Chapter Text
A bird cawed overhead as Kakashi limped along the rut of a wagon wheel left in the dirt path that would lead him back into Konoha. He had been back in the Land of Fire for seven days now, his mission completed. He was just outside of a town called Mēpuru now; the maple trees that had given the area its name shading the road with vibrant leaves in shades of vermilion red and eggplant purple. The late afternoon sun filtered through the low canopy, dappling the ground with spots of light that seemed to dance joyfully as he walked. Kakashi frowned, closing his one visible eye against the idyllic scene. It was deceiving, he thought, because today wasn’t a joyful one. Neither had the seventeen previous days.
A heavy sigh fell from his lips when he realized that it had been over two weeks since he’d left Konoha. He hadn’t allowed himself to think about the village or of Sakura since that first night he’d left because on a mission like the one he’d been on, he couldn’t afford not to focus completely on the task at hand.
He’d done that about a week in to the mission, he guessed. He had found an innkeeper in Tako who had remembered some strange out of town shinobi who’d been in town the same time Karasu had been there. The old man had told him the foreigners had paid for the company of two prostitutes and the night’s use of two of the rooms. The mattresses had been all Kakashi’s ninken pack had needed to learn the scents of two of their three targets, and they’d found a trail leading from Tako up into the remote foothills that connected the Land of Fire to the Land of Earth’s intimidating mountains.
Once they’d been in the foothills, it hadn’t been hard to find one of the enemy nin where he’d been left to die by his comrades of a snake bite. The man had barely been alive by the time Kakashi had gotten there, but he’d been persuaded with some force into telling the Leaf shinobi that his friends had begun the journey through the mountains to their Hidden Village days before; that Kakashi stood no chance of blah, blah, blah. The Copy Ninja hadn’t bothered listening to the man’s dire warnings before he’d slit his throat and began making his way up into the treacherous terrain of the Earth’s border.
He had caught up with the two other ninja about a day outside of their village and it had been a bloody encounter. The two remaining assassins had put up a good fight and had even managed to wound him with the same strange earth-style jutsu that had mortally wounded Karasu. It had been nasty stuff; the enemies controlling a lethal combination of a natural weather phenomenon known locally as rock rain with their own brutal ninjutsu attacks. It had taken everything in Kakashi to land a fatal blow on the first of them, using chidori directly against the man’s face. The other enemy nin, a woman, had been swift in her movements and even swifter in her attacks with various weapons that had left Kakashi’s body covered in cuts of varying degrees of severity, the worst of which had been a nicked artery that left him feeling woozy and seeing black in the corners of his vision.
That had been when he’d had the sense of mind to summon the ninken pack; all eight of them, and they’d been what had turned the tide of the battle. It had been Buru to finally subdue the enemy and Kakashi, while wrapping the worst of his wounds, had interrogated the woman to the best of his abilities. She had told him that the attack on Karasu’s team had been sanctioned by the Tsuchikage as a test of the Leaf’s weaknesses. He’d known it was a lie.
It was when Kakashi understood that the enemy would not break and he had been ready to make his kill strike that the sunlight had suddenly caught the woman’s eyes - a light shade of green that brought to mind the way Sakura’s looked. He had faltered for just a moment; unable to see anything but the beautiful pink-haired kunoichi he’d left home in Konoha in front of him then and there on the foreign soil of the Land of Earth. The enemy had seen his hesitation and had made her own strike, pulling her arm free from Buru’s bite long enough to plunge a kunai deep into Kakashi’s thigh, and he’d gone dark.
He had awoken hours later, his body lying next to enemy, his ninken faithfully surrounding him at all points, having kept him safe in his unconsciousness. They had mercilessly ended the woman, her body now eviscerated and mauled beyond recognition. Kakashi appreciated that he couldn’t see those haunting green eyes as he’d sealed her body into the same scroll as her comrades, strapping it to Buru’s back before he and the ninken had begun making their way back down the mountains to the safety of the Land of Fire. He had stopped in Tako for two days, needing to heal and rest before he could begin the journey home.
That had been three days ago and tonight, Kakashi would be sleeping in his own bed.
As Kakashi moved slowly along, the frown on his face deepened, his mind drifting to Sakura. He wondered if somehow her nightmares had stopped in the last seventeen days. A pang hit his heart when he recalled the way her fingers had tried so hard to keep hold of his sleeve; the way he’d felt himself breaking just a little as he’d leaped off the balcony railing. He’d never experienced that when leaving on a mission before, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.
He definitely didn’t like the way it had interfered with his mission objectives. Never before had Kakashi hesitated before a kill strike before. Well, almost never. A shadow passed over his face at the memory of Rin and that last moment - his chidori and its bright blue-white light, the look of determination on the girl’s face as his fist full of lightning had sunk into her chest. Kakashi’s frown turned into a grimace of pain underneath his mask, and he gripped his hands into fists at his sides. His hesitation when Rin had asked him to kill her had only caused a more painful end for her. He gripped his hands into fists at his sides willing away the painful old memories.
Sakura wasn’t Rin, and what had happened up there in the mountains hadn’t been the same as what had happened to her. The two situations weren’t at all the same thing and yet, Kakashi realized, they both left him feeling the same dreadful guilt. He wasn’t the same broken, immature boy who’d made a reckless promise that he knew he couldn’t guarantee.
Except he was.
He’d promised Sakura he’d come home, and he nearly hadn’t. Just as he’d promised Obito he’d keep Rin safe, and he hadn’t. Kakashi tried to swallow back the sudden rush of anguish he felt, the toxic emotions seeping into the very marrow of his bones. He had nearly broken a second promise to a second person he loved. Sakura deserved better than that. Obito had, too. And Rin, though she’d chosen her fate, had deserved better of him too.
He was still deep in his thoughts several hours later when he realized he was cresting the same hill he’d brought Sakura to at the beginning of the month to greet her father upon his arrival home from the Land of Waves. He blinked and for a moment could hear her exuberant joy, could almost see her running towards him as she had for Hizashi. Instead, the only thing in front of Kakashi was an empty path lined with thick forest on both sides. Eight miles, he told himself. Eight miles and he’d be home.
It was when he had just rounded the corner to the final stretch of road leading to the familiar green gates of Konoha when he saw two men on the edge of his peripheral vision. They were hunched over in a pair of bushes, wearing white and both clumsy in their efforts at evasion. Kakashi sighed, turning to the bushes.
“I’m really not in the mood for games today, boys,” he warned them. “Just come on out so we can get this over with.”
What ensued next could hardly be called a fight. Even in his injured state, Kakashi was easily able to subdue the two men, whom he was able to discern were escapees from the nearby prison once he had captured them, each under one of his arms as he hiked off towards Konoha so that he could turn them in.
Kakashi had just finished that task and had summoned Pakkun, this time to help Iruka track down more of the convicts who were now on the run. Once he’d handed in the scroll containing the bodies of the three Earth nin, Lady Tsunade had told him that she’d summon him for a debriefing soon. In the same breath, she’d underhandedly asked him to help catch the remaining escapees, and so he’d proofed off, setting about doing just that with the rest of the pack. It had taken until nearly sunset, but now Kakashi was on his way home.
It felt strange being back after what had felt like forever in the desolate hellscape that was the foreboding Earth mountains. Everyone here was so relaxed; so oblivious to how bad things were elsewhere in the world. He was always a little jumpy when he came back from a mission like this one had been on; any shinobi would be. He stopped at a small, quiet restaurant near his apartment and ordered some ikayaki for take-out, waiting patiently until he was handed his bag and he was back on his way.
The rest of the walk didn’t take him long and by the time he was walking up the apartment stairs and crossing the expanse of hallway to his door, the sun had set and a cool breeze was wafting through the open ends of the building. He tested the door as he always did after an extended period away, finding it locked as it should be. Stepping inside, he frowned when the strong, obnoxious smell of rotting food and old trash hit his nose.
Sakura hadn’t been here in awhile or it wouldn’t smell like that, he realized.
A heaviness settled over him as he turned the lamp in the living room on and sat down at the table with the bag of food, looking once more towards the door as though she would walk right through like she always did before he began eating slowly. He’d enjoyed food from this place before but tonight, the usually delightful squid tasted bland to him. Kakashi only managed to get halfway through before deciding he’d had enough. He didn’t bother taking the bag to the trash, just made his way through the bedroom to the shower, where he stripped off his torn, bloody uniform and cranked the water on.
The cold water barely made the bruised shinobi flinch but his muscles couldn’t deny the comfort provided as it slowly heated up until the jets of water felt like little hot needles, poking and prodding at the knots in his back and neck. He used the soap generously, taking his time to peel back the layers of filth and grime that spending two weeks outdoors had built up. Along with it went dried blood and bits of foliage from his hair.
He didn’t leave the shower until it started running cold again and then he set about finding his face again under two weeks of growth at the sink, frowning when he saw his reflection once he was finished. His body bore new scars, as it always did after a rough assignment. His eyes studied the wound in his thigh, a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth as a flashback of the moment he’d received it passed through his mind; those wide, green eyes of a girl far more innocent than the person he’d really been facing followed by a cold, numb darkness. The memory of it made his heart rate pick up, his breath more shallow.
Kakashi was an elite shinobi; one who had killed so many people he’d lost count long before now. He’d never flinched in the face of battle; never hesitated to make that final plunge or slice of his kunai. He had made it through nearly the whole mission and at that last, critical moment; he had let himself see Sakura’s eyes in the woman he had a duty to kill. And it had nearly killed him.
He sighed, shaking the intrusive thoughts from his mind as he dried his face, turning towards his bedroom. The stale scent of the sheets met his sharp nose from across the room. There were dirty clothes souring in the basket, left out next to the wall. The saddest sight of all was Mr. Ukki, with his sunburned leaves, dying leaves. Kakashi’s chest heaved, a heavy sigh falling from his mouth as he carried the little orange pot to the kitchen for some much needed water before he returned to the bedroom a few moments later, plopping down onto the tatami. His head turned to the side, the exhausted Shinobi was met with the red glare of the numbers 10:53. He sighed, closing his eyes. Sakura still wasn’t here.
Kakashi was woken up by the wailing of the small child in the apartment next door and his eyes opened to confirm what his body already knew; he’d slept alone through the night. A groan fell from his lips as he stretched, his body still stiff from the mission. It took him a few minutes but finally, the silver-haired man was on his feet. He found a pair of black sweatpants and a tight black tee with a mask connected to it and slid his usual sandals onto his feet.
Before he realized he was heading anywhere in particular, Kakashi found himself walking out of the apartment and towards Haruno Mebuki’s tea shop. The scents from other shops along the way slowly brought his mind away from those forsaken mountains that he hoped he never had to see again; the enticing smell of the freshly baked goods next door, the rich aroma of grilling fish and the more subtle touch of vegetables sauteing in butter. The scents of Konoha, he realized. The scents of home.
The walk to Mebuki’s was short, and he found her tidying a display as the small bell attached to the front door announced his arrival. The older woman lifted her head, eyes smiling at him equally as bright as her mouth when she saw him standing there.
“Kakashi-sama,” the woman spoke warmly. “Have you just arrived back in the village?”
“Last night,” Kakashi answered, smiling behind his mask. He shuffled on his feet as the air stilled around them, bringing with it a silence that, at least for the shinobi, was uncomfortable. Mebuki made her way to another shelf, reaching with a duster for the top shelf.
“You just missed Sakura,” she told him, frowning as she stood on tiptoes to reach the shelf’s contents. Kakashi couldn’t help but chuckle as he moved to stand next to her, offering his assistance. Mebuki handed him the duster and then continued speaking as he cleaned. “She’s been training with Lady Tsunade, you know.”
Kakashi wasn’t surprised in the least, but he feigned so, arching his eyebrow to give her the satisfaction of bragging on her only child. “Is that so?”
Mebuki nodded proudly and straightened some boxes on the table next to them. “She even brought a fish back to life yesterday.”
Pride surged through Kakashi, and the two stood there for a moment as they appreciated the young woman’s accomplishment. He had always known that Sakura, with her bottomless heart and compassionate, nurturing personality would someday start accomplishing things her twelve-year-old former self never could have even dreamed of.
“Kakashi-sama...” Mebuki started, though her sentence trailed off as she looked down to the ground. The man could tell she had something on her mind and he gave her the space and time to find her words. Finally, she did and her dark green eyes met his. “I can’t say I know exactly what it is that’s changed between you and my daughter from before Uchiha Sasuke defected from this village. But I’m no fool.”
Kakashi opened his mouth when she stopped again, but before he could speak, she continued.
“Never before have you stopped by after returning from a mission. I’m not going to interfere in whatever it is that’s going on. Sakura is a grown woman, and she’s a smart one at that. But Kakashi,” her eyes sharpened, body stiffening as she stared him down the way only a mother could. “She’s always going to be my baby. She’s already suffered one too many broken hearts. You’re old enough to know the devastation too many of those can cause.”
The shinobi was speechless. He didn’t know what he could possibly say; he’d never been in a situation where he felt as cornered as he did right now. He cleared his throat of the thick build up of saliva that had formed, willing words to come. Instead, he just nodded lamely, standing still for a few more moments before he turned to the door. As he pushed it open, Mebuki spoke again.
“I’ll let Sakura know you’ve arrived home when she gets back this evening.”
Kakashi smiled, knowing that Mebuki’s reassurance was her gentle way of letting him know that she wasn’t angry; that her words had been those of a protective mother bear. Feeling much better than he had since he woke up, Kakashi made his way back to his apartment. He determined that he was going to clean the place and maybe stock some groceries. It would both give him something to do and be a pleasant surprise for Sakura whenever she finished training for the day. He couldn’t wait to hear all about everything that had happened in her life in the time he’d been away.
