Kakashi snaps to attention, jolting as forward as he can with the chakra suppression cuffs and not even the scent of Haruhi next to him is enough to comfort him when Orochimaru is right in front of him.
He immediately gets light headed from the suppression and feels a sudden shock of pain preventing him from moving, and has to fight back the wave of gratitude at Haruhi for catching him before he could hit his head on something. He can tell from the growling in his stomach that it's been awhile since he's eaten, anywhere from 12 to 24 hours, more than enough time for orochimaru to haul ass to one of his many hideouts that Kakashi had struggled to uncover before.
"Ah, Kakashi-kun, I'm glad to see you're finally awake. Now we can begin."
He feels Haruhi shudder and he had to shake his head to dispel the wave of rage that swept through him. Her hands are also bound with suppression cuffs, but her hands are in front of her instead of behind her back like his are.
"Begin what." He spat.
"You have known Haruhi for the longest, have you not?"
"What do you want with her?"
"How was her chakra when she first appeared in this world through this seal?" Orochimaru held up Sensei's seal, the one Haruhi had come here through, and he realized it was no longer in his breast pocket. Kakashi felt Haruhi's breathing quicker and her pulse shutter, and it was his turn to support her as she sagged sideways.
"Is that why you attacked Konoha again? All because of a little seal?" Kakashi looked around, spotting Kabuto but no other henchmen. The other scents were stale too and it seemed like they were the only four here. If his chakra wasn't suppressed he would be able to sense the lack of people here, and the ominous atmosphere only one of Orochimaru's torture labs could have.
Orochimaru's eyes narrowed dangerously, like he had just stumbled upon something particularly juicy. He knew something
"No. Grass was going to attack anyway. I thought I'd join in, gather a few things of mine."
"Haruhi is not yours. I won't let you have her."
"I already do, and I already did. Gosh, you aren't so good at this whole protecting thing aren't you?"
His jaw clenched, and Kakashi felt his canines draw blood from his lip.
"Orochimaru-sama, the two of them are in a relationship."
"Hm, is that so? I heard couples value honesty with each other, Hatake-san. So stop with your empty words, Kakashi. You can't do anything for her now, with the way she is. Might as well fill me in on a few details. This is a rather fascinating case of space time fuinjutsu and chakra depletion after all."
"...What do you mean by that?"
Orochimaru smirked, and Kakashi's heart sank.
"Oh, my dear Hatake, why do you think your sensei made it so anyone who was summoned through the seal would be small? Certainly so they would be better companions, but also so they could survive in this world of chakra. Haruhi's small size meant that whatever meager chakra her underdeveloped system was able to produce would be enough to sustain her in this world. It meant that Minato's seal would be able to regulate it for her. It meant that she needed less energy to function. But when you began to teach her how to control her newfound chakra well...kuhkuhkuh, lets just say that's where things got messy."
He smirked as he walked forward.
"Suddenly, she wasn't a civilian anymore, and began to use her chakra. This started a domino effect so that when I got my hands on her after the 2 exams, I had to do very little until she reverted back to her original size. The problem here is now that she is larger, her body needs more energy, more chakra than it can create, and that she is too large for Minato's seal to be effective anymore. And since her chakra coils are so pathetically underdeveloped, the mystic palm jutsu and medical chakra cannot be used on her. She is running out of chakra, and out of time. Tell me dear, have you been experiencing symptoms of weakness recently?"
To Kakashi's horror, he felt her stiffly nod.
"Ahhh, you don't have much longer then. And the more active you are, the more energy you use up. And now that I have this-"
He waves the seal around.
"-there is no chance of saving yourself by going through the seal and back to where you came from."
Kakashi feels like he is in a nightmare. Orochimaru and Kabuto share a chuckle as they set up lab equipment, and place the seal down, content with Kakashi contained and knowing Haruhi isn't a threat to them due to her status. He feels like he is sinking into a pit of despair as Haruhi huddles closer to him. He presses his back to her chest and feels her hands in his.
Her now unbound hands working on his own with the lock pick set he had given her as a gift.
Since her chakra was almost nonexistent the cuffs had no effect on her, and Kabuto didn't search her due to her status as a civilian.
Kakashi felt like he could kiss her. She beats him to it, a curtain of her thick black hair coming down to shield them as her lips meet his and Kakashi immediately recognizes the foul taste of a chakra pill as Haruhi pushes it into his mouth the instant she unlatches the cuffs.
He doesn't have the time to enjoy the feel of her or marvel at her cleverness as Rage and love course through him, and in one swift move he breaks free, snatches the seal, and decapitates Kabuto.
His head falls with a solid thunk and Orochimaru jumps back and is now snarling at the loss of one of his best henchmen. Orochimaru moves to strike Kakashi, and Haruhi screams.
Stillness.
Orochimaru wheezes and gasps as he fruitlessly tries to remove his neck from Kakashi's iron grip, twitching as lightning courses through the both of them and the snake sannin is flung back from Konoha's top jounin.
The monster rasps out a chuckle.
"Wouldn't you know? The pup has grown into a guard dog. Not that it will matter against me." Orochimaru flickers his tongue out in the way that snakes use it to smell the air. "I can smell your fear."
Kakashi doesn't respond. A calm settles over him.
"...You know, these last few months have been some of the most confusing and exciting of my life. "
"Oh? Do tell."
"I was kicked out of ANBU to teach a couple brats that turned out to be some of the best kids I ever met. I was assigned to take care of a tiny woman who was almost as confused as I was, and I got to watch as all of them grew and overcame their limitations and became extraordinary."
He heard Haruhi quietly begin to cry, and he wanted to hold her, pull her onto his lap and bury his face into her neck and shoulder, and just hold her.
"I was so proud of them. They shone so bright compared to me and I felt like I didn't deserve them. I thought I'd ruin it like I always did when I came to care about anyone close to me. Like how the entire village said I would. From friend killer Kakashi to Tsunade-sama comparing me to my father."
He sighed shakily. It was so cold he could see a cloud of breath in front of his mask.
"So I held back." He said, voice heavy with shame."I carried my past around and refused to put it down despite it not being my fault, so even though I trained, and got stronger than I ever was, there was always something inhibiting me. Me."
He clenches his fist.
"I felt like I was living in a world of glass. Living In a hypocritical glass village. Taking care not to move suddenly, lest something shatter and I get glass in my foot, or for the village to see straight through to me, watching and judging all my actions. Nothing I did was ever good enough. My situation was fragile and I was not enough."
Exhale.
"I've made so much progress. Haruhi struggled so hard with her own past and her present, and her future, but she never let it keep her down. And when It became too much on her own, she reached out and asked for help, and I was inspired."
He hears her gasp.
"Seeing her...I realized for the first time that I was enough. None of what had happened was my fault, and the only thing holding me back is my fear. And i was afraid. Afraid of what others would think. Afraid of showing anything other than strict adherence to the rules. Afraid to feel...But what is a little fear compared to the Woman I love?"
He turns back towards her, face soft, eyes shining as his gaze connects with her. One of her hands rests flat on her chest, the other covers her mouth as her own warm brown eyes shimmer and spill over.
Kakashi pockets her seal, places it in the pocket over his heart filled with love and confidence.
"And one more thing."
Orochimaru tenses.
"Dogs are more the Inuzaka's thing. Us Hatakes were always closer to wolves."
Kakashi howls.
He is as fast as the lightning he wields, Sharingan allows for perfect movement so his mind can keep up with his body as he slashes Orochimaru with White lightning chakra.
The mad scientist hisses, neck elongating as he tries to inject venom into Kakashi, who springs away, as fleet of foot as the wolves his clan emulates. He slashes again and the cauterized flesh makes it so Orochimaru's flexibility jutsu begins to fail.
They move at speeds no one under kage level could even begin to make sense of, a deadly dance that changes into a sword fight as the sannin coughs up a sword and Kakashi pulls his father's blade from the storage seal on his forearm.
Orochimaru lunges, Kakashi parries and winces at the extreme force. He drops suddenly and Orochimaru quickly uses his sudden pitch forward to spin mid air and kick Kakashi's feet out from under him and narrowly avoid being electrocuted again as Kakashi almost grabs the metal sword with his crackling hands.
The Missing-nin looks around. He has no back up. He is exhausted from his fight with Tsunade and now Kakashi, who is just getting started. The man laughs, and darts towards Haruhi.
He moves faster than he ever has, and lands a kick so catastrophic to Orochimaru's face Kakashi can hear the man's neck snap even with the flexibility jutsu in place. The sound echoes in the dimly lit chamber, and for a moment the world is still.
Then Haruhi staggers as she throws herself into his arms and in an instant she becomes his new world. She's cold and he raises his body temperature with fire ninjutsu. He holds her as he wanted to, inhales the scent of her baking from earlier, the scent of the forest she had been traveling in, the water from where she taught people to save themselves from drowning and he had a second to remark on the irony because he felt like he was drowning in his feelings for her.
"...You really mean that?"
"Yes." His voice is rough.
"Kakashi.. .You heard what he said…"
"I know."
"I'm so sorry-"
"Don't apologize. You have to go. I knew that day was coming and I don't regret how I feel for you. I won't ever."
She sniffles.
"The other day I told Sasuke that either staying or leaving would be the hardest decision I ever made. It looks like it was made for me."
Kakashi's heart aches for her at having her agency taken away. He aches at the reminder that Sasuke made a choice of his own to leave. He tugs her into his arms. Her legs are weak as they head towards the exit tunnel.
"C'mon. Let's get you home."
He takes a single step forward when Orochimaru sheds the body he stole from some hapless grass nin and his true form emerges.
It's a snake. With venom on it's breath, slits for eyes, and wretched slimy scales that line it's massive body, with creepily shaggy hair around the skull that looks too human for Kakashi to be comfortable with. It hisses as it laughs and nearly sprays Haruhi with venom.
"Sasuke is beyond your reach now...that he is mine!"
Haruhi gasps in his arms, and Orochimaru thrashes his massive tail as he rushes towards the exit.
And brings the whole cavern down on them.
…
…
…
She wakes to complete darkness, so complete that she blinks frantically out of fear that she might be blind. It's cold wherever she is, and the ground underneath her is rock hard. She sits up and pats her bra for the luminance seal Tenten had given her, and once Haruhi has it in her hands, she pauses.
Taking a deep breath, she carefully pushes some of her chakra into it.
Her surroundings are thrown into a stark contrast even as she sways from the energy loss, revealing masses of bedrock and stones that used to be partially carved into the passage walls.
Something groans directly above and slightly behind her and for a horrible second she thinks it is the cave about to collapse on her, but as she weakly turns around, she gasps, loud and piercing in the pocket of earth.
It's Kakashi, and he is the sole thing keeping the tons of rock from sealing the gap.
His arms tremble from being fully extended above his head, his earth ninjutsu and hatake white chakra extending it's range to encompass the surrounding rock, holding it in place. The rock around Kakashi's feet is cracked from pressure, and Kakashi's feet are in indents three inches deep from the weight of the world on his shoulders. Haruhi is reminded of Atlas who carried the sky and she whimpers because Kakashi's hair is already all gray.
"Kakashi-!"
She stumbled to her feet, and almost threw her arms around him. He groans again.
"My right pocket, over my heart-"
Haruhi quickly reaches in and gasps when she sees her seal.
"-Take it and get out of here!"
"Wh-but what about you!?"
Kakashi chuckles. It's wet, but warm and forlorn.
"I will hold this up for you. I can still smell fresh air blowing in from the right. You can still make it!"
"Fuck that! I'm not leaving you!"
Kakashi snarls as the earth shifts again.
"Go! I refuse to leave anyone else to die in a cave!"
"..."
Kakashi's sharingan opens and takes her full image in, and Haruhi covers her face.
"...Now, don't do that. Let me see you…"
She starts to cry.
"Put your sharingan away. You're wasting chakra." Her voice breaks and she steps gently over to Kakashi.
"Ha. Like you're one to talk." His voice is thick with pain even as he spoke so fondly and a fresh wave of warm tears trails down her face.
"Haruhi...your mother is waiting for you."
She bites her lip.
"Naruto is fine. Sakura is strong, and so is Sasuke. They'll be alright. It's okay. Take the seal, tell Tsunade and Jiraiya so they can help you, and go home."
"I can't leave you…"
"Yes you can."
Haruhi stomps her foot and she doesn't even care how that makes her look. Words fail her as her throat closes, and she decides to tell him the only way she could now.
With gentle hands, she lowers his mask, cups his face, and kisses him.
"Oh." He whispers. He kisses back, his lips warm and mouth opening and welcome to her. His breath is hot and he kisses her with the passion of a desperate man, not desperate out of fear, but rather to let her know just how much he cared.
Haruhi felt every move of his, how his arms twitched forward with the desire to hold and pull her closer, the way his face relaxed while his body tensed to keep her from being crushed.
She sniffles and inspects Minato's seal under Tenten's light seal. She thinks of Sasuke, betrayed by the village he was born in and leaves. She thinks of Kabuto, kidnapping her for a second time and the way he gloated about Grass capturing Karin and Sakura.
"Kakashi...I know you can shunshin out of here."
"Not without letting go of the cave onto you. I need to hold this stable for you." His voice brokered no argument but she still pressed on.
"What if I wasn't here?" Kakashi couldn't shunshin both of them in his current condition, and by the time Haruhi made it to the surface he wouldn't have enough chakra left to get himself out.
"...What are you talking about?"
"What if I went through the seal right now and you shunshin out of here?"
"No! You might die! Tsunade and Jiraiya need to make sure it's stable!"
"You don't know that for sure!"
"Haruhi I can't let you do that."
"You don't need to protect me still, I'm not your mission anymore!"
"Haruhi, you were never just a mission to me!"
"..."
"You were a lot of things. Confusing, annoying, and anomaly, initially. But now you matter so much to me, and I want you to live a happy life. I am protecting you now not because I think you're weak or because I have to, but because I want to! I know you're strong, I know you can handle yourself, but I also know you are something worth protecting."
She turns her face away.
"I lived a long life for a shinobi. Longer than I thought. I trained my students well. I am not afraid to die here if it means you can live another day."
"...How can I be happy if you die here like this?"
She closes her eyes, trying so hard to keep the tears from falling that when she feels something drop on her face, she doesn't realize Kakashi is crying until she opens her eyes.
He does not have an answer for her.
"Haruhi. I can't hold this much longer. Please."
She quietly steps forward and wraps her arms around his torso, and he rests his chin on her shoulder even as his arms tremble. Haruhi backs away and heads towards the exit
She turns, holding up her light to look at him one last time, and his face is so loving and accepting that the guilt briefly overwhelms her. But before she can run to him, the cave rumbles, and she screams in shock as roots erupt from all around, weaving around and through boulders and rocks, and holding them in place just as the jolting sends Kakashi to his knees.
"Mokuton." Haruhi breathes.
She runs back to Kakashi, the root roof holding strong over them as she tries to scoop him up in her weakened arm, an imitation of him carrying her earlier.
She hears Yamato's voice from afar, muffled by layers of earth and she can't make out what he's saying, but she can hear the urgency in his voice. The cavern continues to rumble as she fruitlessly tries to lift him.
She can't, tears slide down and it frustrates her to no end because a month ago she would have been at least able to drag him.
"Now now, there's no need to cry."
Haruhi whips her head around.
"You!"
"Me." The person sounds amused. Their voice was indistinguishable, and body fully covered. This was the same person who had originally rescued her from Orochimaru's grasp after Kabuto had taken her and Sasuke in the forest of Death, the one who had pointed them to Tsunade, and the one who had appeared in the distance and had been seen from afar multiple other times. The tears turned relieved.
"How-"
"No time for that. I retrieved Yamato after his fight with the dead hokages and led him here. He can only hold the cave for so long. I can carry from this side, you get his other."
And with that, the mystery person roped Kakashi's arm and Haruhi weakly got his other side. They began to move, heading towards the exit and with each step they took the sunlight became brighter and brighter.
"Hurry!" Yamato called, voice eons clearer than it had been. They shuffled along, moved as quickly as possible. Rocks began to fall and Haruhi gasped as a pebble struck her brow and blood began to pour over her eye.
She blinked rapidly and heaved one last time, emerging into the sunlight and falling forward at Yamato's feet just as the tunnel collapsed behind them.
She laughed, voice high and light with relief, and turned to thank the mystery person.
Only to see a puff of smoke and nothing else.
Yamato collapsed next to them, relieved when he felt Kakashi's pulse and when his sensei stirred.
"I did it." The silver haired man murmured.
Haruhi laughed, pressing her forehead to his, then kissing his brow.
"You did." She whispered.
Yamato swept Kakashi onto his back, and held out his arm for Haruhi to grab onto. She placed her hand onto Kakashi's cheek.
"C'mon Kakashi, let's go home."
The words were bittersweet as Yamato and her began the long walk back.
Yamato and mystery person to the rescue. And finally! It's about time these two became official!
What a twist huh? Who is this mystery person? Shout out to that reviewer who correctly guessed that Haruhi's weakness was a side effect of the seal!
Question of the chapter: was this romantic?
Covid ain't over yet! Be like Kakashi and wear a damn mask!
Also, if someone makes a tv tropes page for this I'll give you my firstborn.