Author's Note: So this story is not completely linear in parts. The post-time-travel timeline is always linear (one point after another in order), but points from Kyoko's past pre-time-travel are definitely not in a linear order. Just trying something new out, here.

Chapter Four — Costs an Arm and a Leg and a Captain

Kakashi's hand was still through Gari's chest when the latter brought his hands up into a seal. The chakra buildup showed red in Kyoko's sharingan. Pulling her katana from her own opponent's body and letting him drop, she yelled, "Taichou! Bomb!"

Kakashi wrenched his grip from his own wrist to push against Gari's chest, trying to yank his hand back. It took a moment for him to pull himself loose and he scrambled backward as the Iwa nin started to glow red.

Gari exploded.

Kyoko gasped for air, arching up from the ground only to fall back against it again when pain shot through her body. She groaned. Kyoko turned on her sharingan and the dark world around her sharpened into something a little easier to see.

She must have lost time, because the cave had been reduced to rubble around her. Kyoko tested her limbs. Her right arm hurt when she moved it, but it could move. Her left arm seemed fine, if a little sore, as was her right leg. Her left leg, however . . . . She pushed herself up to look at the rock pinning her leg down. It wasn't too large, but the ground around it was stained dark. She was injured, then. With that known, next she needed to figure out where he captain was.

She looked around, sharingan burning as she searched for Kakashi's chakra. It was off to her right. It was faint. Too faint.

"Taichou," she rasped out. Her throat hurt, and she could taste iron. "Taichou!"

There wasn't even the slightest stir in his chakra, and it was too dark even with her sharingan to see him properly. She felt at her mask and was met with cracked edges. Turning her sharingan off, Kyoko growled and reached for her ankle. She tested the rock at first, pushing it to see if it would move. Something shifted the wrong way in her leg, and she bit down on her lip to keep herself quiet. She couldn't get the right angle to move it. Not with the way her leg was pinned to that one spot.

She reached out to her right and to her left, feeling around blindly for where her katana might have gone. When she nicked her left hand, she drew back for just a second before carefully reaching out again and feeling along the blade. She grasped the handle and brought the katana around to the rock.

It was much shorter than expected.

Kyoko took a deep breath and fit the broken blade down next to her leg, sliding it under the rock and using it to lever the stone away. It cut against her calf, but the rock shifted up far enough for her to drag her leg out. There was bone where it shouldn't be; specifically, there was bone poking through her skin. She gave a shuddering breath and turned to drag herself towards Kakashi.

"Taichou," she called again. She came to a stop beside him and dropped to her elbows, shaking. Her lungs burned as she coughed. She brought her sharingan back, focusing in on her captain.

She could see more blood than anything else. His ANBU mask was gone, and she couldn't even see his regular half-face mask past all the red. Kyoko pressed two fingers—from her left hand, because she couldn't trust her right to stop shaking—against his neck, feeling for a pulse.

There wasn't one.

"No, no, no— Taichou, please." She moved her hands over his chest, leaning heavily onto her right hip to avoid pressing down on the bone sticking from her shin. Her right shoulder burned in protest as she started compressions. "Wake up. Wake up, wake up, wake up."

"I thought I'd find you here."

She looked up at the voice. "Taichou!" Kyoko shoved her book aside and started to scramble up, reaching for her crutch.

"No, don't." Kakashi waved a hand at her. "Stop."

She froze, half-crouched with her hand closed around her crutch. "Taichou?"

"Not wearing my mask," he reminded her, using his own crutch for support as he lowered himself to sit next to her with a grunt. He set his crutch aside and threw her a look. "Sit down."

She obeyed immediately, sitting ramrod straight beside him. "Technically, you're always wearing a mask," she pointed out.

Kakashi huffed out a sort of half-laugh. He picked up the book she'd dropped. "What's this?" he murmured, turning it over to look at the spine.

"Ah. I'm studying."

"Studying?" He repeated the word as a question. His brow furrowed. "Iryo-ninjutsu?"

She cleared her throat and reached out a hand to take the book back. Waiting with her palm up, she said, "If Neko hadn't managed to help when she did, you would have died. I don't want to be useless next time. When you get hurt again, I want to be able to help."

Kakashi didn't move to give her the book back. Instead, he glanced sideways at her. "I would have died if you hadn't been awake and determined enough to carry me two miles on your broken leg. I wouldn't call that useless."

Kyoko clenched her jaw and dropped her hand, turning back to stare out at the lake. "I'm the youngest on the team, and it shows. Shiroari is the closest to my age, and he wouldn't have even let the cave collapse in the first place."

"You beat Tenzo no-contest in sparring two weeks ago."

"Taichou—"

"No. That's enough." He held the book out. "It'll be good to have another iryo-nin on the team."

She didn't meet his gaze, taking the book and resting it in her lap. Kyoko nodded once. "I'll do my best."

"Here."

She blinked, staring at the scroll he was holding out in front of her. "What's this?" she asked, taking it carefully as if she thought it might break when she touched it.

"Open it."

An order, then. She could work with that. She opened the scroll and touched the storage seal inked in it, pushing out a pinch of chakra. A long, black item appeared, and she caught it. Kyoko set down the scroll and then held the gift with both hands, looking it over. "Kakashi," she murmured. "I was just going to get another one."

"Well, this one is chakra-conducting. And far more durable than a typical katana. At least," —he shrugged— "that's what the guy at the counter told me."

Kyoko unsheathed it and held it out, point up, so that she could study the dark blade. She gave a trembling sigh. "Thank you." She sheathed it and rested it atop the book. "I'll do better with this one."

Kakashi made an angry sound. "Kyoko, look at me."

She quickly looked up, catching her breath when she saw that his hitai-ate was up and she could see her brother's eye. She focused in on the red.

"There is no one—no one—on our team that I trust more to watch my back. There's no one in the entire Village that I would want fighting by my side more than you."

"Taichou—"

"No. Listen. As your captain, and as your friend, I'm telling you that the only reason I'm alive is because of you. And I'm not just talking about our last mission. Do you understand?"

She took a deep breath. "I— Kakashi—"

"Usagi, do you understand?"

She squared her shoulders. "Yes, Taichou. I do."