was close to her undoing. Sakura went to wipe it clean off his face. "You son of a- "

"Ah-ah-ah." He halted her with another jerky tug on her sleeve and immediately both their eyes darted to her captured hand, all but moments from sliding into his palm. "This hand, this is responsible for our tangible connection. In destruction and in deliverance, you have always represented the best and worst of humanity, Woman."

His breath was hot on her cheeks, slowly tugging her hand upwards towards his lips. And yet all she could do was watch in curious horror; a body without control.

"That is what granted me a foothold here, in you, my little mortal." Then his eyes curved in affection, scouring her with terrible devotion. "I suppose in a way, it truly did grant me salvation. My immortality lives, Sakura, through you."

There was a scream and Sakura couldn't be sure it didn't come from her. She ripped herself away before his lips could touch her skin, adrenaline coursing roughly through her every vein and pore. In an instant, his body was torn from hers, sent flying with her kick to his solar-plexus.

"You're lying!" He had to be. The alternative was too higher price to pay.

Atsuhiko, it seemed, was only momentarily stunned by her attack, as he casually straightened his stance from where he had braced himself across the room. He hardly looked winded, as though her kick were but a shove. Lightly dusting his front, he rested his hand within the fold of his open shirt once more.

"Does it make a difference?" He tilted his head at her. "Whether you believe me or not, it doesn't change the fact that here I am, with you."

Restless and agitated, Sakura grabbed the hindering sleeves of her white silken garment and tore them at the seams until they ripped at the shoulder and fell uselessly to the cold flood. Even the mark of his touch on her clothes felt too close, too damning. Hands free, she curled them into fists and squared her bare shoulders. She wouldn't allow herself to be shaken by his words. She'd come this far, she wasn't about to be cowed by a little proximity.

"How do I get rid of you?" She demanded, tracking his movement as he once again lifted a shoulder in dismissal and arranged himself to lounge on the end of his domineering bed.

Even the mere sight of that bed drew her stomach into knots – perfectly preserved memories of a life she didn't choose flashing like sirens, warning her to run away. But there was no running from herself.

"You're the one with all the supposed power here." Atsuhiko's smooth voice interrupted her thoughts. "You tell me, Woman. I so enjoy watching the way you fight and struggle despite all that's pitted against you. I haven't been bored since you woke up."

That strung a bolt of horror down her spine like none before. He could see and hear what she did, the things that happened around her?

"What did you say?"

His grin was entirely merciless, coloured in angry shades of envy for things she wanted never to understand. "How sad you've become without me. Abandoned once more by the boy you once swore to love. Forced to accept you could never mean enough to him to stay."

A pink tongue darted out to lick his lips as dragged his gaze slowly over her body. "He's only ever been breaking pieces of you, hasn't he? Poor Sakura." Atsuhiko was entirely earnest when he said, "I would never treat you such a way."

Sakura felt completely cold; exposed down to the nerve. She was vulnerable, repulsed, and so damn terrified of his mere presence within her. And still, Atsuhiko continued sitting there, digging her a deeper grave with sharp words and a kind voice.

"Though I must confess, what entertained me most has been watching the patheticness of the mortals around you. So clueless to your suffering, so ignorant to your greatness. Even that silver-haired mutt of yours fussing and whining in the aftermath and yet never seeing the sharp, broken edges you've been concealing. The same man your people look to as leader?" He scoffed, hard and cruel.

"The ineptness of man will never cease to surprise and sicken me, this much I have become certain in. Your race was destined for my intervention, don't you understand?" A lean neck stretched as Atsuhiko tilted back to laugh, the sound striking nails into her skin and sending her fists trembling.

"But oh, my dearest pet, it's all become so clear to me now. All your life, you surrounded yourself with the most pitiful of men. Forever leaving you wanting, forever disregarding you, never recognising your true worth. My Sakura, it was no wonder you were so easy to comply once I established my dominance over you." Hot, white fury poked against her as Atsuhiko met her eyes and leered. "Why, you were practically begging for it."

It was the wrong thing to say to get her to close the distance between them and finally rid his face of his self-righteous expression. Her fist was raised and flying before she thought to consider her actions.

"You bastard!"

"Sakura, don't!"

There was a sickening crunch as the soft skin of his jaw met her knuckles in powerful contact, and Sakura had to hand herself the brief satisfaction of watching him fly backwards and slam into the oak headboard of the bed. His head ricocheted off the stone wall with a crack and Sakura was only moments behind chasing it up with a broken windpipe when she was encircled by slim, powerful arms.

"I said don't!"

Ino's grip halted her before she could fully breach the distance, the force of the intervention renting both of them stumbling sideways. Her bubbling anger turned itself upon Ino as Sakura tried to wretch herself away and continue to exact her fury upon the man before her.

"Let me go, Ino!"

But the woman wouldn't budge, tightening her hold and going so far as to sharply pinch the skin of her arm in warming. "He's baiting you!" Ino hissed in her ear. "Don't be an idiot. This is your mind, remember. You're the one in control."

Sakura's lips curled as her fury once more begged to be released upon the target of her ire. "He's not a hallucination, Ino." She clipped instead, her pent-up aggression finding no fulfilment in resisting against Ino's firm grip when he was just so close.

No, Atsuhiko was real. And apparently wasn't going away anytime soon, no matter how much she kicked and screamed. Whatever power Sakura thought she had over him evaporated the moment he made himself a home inside her greatest asset and used it for kicks. He was toying with her, she knew that. Yet he was right, nothing changed the sorry fact that here he was; a damn spectator to the shit-show that was her life.

Suddenly, Sakura felt like laughing hysterically in the face of her current circumstances. It was almost too ironic to bare. Her lack of choice seemed to mock her at every corner. Look at how one choice has changed your life forever, it scorned. With a shaking righteous huff, Sakura deflated into Ino's hold, her eyes finally falling free of Atsuhiko, as if they had given up the fight or perhaps realised the futility.

"He's real." She repeated, to Ino or herself, Sakura wasn't sure anymore. She hardly even noticed when Ino carefully loosened her hold and slipped her hand down her wrist.

"I know." Ino said quietly, briefly squeezing her fingers as her hand fell away. "But, look at him, Sakura. He is just a prisoner here. All he's missing are the chains." Her even tone urged Sakura's attention to her words, and look she did.

The man on the bed wasn't as dazed as he ought to be, nor as broken-jawed as he should be, but his good mood had soured somewhat. His hair was in disarray and though he rubbed his face in careful mollification, there laid an edge of pleased calculation to his hard, pale eyes.

Sakura tasted bile in her mouth. He wanted that hit. But the question remained, why? Was he just a sick son of bitch with nothing better to do than pick fights? What did he want from her?

"Don't you see?" Ino was saying. "This little room is all the space he's been able to occupy. You've confined him here, Sakura. Only within this tiny corner of your mind does he exist. His 'foothold' is weak, just like the rest of his pathetic attempt at existence. He's the inept one here. He's the sorry little rat in a cage."

It was less Ino's steely confidence and more Atsuhiko's baited response that sold the story. He was playing a game, only Sakura couldn't figure out what constituted victory.

"Vile snake!" He spat, wielding his eyes like daggers and rising back to his imposing height as though her punch had been but a pinch. "You are not welcome here."

Ino – none the type for remorse – merely smiled saccharinely at him. "Oh? Did I step on your fragile baby ego? So sorry."

Sakura knew what was about to happen a second before it unfolded. With a small sense of anticipation and primal gratification, she met Atsuhiko's aggressive surge forward with combative command, shielding Ino and raising her voice.

"Atsuhiko, enough!" She commanded, his outstretched hand a millimetre from her neck as she placed herself between them in fierce protection. "You will not touch her."

She just didn't expect him to listen. (Or maybe she did).

Shuddering, Atsuhiko flickered his murderous lilac eyes to hers and was at once enraptured in apparent deference. With a faint flinch, he recoiled his long fingers achingly slow at her command – like a scolded dog. Sakura watched him with careful eyes, not trusting him for a second, yet analysing every detail of his easy surrender to her. She quickly stopped herself from the heady thrill of elation that tried to whisper how wonderful it felt to control him for once. She swallowed roughly but kept her spine straight and unwavering.

"I am the one with the power and control this time. You obey me now."

His eyes turned murky with a combination of anger and desire she wanted little to see, but still he obeyed. "Indeed." Atsuhiko closed his eyes and drew a deep inhale, and when he opened them they were raw with a peculiar hunger. "And what shall you have me be, my love? A pet on a leash? A God at your knees, yearning for your every word and scrap of attention?"

He tilted his head down to appraise her, lips parted, and searched her gaze with open submission. Inexplicably, Sakura found herself studying those purple hues with a morbid sense of curious empowerment, she never even noticed the large hands reaching to cup her face.

"Tell me what you desire – "

It was Ino who intervened once again, roughly yanking her back and away before his skin could touch hers. Sakura blinked with the flurry of quick movement, almost stumbling as Ino bodily dragging her out of the room entirely.

The heavy mahogany door was snapped shut before Sakura could even contemplate exactly who had been falling into whose trap. Like the pop of a balloon, her sense rushed her and Sakura was left with a good deal of relief and shame.

"Don't let him touch you." Ino reprimanded, her slim fingers still digging into Sakura's arm and demanding her attention. "Whatever he is – an apparition, a fractured soul, some fruit juice stain – he is real. Real enough to hurt you." Her hand briefly tightened around her arm. "That fucker evidently knows exactly how to get under your skin, Sakura. So don't. let. him."

Fresh adrenaline was pricking against her nerves like poisoned needles; insistent and critical. Still, Sakura could only keep her eyes locked upon the carved wood of the door before her.

"How do I kill him?" She asked lowly. It was all that mattered now. There was no alternative. He had to die here and now, or she would never be free.

Ino's pause was as heavy as the chocked atmosphere around them. Sakura felt her hesitation like a blade at her throat and found she couldn't look at her. She resisted the urge to scream. Her fists curled until her nails pierced the skin of her palms. She was sure that if she could bleed in her mind, she hands would become covered.

"You… I don't think we can, Sakura." Ino's voice carried apologies in soft pitying tones, and Sakura forced herself to breathe through it, even has her fists trembled. "Not without killing a part of you." Even as a ripe regret burned acid through her veins. "You're… his host, for lack of a better word. And so long as you live, a part of him shall as well."

Even as her splintering strength shattered in an instant.

There was a cry, a loud crack of timber and then pain. Sakura didn't realise her eyes had been screwed shut until she was opening them to gaze at her knuckles imbedded deep into the door before her. She blinked at her fist and yanked it roughly back from its indent in the wood, watching apathetically as blood welled and dripped from her scraped and bruised knuckles.

Guess I can bleed if I convince myself that it hurts enough.

It was stupid, and cynical and destructive. But Sakura didn't know what to do anymore as she carefully let her hand fall to the side and turned to Ino with a slithering sense of despair. The sky-blue eyes of her dearest friend were creased in worry and Sakura had to grant Ino her concerns. She couldn't imagine how she must look to the woman who had only known her in youth and building confidence.

This ugly, fractured side of her – these secrets she'd been trying to keep and deny – the hideous way she'd treat herself when no one was around to judge. It was really only right that Ino of all people would be the first to see her down to her scarred cells. Sakura opened her mouth to say something but found her words dried up and lacking. In the end, she drew her gaze back to the ruined door and drifted fingertips over the splintered wooden fibres, allowing the shallow pricks and cuts to centre her as she calculated what would come out should she try to draw her voice.

"Sakura?"

Kami, she'd scarcely heard Ino sound so tentative in all her life. Sakura fortified herself with a shallow breath but kept her back turn as she spoke to the door. "Guess that's that, huh? I'm batshit crazy and have all the ghosts to prove it."

Ino remained silent and Sakura used the time to dwell upon her options, but all that rose to meet her was another growing wave of anger. First betrayed by her skill, then her strength and now her mind. Her life was a cosmic joke and she was the punchline. Only she couldn't laugh, she couldn't even cry. She was a desperate kind of furious.

"This is so fucked up." She murmured to no one in particular, failing to regulating the sharp pricks of terror that told her that her life was over. "I've got an obsessed malevolent God living inside me like some immortal parasitic disease. Who knows what the hell he wants, or when I'll he'll make his move. I can't even say I'd be strong enough to resist him if he ever does." Her fingertips dug into the fractured grooves of wood and fresh blood smeared.

"I hate him… I hate him. I hate – " I hate myself.

What could she do? She would carve out a piece of her brain if it meant getting rid of him. Tear at her skin. Rip at her soul. Anything to make it be over. Sakura didn't realise her nails had begun to dig and scratch into the skin of her arms until Ino was carefully taking her hands into her own. She jerked at the touched, but Ino remained firm all the same.

"Hey, easy now. This isn't a you problem. It's just a problem." Ino soothed with her signature brand of sass and confidence. "So, you've got an uninvited worm taking up space in your garden. That doesn't mean we can't still pesticide the shit out him and lock him outside. We'll build a nice fence, put up one of those insect barriers and keep all the creepy crawlies away once and for all."

And somehow, for all Ino's charms and conviction, it ignited a sorry anger in Sakura like none she had known for her best friend.

"This isn't a fucking joke, Ino!" She roared, ripping her hands away and turning to face the woman with brittle pride. "You don't understand what it was like before. He owned me! My actions, my desires, my life! The things he forced me to do… the people I hurt." Her voice cracked and damn it all if that didn't just make her snarl in frustration. "And now – Kami I was an idiot to ever think I'd be free."

Angry tears cornered her eyes and Sakura scrubbed them away with a rough hand. "Look at me, Ino. I've had him living inside me for weeks and no one knew. I hid him away so that no one would know! Do you know what that means? For me? For the village?" A mirthless laugh pushed past her chewed lips. "I'm done as a kunoichi…I really am as good as a traitor. If there wasn't enough evidence before, there sure is a enough to convict me a thousand times over."

"That's not on you. It's on all of us." Ino countered, meeting her halfway with a shout of her own. "We were the ones who didn't help you the first time around. But now we know what we're dealing with, we can. You're not some traitor. You didn't choose any of this. None of it is your fault and I refuse to let you give up before you've even really tried to beat this!"

But that wasn't good enough, it didn't even scratch the surface of what was wrong. Nobody seemed to understand. And with restless steps forward, Sakura begged her to.

"What if he's been manipulating me this whole time without me realising it? I can't just go about my life pretending there isn't something twisted and dark inside of me, waiting to take back control and destroy everything I love again!" Her fingers clawed through her hair, blunt nails piercing her scalp in desperate self-loathing and growing hysteria.

"Kami, what if gaining my chakra back gives him the ability to do just that? What if it's Him in there too? There are no solutions here! He has ruined me to the point that I can't even trust myself. I have well and truly fucked up my entire life and now I have to live with it, for however long I'll be allowed to live – "

A spark of pain against her cheek stopped her words dead in her throat, and it was with muted shock that Sakura realised that Ino had just slapped her.

"Enough with the pity-party, Forehead!" A fury of Ino's own burned hot in the crystal blue of her eyes. "I'm telling you I didn't come all this way not to kick this sleazy squatter out of your pretty head. My best friend is not some pathetic pushover, or did I imagine the last five years of you literally demolishing every and any expectation set before you."

Anger scored her voice as Ino all but exploded in the face of her dumb-struck silence.

"Where the hell do you get off acting like this, huh? Like you don't have a literal army of people ready and willing to damn-well help you through this shit-show. Like you aren't the strongest kunoichi of our generation. You're talking like some whiny ungrateful little brat and it's really starting to piss me off!

"If you want to sit here and give up, fine. But don't expect me to stick around and watch because I refuse to see you as anything less than my rival. And I could never stand to let some creep walk all over me, so you better not. For fucks sake Sakura, you've never needed anyone's permission to beat their ass when it came to the brilliance of your mind before, so fucking use it already!"

Ino's chest heaved with her incensed lecture, and Sakura could only stare at her in awe as everything else took a backseat to her stalled shock. Her cheek was still stinging as Sakura brought up hand to wipe the corner of her lip.

"You just slapped me."

The blonde was adamantly unrepentant as she sniffed and tossed her head to the side, folding her arms across her chest. "I told you I would. Besides, you were being a cry-baby about everything. I had to do something."

A laugh slipped out and Sakura watched fondly as Ino startled with the sound, as if expecting her to react with anger instead. Well, it seemed as though she'd been thrown completely out of her wrath and left with nothing but bizarre gratitude, fragile as it was.

"Yeah." She breathed with a slow, centred smile. "I guess was being a little dramatic about everything wasn't I?"

Ino cocked her hip, and frowned, worry creasing her eyes again. "Yeah, you really were, Sak."

"That's usually more your style." Sakura grinned softly at Ino's affronted scoff, but the blonde would never be so easily outmatched where insults were concerned.

"Please. I'll always be ahead of you where style is concerned so I'll take that as your acknowledgement of my superiority."

It was stupid and juvenile, but it worked. Idly, Sakura relaxed into the easy companionship, letting her thoughts briefly drift to the times when similar circumstances had re-ignited her will of fire when it felt like she had nothing left to give. Not surprisingly, each and every time she was at her lowest, it was the thought of her loved ones that drew her to new heights – the threat of their safety, the fear she wouldn't be enough to save them, help them.

She knew it was a Team Seven trait, to reclaim strength for the impossible in the pockets of love she harboured for her most precious people. But Sakura had just always been the slowest among her team – learned the lesson last, learned it the hardest, learned it back when 'weak' was synonymous with 'powerless' and both meant that she was useless. But like a beacon, that very reason gave her the most strength.

Tsunade had scolded her about it exactly once, the dangers of drawing strength from weakness. But Sakura, like the prideful naïve girl she had been, took it as a challenge to keep it up; too unused to praise to see it as anything but a compliment and the encouragement to do just that.

Well, she'd come this far. She wouldn't give in, even when all that had once made her strong had since turned its back on her. Sakura bared her teeth with feral irony, her fists tightening in growing anticipation.

Even if my strength has abandoned me, my weakness never has. And that is more dangerous than any jutsu or threat of torture could ever compare. No one will ever know how to wield their weakness as a weapon more than I do, and anyone who crosses it will be sorry.

Besides, what was it Kakashi had said right before she'd taken this suicide mission to confront her ghosts? That she could rely on others for that strength, at least until she was whole enough to hold it herself.

Clear green eyes darted to Ino, who stood watching her as though witnessing an open heart-surgery; scrutinising and awed. "Ino." She said. "Can you do it?"

Blinking, Ino all but rolled her eyes with an exaggerated huff. "Of course I can, duh. I'm not just a pretty face, Sak. But, you have to believe that you can do it." Her expression turned firm. "I'm nothing here without you. Just the same as that worm in there. He is nothing so long as you make it. So tell me Sakura, what is he to you?"

Knuckles bruised with blood, she answered calm like the eye of a storm. "He is nothing to me."

Ino's grin curled. "Then let's make it so."


The door swung open with ease and Sakura stepped through. She was done being afraid. She was tired of being angry. It had all cooled into raw confidence and untouchable conviction.

"Crawling back already?" Atsuhiko's tone was as indulgent as his smile, though as Sakura stared him down, she noted the darkening hue of purple budding across his jaw.

A thrill of hope sparked low in her chest. This was her mind, and he was stuck here with her. Not the other way around. Sakura stared at the bruise upon his face and watched as it bloomed under her eyes; like a flower opening its arms to the sun. Atsuhiko hissed and she flickered her eyes to meet his. He was lounging against the bed, only this time she could see the evidence of the cracked headboard and roughened sheets, the lingering of pain in his lavender eyes. Good. It was her mind and she could hurt him, if she willed it. And for a deep, indulgent moment she willed it.

A strangled groan burst from Atsuhiko's lips as he reached to cradle his face in shaking hands, his hair falling into further disarray the more scratched and pulled at his head. It was intoxicating, his surrender to her, so inviting she revelled in it with a twisted sense of vindication. Sakura willed him to experience a shred of what she had – what he had put her and her precious people through, down to the last shallow cut. Atsuhiko did not scream, but his eyes cried bloody suffering as they beheld her in brief torture.

And she felt –

"Sakura, enough." Hands at her shoulders, reason at her ears. Ino hadn't left her side. Why would she? "You've proven your point…. The rest isn't you."

Sakura shuddered an inhale, eyes never leaving that of her captive, (and how his eyes screamed at her).

Isn't me… Have I lost myself or just changed? The question was a dull tug to her conscience.

Atsuhiko broke off into laboured panting as she looked away, his chest rising and falling in rapid dishevelment. He surely would've looked pitiful, had Sakura cared to see. Instead, she glanced back at Ino, still holding her firm.

A pinprick of exhaustion knocked at her heart as she murmured. "I'm not too sure who I am at the moment, Ino. But if you can hold on to the real me for a little – "

"I won't let you go without a fight, Forehead. None of us will."

It fortified her. "I'll hold you to that." She smiled.

"So I've taught you some new tricks indeed, Woman." The man's voice slithered between them as he leaned forward through his disrupted composure, expression amused and calculative. "Do you enjoy the feeling too?"

But she paid him no heed as Ino's fingers curled over her bare shoulders and a wave of centeredness tethered them. Sakura closed her eyes and Ino's voice rose to meet her.

"He is nothing here. Nothing without you. Nothing with you. Show him the truth, Sakura."

There was no rumble or shake as Sakura pictured the nothingness which she beheld for the ghost of her soul. Maybe she was too tired to be creative, but all she could see when she visualised Atsuhiko was a man in chains, bound to oblivion.

And when she opened her eyes, it was as she made.

Melted into darkness the room around them fell, until it was only her and Atsuhiko; his height now halved as he kneeled before her. Thick chains wrapped him from head to toe, constricting his every limb and forcing his head back to appraise her with narrowed, lilac eyes. The metal bindings dragged him down as they disappeared into the void beneath their feet, his hands caged behind his back and his bluish hair now all but completely unbound in his fruitless struggle.

The corner of his mouth lifted. "Satisfied with yourself, love? To have me on my knees before you?"

Sakura didn't answer him. She couldn't see Ino, but she knew she was there, could still feel her hands at her shoulders and her voice in her mind telling her, "There. Perfectly kickable. Let's send this creep off once and for all."

Perhaps Atsuhiko heard Ino's voice too, for his crooked smile turned grave. "Cutting ties with me won't be that easy, Sakura. You can't be rid of me when we are one. You know this."

"It's not a matter of know, it's a matter of making." She answered simply, much to his apparent disagreement. "However, before I banish you to the depths of this void from where you shall never return, I have questions. You will answer them in truth, do you understand, Atsuhiko?"

Chains rustled as the man before her groaned in light struggle, his pale eyes briefly dazed as he dragged them up to meet her stare. "Perfectly." He rasped.

And still, though she felt in control Sakura could not concede herself the victory. She would never trust herself to, not with him.

"What is your name?"

"Otsutsuki Atsuhiko."

"How old are you?"

The man chuckled and shook his head, his smile stretched with understanding. "Doing this are we? How quaint."

"Atsuhiko." She commanded and the God at her feet conceded.

"I am centuries and millennia." He answered with another shudder, licking his lips and beseeching her with a desperate sway forward. "Counting becomes irrelevant after a while."

Sakura nodded, standing above him as one would tower over an ant. "And where do you call home?"

Perhaps she might've mocked him had her heart been in it. Or maybe that was the problem? Her heart was in it, and it could no longer care about this man.

"I have no home." He answered lowly.

"Where are you now?" Sakura continued, for this was the play he had started writing and she was determined to finish the ending on her terms.

His head lolled, his response playful as he murmured it to his chest. "Here and away."

Sakura considered him. "Can you still feel your true body and soul?" When he remained silent, she prompted him softly. "Atsuhiko."

His lashes fluttered as they opened up to her, earnest in a way she had begun to recognise. "Only where I exist in you."

"Sakura." That was Ino's warning, ringing clear yet again.

She dragged a silent breath. "I know, Ino. But this is important." Turning her attention back to Atsuhiko she questioned, "Did you turn my pathways into stone?"

He made to touch her, at least that's what it looked like until the chains barred him in a firm rattle. His frustration was evident, though it lost against sincerity. "You give me much credit, Woman. No. It wasn't me." Then he was gifting her his arrogant smile. "Though I do find it highly amusing and also greatly frustrating."

In unconscious habit, Sakura bit her bottom lip. She had half the mind to keep this question to herself, but couldn't afford to be frightened of the answer when she was so close. "…If I were to regain access to chakra, to whom would it belong?"

The man in chains paused, his light eyes searching her then the incorporeal ground beneath them. "I do not know." He replied softly, his chin tilting up to lock upon her gaze once more. "Though I am eager to discover the answer, same as you."

Sakura let lose a heavy breath. It wasn't necessarily the answer she hoped for, nor was it the one she dreaded. Still, devastation had little room in her heart when tenuous strength was the only thing keeping her upright. Instead, she continued her line of questions, knowing she could not afford to be swayed by any possible answer she might uncover.

"Do you see and hear everything I do?"

Strands of spider-silk hair fell across his eyes as he smiled coyly. "Only when you're thinking of me."

"Ugh. He is literally the worst, Sakura. Let's hurry up and burry him."

Ino was right. She was only stalling the inevitable now. She had to make the plunge. There was no staying still, no going back. Only pushing forward. Sakura held Atsuhiko's attention with blank green eyes. "What do you want, Atsuhiko?"

Predictable, the way he writhed with her words and yet Sakura remained unmoved as he panted his answer with heartfelt severity. "Many, many things. But for now, I merely wish for my autonomy."

She wanted to laugh, but she didn't. Instead the chains around his body tightened as she looked down her nose and scorned him with indifference. "Then we have that in common."

Yet, the fallen God chuckled, deep and warm. "I imagine we might." He licked his lips as he looked longing at her standing above him. "And you, Sakura. What will you do with all this information?"

She shrugged, and the white silk upon her frame went sliding down her shoulder. "I'll send you into oblivion and take back my life with my bare hands."

Like cracked porcelain, a smile split his beautiful face in perfect ruin. "Exquisite." He breathed. "Then I look forward to watching the show, Sakura."

Quicker than a heartbeat, she was wrenching his head back with a rough fistful of his hair. The God beneath her hissed and Sakura tightened her uncompromising grip, yanking his head back until his neck strained and his eyes watered.

"You won't." She said softly, calmly. "This is your curtain call, Atsuhiko. You are nothing to me."

With a face bloomed in purple and eyes wet with pain, her ghost grinned with everlasting affection. "Oh, my Goddess. We shall see yet."

"Goodbye, Atsuhiko."

He licked his lips, feverish and a bastard to the end. "Until Eternity, my love."

Fingers tightening, she flicked her wrist and his head craned impossibly back to meet the cold apathy of her stare. Slowly, she allowed her lips to drift just shy of his, a twisted sense of cruelty wishing its last piece of revenge on the man of her damnation. She lingered just long enough to catch his tortured struggle to close the distance, and then she scorned him with a pitiless whisper.

"Don't wait up for me."

Sakura didn't wait to see the light of rejected love colour his dull eyes. Her knuckles were imbedded deep into his face before he could utter another word. The impact of her fist against his nose lasted a long second before he was blasted from sight in a shockwave of sound and energy, like a clap of thunder. One moment he was there, and the next he was oblivion.

Sakura panted as she felt him rip from her – another page torn from her weathered book – and through the sudden blood rushing in her ears a voice called out to her.

"Sakura!" Vertigo threatened itself upon her as warm, feminine hands clutched her upright. "Hey, you still with me? I swear if you throw up on my nice sandals – "

"Ino – ", Sakura winced at the roughness of her throat. Had banishing Atsuhiko really taken such a toll on her?

"Kami, Forehead. When are you ever not going to scare the shit out of me?" Ino was lecturing and with another firm tug Sakura found herself standing straight, albeit leaning heavily against the blonde.

"Did it work?"

She felt more than saw Ino's huff of satisfaction. "Hell yeah it did. You practically blasted him into another dimension. Bye bye, bitch!" Ino sang into the open den of darkness.

But Sakura couldn't find her humour just yet. "Can you feel him?"

Ino stilled, as if to concentrate. "…No. Can you?"

Straightening herself, Sakura closed her eyes and focused, looking deep within herself to the furthest reaches of her mind. Like the first time she had awoken to find herself bereft of her core and the God, she felt aching emptiness. Only this time, something about her prolonged hollowness felt final. Perhaps a terminal freedom. In any case, there was a quietness to her soul that Sakura would have to grow accustomed to again.

She tried not to feel the loss and instead focus on relief, but it was hard. After all, he was more than a ghost, greater than an imprint. He had been entwined with her in body, mind and soul – ingrained in one another's being. Maybe he had taken a part of her with him in his banishment… Was it something integral? Should she miss it, or be thankful for the removal of any corruption of self? Could a person miss a wound?

"Sakura?"

Ino's voice gently reeled her back and Sakura breathed out her exhausted appraisals. "No. I don't feel him at all… Ino, I think it worked." Opening her eyes, she saw the last remnants of Ino's relief melt into sass and certainty.

Quietly, Sakura adored Ino all the more for her ability to never let vulnerability get in the way of self-assurance.

"Of course, it worked." Ino tutted with a swish of her ponytail. "I am obviously the best at what I do, and you asked for the best. Was there really any doubt?"

Sakura spared her a small smile. "Thank you, Ino."

"This is your mind, Forehead." She said, "If you will it, chances are it'll happen and happen rather violently at that. We've buried him so deep it would take a literal earthquake to uproot him, even then he wouldn't make it out of the rubble."

It was as good as a comforting as any could get from Ino, and Sakura could only nod with gratitude. "Right."

With a small jostle, Ino adjusted her grip and began another round of lecturing. "Hey, enough with that sorry look on your face. I've already taken the liberty of putting up barriers at the corners of your mind where it comes to him. If ever you stray too far in your thoughts, if ever he worms too close to your consciousness, it'll block out the synapses." Baby blue eyes narrowed at her in mischievous pride. "I've literally rewired your brain to cease unconscious connection to him. I'm that good."

Sakura read between the lines. "So the only way he holds power over me is if I let him?"

"And you won't."

A heavy sigh pushed its way out as Sakura lightly slipped herself from Ino's grip, coming to face her fully. "I can't just forget about him, Ino. It doesn't work that way. And I wouldn't trust myself to forget anyway. Too many important things have happened."

"It's not about forgetting, Sakura. It's about moving forward. Maybe you'll think about him from time to time, maybe you won't ever truly let it completely go. But he will be just a part of your past now, like a dusty picture in an old book." Ino cracked a smile and it was as radiant as a sunflower. "You're moving forward, and he's not coming along. We're closing the door on him now, for good."

With a spark of yellow and pink, a plain door manifested at their side, springing up through the ground like a daisy through snow. It stood unimposing in her mind, it's frame ajar as if waiting for intervention.

With a raised brow, Sakura looked at the door then to Ino. "You've got too much influence here." She accused through a growing grin.

None to be outmatched, Ino merely placed her hands on her hips and grinned back. "Great minds think alike. Now come on, this door isn't shutting itself."

But was it ever going to be this simple? Sakura clenched her jaw and rolled her shoulders back. No. I'm done questioning myself. No one is ever going to stand between me and my choices ever again. Nothing will ever hold me back from my own future.

"Fuck it." Sakura breathed, flickering her eyes to Ino she held out her hand. "Together?"

Taking her hand, Ino nodded. "On three."

"One."

"Two."

"Three!"

Hands braced against wood, the door slammed shut with a quick push. For a moment nothing happened, until it all occurred at once. From under their palms light exploded like fireworks, streaking in every direction and lighting up the dark void like the firing of synapses in the brain. En masse, they erupted in multitudes of colours, bathing the pair in sprays of light as they streamed upwards and out. Then, as abruptly as they sprung forth, they were being sucked back and down through a practical wormhole that started at the very centre of the door.

Ino dragged Sakura with her as she took several steps back from the vortex, sucking sound and bending light with its high-pitched hiss. Then, as the last sparks of light disappeared, an ungodly groan of wood echoed as the door began to splinter and shatter. Pink and blonde hair whipped as wind blasted through them, aiming straight for the blackhole choking the door inwards until it was all but shredded into oblivion.

There was a gasp as the vortex continued its cyclonic pull, and Sakura grit her teeth as she clamped harder onto Ino's hand and dug her heels in. But like the final gurgle of a drained bathtub, the force damped until there was nothing but a clean pop and stillness.

For a long moment neither of them moved, both still panting with the intensities they had managed to avoid by the scrap of their teeth. Ino was the one who broke the silence with a long, low whistle.

"Geez Forehead. And you call me a drama queen."

Indignant, but so damn relieved, Sakura barked a laugh. "You're the one who made the damn door – ", Whatever witty comeback she had planned never made it past her lips as Sakura abruptly lost her balance, pitching sideways.

She wanted to groan when Ino caught her for the third time. Pig was going to lord it over her head next time they argued or Ino wanted something from her. Sakura cringed to herself and it had nothing to do with her impending exhaustion.

"Okay, let's get out of here." Ino said, slinging Sakura's arm over her shoulder with a feigned sigh. "We have dealt with more than our fair share of shitty men today and you and I both deserve our morning coffee." With a small hitch, she tugged on a lock of pink until Sakura was squinting at her. "Think you can give us a lift to the surface?"

She blew out a breath and nodded. "Just as long as you don't throw up on me."

"As if. I'm a lady."

Sakura didn't have the energy to warn her that one of them would be throwing up when they got back, whether they liked it or not. She had faith in her best friend's reflexes in any case.


True to her prediction, the ride to reality stirred up a plethora of discomfort and much of her unsettled stomach.

When she jerked to consciousness, Sakura only had to scramble for a moment before a bucket was shoved under her nose and her head was being pushed down to expel the bile racing up and out of her mouth. She coughed and sputtered and if the echoing sounds of retching were any indication, Ino was quite literally eating her words. Through watery eyes and a last spit of phlegm, Sakura weakly called to Ino, uncaring of the other voices in the room and the hand that was repeatedly patting her back, rather hard.

"I-Ino?"

There was a snort and a sorry sounding cough, until Ino gargled. "Fuckin' 'ell Forehead."

Resting her head on the rim of the cream bucket, Sakura sighed out her relief. They did it. They were out. And through the nausea and disorientation Sakura had never felt so at peace.

It took another long moment of panting and focus to attune to her surroundings and when Sakura wearily forced her head up and her eyes open, she blinked in confusion. Braced at her right, caramel eyes met her furiously as Tsunade glared at her with righteous accusation, the hand at her back now all but gripping her in anger.

Sakura startled and her eyes darted around the room, cataloguing everything in quick yet unclear detail. The curtains were drawn, and where once her room had only held one bed, now existed a second with Ino as its occupant.

Sai was sitting at her side and stroking her platinum hair as he held the bucket under her face, cooing words too softly to hear. Still Ino shook and whaled lightly, drawn up under white sheets and sitting in a hospital bed.

Sakura tore her eyes to the door in confusion and instead saw Ibiki. Standing in gruff imposition, the interrogator was glaring at the room at whole and tapping his right foot. At once, his dark eyes met hers and Sakura stifled an unsteady gasp.

There was a beeping echoing in her ears and it got louder and quicker the more she took in the scene. What was going on? What happened? Why was Ino - ? And Ibiki? Why was her chest so tight? What was that damn ringing in her ears?

Sakura reached up to tug at her pounding chest but her hand was intercepted. She jerked her head to her left and was met with anguished grey eyes. She didn't know why her own started to water as she both shrunk and bloomed under his stare.

"K-kashi – " Her voice broke before she could even find the words to say and Kakashi's eyes narrowed that much further in torment at her.

Dazed and confused, the beeping grew stronger and louder and Sakura didn't know where to look or what to do. She didn't realise her teeth had dug into her bottom lip until a thumb was stroking the back of her hand in gentle repetition, and fingers squeezing her own in slow, predictable patterns.

Green eyes tore back to the man holding her hand and Kakashi's voice was both stern and tender when he said. "Breathe for me, Sakura. I need you to breathe for me. That's it."

The hand at her back twitched then moved in gentle circles, Tsunade murmuring. "Listen to Hatake, brat. Focus on your breath." The older woman turned her head. "Sai. Report."

From across the room, Sakura could just make out Ino's retching turn into sniffling. "She is coming around, Tsunade-sama. Slowly." Sai answered softly, continuing his graceful caresses as Ino quaked in his arms.

Sakura stared at them in ill-comprehension and jumped when the bucket under her hands was slowly extracted. Tsunade raised a brow at her then continued removing the soiled container, and Sakura was only able to let it go with another careful stroke of a thumb against her skin.

"W-what happened?" She choked out, wincing at her dry throat.

"Shouldn't we be asking you that?" Ibiki countered, stepping away from the door and planting himself directly between Sakura and Ino.

Tsunade rolled her eyes and shoved a glass of water under Sakura's nose before she could think to find an answer.

"Your bedside manner is worse than mine, Ibiki." The blonde muttered, tilting Sakura's head back and letting her take slow drags of water.

A strangled whimper echoed from across the room as Ino's voice broke through. "Kami, Sakura. A little gentler on the landing next time please." Pressing her fingertips to her temple, Ino sat up and pressed her face into Sai's neck. "Ugh. What time is it?"

Sakura watched through worry-creased eyes. She didn't mean for Ino to become so… incapacitated. Had being in her mind taken such a toll on her? It was a terrifying conclusion.

"It is 9:43pm." Sai answered carefully, dragging his fingers through her long hair as he massaged her neck.

Sakura glanced sharply to Kakashi in shock, and still he merely squeezed her hand and held her eyes. Breathe, he seemed to say.

"Shit. No wonder we feel like crap." Ino bemoaned. "We even missed dinner!"

"Oh you missed more than that, Yamanaka." Ibiki interrupted darkly, and Sakura felt her nerves spike as the beeping picked up again. "You've both been under for two straight days."

"What? We – " There was a flurry of movement as Ino jerked her head up, only to clumsily fall back into Sai as she searched the room. Cornflower blue eyes widened as they spotted her. "Sakura are you – "

But the blonde never got to finish, as Tsunade swept to her feet as though her distress could no longer be contained.

"What were you two thinking?" She demanded in a roar. "Do you have any idea how worried we were walking in and seeing the two of you passed out on the damn floor? Any attempts to rouse or disconnect you two were barred from the inside out. You were all but catatonic!"

Sakura's fingers tightened around Kakashi's as she frantically searched for Ino's eyes. Two days? They had been in her mind for almost a full 48 hours?

The beeping reared its head but Kakashi was already there whispering gently at her temple. "Nice and steady, Sakura. That's it." Then his voice rose to address the room at large. "Could we perhaps do this another – "

But he was drowned out by the incensed woman burning tracks into the ground with her fierce pacing as she cried. "How could you have been so careless, Sakura? Has the idiocy of your bonehead teammates finally won out against you? What you two did was abundantly foolish, not to mention outlandishly dangerous. You are systematically compromised! One wrong move and you could've become permanently brain-dead and taken Yamanaka with you! Why you even considered such dramatic and idiotic tactics is beyond reason and I have half a mind to suspend you both for five months, unpaid!"

"What? Hey, you should be thanking us for – " Ino's protest quickly died on her tongue as Ibiki swung to pierce her under intent eyes.

"Yes, Yamanaka please finish that sentence because I can assure you we are all dying to know just what the two of you were doing for the last forty-eight hours, unsupervised and without sanction." His voice lashed like a whip, precise and sharp and Sakura couldn't help the way she curled her fingers into the sheets under her palm.

Ino seemed to have none such aversion to the disappointment of authority figures, for she scrunched her nose, bolstering impressively even with Sai still supporting her shoulders. "'Without sanction'?" She scoffed, "Since when do I need permission to have a private conversation with my best friend? We both know how nosey ANBU are, maybe we just wanted some nice girl time."

"Do you really think now is the best time to sass a superior officer, Yamanaka?" The loom of Ibiki's threat surely would've been deterrent enough for any sane shinobi, but Sakura knew her best friend was as crazy as her.

With a steely smile and a flutter of perfect lashes, Ino sweetly responded. "Well, when the superior officer in question is being a right little – "

"Ino, stop." Sakura interrupted, trying and failing to push herself to a somewhat upright position on the bed. The scent of pine and soap engulfed her as Kakashi worked his arm under and around her. She met Ino with eyes she hoped communicated both her warning and her gratitude. "They should know."

"Know what? What happened in there, Sakura?" Tsunade was at the side of her bed, equal parts imploring and aggravated.

Sakura hesitated, something like weary shame clogging her throat. She's made them all worried again, worse yet, caused Ino all the more trouble for it. She glanced around the room and found she couldn't quite meet everyone's eyes for long. Ibiki and his suspicion, Sai and his gentle worry, Tsunade and her fury. And Kami, she didn't even want to decipher was it was behind Kakashi's eyes.

She wanted to feel damn proud of what she had just overcome, but looking at the people she had continued to hurt and distress just to be rid of him… She'd chewed out Naruto for doing less when acting recklessly and making her worry. She sympathised hopelessly with the concerned stares of the people gathered around her. So, she cast her gaze down and hoped they'd understand she'd only done it because she had to.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know..."

"It's not her fault." Ino was quick to defend her and Sakura wanted to tackle her best friend in an embrace and also punch her in the arm for being so stubbornly loyal.

"Quiet, Yamanaka." Ibiki sniped, folding his arms across his chest as he at once pinned Sakura under his full attention. "You have the floor, Haruno. Make it good."

Had she the energy, Sakura would've stood under his address, straight spine and all. As it was, she could only grant him her acknowledgement of severity. "I will accept any and all repercussion of my actions and your decision, Sir."

The man raised his brow and even Sai stirred in confused protest. "Sakura has done nothing to warrant – "

"I said," The man cut, silencing the room completely with a contained burst of chakra. "Haruno has the floor."

An undercurrent of tension rode his release of intent, and Sakura could feel Kakashi's lingering offense through the tightening of his grip. But still she held Ibiki's eyes and did not back down.

"I am ready to begin my report, Sir."

Scar tissue stretched and pulled as he rose in brows in a mockery of appreciation, as if to say 'well how kind of you'. But Sakura was not cowered, and perhaps the last 48 hours confined to Ino's side had rubbed off, for Sakura met Ibiki's snark with a touch of her own.

"Perhaps you should take a seat, Sir. It might be a lengthy report." Sakura asserted politely. She didn't much care for the disadvantage of status while he stood over her in a hospital bed. If she was going to bare her fractured soul again it would damn well be on her terms.

The scoff that escaped his thin lips was entirely expected. "I think I'll stand – "

"Ibiki, shut the hell up and sit the fuck down."

The man's jaw clicked neatly shut with his Godaime's irate order, and Sakura could only share a secret smile with Ino as the lead interrogator grudgingly fetched a chair and sat upon its plastic throne. "Hai, Lady Tsunade."

The amusement lasted only as long as his embarrassment – Ibiki was after all, a famously unflappable man. It was the moment again, time to lay it all clear once and for all and Sakura was sick of living in the shadow of her fear. Only that wasn't enough to quiet the aftershocks of horror and exhaustion altogether.

She took a breath and the warmth of a familiar scent kept her steady. A brush of a thumb against her hand, and the gentle squeeze of fingers was all she needed to keep those last shaky pieces together.

She could do this. And even if she couldn't, she could rely on Kakashi's strength. Just for a little while.

She just hoped he wouldn't be too upset.


Viridian eyes closed to the hushed village as chilled wind billowed sending wisps of pink hair fluttering. Dawn was a yawn away, and as she sat upon the ledge of the hospital's rooftop, Sakura let her hands settle over the warm bodies surrounding her. Pakkun, Bull and Uhei took up residency around her perch atop the brick boundary, with Shiba declaring her lap as his territory to uphold. But she didn't mind.

"How long do you think it's been?" Shiba murmured with another nudge to her palm – a silent request to continue her idle scratching.

Sakura smiled at his antics and gently inhaled the crisp air as she resumed her petting. It hadn't snowed for a few days now, but still the chill lingered like a second skin. Though, between the Ninken crowded about her, and the shirt she had unintentionally pilfered from Kakashi, she didn't feel it.

"Long enough that Shishou would've broken a desk out of annoyance to still be talking about it."

True, she had been confined to the hospital whilst Ibiki, Tsunade and Kakashi held an emergency meeting in the Hokage's chambers. The only reason she'd managed to escape this far was because of her furry bodyguards, and Kakashi's vouch as Rokudaime that both she and his Ninken could be trusted. At least for the night. Sakura also felt she owed Ino and Sai their own privacy together, especially after all she put them both through. She didn't much care for the look of Ino in a hospital bed so soon after Sai had been in one. And so, braced by dogs and shadowed by ANBU, Sakura had snuck away.

But that was several hours ago now.

Sakura cringed and bent her head to rub her forehead against Shiba's back. "Gods, I feel like an idiot."

"Why, Sakura-chan?" Shiba yipped. "I thought it was a good thing, what you did?"

"I don't know about good so much as obtusely reckless and borderline traitorous with an apparent penchant for a Deathwish and stubbornness to rival that of a herd of oxen." At least those were a few of the words that had been thrown gracelessly around after her and Ino's little confession. Ibiki, Sakura had learned, didn't always play his cards close to his chest.

Apparently, Ino was a good enough interrogator in her own right to illicit the man's more honest opinions and thoughts. Or maybe he secretly harboured a soft spot for his star pupil, and baring witness to the last two days had tugged on his deeply buried, rarely used concern receptors. She'd have to compare notes with Ino later – it was surely the most verbal she'd ever witnessed the staunch man. It was almost worth the gruelling interrogation. Almost.

"Perhaps you went outside of protocol, but the results speak for themselves. You are not to blame for your circumstance." Uhei smoothly interrupted her thoughts with his deep voice, sitting vigil as guard dog to her right.

"Listen to them." Pakkun rallied from his position at her left, paw atop her thigh as if in comfort. "You were only doing what you thought was right. And you succeeded."

Sakura took the low rumble warming her back as Bull's apparent agreement. She smiled. "Sounds like something Kakashi would say." She told them fondly.

Pakkun sniffed in thin acknowledgement, as though the comparison was verging on insulting. "Well, he is our Boss."

Shiba lifted his head and nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, and you're his – "

"Listen, Floral Green." The pug interrupted with a firm glare in Shiba's direction. "The only thing you've got to worry about is your health. And maybe Kakashi's health too."

At that, she cringed. Worry him was apparently all she did, judging by the deep purple hue under his eyes and the way he seemed to struggle to hold her gaze longer than ten seconds. Guilt wedged itself firmly against her chest at the mere thought of his tired smile when he told her not to worry about anything. That he would take care of it. That exhausted hint of concern that edged his eyes when he finally drew himself away to continue the deliberation of her future.

"I didn't mean to worry him." She whispered to her chest, conceding its heavy weight an immovable companion for now.

"He knows."

"Yeah, the Boss only wants you to be happy." Shiba supplied happily. "It's all he cares about – "

"You should only concern yourself with improving your health, Sakura-chan." It was Uhei that spoke over Shiba this time. "That, and finding your peace. Then those around you will be similarly at peace."

Sakura gazed at the regal Ninken and dipped her head in understanding. It was always a wonderful marvel to discover little aspects of Kakashi in his dogs – an exciting treasure trove of useless but endearing puzzle pieces. An enigma of a man so perfectly captured by his qualities in the small actions and words of his bonded. She smiled at the dogs.

"I understand."

"But maybe warn Kakashi before you do something like that again next time." Pakkun suggested casually. "He's a sensitive pup when it comes to pack." Then he levelled her with a flat stare. "You're turning him grey, Sakura-chan."

And just like that, another a good dose of remorse rushed her. Sakura grimaced and buried her face as far as it could go into Shiba's sleek hair. "Kami he's going to kill me." And by the Gods, she deserved it at this rate.

Pakkun yawned. "Nothing so dramatic. Kakashi won't have the energy."

She all but groaned, for that was true enough. But such a fact never stood between her former sensei and his creative ways of retribution.

"Oh no, I'm sure he'll probably find some method to murder me slowly. Maybe demote me to errand girl and smother me with paperwork, all the while lecturing me in that bored tone of his." Sakura bemoaned her regrets into Shiba's back, weakly attempting to take herself out before Kakashi got the chance. "He'll sentence me to a death of papercuts and disappointment and won't lift I finger as I slowly suffocate under his – "

"Maa, that's not very nice, Sakura-chan. And after all the effort I went to trying to save your hide from the wrath of Ibiki."

That bored tone snapped her head up so fast Sakura almost fell backwards off the railing. She didn't get far before she was lightly pushed back upright and a weight was draped over her shoulders – a blanket she realised belatedly.

"Yo." Pakkun acknowledged the newcomer calmly with a nod as he scooted over to allow Kakashi the room to swing his legs over the brick boundary and join Sakura's side.

"Kakashi!" She exclaimed, surprise and embarrassment turning her a brief pink. "You – How long have you been standing there?" She settled on, eyes darting over his full, bared face and finding it all but impossible to look away.

He smiled at her and his eyes took on a calm sort of hue as though the cool winter dawn was the remedy he had been seeking. Only he wasn't looking at the sky… "Not long."

Sakura knew she was staring, and told herself it was because she was trying to read him – attempting to figure out the verdict without ever having to hear the words outright. Still, she couldn't manage to quiet the part of her that remained oddly content to stare for no other reason than because he let her. And Kakashi stared right back – unabashed, unmasked, impossible man.

Sakura looked away first, a sense of respect returning her senses. "Right. So seeing as you're here and I haven't been tackled by a team of ANBU, does that mean I won't be getting thrown into the stocks for two weeks?"

Kakashi's smile broadened, her reach for humour apparently well-received. "Oh nothing that predictable. Ibiki is far too inventive for such a mundane punishment."

Sakura almost squirmed. Damn I am such a coward. And it was clear Kakashi was waiting for her to ask, waiting for her to be ready. With an inward curse, she looked up at him and questioned. "…Then?"

It was terribly meek and overwhelmingly vague, but to Kakashi it was evidently enough. "You've officially been approved as assistant to the Hokage."

For a second time, Sakura found herself reeling and was thankful for Bull's weight at her back that she didn't topple backwards once more. "What?! But I… I thought you already offered me the job?" She eventually landed on, slacked jawed and furrow browed.

"And you accepted, so no take backs."

"But with everything that's come to light, how – "

Her silver-haired Hokage shrugged, his attention now on the indigo horizon. "Somehow Ibiki got it in his head that being my assistant was a fate far, far worse than extreme torture. I don't know where he got that idea." He turned to share a secret grin with her. "I am a true delight."

Her disbelief turned into pure suspicion. "You're kidding me."

Kakashi held up his hands in earnest. "Honest. I have people tell me all the time how special I am."

The laugh that burst out of her was half scoff, half snort and Sakura lightly whacked Kakashi's arm for making such a sound appear. "No, you dork! I'm talking about the part where I'm somehow off the hook for being a very real and disobedient threat to the village."

Kakashi hummed, and rubbed his arm as though her soft slap was still something to be reckoned with. "Mm. Never thought you had it in you to be honest. Gives you a terribly bad-girl reputation." He held a finger towards her lips when she went to protest. "But I'm afraid all that is top secret information so shh, Sakura."

She narrowed her eyes at the offending finger, so close to being bitten off. "Ugh! You are being so vague! Stop avoiding the question, Kakashi."

At that the jerk relented, his open expression of cheeky remorse so stupidly endearing. "Sorry, being an insubordinate prick is usually my specialty. Served me well on several occasions, like the last few hours for example." He grinned at her, heedless of the way it made her chest squeeze in restless and unfamiliar ways. "The fact of the matter is, we trust you and we trust Ino. And the bad things that have happened to you don't make you a bad person."

Her building anticipation deflated slightly, curious hope and adamant doubt making her feel terribly unbalanced. "That… can't be it. This is major preferential treatment." She tried for indignant but ended up sounding unsure.

"I can assure you it's not." He said so neutrally she could almost miss the heavy sense of duty and resignation behind his words. "You are on probation for a while yet. And to prove as much you will submit to Ino every month for a psychological evaluation, your ANBU escorts shall be round the clock, your home will never be safe from an Ibiki-approved babysitter, and…"

He kept her hung on his word for a long moment until she realised he was waiting for her to look at him. With a small bit to her lip, she met his eyes and readied herself for his final decree.

"And," he continued softly, "you won't ever get a moment's rest from being stuck with a pain in the ass like me… Unless of course, you'd prefer the stocks?"

Sakura blinked as though slapped and studied him under a furrowed brow. Even with his face so open, there was still so much to uncover about the man before her. Shifting her focus, Sakura cleared her throat to ask, "And Ino?"

Kakashi stared at her for another moment as though she were the odd thing to be deciphered. She itched to correct him, tell him to quit looking at her when he was the one with all the secrets and answers she had yet to unearth. In the end, Kakashi granted her silent wish and turned his face towards the darkened village, allowing her the space to appraise him.

"Ibiki has got her doing exclusive training with all the new T recruits, and arranged for her to run masterclasses on subterfuge at the academy once a week. Plus, all Yamanaka clansman will be submitting to a new professional development regime which she will create and facilitate."

Her nose scrunched in confusion. "That… sounds like something she would thoroughly enjoy. That's basically a promotion!"

A grey eye met her with a light smirk. "I never said she was in trouble."

Sakura laughed as relief unwound bit by bit from her tight chest. "Well good. She didn't deserve to be punished. She didn't do anything wrong."

"And you did?"

The question almost startled her, but Sakura considered it all the same. This time she kept her eyes on the sky and let Kakashi run his eyes over her as she idly worked her fingers through Shiba's coat, the Ninken now all but silent spectators to their conversation.

"I guess I can't really call it wrong or right. It was the decision I made, and whether others deem it foolish or brave, I can at least stand firm in my intentions for good. Even if everything else is falling apart around me, I'll have my convictions – I know what I'll stand for and what I won't. I'm not backing down from this. This was my choice. And I won't ever let anyone stand between me and my choices again."

For as much of her that screamed in the unfairness, the hardness, the impossibilities laid before her, she could never give up the fight. She would never concede her future when there was so much left to live for. At least she hadn't lost her damnable stubborn drive for the improbable. Weakness was, after all, a springboard into greatness – she would know.

"Then I'm glad."

Sakura blinked up at him, his sincere relief and happiness sending her spiralling for reasons she couldn't explain.

"I didn't mean to worry you." She blurted, startling him briefly and feeling the intent ears of his Ninken perk. She was certain her cheeks were pink. "It's just… what you said about confronting our ghosts, I thought I could do it. I asked Ino to help. I didn't mean for it to go down the way it did." Her hands fidgeted, from Shiba to the edges of the blanket over her shoulders.

"I never expected to actually find a real ghost to fight. I hoped not anyway. Part of me just wanted the confirmation that it was all in my head…" A meek laugh stumbled from her lips. "I suppose in parts I was right. I just – "

Indecision chased her tongue into silence and there she slumped, feeling both inept in her apology and embarrassed by her sorry attempt. She didn't know what she was saying. In any case, thinking about Him again felt a little like trying to walk on a broken leg. It would do her no good until she healed first.

"So…" Kakashi picked up her withering with a slow drawl. "You're saying this all happened because you took my advice?"

Well, she wasn't sure that's exactly what she was trying to get at, but it definitely was part of it. Between drooping shoulders, she peered up at him, "Yes?"

She didn't realise he had already begun to close the distance between them, leaning down as though he needed to seek the answer in the depth of eyes to get any real sense of truth. Jade eyes widened at his intense stare, then as abruptly as the moment began it dissipated. Kakashi was back to his usual head and a half taller than her and Sakura was left briefly whiplashed.

Then he spoke and she damn near fell sideways.

"Hm. Excuse me while I go throw myself off this roof."

He made to do just that and Sakura flailed, heedless of the way the Ninken leapt to avoid her graceless fumbling.

"Wait!"

Kakashi, dramatic man that he was, stopped halfway through his pitch for descent, but only because she had two hands clamped around his arm and he likely didn't want her toppling down after him. Sakura went to lecture him for his ridiculousness but the look in his eyes stalled every thought.

He rested a few inches below her, one hand braced at her hip while the other tugged half-heartedly at his silver spikes, even as she clung to his forearm. Charka at his hand and feet kept him still as he remained stationed before her, as if kneeling in deference, begging for forgiveness. That look of horrid guilt in his eyes had no right to be there, and Sakura slowly shook her head at him in confusion.

"What's wrong?" She didn't mean to whisper it, nor did she intend to squeeze his arm but she couldn't take it back now.

"Can you ever forgive me?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I thought my days of underestimating you were through." He muttered. And when slate eyes flickered to hers, they were alight with a curious type of derision – self-loathing. "You confided in me, told me that he was haunting you, and I just… I gave you nothing but useless words and stupid advice. Fuck, I'm so sorry Sakura. I should've listened to you, I should've done something. I'm sorry."

That tight grip over her chest eased its hold slightly and Sakura could only stare at him, even as he bowed his head to hide his face from her. "You really love to make things all about you, don't you?"

"What?" That got him to look at her.

She sighed, long and drawn out and raised a brow at him. "Are you trying to win some 'Greatest Guilt-Complex' award or something? Cause, I gotta say this one is a stretch, even for you. I mean, come on Kakashi. Don't you have anything better to do with your time than pine over who gets to feel the most guilt in the world?"

"I don't – "

She didn't know what urged her to do – his baffled expression, the need to cease his protest, or maybe the latent desire to smack some sense into him – but with a light slap, Sakura had both her hands cupped around Kakashi's cool cheeks.

"Shut up." She commanded lightly, watching as bewilderment transformed into pure shock on the man's face. Sakura simply couldn't help her smile, or the way she gently squeezed his cheeks for a brief impulsive moment. "You sure love to complain, don't you? At this point you'd be giving Shikamaru a run for his money. I can't heal stress lines you know."

Slowly, she felt his jaw lose tension. Without conscious thought, Sakura let her thumb lightly drift over the curve of his cheekbone, chasing those fine lines of crows-feet kissing the corner of his eyes. Under her palms fine pricks of stubble tickled her hand with the miniscule movement and before she knew it, she was murmuring.

"Look at you, wasting so much time worrying you forgot to shave."

There was something so strange about a man like Kakashi having facial hair. In her mind he was always composed in lazy detail – a type of relaxed craftsmanship of clean form and rugged character. The duality of yin and yang. Rules and rogue. Sharp intellect expertly misdirected by his lackadaisical front.

Wild silver hair offset by the structure of his perfectly kept clothes and a mask to preserve the mystery. The idea that somewhere behind all that chaotic order was a beard threatening to betray his well-constructed image was comical. Funnier still to imagine him shaving only to cover it up each and every day, no one ever the wiser to his meticulous grooming.

How often does he shave? Does he even own a razor, or just go straight at it with a kunai? So lost in studying the shape of his jaw and the feel of his skin, Sakura jumped at the sound of his voice.

"Sakura." He breathed and she felt it over the skin of her wrists; hot and electrifying.

An abstract jolt leapt from the pit of her stomach and into her throat. She should let go, but there was something still urging to be said; a note to be played and extended that final inch.

Selfish hands remained poised over cool skin and Sakura used the last of her strange courage to beseech, "I don't know about you, but I think I'm done punishing myself over things I can't control."

But, oh. That unguarded look he gave her… had she ever seen it before? Or did it only look different now that nothing stood between his face and the world? Would she still recognise it when he inevitably put back up his reflective walls? Would she know it if it were cast upon another instead?

"Sorry." His voice didn't make her jump this time, though it did succeed in giving her a much-needed reality check.

Cha, why the hell am I daydreaming about Kakashi's face? I'm not a Genin anymore. It's just a face – a face is a face is a face. The mystery has been long solved by now!

With a small tsk Sakura released him, internally chastising herself for getting so carried away for no reason. It was easy to turn her half-hearted glare at his pretty face, still so near as he remained poised before her, as if waiting for permission to move even after she let him go.

Stupid Kakashi. Caught between a grumble and a snap Sakura ordered, "Stop apologising and get back up here before I really throw you off this roof."

His answering chuckle could've been carried away with the gentle breeze for how light it was. "As you wish."

Sakura turned away as he returned to her side. She didn't know why she was suddenly so exasperated all of a sudden, but she was. "You're so melodramatic." She told him, staring back at the subdued village still yet to greet the morning.

But now her hands felt restless and something inside her was buzzing with things too long left unsaid. Sakura careful laid one palm over Shiba's back and the other at Uhei's head and willed composure upon herself. Yet as they sat there waiting for dawn to crest the horizon, the restlessness continued to expand inside her until she simply couldn't take it anymore.

"I-I'm grateful – ", Sakura announced only to snap her mouth shut.

She had planned on rehearsing a proper speech – something concise and succinct that would leave no room for interruptions or holes of any poking capacity. It's not that she anticipated Kakashi would bolt if she tried to say her piece now but… she knew he'd never been great with this type of… demonstration.

"What I mean is – " Slowly she searched for the words, trying to buy herself time she probably didn't have before Kakashi got any more uncomfortable and pulled his disappearing act. Especially after her little display not two minutes ago.

Sakura cringed. Could she even put into words the breadth of what he'd done for her, continued to do? What it meant that he hadn't gone anywhere when it felt like her whole life had gone up in flames and left her disfigured. That somehow, somewhere along the way he became an integral part of her and she didn't know what she'd do if he wasn't right where he was in her life. It was a terrifying thought, made inexplicably soothing by his steadfast presence.

The most skittish man she'd ever known, and he was still somehow here… hadn't moved an inch. Simply put, Sakura was, well… heartened.

"Kakashi, I – ", She swiftly clicked her mouth shut again when her voice wobbled on the last syllable of his name. Licking her lips, she tried again, resolutely not looking at him because if she felt this unbalanced she couldn't image how he must be feeling. "I'm really happy you're here. That I'm here too… I-I'm grateful for you, for everything you've done. So, thank you."

There. She said it. It was lame and an embarrassingly underwhelming attempt at expressing the depth of what she felt, but it was out now and that was the important part. Almost shyly, Sakura turned to meet his eyes. The words weren't really hard to say, not to him, but his response… That, she supposed was always going to be the unnerving part.

With his head once more tilted in her direction and his entire face on display, Sakura didn't know how to read this open man before her – honestly half expected him to have vanished before she could get the words out. Yet here he stayed.

Sakura sensed he was perhaps lost for words like she had been, or maybe there was just so much to say he didn't know where to start. She empathised with both possibilities. Or the more likely possibility that he was a clone that was contemplating if it should just dismiss itself out of pure discomfort. But then, something unexpected happened. A slow sincere smile pulled at the corner of his mouth, sending that tiny mole of his sliding.

"You're welcome." He said softly, and Sakura had to rip her eyes from his lips to properly hear him. She opened her mouth but nothing came out, so the man continued, as if he had all the words in the world and were handpicking each one just for her ears. "And Sakura?"

"Huh?" She said dumbly and confused to be so. She was staring determinedly into his eyes – focusing solely on his words and not the diversion of his face and lulling voice – when his smile turned devastatingly tender.

"I'm so, so proud of you."

The knee-jerk reaction to punch his arm and call him something clever and snide never came. What came was uncoiling warmth as something in her chest took shaky flight – relief perhaps? It was alarming and disorienting and once more she didn't care to name or dissect a thing when Kakashi was all that held her content and steady in that moment.

"What?" The word came from his mouth and her eyes darted to it in examination. Simple curiosity over the new becoming familiar.

A second later she registered his question and with a hint of pink, she dropped her eyes completely. "What?" She parroted weakly.

"You were staring."

"Was I?" Embarrassing. Is it too late to take my own swan dive off this roof?

"You were."

"Huh. It was nothing. It's just… Your mask is down again." And I like seeing your dimples when you smile. She didn't say.

They sat in silence, the creeping dawn finally stretching its arms over the waking world. With the emerging sun, Sakura felt the last of her nerves melt away. She'd survived another dawn, each one a little easier than the last. It made her smile.

"So it is…" Kakashi murmured, soft as snow. "That okay?"

The dim cobalt sky had long since developed a lighter counterpart in the soft purples and pinks of the wispy clouds. Now orange and yellow slipped itself in-between, blending itself seamlessly into the sky and shedding a small amount of its warmth over the land.

Sakura breathed deeply, the air sparking with new scents of woodfire and fresh bread as the day slowly began. "Yeah. It's… nice."

A chuckle. "Nice, huh?"

"Yes, nice." She swung her legs, lightly drumming her heels against the brick ledge, absorbing the way sunlight turned frost into starlight. The glitter of grey shone under the warm rays of the sky, lighting up the earth in abstract glimmers. "Like the sunrise… You could wear it down more often, if you wanted."

"Mah, I don't know." The man beside her hummed, his tone matching the smoothness of the morning. Sakura itched to turn and look, but something held her back. Perhaps the mesmerising turn of the sky. "The beauty about sunrises is that hardly anyone is around to see them… It's nicer when it's just you and the sunrise."

Ceaseless, his ability was to crack a smile out of her. Sakura gently knocked her shoulder against his. "Hermit."

An affectionate nudge back, contact that lasted far longer than either might care to address. "Name-caller."

Slowly, their habitual distance resumed as did their perusal of the dawning day. Sakura opened her mouth and let her words run away from her.

"Well, for what it's worth I think more people would wake up and enjoy the sunrise everyday if they knew just what they were missing out on."

And why did saying such a thing make her heart hammer? It was the truth. She was unfairly curious and selfishly privileged to be continually privy to his face, to his company and it was beginning to kill her to question why. So, she didn't.

"That so?" He posed it like an offhanded comment, but Sakura could recognise the notch in his voice.

She turned to him, determined to let him understand her honesty (her confusion) and make him believe that he was a privilege. (That she was so, so lucky to have him by her side as she does now).

"Yeah." She told him, firm.

She just never quite expected his eyes to drop and his face to tilt away from her. The sun was warming their faces now, though that did nothing to starve off the pink flush that the cold wind had brought to their cheeks. Sakura watched as that rosy hue stayed imprinted upon Kakashi's high cheekbones for another long moment, knowing that hers were just as irreversibly frost-bitten.

The man before her said something low, under his breath and Sakura cursed the wind once more for carrying his words away before she had the chance to hear them.

Licking her cool lips, she called, "Kakashi?"

He turned, and the way the dawn's early light reflected like shining silver in his eyes made her believe in starlight on earth all over again. His dimples were back, a crooked smile pulled to reveal that sharp canine tooth she secretly always knew he had to have had. The faintest flecks of silver stubble edged at his chin and cheeks; stubble she had felt under her hands in what felt like a lifetime ago now. All of it, so Kakashi. As beautiful and breathtaking as the winter sunrise.

"Sorry, but I'm a selfish hermit." He said, almost more to himself than to her. "I don't want my sunrise becoming too popular, I fear my view would become obstructed." He stared at her then and she had never felt so seen. "And I quite like my view as it is."

That swooping sensation was back, this time taking her breath and much of her balance with it. Two hands and several paws steadied her as she near lost her position atop the roof, and it was between her wildly beating heart and a rush of adrenaline that she finally snapped.

"You're so weird, Kakashi." She said, breathless and absurdly annoyed with herself. What's wrong with me? Low blood sugar, probably. No wonder I'm so out of sorts. When was the last time I ate?

"That I am." He conceded to her with a smile, all sunlight and gentle frost.

The warmth of the sunrise didn't account for the heat prickling under her skin, nor could she blame the mild wind for her pink cheeks this time. It was something entirely other that stirred which Sakura astutely filed under hunger pangs, stupidly content to otherwise stare at the man who had all the answers and all the secrets, and yet she would never ask them of him.

"Hmm." She said in leu of any real words.

A half-sigh, half chuckle escaped Kakashi as he lightly held her, then he was shaking his head.

"Hmm indeed." Then, for the first time that morning, his face twisted into something new. Exasperation. With her. "Now get off that ledge, you're giving me a damn heart attack, Sakura."

Mildly guilty, she let him pull her back to her senses and much of reality. Wedged between Kakashi and his Ninken, Sakura slipped off the roof and left the sunrise behind and that was when her stomach grumbled.

The vindication of her self-hypothesis was worth the embarrassment.

At least that's what she told herself.


A/N: Well, well, well, if it isn't the bad author back from the proverbial dead.

I have no excuses beyond a handful of major life events having taken place the over last few months and spare time was a figment of longing. As always, I make up for my unpredictable publishing timetable with an obscene word-count.

What can I say about this chapter other than I'm glad to have it off my plate. Oof. Big feelings, big drama and a little bit of fluff to cap it off. Always love to hear your thoughts!

Much love, team!